The Crowded Shadows
Read The Crowded Shadows Online
Authors: Celine Kiernan
Tags: #Epic, #Fantasy, #General, #Science Fiction, #Fiction
In the shadows, Wari rolled to his side, clutching his shoulder as blood flowed out between his fingers. He was white-faced with pain. At his feet, Razi lay pinned to the ground, a huge warhound standing over him, its jaws clamped around his throat. Razi, his hands knotted in the dog’s fur, gagged, and Wynter saw the flesh of his neck dimple under the pressure of the hound’s teeth.
Across the fire, metal clinked softly against stone as Christopher allowed his knife to drop from his hand. A second warhound stood over him, its teeth locked on his straining neck. Wynter lurched to her knees, not knowing which way to turn, and Christopher rolled terrified grey eyes to her, and held out his hand.
Do nothing! Do nothing!
Slowly he lowered his shaking hands to the ground, and he allowed his body to relax under the arch of the big dog’s legs. To Wynter’s relief, she saw the powerful jaws ease up slightly on Christopher’s throat.
Razi gagged again, and a line of blood flowed around the taut curve of his neck as the hound’s teeth punctured his skin.
The Poison Throne
“A spectacular fantasy by a prolific, creative and multi-talented artist and author.”
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Y
C
ELINE
K
IERNAN
The Moorehawke Trilogy
The Poison Throne
The Crowded Shadows
The Rebel Prince
Copyright © 2009 by Celine Kiernan
Excerpt from
The Rebel Prince
copyright © 2010 by Celine Kiernan
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: July 2010
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-0-316-08770-4
For Mam and Dad, I love you.
For Noel, Emmet and Grace, always and with all my heart.
For Fergus, Elaine, Luke and Karl.
Let’s never stop lighting campfires and setting up tents.
Merron Religion, Ritual and Hierarchy
W
ynter sank closer to Ozkar’s neck and slowly dipped her head so that the dark brim of her hat hid her eyes. The horse side-stepped nervously under her and tried to back out of their hiding place. He could sense her fear and it was making him anxious. Wynter murmured to him and stroked his shoulder, but he shook his head, snorted and loudly stamped his foot.
The men moving in the trees ahead of her were getting close. Wynter tracked their progress by the noise of their horses, and she shrank further back into cover as the sounds grew louder. She could not believe how easily these men had escaped her attention. The trees here were so thick and dark that Wynter might never have noticed them, only that they had been foolish enough to light a pipe, and its rich tobacco scent had alerted her to their presence. It filled her with fear to realise that they may have been travelling parallel to each other for days and not known it, the sounds of the men’s horses cancelling out the noises made by Ozkar and vice versa.
Wynter was just raising her head to peer though the trees, hoping for a glimpse of them, when a low whistling signal from the road sent her ducking again, her heart racing. There was a moment of silence from the men, then they whistled a melodic reply, and to Wynter’s horror, began pushing their horses through the brush towards her.
They came frighteningly close and she was filled with an almost irresistible desire to lift her head and look. But it would take just one careless movement and they would spot her, so she kept her eyes shut and her head down and the men passed slowly by.
They urged their horses down a steeply sloping bank and out of sight. Wynter side-stepped Ozkar so that she could observe their descent to the road.
She found herself looking down on the tops of their heads as they passed from the shade into brutal sunshine, and they came to a halt in the road, looking expectantly into the trees on the opposite side. Wynter followed their gaze, and ducked lower at the sight of four horsemen descending the far slope. As these newcomers reached the road, the original two men shook back their dark hats and uncovered their faces. They were Combermen, their rosined hair and beards glistening in the sun. They squinted warily at the newcomers and one of them called out, in stilted Southlandast, the language of Jonathon’s Kingdom, “So far?”
The newcomers called back, “And not yet there?”
There was a general easing of tension in the men, and Wynter committed these passwords, and the whistles that had preceded them, to memory.
As the newcomers pulled to a halt, the shorter Comberman asked, “I take it we face the same direction?”
“Anything is possible,” said one of the newcomers noncommittally. They threw back their headgear, and Wynter felt a thrill of fear. They were Haunardii! Warriors, if their abundance of gleaming weaponry was anything to go by. She leant forward in her saddle, trying to get a better view. She had never personally met any Haunardii but they were notoriously savage and wily. Their narrow, slanting eyes were black as night and they regarded the Combermen scornfully, their flat, honey-coloured faces filled with laughing contempt.
“These men humbly suggest that you are not too sharp at keeping yourself hid,” sneered the youngest. “What sort of fool needs a pipe of weed
that
much?”
The Combermen glanced at each other. The taller one bit his pipe firmly between his teeth and began to drift back to the trees. “Stick to thy side of the road and my smoke won’t bother thee,” he said with finality.
The Haunardii looked amused. They smirked at each other and began backing their horses away. It was obvious to Wynter that—like herself—all these men were travelling in secret, eschewing the relative ease of the road for the cover of the thick forest, and it appeared that the Haun’s sole purpose in calling the others had been to mock them for their carelessness. As they retreated, the youngest laughingly said, “We pray that it is not your stealth you are offering at the table of the Rebel Prince!”
The Rebel Prince?
thought Wynter.
Alberon!
She stared down at the men below.
So you are gathering allies to your table. But, Good Christ, Alberon! First Combermen, and now Haunardii? Have you lost your mind?
Down on the road, the young Haunardii was still needling the Combermen, his mocking voice drifting up through the heat. “We humbly suggest you may as well dance down the centre of the road yodelling, for all the sly you have exhibited up in the trees.”
“Yes, well,” growled the shorter Comberman, “thy skills in diplomacy will be a great asset to the future king, I dare say. Sleep well these next twelve nights, Haun, and have no doubt, we’ll see
thee
in camp.”
The Combermen were ascending the slope even as they spoke and Wynter eased Ozkar back into the deeper shadows, listening as they snarled their goodbyes. The Combermen angled off through the trees, trailing pipe smoke and muttering as they went. The Haunardii must have climbed the opposite slope and melted into the forest there.
Wynter stayed where she was, deep in thought, and Ozkar returned to snoozing beneath her.
Was it possible, she wondered, that the King had been right? Did Alberon actually intend to overthrow the crown? The thought of Alberon in alliance with either the Haunardii or the Combermen made Wynter’s blood run cold. Did he really stand against his father now, with greedy expansionists on one hand and bigoted zealots on the other? What would become of the Kingdom if this were the case, and what kind of reception could Wynter expect from her old friend if he had truly set his face against the King?
She looked out into the forest and thought about the Haun and the Combermen, and all they symbolised. If it came down to it, and she had to weigh them on one hand, and King Jonathon on the other—Alberon or no Alberon—Wynter had no doubt who she would choose. She shook her head and looked around her helplessly. She did not want to think about the kind of choices she may now have to make. Despair threatened suddenly, out of nowhere, and Wynter sat up straight, forcing it down.
That is enough
, she told herself firmly.
There is no point fretting until I have found Alberon and discovered the truth. Then we shall see, all this will be easily resolved
. Grimly, she set her jaw. She had sacrificed her father for this quest, she was risking her own life for it, and she was not about to fail.