Read Online The Summer Palace by Lawrence Watt-Evans - Free Book Online Page B

friends,” Whistler said quietly.
    â€œYes,” Sword agreed. “Yes, he did—he ordered the deaths of two innocent women who never harmed him, who had both made thebest of unhappy lives. He killed them without provocation, simply because they were two of the Chosen and he could not be bothered to offer them any alternative. He never gave them a chance to surrender. He never tried to capture them alive. He just had them slaughtered.”
    For a moment the group fell silent. Then Fist said, “So you intend to kill him just for your own personal vengeance? Not because it’s your duty as one of the Chosen?”
    â€œOh, it’s my duty, as well,” Sword said. “It’s very convenient when duty and desire align, don’t you think? I don’t need to choose between them, I can serve both.”
    That provoked a round of smiles, and chattering bilingual agreement.
    The conversation reminded Sword, though, that he needed to devise a plan to kill the Wizard Lord. He had sought refuge among the Uplanders and he had found it here, but it was only temporary; in roughly another month and a half, when the
ara
migrated south and the first snow fell, the Clan of the Golden Spear would be making the journey down to Winterhome.
    He had three choices, as he saw it. He could continue to live among the Uplanders, accompany them down to Winterhome, live in their guesthouse there—and then what? Simply go on like that, hiding and skulking indefinitely? And what if the Wizard Lord’s soldiers searched the clan guesthouses? Run and hide again?
    Sword did not want to hide. He did want to kill Artil im Salthir for what he had done to the Speaker and the Seer. Poor Babble, constantly barraged by voices only she could hear, had never meant the Wizard Lord any harm. And the Seer, Azir shi Azir, had survived and escaped perhaps the most horrific childhood Sword had ever heard of, in the infamous hell-town of Bone Garden, only to be cut to pieces in the supposedly safe and peaceful streets of Winterhome. Sword wanted more than mere survival; he wanted retribution. If he accompanied the Uplanders down to Barokan for the winter, he wanted to have a plan ready, some way to get at the Wizard Lord and kill him.
    Or he could leave the clan before that, and return to Barokan onhis own. That path likewise led in two directions of its own—either finding another refuge, or making a bid to slay the Wizard Lord, presumably in the Winter Palace. Again, he had as yet no plan for getting at Artil during the winter.
    Or finally, he could remain in the Uplands when the clan left, and try to survive the winter up here. His goal in that case would be to be waiting in or near the Summer Palace when the Wizard Lord returned, to ambush him there and kill him while he had no magic protecting him.
    Sword had no interest in hiding indefinitely, either among the Uplanders or anywhere else. He wanted Artil dead. He dismissed the possibility of hiding, either among the Uplanders or on his own.
    He did know what he believed to be a relatively safe route into the Winter Palace, if he chose to attack the Wizard Lord there; the Thief had shown him a way up onto the roof, where he could smash in the windows overlooking the Wizard Lord’s throne room and drop down unexpectedly.
    The problems there were obvious. It was a long drop; if he lowered himself down a rope, that would give the guards time to stop him, and if he simply leapt, he was likely to break a leg or otherwise incapacitate himself before he could slay his foe.
    That assumed he
could
kill Artil; the Wizard Lord had plenty of magic at his command. He couldn’t use it directly against Sword—that was part of the magic of the Chosen, that they were themselves immune to most magic—but he could use it around anything and anyone
around
Sword. That was one reason there were several Chosen, and not merely a Chosen Swordsman: The Wizard Lord had powerful