The Education of Brother Thaddius and other tales of DemonWars (The DemonWars Saga) Read Free

small uncapturable images.
    “You had family,” Tuntun explained.
    Mather nodded.
    “Younger siblings, and a brother who was born some years after you left them,” Tuntun went on.
    Mather shrugged, hardly remembering.
    “His name is Olwan,” Tuntun explained. “Olwan Wyndon. I thought you should be told.”
    “Why? And why now?”
    “Because Olwan has decided to make the Timberlands his home,” Tuntun explained. “You will know him when you see him, for there is indeed a resemblance. He rides north with his family and two other wagons, headed for the settlement called Dundalis.”
    “This late in the season?” Mather asked incredulously, for few ventured north of Caer Tinella after the beginning of the ninth month, and here they were, halfway through the eleventh, and those who knew the region were somewhat surprised that winter had not begun in earnest. It was not wise to be caught on the road during the Timberland winter.
    “I said he was your brother,” Tuntun replied dryly. “I did not say that he was intelligent. They are on the road, two days yet from the town, and a storm is growing in the west.”
    Mather didn’t reply, didn’t blink.
    “I thought you should know,” Tuntun said again, and she rose up and straightened her clothes.
    “And am I to tell him, this Olwan, who I am?”
    Tuntun looked at the man as though she did not understand the question.
    “About my life?” Mather asked. “About who I am? That we are brothers?”
    Tuntun held her hands out and scrunched up her delicate face. “That choice is Mather’s,” she explained. “We gave you gifts: your life, your training, your elven title, Riverhawk. But we did not take your tongue in payment, nor your free will. Mather will do as Mather chooses.
    “To tell him that I was trained by elves?” the ranger asked.
    “He will think you crazy, as do all the others, no doubt,” Tuntun said with a laugh. “We have found that the Alpinadoran barbarians to the north and the Toi-gai horseman to the south have oft been accepting of rangers, but the men of the central lands, the kingdom you call Honce-the-Bear, so smug in their foolish religion, so superior in their war machines and great cities, have little tolerance for childish tales. Tell Olwan your brother what you will, or tell him nothing at all. That, you may find, could prove the easier course.”
    *****
    “They’ll not make the towns before it breaks,” Bradwarden said to Mather, the two of them watching the caravan of three wagons trudging along the north road. They were still ten miles south of Dundalis, half a day’s travel, and Mather knew that the centaur spoke truly. Tuntun had returned to him before dawn, warning of an impending storm, a big one, and also warning him that she had seen quite a bit of goblin sign in the region. Apparently, the trio Mather and Bradwarden had killed were not the whole of the group.
    Mather had not disagreed with either grim prediction. He too, had noted signs of the impending storm, and of the goblins, and all of this with his brother making slow time along the road to the south.
    So Mather had come out, and Bradwarden with him, to watch over the caravan. When he looked to the western sky, dark clouds gathering like some invading enemy, and when he felt the bite of the increasing northeastern wind through layers of clothing, he thought it a good thing indeed that he had not waited for their arrival in Dundalis.
    “I cannot go down to them,” Bradwarden remarked. “Whatever ye’re thinkin’ ye might do to help them through the storm, ye’ll be doin alone.’
    Mather nodded his understanding and agreement. “And with the weather worsening, I fear that Dundalis might become the target for the desperate goblins,” he said. “So go back and look over the town. Find Tuntun, if she is still about, and make sure that you keep a watch.”
    With a nod, the centaur galloped away. Mather continued shadowing the caravan, silently debating whether