Read Online Mortal Consequences by Clayton Emery - Free Book Online

the water. The water’s half salt and half fresh, so the two cultures mingle here before us. Handy things for a shaman to know, no? Would I could tell my tribe.”
    “It’s not good enough to talk to me?” Knucklebones was bored enough to pick a fight, and hurt that his idle thoughts excluded her.
    Sunbright sat on the grassy bank with his back to a birch. “No,” he told her, “I enjoy talking to you, but you must be powerful sick of my useless chatter.”
    That statement struck so close to the heart that Knucklebones blinked. To cover her confusion, she fussed with her brass knuckles, shining them with spit and her thumb. “No,” she said, “it’s just—Aren’t there other tribes of barbarians?”
    “One. The Angardts dwell on the plains below Redguard Lake, near the Far Horns Forest, but we split from them ages ago. They adopted magic, taboo to my people. The feud ran bloody and long, and finally they retreated south. Were I to approach, I’d be skinned alive. Funny, considering how I’ve learned to use magic.”
    “I thought shamanism wasn’t magic, but—I don’t know—a gift from the gods?”
    “From the Earthmother, and the land itself. A little magic is acceptable, such as healing and blessing weapons and homes and crops, but were I to conjure a storm, say, many would take it amiss. I could be stoned to death, or buried alive, or staked out and sacrificed. Still, my father could call the spirits of the dead, even elementals. My grandfather could shapeshift to mimic Brother Seal and Grandfather Walrus … but I ramble.”
    “It’s interesting,” Knucklebones insisted. “It’s just— it’s been so long since you talked at all.”
    Sunbright nodded absently, plucked grass and sucked the stem, and said, “You bring out the best in me, Knuckle’, though I’ve been poor company lately. It’s just that I need my people. Without them I can’t get on with my life. I’m as dead as an uprooted tree. Not much comfort for you.”
    Knucklebones refrained from chiding, just tried to keep them talking. Yet she had no plans of her own, and his were frustrated, so there seemed little to discuss.
    Then the man blasted the mood by adding, “Greenwillow was good for me too. She kept me levelheaded and busy, applying and testing myself.”
    “I don’t want—” Knucklebones’s temper flared, but she bit her words back. She was tired of his singing the praises of a dead lover. Still, better he talked, and she suffered in silence. “Tell me about her.”
    “Well… she was a lot like you.”
    “What?” This was news. “How can she, a high-caste elven warrior from the forest be anything like me, an orphaned sewer rat with one eye?”
    Sunbright shook his head. “It’s not outward appearances, it’s inner. Greenwillow had courage, not only to face terrible odds, but to face herself too. To force herself into battle, or the dark, or the unknown. As you do. I so admire your spirit. I can face polar bears and ice storms and ice worms and starvation and cold, yet I was raised by my tribe and taught these things slowly, and coddled when I made a mistake. How you managed to survive, abandoned and alone in the underworld of Karsus, I can’t imagine. You must have a core of steel, and an undying heart to boot. Greenwillow was the same way.”
    Knucklebones glowed under the compliments, wondered. Maybe Sunbright loved her not as a pale imitation of the elf maiden, but because she had mastered a dangerous environment. For the first time, the thief felt sympathy and interest in this elven warrior she’d never met, but she’d still prefer he concentrate on a live lover. But so did people pine for things they couldn’t have.
    Like a tribe. And a home. Or any clue where to go—
    “Behold. The geese and the enclaves fly south for the winter.”
    “Hunh?” Knucklebones craned her head around, scanned the sky where Sunbright pointed. High overhead drifted an inverted mountain studded with buildings, a floating