Ascendance by Salvatore R. A

Author:Salvatore, R. A. [Salvatore, R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780345430434
Amazon: 0345430433
Goodreads: 66687
Publisher: Random House Inc
Published: 2001-05-01T07:00:00+00:00

* * *

“IT IS THE LIFE of the Pryani Gypsy!” Sadye proclaimed one cold winter morning, her exuberance mocking Marcalo’s typically dour mood. “We travel the world, seeing what we may.”

“Until the tiger comes forth,” Marcalo reminded.

“As with the gypsies,” Sadye said with a laugh. “When their thefts become known, they pack their wagons and flee.” As she finished, she waved her arm out toward the wagon at the side of their small encampment, box shaped and covered, a portable house. The pair had acquired it a month before, finding it abandoned in one of the many towns through which they had ventured since they’d left Tuber’s Creek. It was as much their home now as any of those towns, for they did not dare remain in any one place for any length of time. They had changed their appearance again—Sadye had cut her brown hair shorter and Marcalo had shaved his head and was now sporting a thin mustache—but they knew that Marcalo might be recognized by any of the survivors of Micklin’s Village, who were rumored to be wandering the lands, and that either of them would be known to any of the folk of Tuber’s Creek. If they encountered any of their former neighbors, they would have a hard time explaining away the existence of Marcalo, supposedly slain by the beast.

And so they wandered, through the weeks and through the towns, whenever the paths were clear enough for the wagon. If the snows trapped them, the weretiger went hunting at night, easily bringing home some food. That beast was out regularly now, at least once or twice a week; and often it was Sadye, playing the discordant notes on her lute, who brought it forth. On several occasions, when Marcalo had assumed the tiger form, Sadye had not driven him off but had sat there with him hour after hour, all through the night, her small lute the only barrier between her very life and this menacing beast.

Now she feared the weretiger not at all, and neither did Marcalo believe that he would ever kill or even harm her.

It wasn’t a happy situation for the former monk, though he loved Sadye and their time together. But Marcalo De’Unnero found release for his inner passions, both in making love to Sadye and in allowing the weretiger to come forth. Still, his frustrations about the last ten years could not be dismissed, and while Sadye might be showing him a more exciting journey, it was still a journey without a destination.

Perhaps most exciting of all to De’Unnero were the times he ran in the forest as the weretiger, issuing his great rumbling growl with full knowledge that it would carry across the miles to nearby villages. He could imagine the trembling of the townsfolk at hearing that mighty call. Perhaps some would come out to hunt him—those kills Marcalo De’Unnero could justify.

On one such night, a warm evening in the late spring of God’s Year 841, the weretiger’s growl carried on gentle winds to the folk of a small village, including one young visitor to the town.

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