Read Online Wrath Of The Medusa (Book 2) by T.O. Munro - Free Book Online Page A

My step-father he was killed by an orc, but my real father might be dead too.”
    “ Bishop Udecht? He’s not dead.”
    “How can you be sure?”
    Quintala gave her a quizzical look.  “Our royal leader carries not just the mark of the Helm and the sword of the father, she carries also the Royal Ankh.  Its lustrous gem tracks the life of the royal heir.  Improbable as it might seem, that heir is her uncle and your father the philandering Bishop Udecht.  If he had died the Ankh would have told her.”
    “How? Does it speak?”
    “No, a flash of heat and light.   It is not a signal that can be easily mistaken.”
    “She might not have told me.”
    The half-elf opened her mouth to speak and then changed her mind.  In the pause Hepdida sprang a question.  “Was your father a good man, Quintala?”
    The S eneschal shrugged.  “I think he was a good man, he tried to do right by me for a short handful of decades before the Goddess took him. I watched him age and wither, lit the funeral pyre myself. What mayflies you humans are.”
    “I had two fathers, I’m not sure either of them was good.”
    “Goodness is over-rated, come we have a watch to keep.”  The half-elf turned back to her scanning of the river bed, her eyes alert her body still.  Hepdida settled stiffly beside her.

***
    “Easy your reverence, easy does it. These fellows have a light touch on their bowstrings.”
    Udecht was quite aware of his per il without Haselrig’s warning.  Four outlander guards stood in the corners of the room, bows drawn with arrows trained on the Bishop’s much shrunken frame.  Haselrig sat opposite him at the work bench, leaning forward curious but hesitant.
    The stimulus for this excess of caution was the artefact Udecht held in his hands, the Great Helm of Eadran the Vanquisher.  All knew that Udecht dare not wear the object.  His royal blood gave him some immunity from the enduring spells of protection which the Vanquisher had cast, sufficient to let him handle the Helm.  But should he try to usurp the rightful monarch by wearing it, he would be destroyed as his elder brother the traitor Prince Xander had been destroyed.
    However, all present had seen the blistering effect of the Helm when it came into contact with the Vanquisher’s enemies, the blasts of energy which could kill those close and stun those far away.  So no chances were to be taken as the Bishop manoeuvred the object to enable the antiquary’s closer inspection.
    “I’m hardly likely to throw this at you,” Udecht muttered glancing around at the taut bowstrings and the even tauter archers.
    “Even so, your reverence, set it down on the bench here.  There’s a few orcs now drinking in the eternal feasting halls that are telling a tale of how a mad bishop clubbed them into the afterlife with an old basinet.”
    “That was simply self-defenc e.”   Udecht set the Helm down on its back in the middle of the bench. It rolled a little to one side on the curved tail plate.  The Bishop reached forward instinctively to steady the item, but thought better of it with his fingers still an inch or so short of the metal.  There was a whisper of exhaled tension, and a creaking of slackened bowstrings around the room.   
    “It may have been self-defence, but it was in the midst of a prisoner’s escape attempt.” Haselrig reminded him as he lowered his head to peer more closely inside the Helm.  “Who’s to say you will not try to repeat the artifice?”
    Udecht shook the chain on his wrist drawing a complimentary rattle from the other end around the antiquary’s arm.  “I would be a fool to try to kill you, Haselrig, and land myself chained to a dead weight.”
    “ Sound logic indeed, but there has been much lack of wisdom in your actions to date, your reverence.  Such folly would not be out of recent character for you.”
    “Says the man who betrayed an entire nation so he could become slave to an undead abomination.  I’ll take