The Crown Of Yensupov (Book 3) Read Free

they had fought over the rat and killed each other.
    “So that’s why you didn’t want them killed with arrows or staffs,” Tournak said.
    Saxthor grinned and nodded.
    Stone-faced, Tonelia stepped forward and took each troll’s sword. She stuck each sword in the other’s carcass so the wider cuts would match the blades.
    Saxthor shook his head. “We must hurry on through the brush to get away from here. Someone’s bound to come looking for these two.”
    “If we keep this up, we’ll defeat the whole Dreaddrac army ourselves,” Bodrin said, as he wiped his sword clean and returned it to his scabbard. Delia panted and wagged her tail. Twit just rolled his eyes as best a bird could.
    “Yes, but it’s going to be noticeable if we leave a trail of dead or missing trolls and orcs behind us,” Saxthor said. “I hope we don’t keep running into them.”
    Tonelia handed everyone a piece of dried fruit and they kept moving along the edge of the swamp. The clumps of grass dwindled in size as the land turned marshier. A few trees appeared, but they were the remnants of a long dead forest. The rotted trunks left only the resin-filled heartwood, like tree bones with clumps of festering mold on them. Vultures perched on the spindly tops, watching for dying things at the marsh’s edge.
    “Wonder if we should go back, skirting the swamp’s southern edge,” Hendrel said. “The land here can’t support much life. If our food should run out, we’ll be in serious trouble.”
    Tournak was looking around. “Even the large rodents seem to be missing now. Reptiles slither in the grass, but they’re smaller, most likely from lack of food. Ahead the air appears to be more sulfurous and the sky darker.”
    They came to a sluggish stream, trickling foul water through a bed of orange and yellow slime.
    “This is nasty,” Tonelia said.
    Hendrel rose from smelling it. “We can’t drink it.”
    Bodrin looked at Saxthor. “That gunk in the water looks like the stuff we saw coming from underground forges below the Highback Mountains. There must be forges upstream, dumping their sludge.”
    “Look at the mineral-encrusted skulls,” Tournak said. “They glow white and yellow in the moonlight here and there along the stream. That’s all that’s left of unfortunate creatures who drank from the stream and never made it far from the bank.”
    “This is the most desolate scene I’ve seen,” Saxthor said. “We’ve not passed beyond the Edros Swamps yet. I hate to think of the horrors ahead if we keep going north.”
    When they were the most despondent, a noise out on the water stopped them in their tracks.
    “I can’t believe my eyes,” Bodrin said. “It’s a small boat crowded with seven orcs, rowing toward the stream. The boat may be decrepit, but it does float. “
    “Hide!” Saxthor waved them back into the darkness among the grass clumps, where they huddled around him again. He pulled the Peldentak Wand, and with hand turned down, enclosed his band in a veil of invisibility.
    The orcs landed their boat at the mouth of the stream. They got out, stretching their legs, complaining about having to sail in the dark.
    “There ain’t much moonlight to see by. These here little lanterns barely makes light in this mist, hanging over the swamp,” one orc said.
    Saxthor again called upon the wand and using heavy concentration cast an illusion of a female orc higher up on the grassland. The orcs, seeing the temptress, nearly beat or tripped over each other in the rush to be first to get to her.
    “Stay close,” Saxthor said. He moved to the boat. In the veil's cocoon, they slipped onto the boat without a sound, pushing it beyond the mud and onto the water. They poled the boat out into the darkness toward the southwest. Soon the water was deeper and they rowed.
    As Bodrin watched, the orcs got to where they thought the temptress orc was waiting for them. The illusion disappeared. After searching the darkness for the siren,