Read Online Sword of Wrath (Kormak Book Eight) by William King - Free Book Online

of them are safer or swifter to cross the wide ocean on than the King’s Galleons. I prefer to trust my safety to the King-Emperor’s warships and his windcallers when my business calls me back to Terra Nova.”
    Kormak noticed a hard-looking pair lounging against the ship’s railings. They eyed him sidelong and studied the deck around them with the discrete wariness of the highest echelon of professional bodyguards. Their shrewd eyes missed nothing.
    One of them looked like a typical Siderean of the lower classes, short, stocky, with dark eyes and olive skin. He was clean-shaven. A long scar marred his cheek. He wore a padded linen doublet of neutral colours. His sword belt and scabbard looked old, but well cared for.
    Kormak guessed the other was a Terra Novan, perhaps the descendant of a Sunlander colonist and one of the natives. Tall as Kormak, broad and muscular. Serpent-pattern tattoos covered his visible skin. His red beard was long and intricately plated. His forehead was low and his eyes were a very bright blue. He was clad in the buckskins and moccasins of a woodsman. A thick lash and a pair of tomahawks were in his belt. He held a heavier axe in each of his muscular hands. “Urag and Burk are mine, Sir Kormak. They are very discreet.”
    “Is there something you are about to say that calls for discretion?” Kormak asked.
    Triple chins flexed the beard covering the lower part of Orson’s face as he smiled. “You are a sharp man, Sir Kormak. More intelligent than I expected.”
    “There is no need to prove you can be as rude as I am,” Kormak said. “I will take that as a given.”
    Orson’s booming laughter held genuine mirth. “I stand reproved. You will forgive me, Sir Kormak. I am not used to being treated so lightly. I find, despite my best efforts, that my wealth usually engenders an inordinate respect in most people I meet.”
    “People respect gold,” Kormak said.
    “A maxim to live by. At least if you are a humble merchant with no centuries-long bloodline behind you.”
    “You wanted to talk to me.”
    “Indeed. I merely wanted to introduce myself. Your fame precedes you. Word of your deeds within the Imperial Palace has reached even my doorstep. It seems our King-Emperor himself has reason to be grateful to you, and that should engender gratitude in those like myself, who are his humble subjects.”
    Kormak wondered when Orson would get to the point. “There is no reason for you to feel grateful to me.”
    “Were it not for your deeds, I could almost find those words treasonable, Sir Kormak. Indeed, I could. We are all grateful to you for preserving the life of the king.”
    The fat man waited, and Kormak began to understand. Orson was curious about what had happened in the palace and was trying to provoke a response from him. Whatever Kormak said would give him some clues as to recent events in the palace. Kormak could not think how this could be of advantage to the merchant, but he was sure that Orson would find a way to make it so. Under the circumstances, his natural inclinations were to play his cards close to his chest.
    “Is that what you have heard?”
    “Indeed it is. And may I say, sir, that it does not surprise me. I have the good fortune to be part of the group of merchants who begged the services of your order to rid the seas of the accursed Kraken. A job which you performed with admirable efficiency, I might add. You are a very effective man, Sir Kormak, and I can always find work for an effective man.”
    Kormak turned this new information over in his mind. What was Orson telling him here? The cabal of merchants who bribed the order into sending him after the Kraken had been a front for Prince Taran and the king. Was Orson hinting at secret knowledge, of having a place higher in the royal estimation than he was outwardly claiming? Did he know who the Kraken had been?
    “Alas, I am sworn to the service of my order,” Kormak said.
    “Of course, of course. I am ashamed