Shattered Shields - eARC Read Online Free Page B

pocket of his tunic and pull something out.
    He laid it upon the dead Toth’s thorax, then grunted and pointed at it meaningfully. By the light thrown from the fiery staff, King Harrill saw a cracked shell.
    “By the powers,” King Harrill said, “the damned creatures have laid eggs!”
    The pieces came together for him then—the reason the Toth had wiped out this city, and why so few had invaded. Now he understood why the Toth had refused to leave the ruins at Moss End.
    Avahn demanded of Sir Pwyrthen, who had some skill as a surgeon, “Sew up the Woguld’s wounds. I think his ribs are broken.”
    Indeed, Dval now squatted beside the dead Toth, admiring his handiwork, as if there were nothing special about it.
    * * *
    By dawn, King Harrill’s men found the Toth’s nest, hidden on a sunny sandbar near the river, high on the bank. Two thousand eggs they shattered that day, and then combed the riverbank looking for more, just in case. Only a few eggs were kept whole, for King Harrill insisted that he learn how long a Toth took to hatch.
    So Avahn found herself that afternoon, riding across fields of barren ash toward the Courts of Tide, its magnificent towers rising up from islands in the distant sea. The setting sun shone golden-red upon them, making them look like beaten copper, while ash swirled at their feet.
    So much destruction, she realized, and from so few Toth. They never even bothered to land their ships.
    Her father had sent men ahead to warn his knights, to warn the kingdom, to search everywhere for the monsters’ eggs. Fortunately, they were huge and easy to track, and she dared believe that they’d find them all.
    As she rode, she glanced over at Dval, slumped in his saddle, his green robe pulled over his face. He clutched at his mount blindly, as if in pain.
    “So, Father,” she said at last. “Can I keep him?”
    King Harrill glanced at the boy. “There are some honors that cannot be given,” he said wearily. “They must be won.” Then, as his weary scowl transformed into a thin-lipped smile, she realized that she had won. “He saved you twice, I suspect, and he may well have saved our kingdom. I’ll let him train as a guard, and be glad of it.”
    Avahn’s heart seemed to soar, and she smiled up at her father, but his face became haggard and drawn, and he warned, “Don’t become too attached. His training must be hard, if it is to be of any worth. He cannot be coddled. You will be forbidden to show him any favor. You will not be allowed to speak to him, or speak of him. Do not even think of him. He is a soldier, a shield. In times like those that are to come, such shields will be easily shattered.”
    Avahn could only hope.

The Fixed Stars
    An October Daye Story
    Seanan McGuire
    The bay trees in our country are all wither’d
    And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven.
    —William Shakespeare, King Richard II

    The Castle Brocéliande, Albion, 572

    The ravens that dipped and wove their arcane patterns in the sky above the castle walls were out in full force, their black wings painting prophecy across the dusky purple sky. I wanted to look away, leaving those transitory etchings unread, but I could not force my eyes to close. Too much death and too much dying were scrawled there, spelling themselves out one scavenger bird at a time.
    A footstep on the battlement behind me told me that I was no longer alone. I started to turn, and stopped as Michael’s voice rumbled, “No, sister. Stay as you are; I need your eyes to guide me.”
    “Guide you to what, a hard fall to the rocks below?” But I smiled and did not turn. Michael was the youngest of my brothers in those days, still feeling out his place in the hierarchy of our strange family. His antlers were only as broad as two hands splayed wide, and his parchment-pale eyes could almost seem to track motion across a room, even though they had not seen a single thing in the eighty years he had lived thus far in Faerie. All his sight was