Sentry Peak Read Free Page B

sent them forth. By all the gods, we will ! My army!” He slammed down his fist. Silverware jumped on the linen. Wine jumped in the goblets.
    Dan of Rabbit Hill’s lips shaped a word. He didn’t speak it out loud, but Thraxton, among his other arcane skills, had learned to read lips. He knew what that silent word was. Dan might as well have shouted it. Braggart .
    King Avram’s men called him Thraxton the Braggart. He’d sworn a great oath to beat them at Pottstown Pier, back when the war was young. He’d sworn it . . . and events—bad luck, really; nothing more—had left him forsworn. He’d chased Guildenstern back into the Province of Cloviston, chased him almost to the Highlow River, and sworn an even greater oath to drive him out of Geoffrey’s realm altogether. He’d sworn that second oath . . . but the hard battles of Reppyton and Reillyburgh, somehow, had gone no better for his cause and Geoffrey’s despite the savage sorceries he’d loosed.
    Braggart? He shook his head. He didn’t see himself so. If anything, he felt put upon, put upon by fate and by the blundering idiots it was his misfortune to have to endure as subordinates. If only I led men worthy of me , he thought. Then everyone would know me for the hero I know I am .
    Meanwhile . . . Meanwhile, Ned of the Forest stared steadily back across the table at him. “All right, your Grace,” the backwoods ruffian said. “Remember you said that. I aim to hold you to it.”
    Arrogant dog , Thraxton thought. He muttered to himself. Not all sorcery was showy. Not all of it required elaborate preparation, either. He waited for Ned to leap up and run for the commode. The spell he’d just cast would have kept a normal man trotting for a couple of days.
    But Ned of the Forest only sat where he was. For all the effect the magic had on him, he might have been carved from stone. Thraxton ran over the spell in his mind. He’d cast it correctly. He was sure of that. He’s been drinking water all his life , he remembered. His bowels might as well be made of cast bronze.
    His head, too . That piece of malice helped ease Thraxton’s bile-filled spirit. So did the words of Leonidas the Priest: “So long as we all stand together, we shall drive Guildenstern back into the southron darkness whence he sprang. Rest assured, the Lion God will eat his soul.” He made a certain sign with his fingers.
    Thraxton, who was an initiate in those mysteries, made the answering gesture. So did Dan. Ned of the Forest kept on stolidly sitting. Scorn filled Thraxton. But why should I be surprised? The gods must hate him .
    The serf brought in a honey cake piled high with plums and peaches and apricots. “A sweet, my lords?”
    Count Thraxton took a small helping, more for politeness’ sake than any other reason. Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas matched him. Ned attacked the honey cake with the same gusto he’d shown with the pork roast. “Sir, you have crumbs in your beard,” Leonidas remarked after a while.
    “Thank you kindly,” Ned replied, and brushed at his chin whiskers—a surprisingly neat adornment—with rough, callused fingers.
    “How is it,” Thraxton asked, “that your whiskers remain black while your hair is going gray?” Did fearsome Ned of the Forest resort to the dye bottle? If he did, would he admit it? If he didn’t admit it, what clumsy lie would he tell? How ridiculous would he look in telling it?
    Ned’s smile was the one Thraxton might have seen over dueling sabers. But the ruffian’s voice was light and mild as he answered, “Well, Count, I reckon it’s likely on account of I use my brains more than my mouth.”
    Silence fell in the dining room, silence broken only by the serf’s smothered guffaw. Thraxton turned a terrible look on the fellow, who first blushed all the way up to his pale hair, then went paler than that hair himself and precipitately fled.
    “Any more questions, sir?” Ned asked with another carnivorous