Read Mage Quest - Wizard of Yurt 3 for Free Online

start the Quest of King Haimeric and his Giant Henchmen.” He made it sound like one of Paul’s stories.
    Dominic was having a little trouble calming his big chestnut stalion. The horse that had tried to buck off Paul and Gwennie seemed reluctant to obey the king’s burly nephew, either.
    “Come on, Whirlwind, come on,” I heard Dominic say soothingly, holding the reins tight with one gloved hand and patting the stalion’s neck with the other.
    “I didn’t know that was your horses name,” I said in surprise, once the stalion decided it was easiest to be quiet and walk with the rest of us.
    Dominic turned to me with a sudden smile, which was another surprise; he normaly smiled even less than Joachim. “It didn’t use to be,” he said. “But Prince Paul renamed him.” Paul might not be going to the Holy Land with us, I thought, but at least Whirlwind might get a chance to race in search of treasure across the high plains.
    After feeling somewhat apprehensive about this trip, once we started I enjoyed it thoroughly. We went at an easy rate, letting the king set the pace. Ascelin, on foot, had no trouble keeping up. After a day and a half in which al the hils, streams, and woods we saw I knew by name, we passed out of the kingdom of Yurt and into new territory.
    New scenes greeted us constantly as we rode: sunlit hils dappled with shadow, vilages tucked into sheltering valeys, wheat fields where the new light green shoots burst from the dark earth, wild daffodils bright beneath leafless oaks, and birds tugging at last year’s grass for nesting material. Any difficulty we met, a sudden cold shower of rain, a ford where the horses splashed mud on us, vilagers who looked at our equipment and charged us outrageously for fresh bread, was quickly left behind and forgotten. And somewhere ahead of us was the sun-warmed Central Sea with palms and flowering lemon trees rustling in the sea breezes.
    Al of us, except perhaps Hugo, were sore and stiff the first few days. But then our muscles became used to the constant exercise and our legs to gripping a horse.
    “I’m stil not sure my old bones wil make the whole journey to the East and back,” said the king to me as we rode along, sounding remarkably cheerful about it. “But it’s good to be off on a quest after decades of worrying about the governance of Yurt. Prince Paul wil grow up to be an excelent king whether I return or not and, if by some chance I do, I may have the only blue rose in the western kingdoms!” We spent the first few nights in the castles of lords the king knew; once we stayed in an inn, al squeezed together in one big bed in the only private room the inn afforded; but most of the time we camped.
    Hugo put a sign reading “Giants Lair” on the tent he shared with Ascelin, until the prince ordered him rather sharply to take it down.
    We took turns keeping watch at night. The king said that no one would attack a little group of pilgrims, but Ascelin insisted and I had to agree with him. Hugo had the final watch on the first night we camped, and he woke the rest of us at dawn. When we crawled reluctantly out of the tents, he already had water boiling for tea and bright pink ribbons braided into Dominic’s stalion s mane and tail.
    Ascelin also thought it was funny, from the imperfectly concealed laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, but the rest of us, who had lived for years with the royal nephew, knew enough to keep our faces perfectly sober.
    “Are you responsible for these ribbons?” Dominic asked Hugo with steely calm.
    “Of course,” said the young man gaily. “Don’t you think they add a certain spritely air?”
    “I don’t want my horse to have a spritely air,” said Dominic, a hard twist to his mouth.
    But Hugo, laughing and setting out the tin teacups, paid no attention. I didn’t think it was quite as funny as he did, but I did have to admire his nerve in getting close enough to the stalion’s heels to braid in the ribbons. It