Read Online Iron and Blood by Auston Habershaw - Free Book Online Page A

slow down. Give me the whole story, and don’t leave anything out.” Tyvian thought about that for a second. “Let me amend that statement—­leave out any of your own commentary on the events in question. Just give me the facts.”
    Artus reported. It took a while, since Hool kept interrupting with critiques of Artus’s decisions and Artus took to defending those decisions, starting a gnoll-­on-­boy argument that Tyvian would have to break up. Still, Tyvian was pleased with the level of detail Artus could supply, and made a mental note to add this skill to the list of things the boy could do if properly focused. It then occurred to him that he was beginning to think of Artus in terms of a working assistant.
    Was he? Tyvian felt there was a distinction between using someone for personal gain and employing someone as an assistant. He was certainly planning on the former—­Artus was indispensable to his plan, somewhat regrettably. Was the boy worth keeping around, though? He certainly seemed loyal, if Artus had risked his life just to find out information regarding Tyvian’s own problems. That was something he could certainly exploit , if nothing else. It was half the reason he had saved the boy’s life, after all.
    Right?
    While Tyvian listened and mulled this over, Dohas continued to work on the ring. He now held a fine-­tipped ink brush and was painting delicate runes all over Tyvian’s ring finger in neat little circles and meandering rows. Tyvian tried to figure out what the fellow was doing but couldn’t follow it all—­the complexity of the monk’s work was far beyond his own working knowledge of magecraft. Myreon could probably explain it to him, but he had made sure she was secured in her room before waking the Artificer up. He didn’t want the two of them to meet.
    Whatever Dohas was doing, he could feel alternating pulses of cold and heat coursing through his hand and halfway up his arm. There was a faint odor in the air, too—­something Tyvian couldn’t identify but that immediately caught Hool’s attention.
    â€œSomeone is doing magic in here,” she announced, glaring at the Artificer.
    â€œHey! I was just getting to the part where Jaevis was going to stab me in the back of the head!” Artus had a bowl of soup in his lap, brought by the serving specters. The color had returned to his cheeks.
    Dohas, who had frozen at Hool’s statement about magic, now sat staring at the gnoll, his ink brush shaking gently in one hand. Tyvian nodded at him. “Don’t worry about her. She hasn’t eaten a sorcerer since I’ve known her—­please continue.”
    â€œWhat is that little man doing to your hand?” Hool asked, her hackles raised.
    Artus threw up his hands. “Does anybody care about Jaevis almost stabbing me?”
    Tyvian sighed. “Artus: we know Jaevis didn’t stab you in the head, and the important parts of your story are over. In fact, I’ll tell you how it ended: just before Jaevis killed you, the city watchmen found you, Jaevis backed off—­not wanting to make an enemy of the Watch—­and you got brought here where I had to pay them an exorbitant sum of money—­which, by the way, you owe me.”
    Tyvian turned to the gnoll. “Hool, this ‘little man’ is an Artificer who is trying to remove the ring from my finger so that I can more effectively help you recover your pups from the clutches of Hendrieux and, probably, Banric Sahand.” He looked at the Dohas. “You, sir, had better keep up whatever it is you’re doing because if you stop again, so help me, I will feed you to the gnoll. There! Is everybody clear, now?”
    Hool grumbled to herself and lay down on the floor, one eye trained on Dohas, who immediately began work again. Artus sat there open-­mouthed. “How’d you know how the story ended?”
    Tyvian