The Ironroot Deception by Robin D. Laws

Author:Robin D. Laws [Laws, Robin D.]
Language: por
Format: epub
Published: 2012-10-06T21:26:35+00:00

Gad’s feet scramble for purchase against a heap of gravel as the muscular prisoner chokes the life from him. Stokh grunts in surprise; Gad’s supposed to be shackled at the ankles. He tightens his grip. Gad’s arm flails into the gravel pile. He fishes out an object.

The burly prisoner sees the flash of metal and releases Gad in a twitch of panic. Knuckles white on the hilt of Ethundel’s dagger—stolen when he prompted Stokh to push him into the elf on the way into the excavation that morning—Gad neatly plunges it between the startled man’s well-demarcated ribs. He jams it in deep. He twists, forcing Stokh to cry out in pain.

Agonized cries resound through the pit. They cease as blood fills Stokh’s lungs. He dies to the sound of running elven feet. Gad steps out of Stokh’s path as his corpse timbers to the dirt. He slides to Vitta’s side, yards away. He presses his ankles together. Vitta slaps the shackles on them. Using a twig she’s carved, she clicks its tumblers, locking it. She stashes the twig in the rock pile, retrieving another item. When she sees that Ethundel has seized control of the scene and is barking orders to his fellow Reclaimers, she places it in Gad’s hand.

Ethundel rushes to Stokh’s side. He places fingers on his jugular, shakes his head, and rises. A red fury, so intense as to be visible in the weak light of predawn, suffuses his triangular face.

“Where is the new one?” he calls. “Where is the churl?”

Gad scrabbles back, catching his eye. The elf sprints at him, hauling him to his shackled feet. He backhands Gad across the face. Throws him against the pit wall. When he tries to knee him in the groin, Gad angles to avoid the worst.

“What happens here?”

At the slicing sound of his mistress’s voice, Ethundel stops. He throws Gad to the dirt. “The new one has murdered our best thrall. Our strongest, most loyal human.”

“They say that all the best leaders are a little crazy. By that metric, maybe Dualal is destined to rule.”

Dualal’s arched brow suggests that her admiration for Stokh ran cooler than her lieutenant’s. “Humans are vicious, Ethundel. They slay one another. The savage ones are oft of greater use than their docile brethren.”

Ethundel points at Gad. “And I shall slay this one.”

“And lose two slaves, instead of one?” says Dualal. “When we are a few day’s digging from our prize?”

“I warned him not to defy me.”

She laughs. “I’ve told you time and again, child, just because these creatures walk and talk, and seem capable of feeling, you must not mistake them for people. They are but snarling animals. If one dog tears another’s throat, it is not the fault of the dog, but of the negligent dog-keeper.” She sweeps toward Ethundel. “Why did you let my one good dog kill my other?”

“Milady…” Ethundel stutters.

“I raised you from nothing, and you are hard and brave, yet you haven’t the sense of a barnacle.”

Ethundel can see that his comrades are watching him.

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.