Read Online Before The Mask by Michael Williams - Free Book Online Page A

...” Aglaca continued. “If I gave
     you my word, sir? As the son of a Solamnic Knight?”
    Daeghrefn sneered. “You could not imagine how little such promises mean to me, boy. But if
     you must ride at the point, Osman rides with you, and a squadron of twelve men. In case
     the call of East Borders becomes too strong.”
    Aglaca hid a satisfied smile. The game was his for now. Daeghrefn had conceded on the fear
     that spies, who he suspected were constantly in his garrison, might relay Aglaca's
     disappointment to his father. Had Verminaard alone been placed in the vanguard, no escort
     would accompany him. By riding at the front of the column,
    Aglaca had assured Verminaard's protection: Osman was a veteran huntsman and a loyal sort,
     and his dozen troopers would protect them both.
    As the young men and their escort rode forth at the head of the hunt, the castle and its
     settlement dwindled to a scattering of tents and standards in the southern fields.
     Cerestes raised his hands in the Litany of Farewells. Then a red mist rose about him, and
     he vanished in a flurry of faded banners and fragmented light. Back to Castle Nidus, they
     supposed.
    Taciturn, windburnt Osman rode between the two young men, his face as dark as weathered
     oak. His eyes, black and brilliant, scanned the terrain for spoor and hoofprints.
    Verminaard, at the huntsman's right, fumed and crouched in the saddle as though he rode
     into a powerful, icy head wind. He had been betrayed by this soft western lad who rode to
     Osman's left faithless Aglaca, who had refused the comradeship of the casting, then
     demanded the glory of the hunt.
    His hunthis place of honor, his chance to be noble and courageous, to distinguish himself
     before Daeghrefn. Aglaca and these nursemaids! They didn't belong here beside him. For a
     moment, he wished that Aglaca alone accompanied him. The plateaus of Taman Busuk were
     treacherous country, filled with crevasses and cul-de-sacs, where a horse could stumble, a
     young man could fall....
    Verminaard pulled himself from the bloody revery. In the passing months, the murderous
     thoughts had come more often, more wildly. There were a thousand mishaps waiting for a
     Solamnic, a thousand deceptions and enemies. Verminaard dreamed of those awful moments,
    savored them until the dream dissolved before the cold truth of the gebo-naudany
     misfortune that befell Aglaca could be visited on Abelaard in Solamnia.
    And he would not let misfortune befall his brother.
    In a heedless gloom, Verminaard kept his big black stallion in steady stride with Osman's
     roan. The landscape passed by him in a featureless, angry fog.
    Aglaca, on the other side, prayed long and silently to Paladine, to Mishakal, and to
     Kiri-Jolith of the hunt, as his father Laca had taught him before he was old enough to
     hold a spear. Let the hunting be good, he beseeched the gods, and the kill clean and
     noble. And let each huntsman return to his
    hearth and his family, at the close of the day.
    Smiling ruefully at the Solamnic, Verminaard eyed the massive company. They'll just be in
     my way, he thought, visions of the centicore entering his mind. The beast was slow-witted,
     ill-tempered, and nearsighted, but if it turned, grunting and lowering its tusks and
     gathering speed for a headlong and witless charge, the hunt changed radically. Then his
     companions would be a hindrance, his armor inadequate, his horse too slow, and all that
     remained between him and the gigantic, thick-skinned boar and its three-foot tusks was his
     couched lance, strong arm, and nerve.
    It was an encounter Verminaard awaited eagerly. He spurred his horse to ride ahead of
     Aglaca, ahead of Osman. At twenty, Verminaard was burly and strong, and physical courage
     came easily for him. And, apparently recognizing it, his father had put him in a place of
     honor in the vanguard of the hunt, where he would most likely see the first