Dragon Blood-Hurog 2 Read Online Free Page A

Oreg, but they set him at a distance due the Wizard of Hurog. Oreg's dark hair made him stick out among the fair-haired Shavigmen, but his purple-blue eyes, duplicates of Tosten's, proclaimed him a Hurog born and bred. In the past few years, unbound by the spells that had held him, he'd begun to look more like a man and less a boy, but he, like Tosten was slight
    of build. He didn't look like someone to be afraid of. Still less did he look like a man who had arisen from
    the dead.
    I'd told everyone that Oreg had been ensorcelled and that by killing him I'd broken the spell. They seemed to accept it and Oreg—but they gave him space when they could. Oreg held up his hand as he approached the hearth, and light reflected from his curved palm and lit the little house as if the roof had come off and allowed the sun into all the dark corners. He tossed the ball of
    light up and it hovered above him while he pulled the furs off of the woman to get a better look at her. In Oreg's light, her cheeks were flushed with fever and her eyes were sunken. But then, even at her best she had never been beautiful—not by conventional standards.
    "Tisala," I said, stunned.
    Oreg stopped his examination to peer with momentary interest at her face. "So it is," he agreed mildly.
    "Good thing they took her knife away from her."
    "Do you know her, my lord?" asked Atwater as if it surprised him not at all. He'd gone from thinking I was as brutal and irrational as my father to expecting miracles ever since that night last winter when I found his son.
    "Yes, I know her," I said. It didn't seem enough, so I added, "I fought with her at my back." And there wasn't a higher compliment any Shavigman could give.
    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Atwater nodded, content that his lord was still odd, worldly, and all-knowing. The last time I'd seen Tisala, her curly dark hair had been shorter than my own, but now it hung in lank tangles down to her shoulders, making her skin all the more white.
    Oreg's hands were gentle, but when they touched her left hand, her whole body stiffened and she moaned.
    "She's been tortured," he said matter-of-factly.
    I nodded. It was hard to miss: both hands, left worse than right, both feet. No telling what other damage had been done: She wore an old pair of trousers, patched and baggy, and a shirt whose arms were too short over the rest.
    "They hadn't had her long," he said at last. "She'll live, if the fever and the putrefaction don't kill her. But
    we ought to take her to the keep, where my medicines are."
    Magic, that meant. I'd told Oreg not to tell people exactly what he could do. He couldn't really cure her, but he could kill the infection and let her body heal on its own—which was more than any other mage I'd
    ever heard of could do. It would be safer for him if all of Shavig didn't start whispering about how powerful the Hurogmeten's wizard was. Better by far to avoid all notice so we didn't get another Kariarn
    looking for power.
    I took one of the larger furs and rolled Tisala in it. Then I scooped her up and stood, forgetting how low the ceilings were, so I rapped my head a good one.
    Atwater winced in sympathy.
    As soon as we were well away from the farm, my brother guided his horse next to mine and said,
    "What
    was Tisala doing here?"
    Oreg gave a snort of laughter. "Why do all strays end up at Ward's door?"
    "I don't know," I said. Had she been running to me? It would have seemed unlikely to me this morning—I hadn't seen her in a long time and had only known her briefly. I wouldn't even have thought I
    would have left much of an impression on her—I had been nineteen and full of myself, while she had been
    her father's right hand for several years. Moreover, I was nothing out of the ordinary—well, except for my size—while she was the only female warrior I knew of other than my aunt Stala, who served as my arms master.
    I looked down at her again. Undeniably she