Robert Newcomb - Blood and Stone 01 by The Fifth Sorceress

Author:The Fifth Sorceress
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER

fourteen

It was raining and nearly midnight by the time Geldon left the Recluse, and the strap of the leather bag that he carried hidden beneath his cloak weighed heavily upon the ever-painful hump in his back. The rain came down in large, cold, splattering drops, and the dark sky was starless, barren of moon and breeze. The fiery torches that lined the parapets on either side of the drawbridge hissed and flickered in the dark, showing off the rain-slickened walls and cobblestoned gangway. Winged Minion guards stood at attention on either side as still as stone statues.

It was important that he leave as quickly as he could.

The second mistress had surprised him when, at the conclusion of the meeting in the chamber, she had told him that she wished him to go into the countryside and procure

additional slaves for the Stables. Such errands were the only times he was allowed to leave the Recluse alone. He smiled inwardly. Her timing could not have been more perfect, he thought to himself.

Waddling down the many elaborate halls of the Recluse he had encountered the usual Minion guards, who gave him the customary wink and nod. They were quite used to the nocturnal comings and goings of the humpbacked dwarf. Succiu's pimp, he thought wryly. He returned their leering smiles in kind, knowing that they were all-too-familiar with his job of procurement for the Stables—the job with which the second mistress had burdened him for more than three centuries.

He had, of course, often considered trying to escape; the many times she sent him forth from the Recluse to do her bidding always provided an enticing opportunity to do so. But upon reflection he had never taken the chance, knowing that the relentless Succiu, given her many talents and having the legions of the Minions at her disposal, would eventually find him no matter how long it took. She would take very seriously the personal embarrassment of losing her slave. He shuddered, thinking of what she would do to him for such a transgression, knowing in his heart that the punishment he had been forced to administer to the slave named Stephan would pale in comparison.

Nonetheless, if his own punishment had been the only ramification, he still might have attempted it. But Succiu had also warned him that if he ever forced her to employ the Minions to find him, the winged ones would be granted great latitude in butchering the members of the Parthalonian citizenry as they searched. None of my fellow citizens should have to die because of me, he thought. And so, despite the almost overwhelming temptation to flee, he always returned.

Oftentimes he thought back on that night in the Ghetto of the Shunned, when she had first found him and bestowed upon him her time enchantments. Without them he would surely be dead now, and sometimes he wondered if it wouldn't have been better had she simply killed him, there on the spot. For the millionth time his pudgy, greasy fingers felt the jeweled, iron collar that ran around his neck.

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