Read Online The Conqueror's Shadow by Ari Marmell - Free Book Online

under debate.” A few crude chuckles sounded from behind him—more, in fact, than could be accounted for by the three voices she’d heard thus far. “What’s your name, girl?”
    â€œMellorin.” She swallowed again.
Don’t show fear. They can sense fear
. At least that was supposed to be the case with wild dogs, and seeing as how she had no other experience to fall back on … “What—what’s yours?”
    The man grinned, the expression seeming to gleam horribly on his unshaven, greasy face. His hair, dark and filthy, fell about his head and danced as he laughed. “My name doesn’t matter, Mellorin.”
    Mellorin tried her best to smile. “Really? That must be frustrating.”
    The smile on the man’s face vanished as though she’d sliced it off with a knife. This was not the way helpless victims—especially children—were supposed to behave.
    A curved blade sprouted from his hand and jabbed forward, comingto a halt just before it drew blood on the side of her throat. He was rewarded with a sudden sob.
    â€œThat’s better. You shouldn’t be so rude to us, young lady. When people are rude to us, it makes us upset. We tend to be rude back.”
    â€œThere are no animals around here,” she whispered, fighting back tears. “No dangerous ones, anyway. If you …” Her voice broke. “If you kill me, they’ll know it wasn’t an animal!”
    The man kneeling before her blinked once and looked back for support. The sweaty, bearded man who’d grabbed her in the first place—Varbin, she remembered—merely shrugged. “So they’ll know it wasn’t an animal. We’re still not planning to be anywhere near here by the time they find her. So what’s the big deal?”
    With a small shriek, Mellorin thrust the man’s arm, and the knife along with it, away from her throat, beating on his chest with her bound hands. More startled than anything else, he fell back, staring at her. And then he reached out with his other hand and slapped her across the face, just beneath the earlier wound. Mellorin recoiled, agony racing through her skull.
    â€œPlease!” she screamed at him as the man’s shape loomed over her, knife held before him. “Please don’t hurt me!”
    The man took a step closer to her, then another …
    And then a second shape towered above her, looming tall between her and her attackers.
    â€œShe said ‘please.’” Mellorin, though nigh paralyzed with fear, sobbed in relief when she recognized the voice. “You really,
really
should have listened.”

    TO ONE SIDE , half a dozen men, all large, filthy, and well armed. On the other, a lone figure, long hair wild about his neck and shoulders, easily half again the age of his eldest opponent, armed with only a heavy spade.
    It was not a discrepancy that Brend, Varbin, or the others failed to notice. A mocking, contemptuous grin settled upon the features of every man present.
    â€œYou seem overmatched, old man,” Brend told him, taking a confident step. The resemblance between the new arrival and their captive didn’t escape his attention. “Her father?”
    Corvis nodded once.
    â€œHow cozy. You came to die with her.”
    These men had worked together for several years, and for all their bickering, they moved and fought as one. Even before he’d finished speaking there was a sudden lunge, not from Brend, but from the man who’d held his knife to Mellorin’s throat, intended to quickly end what negligible threat the girl’s father might pose. They’d used the tactic many times before, and it never failed to catch the target off-guard.
    There is, as the saying goes, a first time for everything.
    A blur of movement, a sudden hum in the air, and the spade flashed downward, striking the man’s forearm edge-on. A hideous crack reverberated throughout the