Prince of Wolves by Dave Gross

Author:Dave Gross
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781601252876
Publisher: Paizo Publishing, LLC
Published: 2010-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

It took me a moment to work up the nerve to break Tudor’s crooked arm, but I knew it would be worse if I failed to break it on the first strike. Every second I hesitated would only increase his terror, so I didn’t have a choice.

After it was all done but for the screaming, I held his arm out straight, Azra adjusted my grip, made me hold it there, and affixed a splint to Tudor’s arm. He had fractured it months ago, shortly after her last visit, but he had been far from home with his flock. Without help to splint it, he had let it heal crooked. Azra could repair it with magic, but only after it had been re-broken and set straight. No one else in the village would dare to break the giant’s arm. The big idiot was more than twice my size, and I wouldn’t be sticking around to risk his revenge. The way he blubbered like a baby, however, I had a feeling he’d forget about it before his next meal.

As Azra finished tying a sling around Tudor’s neck, she signed to an old woman who translated. She spoke as to a slow child, so both Tudor and I could understand. “Do not move that arm,” she said. “Do not take it out of the sling. Do not disturb the splint, or Azra will hex you with blisters.”

Azra stepped away to wash her hands in a tin basin.

I gave Tudor a light punch on his good shoulder. “She’ll do it, too, kid,” I said to Tudor in Chelish. In Varisian I added, “Listen to her.” Tudor gave me a rueful look. His unbound hand absently returned to pick his nose.

The old woman who had translated for Tudor pointed him home with a promise of supper. “Yes, and pie,” she said. That incentive made him break into a gallop.

As Azra dried her hands, I reached for the basin, but the village woman grabbed my hand and stepped close enough to set my eyes watering with the garlic reek of her breath.

“My lord,” she said in the same simple cadence she had used to lecture Tudor. “We are poor. Other villages do not trade with us. We have no money to buy things we cannot grow.”

The way she gripped my hand, I expected her to beg, but she stood tall, staring up into my face with one good and one cataract-blanked eye.

“Listen,” I said, but she grasped the coin I wore around my neck and kissed it.

I looked to Azra for advice, but she had walked away. Gently, I removed the woman’s hands and tugged open my purse. Maybe a few coins would help. Or maybe half of my money, and I could make up the rest when I got back to Caliphas and the Towers games. Still, I had been living off Azra’s charity for days. What the hell, I figured. I cinched the purse shut and put it into her hands.

The old woman went down on her hands and knees.

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