Read (Shadowmarch #2) Shadowplay for Free Online Page B

and gut and crunching bone until his hilt was almost in reach of the creature’s claws, which waved feebly a few times, then curled in death.
    Vansen took only a moment to catch his breath and wipe his blade on the wet grass before clambering back up into the saddle, worried about the prince but also irritated. Hadn’t the boy heard him call?
    He found Barrick just a short ride ahead, dismounted and staring down at a dozen or more of the hairy creatures, all apparently safely dead this time. In their midst lay a dead horse with its throat torn out and what Vansen at first thought was its equally dead rider lying facedown beside it. The black-haired body was human enough in shape, wrapped in a torn dark cloak and armor of some strange material with a blue-gray tortoiseshell-like finish. Vansen dismounted and cautiously put his hand on the back of the corpse’s neck, in a gap between helmet and armor. To his surprise he could feel movement under his fingers—a slow, labored rise: the rider was breathing. When he turned the victim over and pulled off the disturbing skull helm, he got his second shock. The man had no face.
    No, he realized after an instant, still sickened, it does—but that’s no human face. He made the sign of the Three as he fought against a sudden clutch of nausea. There were eyes in that pale, membrane of flesh that stretched between scalp and narrow chin, but because they were shut they had seemed no more than creases of flesh beneath the wide brow, obscured by smears of blood from what looked like a near-mortal gash in the thing’s forehead—the blood, at least, was as red as that which flowed in a godly man. But the rest of the face was as featureless as a drumskin, with no nose or mouth.
    The faceless man’s eyes flicked open, eyes red as his smeared blood. They struggled to fix on the guard captain and the prince, then rolled up and the waxy lids fell again.
    Vansen staggered to his feet in revulsion and fear. “It is one of them . One of the murdering Twilight People.”
    “He belongs to my mistress,” Barrick said calmly. “He wears her mark.”
    “What?”
    “He is injured. See to him. We will stop here.” Barrick climbed down from his horse and stood waiting, as though what he had said made perfect sense.
    “Forgive me, Highness, but what are you thinking? This is one of the demons who has tried to kill us—tried to kill you . They have destroyed our armies and our towns.” Vansen sheathed his sword and slipped his dagger from its battered sheath. “No, step back and I will slit his gorge. It is a more merciful death than many of our folk have received…”
    “Stop.” Prince Barrick moved forward as if to put his own body between the wounded creature and the killing stroke. Ferras Vansen could only stare in astonishment. Barrick’s eyes were calm and intent—in fact, he seemed closer to his old self than he had since they had crossed the Shadowline—but he was still acting like a madman.
    “Highness, please, I beg of you, stand away. This thing is a murderer of our people. I saw this very creature killing Aldritchmen and Kertewallers like a dog among rats. I cannot let him live.”
    “No, you must let him live,” Barrick declared. “He is on a grave errand.”
    “What? What errand?”
    “I do not know. But I know the signs upon him and I hear the voices they make in my head. If we do not help him, more of…our kind will die. Mortals.” The young prince regent’s hesitation was strange, as if for a moment he had forgotten to which side of the conflict he belonged.
    “But how can you know that? And who is this ‘mistress’ you speak of? Not your sister, surely. Princess Briony would not want you to do any of these things.”
    Barrick shook his head. “Not my sister, no. The great lady who found me and commanded me. She is one of the highest. She looked at me and…and knew me. Now help him, please.” For a moment the prince’s gaze became even clearer, but a hard