Sword of Wrath (Kormak Book Eight) Read Free Page A

sending a message, is it?” Kormak asked. Curved blades were favoured by the followers of the Moon; straight blades by worshippers of the Holy Sun.
    Her nose twitched, the corner of her mouth turned up. “You coming in, or are you going to stand out there and ask idiot questions?”
    “Let me consider my options.”
    “You have three heartbeats, then I slam the door in your face.”
    “I’ll come in, then.” He surveyed the room. The decoration was ostentatious and imperial. It lacked the seafarer’s neatness and utility. All she had brought with her was locked in the trunk under the bed.
    He tilted his head to one side and studied her closely. She met his gaze and did not look away. “Why are you angry with me?”
    “Am I angry?”
    “Is this a game where we see who can keep answering a question with a question for longest?”
    “I don’t know, is it?”
    “Determined to win, I see.”
    She looked away for a moment, then reached up and ran a hand through her cropped hair. He noticed the webs flexing between her fingers.
    “I am glad to see you are still alive,” she said. Her voice had the flat, calm quality of someone keeping their emotions in check. She reached out and touched his cheek, and then drew her hand back when he flinched.
    “Does it hurt?” He saw the fear in her eyes and realised that she had been afraid for him.
    “Somewhat,” he said.
    “You look like hell.”
    “Believe me, it does not do justice to the way I feel.”
    “You fought a Lunar warlord last night; you are lucky to be able to feel anything at all.”
    There was an odd undercurrent to her voice. She was a child of Saa Aquor, a creation of the Old Ones. Perhaps she was upset that he had killed one of those she revered as gods.
    “I may have to fight another,” he said. He could not keep the sour note from his voice.
    “What?”
    “The king and his brother want me to go to Terra Nova and find out where the sarcophagus came from, and why. If there are more like Vorkhul, it seems likely I will find them.”
    “Are you afraid?”
    He shook his head.
    “Perhaps you ought to be.”
    Kormak studied the room. He was all too aware that there might be hidden eavesdroppers. The walls of the palace were supposed to be riddled with secret passages. Disgust made him wrinkle his nostrils. He wanted to talk privately, and that was not possible here.
    “Walk with me,” he said. “I need some fresh air.”

    * * *
    T hey strode arms-linked along the outer wall of the palace complex, looking down onto the ornate gardens of the nobles far below. Their only company was the sentries, and they were placed far apart.
    The harbour was visible, as were many blue-roofed tenements. In the distance was a huge forest park. “The Grove of the Green,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to see it. Are there really elves there?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “I thought they died when they were away from their forests,” she said.
    “The spirits of the elves and the great trees are bound together. The elves can use that link to communicate with each other, as well as the trees and the beasts of their forests. Their minds join together on some level. They call it the Green.”
    “You know this for a fact?”
    “An elf told me. And I’ve seen the way they work together, fight together, move together without talking to each other.” He tried to fill the silence around things unsaid. “If they are away from the forests for too long, travel too far, they lose that connection.”
    Her gaze strayed to the sea. “I can understand that. If I go too far from the sea, I feel heartsick.”
    “With them, it’s the same. It’s like becoming deaf and mute too. There is a great tree in the Greengrove down there. It lets elves reconnect with the Green. That is why the Elvish ambassador dwells there.”
    “They have ambassadors from the Courts of the Moon, from the great Elfwood, they have an island of wizards out in the harbour. They have that gigantic