What Remains of Heroes Read Free

in his hair, pulling his head upward. “She wants you,” Alisa said.
    Lannick panted, his blood hot. “And you?”
    “I’ll watch,” said Alisa, her brown eyes teasing. “Take her. She is ready.”
    Lannick rose to his knees and tore his shirt from his torso. Nara squirmed beneath him, inviting. He needed no further encouragement, and in an instant was inside her. Inside the sort of woman he’d only dreamed of these last nine, awful years. The sensation was warm and wondrous, and his entire body felt as though it were aflame.
    Nara moaned beneath him—painfully at first—but in time her sounds seemed those of pleasure. Her breathing quickened and her eyelids drooped. She looked at Lannick with seeming longing, the sort of look Lannick had only rarely seen. A look of satisfaction, of wanting…
    “Whaaat!”
    It was a chilling shriek, a rattling scream that seemed to shake the bed and stir the hearth’s fire. Lannick pulled away from the girl and his lust vanished immediately.
    Not him .
    Even in his drunken state, Lannick knew that voice. He slunk away from the bed, into the shadows between it and a shuttered window.
    Anyone but him .
    The scarred, stunted man in the crimson surcoat charged toward Nara. He reared back, struck her with the back of a black-gloved fist, then seized her by the throat. “My daughter is nothing but a filthy whore!” he screamed.
    Dead gods. Not him .
    Lannick’s guts ran cold. He looked to the sword he’d discarded at the opposite end of the room and knew it was too far away. What was more, the man was armed and Lannick had consumed more than a little wine. There would be no chance for vengeance.
    He had to run.
    Now.
    He grabbed what he could, threw open the window, and tumbled into the gardens below. He smashed painfully against prickly shrubs, but struggled and recovered. He tugged on his clothes and his boots and then ran. Ran as quickly as his clumsy feet would carry him. Over a fence and into the dark.
    “I will find you!” came a cry after him. “And I will kill you!”

    Mistakes are the bedrock of wisdom . If the proverb were true, Lannick reckoned he’d be the wisest man in all of Ironmoor, perhaps in all the vast kingdom of Rune. He chuckled at the thought, then retched as he pulled himself from the gutter.
    He braced himself against a wall of flaking plaster, stumbling as the alley listed before him. His vision blurred, sharpened, then blurred again as he caught wind of his odor. There was the stink of vomit, along with other scents he was loath to identify. He brushed the more substantial chunks from his clothing, remembering his brown shirt had been blue the night before.
    The wine still muddled his thoughts and his head pounded in the light of morning, but he knew trouble would be coming for him. The very worst kind, and soon.
    Yet, he couldn’t help but revel in the wine-numbed memories of the prior evening. There was the wine, of course, fruity and bold and so much tastier than his usual swill. And then there’d been the flesh. Lannick’s smile widened as he remembered just who she was. None other than the daughter of the distinctively hideous General Thalius Fane, commander of all the High King’s armies and the very man Lannick hated more than any in all the world.
    Not exactly the vengeance I’d imagined, but it will have to do for now .
    He felt his wits returning with the daylight and knew he had no time to reminisce. He knew all too well the general was a monster of a man. He would beat from his daughter the details of their encounter, then track Lannick to one of the taverns where he was too often a customer. Someone was bound to betray him.
    A few blocks away was Temple Street, known as much for its seedy taverns as for the ruined cathedrals shading its cobbles. Lannick knew the taverns quite well, particularly The Wanton Vicar . Considering it was still early morning, he decided to chance a return. Perhaps his good luck would continue, and his old