Read Online Return of the Guardian-King by Karen Hancock - Free Book Online

noticed don’t travel with sixteen attendants and set up their tents in the dining halls of middle-class inns. He must be Sorian, though, if he’s got a tent, so I suppose you wouldn’t be able to understand their talk anyway.”
    She sniffed. “With all the news breaking in here, I’m quite happy where I am, thank you.”
    Movement at the corner of her eye drew her attention to one of the diners down the row from her, lifting his empty mug at her and wagging his bushy brows. “I’ve got to go.”
    In the kitchen Mace and Lindie were arguing over who would bring the platter of bullock kabobs and rice balls, and who would bring the mulled wine. Lindie looked unusually distressed—pale, sweating, and dark around the eyes. Perhaps she was coming down with something. Maddie considered offering to take her place but, recalling what she’d just said to Trap, decided she’d rather hear the latest on the battle at the front. Besides, they were nearly done. As the two went off with platter and tray, she ladled mutton stew into a bowl, balanced a rasher of bread atop it, refilled the tankards from the bushy-browed man’s table, and carried it all out into the common room.
    She had just delivered the stew and was stopping to hand out the refilled ale mugs when the front door burst open. Three men in heavy greatcoats blew in on a gale of cold wind that ignited shouts of protest from the diners even as the newcomers recaptured the door and slammed it safely shut.
    Moments later, the leader among them was recognized as a barge captain just arrived with a load of wounded soldiers from the front, and the place convulsed with excitement. He was ushered immediately to the lower floor, where table and chairs were shoved into the place normally reserved for the musicians, and there he held forth with his news.
    “Now, I can’t say any of this for sure, since they all had different tales, but the gist is, Crown Prince Leyton is said to have had some sort of talisman that he claimed would clear away the mist so our cannon could fire.”
    As his words penetrated, Maddie’s heart seized. A talisman to drive away the mists?
    “He planned to draw the enemy in around Torneki, then use the talisman to drive off the mist while our gunships, waiting hidden on the Chesedhan side of the isle, came round to blast them all to pieces.”
    Just like on the Gull Islands . As the captain continued with the details, her eyes went inexorably to Trap, who watched the man white-faced and tightlipped. It had been two years since Leyton visited them in Springerlan. . . . No! I cannot believe that. I will not believe it. Not until I hear it from his lips. . . .
    Whatever Leyton had, it hadn’t worked. The mist hadn’t cleared, and the Esurhite galley commanders, apparently understanding the plan themselves, had slipped around the island and brought their vessels in close under the hulls of the waiting gunships before the Chesedhans even knew what was happening. Southlanders had swarmed like termites across the decks, leaving the Islanders to beat back the horde they themselves had invited in. Leyton and his men had been cut off. Hadrich had taken one of his own galleys to the island to rescue him. And had been wounded in the effort—though not seriously, according to the barge captain.
    “Molly!” Her employer’s voice hissed into her awareness, her assumed name registering belatedly. “Stop yer gawking and get into the kitchen! They need ye there.”
    She almost told him to mind his own business and leave her be, but she caught herself and hurried to the kitchen. Lindie now slumped on the bench beside the back door, glassy-eyed and shivering even as she insisted she was fine—she just needed a minute to rest.
    “We don’t have a minute!” Hulet, head of the serving staff, cried. When she still refused to move, he cursed her vigorously for her weakness, then the esteemed gentleman for his bad timing, and finally the kitchen itself, just because.