Read Online Messenger’s Legacy by Peter V. Brett - Free Book Online

apart for so many years. Perhaps then she would understand.
    But though he wanted Elissa with him, he wanted her safe. He hired a team of guards to dissuade bandits, armed and armoured with no expense spared. He sent word ahead to Euchor’s waystations, reserving rooms and supplies. Derek was all too happy to join them, adding another familiar face to the group.
    The first night they took refuge at the inn at Harden’s Grove. The Grove had a low wardwall to hold out land demons, though wind demons could still swoop into its streets at night. The inn was well warded, but there were occasional cracks and flashes of light as demons tested the forbidding.
    Elissa jumped with each flare, and Ragen stroked the spear Arlen had warded for him. It would bite coreling flesh, Arlen had promised, and Ragen knew better than to doubt the man. Part of him longed to put it to use, to kill a demon after a lifetime of hiding behind the wards. A greater part, wiser, hoped he would never have need to put the weapon to the test.
    He groaned as he climbed back into the saddle the second day, tugging at his armour.
    ‘Links pinching?’ Derek asked.
    ‘More like my gut squeezing,’ Ragen said. ‘Gained a pound or two since I last wore it.’
    Elissa laughed. ‘Ay, just one or two. Like me when I was pregnant.’
    ‘Night, I hope it’s not that bad,’ Ragen said, pulling back smoothly to avoid Elissa’s playful smack.
    Derek laughed, patting his own slender belly. ‘Easy to keep the weight off when you eat road fare most nights.’
    ‘Ay,’ Ragen said, ‘but you slow down when the years mount, Derek. Fire doesn’t burn as hot, but we keep piling the logs.’
    It was more than three weeks’ travel from Miln to Bogton, even by the fastest route. A part of Ragen had been eager for the journey, eager to escape the confines of Miln. But Ragen found he had not missed many aspects of the road. His thighs screamed, for when had he last spent an entire day in the saddle? Even at the waystations, pallets were hard and foods were chosen more for how long they would last rather than the desires of the palate.
    They would have good meals and beds in Riverbridge, and Angiers, but then there would be nights on the open road before they reached the Hollow, and even more before they reached Bogton.
    That second day he got one of the first sunburns of his life. It was only then he noticed how white his hands had become. Messenger Ragen’s hands and face had been tanned a deep brown, immune to the sun.
    But by the third day, Ragen found his legs again. They climbed a hill for vantage, and he leaned back in the saddle, stretching as the duchy spread out before them.
    ‘This, I’ve missed,’ he said.
    Elissa gasped at the sight. ‘It’s beautiful.’
    Ragen reached out, taking her hand. ‘It’s only the beginning.’

    ‘They’ll be rising soon,’ Ragen said. ‘Time to go inside.’
    ‘Inside’ was a canvas tent the men had raised. They were south of Angiers now, on the road to the Hollow.
    ‘No,’ Elissa said. ‘We’re no safer in the tent than out here. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade learning wardcraft. It’s time I saw a demon.’
    Ragen could see the tension in her as she paced back and forth, waiting. Her hand were curled fists at her sides. ‘It won’t be just one. Wood demons rise in numbers near the road, and it won’t take them long to find us.’
    Elissa stopped pacing. She took a deep breath, scanning the roadside woods as the sun slipped below the horizon and twilight took the world.
    She did not have to wait long. The accursed mist began to seep from the ground, thickening and coalescing like a sculptor slapping clay until a recognizable shape began to form.
    It was a wood demon, long-limbed with brown armour, knobbed and rough like the bark of a tree. Its talons could be broken sticks on the blunt side, but Ragen knew from experience the other side was sharp and hooked, equally suited for climbing