Read Online Her Knight's Quest: A Warriors of the Mist Novel by Alexis Morgan - Free Book Online Page A

At least for the moment he was safe from the trap of the coins.
    Duncan flexed his hand and stared down at the unconscious trader. “We need to get him out of here. We also need to search the rest of the caravan to make sure no one else has one of these coins. Do you agree?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    Lavinia stared at Duncan, her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she backed away from him. “You know a great deal about magic for a man who claims to be a lowly scribe. Why is the magic not affecting you? You can sense it, but it doesn’t call to you as it did to Musar.”
    He had no time for such games and followed her step for step. “I wasn’t the target of the attack. You were. If I hadn’t been there tonight, we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all. You’d be dead.”
    “We still have no proof that this was anything other than a random attack.”
    He wanted to shake her, to make her realize the danger she was in. “Lie to yourself if you will, but don’t bother lying to me.”
    She flinched as he continued to batter her with his words. “This kind of magic doesn’t come cheaply. Someone spilled innocent blood to create the spell in those coins. I might have my own secrets, but I’m guessing you do as well.”
    Before she could respond, Musar moaned. They needed to get him out of the room before the coins asserted their influence on him again.
    Duncan backed away from the abbess, mad at himself for having lost his temper and madder at her for refusing to admit the truth that was right before her eyes.
    “Let’s get Musar out of here, and then decide how best to destroy those coins.”
    Lavinia nodded, slowly regaining her normal air of authority. “We’ll take him to my office.”
    The two of them hefted Musar up off the floor and muscled him back out of the workroom. Once they had him settled in the chair in Lavinia’s office, Duncan started for the door.
    “Where do you think you are going?” Lavinia’s words cracked like a whip.
    He looked back at her. “I was going to fetch his wife to see to him. When he’s feeling better, we’ll need to search the caravan.”
    “Fine, but you and I will do the searching. I don’t want to place anyone else at risk.”
    She poured Musar a glass of water as she spoke. “And when we’re done, you and I have a lot to talk about.”
    He bowed his head slightly. “Indeed we do.”

Chapter 7
     
    M erewen didn’t need the carrion birds circling high overhead to know where to look for the dead horses. Their familiar presence was gone, leaving nothing but a cold blank space where their life force used to be. Her mare refused to take another step closer to the grassy knoll up ahead. Even Gideon and Kane struggled to control their mounts.
    Finally, the three humans dismounted and left the horses behind. Merewen wished she could remain with them, but that was the coward’s way out. She owed it to the horses, both living and dead, to investigate what had happened.
    From where they stood, they had clear visibility for a mile in all directions, and it appeared they were alone. Gideon and Kane positioned themselves on either side of her, swords drawn. She understood their need to find a target for their anger, something solid to fight.
    The pain in her head had faded enough that she could concentrate. She started up the final rise to where she could already see the first horse sprawled in the grass. There would be more; how many, she couldn’t tell. When the attack had come, she’d sensed ten, maybe fifteen horses in full panic, all in pain and stampeding out of control.
    She could only pray that they hadn’t lost the entire band of mares. Bracing herself for the worst, she walked up the steep slope. Gideon wrapped his free arm around her shoulders, offering his support.
    The sight in front of her was a horror to behold, stealing her breath and robbing her limbs of strength. When she cried out, Gideon spun her around so that she wasn’t looking at the bodies that