The Gift Castle by Stefon Mears

Author:Stefon Mears [Mears, Stefon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thousand Faces Publishing

5

Early the next day, Aefric and his knights returned to Castle Hrafnvigi to continue their exploration.

With the single exception of Ser Deirdre, who wore her maroon leathers, all his knights wore their full plate armor today. Even Sers Yrsa and Beornric, who must’ve decided that they didn’t want the risk of facing more skeletons unarmored.

Aefric doubted there would be more skeletons, but couldn’t blame them for playing it safe.

Aefric himself wore clothes that had been provided by Duchess Ashling. A navy blue silk tunic, quilted and embroidered with silver thread, over black hose. He wore low boots of soft leather that had been dyed black, to match his belt.

The wand Garram rode at his belt, along with his belt pouch and the silvered dagger that Ser Wardius had found the day before. And, of course, Aefric had the Brightstaff in hand.

Sers Temat and Arras had only a touch of pallor to indicate that they’d been wounded yesterday. Such was the power and skill of Ashling’s cleric of Nilasah.

They were the ones chosen to carry the two somewhat magic weapons found in the Hrafnvigi museum the day before. The spear for Ser Temat, and the gladius for Ser Arras.

In addition to the extra armor and weapons, the exploration itself was handled with a good deal more caution that day.

The Knights of the Lake began the day by moving as a unit through the secret passage they’d found in the first-floor guest rooms, intent on opening every secret door they came to as they worked their way slowly through the castle.

Ser Deirdre went with them, checking for magic.

Aefric, to his consternation, did not. But while Ashling might’ve given Aefric a good reason to question the advice of his advisers in general, he couldn’t find fault with their reasoning this time.

The Knights of the Lake were there to protect him from hazards, and it had been proven twice yesterday that there were hazards in the castle.

So Aefric could either insult his knights, or let them do their jobs. While he did a job they could not and should not do.

While his knights were exploring the castle, Aefric returned to the accounting office with Sers Yrsa and Beornric, entered the treasury, and took a better look at Aefric’s new wealth.

More specifically, they searched to see if anything lay hidden among those chests full of coins and gemstones, those stacks of jeweler’s bars of gold and silver and even a little platinum.

And it was a good thing they did.

When spending that much time in a single room, Aefric would either have to tune out certain distractions, or deal with them. Normally he might tune them out. But that morning his stomach reeled with uncertainty over the influences in his life, and what he might or might not need to do about them.

He felt the need to eliminate whatever distractions he could.

Starting with the dust.

Dust lay thick all about him in the treasure room. Clearly no one had cleaned in there for at least a few aetts before Armyr took Kivash this past spring.

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.