Read Online Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce - Free Book Online

combat skills. Doubt entered Kel’s heart. What if he planned to keep her safe with him?
    She hadn’t become a knight to be safe.
    Owen came for her at last. She followed him across the torchlit yard between mess hall and headquarters, her feet crunching the ice that rimmed the ruts in the ground. Surely if Wyldon planned to give Kel a safe assignment, Owen would know and warn her. Owen was a terrible liar, even when he lied by omission. Instead he bubbled over with plans. Before he entered Wyldon’s office and announced her, he’d predicted that they’d send the Scanrans back to their longhouses in a trice. Leaving her with his knight-master, he closed the door behind him.
    Inside Wyldon’s office, Kel studied her old training master. The crows’ feet around Wyldon’s hard, dark eyes had deepened, as had the lines at the corners of his firm, well-carved mouth. The scar that ran from the corner of his right eye into his short cropped hair was puffy, which meant it probably ached in the night’s raw damp. If it hurt, then certainly the arm that had also been savaged by a killer winged horse called a hurrok would be in pain, too.
    Silver gleamed in the hair at Wyldon’s temples. His bald pate shone in the light of a globe spelled by mages to cast steady light. Wyldon’s skin was chapped, like everyone else’s, by northern weather. His cream wool shirt was neat and plain, as was the brown quilted tunic he wore. Kel knew his breeches and boots would also be made for warmth and comfort, not elegance.
    “Have a seat, lady knight,” he said. “Wine? Or apple juice?”
    Kel sat in the chair before his desk. Despite her fear of what was coming, she was deeply pleased that this man she respected used her new title. “Apple juice, please, my lord.” Recently she had found that wine or liquor gave her ferocious, nauseous headaches. She was happy to give up spirits; she hadn’t liked the loose, careless feelings they gave her.
    Wyldon poured cups for both of them, then raised his in a toast. “To your shield.”
    Kel smiled. “To my fine instructors,” she replied. They both sipped. The juice, touched with spices, was very good.
    Wyldon leaned back in his chair. “I won’t dance about,” he said. “I’m giving you the hardest assignment of any knight in this district. I think you will hate it, and perhaps me.”
    Kel’s skin tingled. So the news was bad. She set her cup on his desk and straightened. “My lord?”
    “General Vanget has asked me to build and staff a refugee camp in addition to the new fort. As soon as it’s ready, we’ll take about three hundred refugees, all ages, from Tirrsmont, Anak’s Eyrie, Riversedge, Goatstrack village and outlying districts. About two hundred more will arrive once fighting begins. Maybe seven hundred in all by summer’s end.” He reached for a map of the countryside before him and tapped it with a blunt forefinger. “The only ground I can get for it is an open piece of elk-dung valley between Fief Tirrsmont and Anak’s Eyrie, on the Greenwoods River. There’s the river for water, and flat ground for planting if no one expects to grow more than enough to survive. There’s fortified high ground now, and troops to defend it. My new fort, Mastiff, will be here, on the other side of these hills. We’ll patrol as much as we can, to keep Scanrans from getting very far, but there’s just too much empty ground and too much forest to plug all our gaps.”
    Kel nodded. From her experience the year before, she knew how easy it was for the enemy to slip by Tortall’s defenders.
    “I tried to get land farther south,” Wyldon continued. “The nobles there say they pity the refugees and send old clothes, tools, perhaps some grain, but they don’t want all those extra mouths on their lands, hunting their game.”
    So her worst fears were true. He didn’t want her in combat. Instead she was relegated to the protection of refugees. It wasn’t right. She had more real