Flashing Swords! # 2 by Lin Carter (ed.)

Author:Lin Carter (ed.) [Carter, Lin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
Publisher: Nelson Doubleday
Published: 1973-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

The inn room was long but low, the cross beams of its ceiling not far above the crown of a tall man’s head. There were smoking oil lamps hanging on chains from those beams. But the light those gave were both murky and limited. Only at the far corner where a carven screen afforded some privacy were there tallow candles set out on a table. And the odor of their burning added to the general smell of the room.

That was crowded enough to loosen the thin-lipped mouth of Uletka Rory as her small eyes darted hither and yon, missing no detail of service or lack of service, as her two laboring slaves limped and scuttled between benches and stools. She herself waited upon the candle lit table, a mark of favor. She knew high blood when she saw it.

Not that in this case she was altogether right, in spite of her years of dealing with travelers. One of the men there, yes, was the younger son of a dale lord. But his family holding had long since vanished in the red tide of war, and no one was left in Corriedale to name him master. One had been Master of Archers for another lord, promoted hurriedly after three better men had been killed. And the third, well, he was not one who talked, and neither of his present companions knew his past.

Of the three he was the middle in age. Though that, too, could not be easily guessed, since he was one of those lean, spare-framed men who once they begin to sprout beard hair can be any age from youth to middle years. Not that he went bearded now—his chin and jaws were as smooth as if be had scraped them within the hour, displaying along the jaw line the seam of a scar which drew a little at one lip comer.

He wore his hair cropped closer than most, also, perhaps because of the heavy helm now planted on the table at his right hand. That was battered enough to have served through the war. And the crest it had once mounted was splintered down to a meaningless knob, though the protective bowl was unbreached.

His mail shirt, under a scuffed and worn tabbard, was whole. And the plain hilted sword in his belt sheath, the war bow now resting against the wall at his back, were the well kept tools of a professional. But if he was mercenary he had not been successful lately. He wore none of those fine buckles or studs which could be easily snapped off to pay for food or lodging. Only when he put out his hand to take up his tankard did the candle light glint on something which was not dull steel or leather. For the bowguard on his wrist was true treasure, a wide band of cunningly wrought gold set with small colored stones, though the pattern of that design was so complicated that to make anything of it required close study.

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.