Sacrifice of the Widow (The Lady Penitent Book 1) by Lisa Smedman

Author:Lisa Smedman [Smedman, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780786956876
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2010-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Szorak crept through the darkened forest, muttering to himself behind his mask. He didn’t much care for the Lethyr, even though the thick canopy of intertwined branches above screened the moon’s harsh light. Despite the magical ring that had turned his skin and clothing the exact color of the shadows he passed through and the boots that enabled him to move in utter silence, stilling even the crack of a dead branch underfoot, he still felt as if he was being watched.

Which he was. The very trees were alive. They whispered the whereabouts of all who entered the forest to its guardians.

Fortunately, his mission that dark night had nothing to do with either trees or druids. It wasn’t a druid’s soul Szorak was after, but that of a priestess.

As he drew closer to Eilistraee’s shrine, the spell he’d cast a few moments before picked up the first of the wards: a dim glow coming from underneath a pile of dead leaves, several paces ahead. Szorak pulled out a rod of black iron and held it at the ready. Then he walked forward. As the ward was triggered, sparkles of frost-white light erupted on his skin, causing him to gasp from their cold. The wand, however, drew the bitter cold down into itself, and after a heartbeat, it was gone.

“Is that the best you can do, ladies?” Szorak muttered. “I expected something a little more lethal.”

He continued forward, the rod held loosely in his hand. The pile of leaves exploded as a sword flew out of it. Szorak was barely able to bring his rod up in time. He smashed it against the sword in a desperate parry. Black iron met shining steel with a loud clank, and there was a silent explosion of magical energy. The sword tumbled to the ground, inert.

Szorak took a deep breath. He stared down at the two glyphs engraved in the blade. Both incorporated the word ogglin. Enemy. Even a magical disguise wouldn’t have fooled them, and Szorak hadn’t expected a two-glyph ward. Had he not parried the sword, he might have already been dead.

He chuckled. “That’s almost worthy of Vhaeraun, ladies, except that our sword thrust would have come from behind.”

His detection magic revealed other wards to the right and left. The sword must be one of several placed in a ring around the shrine’s perimeter, but that ring had been broken.

Szorak stepped across the neutralized sword. Then he activated the secondary power of his ring, disguising himself. Though he could still feel the soft velvet of his mask against his cheeks and chin, to an observer his face would appear bare, his cheeks smooth and feminine. He would seem taller than he really was, his body more shapely, and his black cloak, shirt, and trousers would instead look like chain mail, covered by a breastplate bearing Eilistraee’s moon and sword. The rod in his hand would appear to be a sword. Anyone touching him would instantly perceive that all was not as it

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