Read The Conqueror's Shadow for Free Online Page B

rest of the face flushed with blood as well, and then the body beneath it. And just like that the mist was gone, and a third figure stood beside them.
    His face, features sharp as a razor, gazed unblinkingly at Valescienn. His hair was black and straight, falling in a loose mass down to his shoulders. He wore a simple white tunic, open to the waist, oddly spotless and crisp despite the damp environs, and grey leggings tucked into black riding boots. His fingers, long and slender, ended in perfectly manicured nails. His lips were full, almost feminine, and his flesh was perfectly smooth.
    â€œAn interesting choice,” the new arrival said as he examined Valescienn, his voice melodic.
    â€œHe serves my purposes admirably enough,” Audriss replied.
    The stranger stared a moment more, then strode over to the black-robed man. As he walked, Valescienn saw that the fog had not entirely dissipated; it still trailed from the newcomer’s feet, stretching from his boots to the ground with each step, clinging like watery mud.
    â€œValescienn,” Audriss said, as casually as though he were performing the introductions at a family reunion, “this is Mithraem.”
    The strange figure bowed once, formally. “An honor, I am certain.”
    Valescienn, who recognized the name with a certain sick horror, was finding it very difficult to breathe.
    Mithraem smiled once, a shallow, mirthless expression, and dismissed Valescienn’s presence entirely. “The Legion stands ready for your signal.”
    â€œExcellent.” Audriss beckoned once to Valescienn, who stepped forward, his mind numb. “That, indeed, is what I was waiting for. Tell the men, Valescienn. I want them ready for battle the instant our people inside take the walls.
    â€œWe attack tomorrow.”

    THE FINAL COOL GUSTS of spring faded away, and summer descended upon Chelenshire. Men went about their daily tasks, each assuring the others that the heat bothered him not in the slightest, each frantically wiping sweat from his face and forehead with a shirtsleeve when he felt no one was watching. The weather, merely uncomfortable rather than reaching the blazing levels it would attain in another month, didn’t weigh down the children of the village. They went about their own chores or dashed hither and thither (save for the younger ones who remained stuck on “to and fro”) in play, as their whims and circumstances—and mostly their parents—dictated.
    For their own part, Lilander and Mellorin had completely abandoned the chores to which they’d been set, choosing instead to chase each other around the yard with a bucket of well water, screaming and shouting and generally soaking anything unfortunate enough to cross their winding and unpredictable path. But Tyannon was in the house working on mending the outfits the children ruined yesterday, and Corvis—hard at work repairing the fence they used to pen their horse, Rascal, and already sweating profusely—decided quite resolutely that it was too damn hot to go chasing after a pair of children who had moreenergy to spare than he. Let them wear themselves down a bit,
then
he’d go after them.
    He grinned, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
You never could stop thinking tactically, could you, Rebaine?
    â€œHo there, Cerris!”
    It was the name he’d given when he and Tyannon moved here, a name close enough to his real one that he could explain away any misunderstandings or slips of the tongue. He’d grown as accustomed to hearing it as he was his real name, but he
was
startled to hear it now. Few visitors wandered out to the edge of town in the rising heat of late morning.
    Carefully laying down the hammer with which he’d been working, Corvis straightened to his full height. Approaching him on the road was a man perhaps a decade his senior, his pace steady, though perhaps not as quick as it once was. He was round but not quite fat,