Read Online The Silent Enemy by Richard A. Knaak - Free Book Online

They both know the lay of the land well and can tell you anything you need to know.”
    “I appreciate that.”
    Gregorio tightened his grip on the reins. “We’ll be riding some distance. Best if we just agree to meet back at the ridge at nightfall.”
    Finding that agreeable, Nermesa bid the count’s nephew good hunting. Gregorio summoned those men coming with him, then led them away.
    Cassiun, a broad-shouldered fighter who stood a head shorter than Nermesa, dismounted to join him. The bearded knight pointed northward. “A little farther that way, there may be some marks remaining from where we think the fight spread.”
    Nermesa nodded. “I’ll want to see that, too.”
    They were joined in their hunt by Arturus, a gaunt, dark-skinned young man barely old enough to be called a knight. However, Nermesa had seen the man practicing with his massive sword that very morning, and anyone who thought that Arturus might prove an easy target due to his youth would have been fatally wrong.
    Cassiun led Nermesa along, describing in detail what Count Trocero believed the course of the struggle. The Poitainian indicated the high hills beyond them as where last it seemed some violent activity had taken place.
    “It is believed they caught him between two forces.”
    Everything that Cassiun and Gregorio had told him concerning the details convinced Nermesa that those who had attacked Prospero had been highly trained and adaptable fighters. That ruled out most brigands and strengthened the argument that the Zingarans were likely involved.
    Feeling acquainted enough with the vicinity, Nermesa decided that his two companions could make better use of their efforts by spreading out. He cautioned them not to step directly on top of any of the visible clues, then divided the region between all three accordingly.
    His own interest lay in the hillside mentioned as the likely end of Prospero’s desperate struggle. Cassiun suggested he ride westward, then up a trail that some of the attackers had undoubtedly utilized, but Nermesa wanted to follow Prospero’s flight as much as possible, feeling it might bring some hidden detail to light.
    Deciding that it would take too long to forgo his armor, Nermesa chose to risk himself somewhat by climbing fully encumbered. The missing Prospero had done it, he reasoned, and so had his pursuers, who against Poitainian knights in full plate had surely worn some armor of their own, even if perhaps only a breastplate.
    “Did anyone else climb as I intend?” he asked Cassiun before heading off toward the hills.
    “Only a bit from the top and the bottom. Count Trocero deemed it unnecessary as there was evidence enough that the assailants brought some burden to the base.”
    Brought some burden to the base. No one wanted to admit that what they searched for might simply have been a corpse all along. Yet, if so, why take the body . . . unless they wanted the forces of Poitain busy hunting ghosts while other sinister plots were put in play?
    Nermesa shook his head as he started climbing. After spending so much time in the court of King Conan and watching the political games played by the various ambassadors and others, it was too easy to fall prey to believing in plots within plots within plots even without any true evidence to support such.
    The recent deluge made his climb more slippery than he had imagined and certainly more troublesome than when Prospero had been forced to ascend. Nermesa had no doubt that more than one of the Poitainian’s foes had paid the price for pursuing him on the hillside. There were signs of recent rockfalls that did not seem to have anything to do with the rain. However, a falling body could easily crack off an outcropping here and there . . .
    Cassiun had pointed out a small lip as the area where Count Trocero had estimated that Prospero would have made a stand against enemies above and below. While Nermesa was not so sure the knight had used it, certainly someone might