Ruination by Anthony Reynolds

Author:Anthony Reynolds [REYNOLDS, ANTHONY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2022-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Kalista woke early, and sighed as awareness of her surroundings crashed down on her.

Another day in Helia. Another day waiting while the council deliberated. Another day that could mean the difference between saving Queen Isolde and her finally succumbing to poison.

Kalista hated knowing that her mission required the utmost urgency, but thus far she had been unable to hasten the masters’ decision. And she hated that the bloodthirsty reputation of Camavor was making the masters suspicious of her intentions.

She had agreed to meet with the curious artificer, Jenda’kaya, at sunset, but there was a full day before then. If she sat around her suite until the evening, she knew she would only stew, so she put on her armor, took up her spear, and headed out in the predawn darkness.

Royalty she might be, but she was also a soldier and had risen before the sun for years. She couldn’t help feeling some superiority over the soft academics of Helia, knowing they still slumbered. On the whole, there seemed to be no steel in them. They were lucky they had the white mist, otherwise they’d have been slaughtered by raiders long ago—probably by her ancestors.

She wandered the empty streets as the sky began to lighten and found herself on the outskirts of Helia when the sun rose. It had been an unconscious decision, but she had no real desire to spend more time within the city itself. It felt too stifling, too controlled. The fresh air, trees, hedges, and lush open fields beyond the city were a much-needed respite.

The first person she saw was a herdsman, with a flock of odd-looking sheep with long, shaggy white wool, black faces and legs, and jutting horns protruding from their lower jaws. Those horns looked quite intimidating, but the beasts appeared docile, chomping on grass as the little bells around their necks chimed softly. The herdsman lifted a hand in greeting before leading his charges down to a stream with a few sharp whistles and barked encouragement from his hound.

Leaving the neatly paved white-stone road, she climbed over a low dry-stone wall using a wooden stile and followed a muddy track up a hillside to get a better sense of her surroundings. A child’s swing hung from the bough of a lonely tree atop the hillock, which was afforded good views. Helia rose to the south, gleaming and majestic in the morning glow, while the sea glittered like shifting jewels to the west. The north and east were dominated by rolling, verdant hills, pastures, and pockets of woodland. A number of villages were visible, and thin lines of smoke rose from chimneys. A wagon drawn by a train of bullocks was making its slow, winding way along a road in the distance, and the tiny puffs of white dotted against green hillsides showed where other herds grazed.

The closest village wasn’t far, tucked in a shadowed dell. It was small, consisting of perhaps a score of buildings, and she was impressed to see they weren’t hovels.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.