Read in the Realm of the Gods Online Free

  CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1: Skinners

Chapter 2: Meetings with Gods

Chapter three: Dreams

Chapter four: Travelers

Chapter 5: The Span

Affiliate six: Chess Game

Chapter 7: Falling

Affiliate viii: Dragonlands

Chapter ix: The Battle of Legann

Affiliate 10: Judgments

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

To Claire Smith and Margaret Turner,

who teach me that heroism includes facing Sorrows each and

every day with courage, sense of humor,

and practicality

PROLOGUE

A magical barrier had separated the realms of the gods from the mortal realms for over four hundred years. While information technology stood, mortals were safe from the legendary creatures known equally immortals, then named because, unless they were slain, they lived forever. Giants, Stormwings, griffins, basilisks, tauroses, Coldfangs, ogres, centaurs, winged horses, unicorns: In fourth dimension, all became the stuff of children's tales, or the concern of scholars who explored the records of times long gone.

In the 8th year of the reign of Jonathan and Thayet of Tortall, mages in Carthak establish the long-lost spells that were the keys to gates into the Divine Realms. Ozorne, the Carthaki emperor, turned those spells to his own utilise. His agents opened gates into other kingdoms, freeing immortals to weaken Carthak's enemies for later conquest. Fifty-fifty those immortals who were peaceful, or indifferent to human affairs, created panic and confusion wherever they went. Gate after gate was opened. No thought was spared apropos the long-term effects on the barrier.

In the autumn of the thirteenth year of Their Majesties' rule, Ozorne'due south swell plan came to a halt. In the middle of peace talks with Tortall—whose agents had revealed his involvement in the current troubles of his neighbors—Emperor Ozorne fabricated a final try to regain his advantage. He ignored omens that proclaimed the gods were most displeased with his stewardship of his kingdom. For his pains, he was turned into a Stormwing and barred from human being rule. His nephew took the throne; the gate spells were destroyed. By that time, however, the barrier had been stretched in a chiliad places to cover the holes made by the magical gates. Its ability flickered like a guttering candle.

At the dawn of the Winter Solstice, the shortest mean solar day of the year, all those with any magic—Gift, immortal, and wild—woke suddenly, laboring to hear something that was not a sound. In Tortall, Numair Salmalín, one of the earth'south neat mages, sabbatum up in bed, pouring sweat. Though he could non encounter them, he knew what all the other mages in the palace and city were doing. The rex, awake and at piece of work in his study, knocked his chair over when he jumped to his feet. Harailt of Aili, dean of the royal university, flailed in bed and brutal out with a thud. Gareth the Elder of Naxen pressed a hand to his laboring centre; Kuri Taylor swayed on her feet, half fainting. Even those with wild magic registered on Numair'south senses. Onua of the Queen'due south Riders jumped out of her dawn bath, shrieking a Thou'miri war cry. Stefan Groomsman dropped out of his loft, landing safely on bales of hay while the horses who loved him whickered in business organization.

And Daine, Numair'due south teenage friend and ally of the last 3 years, saturday upwards in her bed-nest of cats, dragon, marmosets, martens, and dogs, eyes broad in the gloom, soft lips parted. The young dragon Skysong trilled without stopping, her voice spreading in a series of rippling pools, before long to reach and fill up the palace itself.

"Kit, hush," Numair heard Daine say, though the daughter didn't endeavor to enforce the lodge. "Numair, what is it?"

He didn't question her knowing that he could hear what she'd said, in spite of hundreds of yards and a number of buildings between them, whatsoever more than she questioned it. In that moment, equally the sun climbed over the horizon, any wall seemed vague and ghostly. "Information technology'south the barrier," he replied softly, but she heard every word. "The bulwark between the realms. Information technology's—gone. Evaporated."

He could feel her blink, equally if those long, dark lashes of hers touched his cheek. All of a sudden he learned something that he'd never considered before. For a cursory moment, that fresh noesis erased even his sense of magical calamity.

"The immortals—they'll be on us like a ton of bricks," she said, her vocalization matter-of-fact. "I'd best become up."

ONE

SKINNERS

The Stormwing sat on a low wooden perch like a king on his throne. All around him torches flickered; men spoke quietly as they prepared the evening meal. He was a animal of bad dreams, a behemothic bird with the caput and breast of a human being. As he moved, his steel feathers and claws clicked softly. For one of his kind, he was unusually make clean. His reddish brownish hair had one time been dressed in thin braids, simply many had unraveled. His confront, with its business firm oral fissure and large, amber eyes, had once been bonny, merely hate deepened the lines at oral fissure and eyes. Dangling around his neck was a twisted, burnished lump of stone that shimmered in the torchlight.

Now he stared intently at a pool of darkness on the ground before him. An image grew in the inky depths. In it, a tall, swarthy homo turned the reins of his blackness-and-white spotted gelding over to a young hostler. Beside him, a girl—a young woman, really—lifted saddlebags from the dorsum of a sturdy gray pony. When the hostler reached for her reins, the mare's ears went apartment; lips curled abroad from teeth.

"Cloud, get out exist," ordered the girl. She spoke Common, the master language of the Eastern and Southern lands, with only a faint accent, the concluding trace of her origins in the mountains of Galla. "Information technology's besides tardily for you to exist at your tricks."

The mare sighed audibly, as if she agreed. The hostler took her reins carefully, and led mare and gelding away. Grin, the girl slung the bags over her shoulder.

She is lovely, thought the Stormwing who had once been Emperor Ozorne of Carthak. The boys must swarm effectually her at present, seeing the promise of that soft mouth, and ignoring the stubborn chin. Or at least, he amended his own thought, the ones with the courage to arroyo a girl so different from others. Boys who don't heed that she converses with passing animals, not caring that only half the conversation tin be heard by two-leggers. Such a brave boy—or homo—would try to drown himself in those blueish-greyness eyes, with their extravagant eyelashes.

Ozorne the Stormwing smiled. It was a pity that, dissimilar most girls of xvi, she would not make a charm this Midsummer'south Day to attract her truthful dearest. On the holiday, 2 days hence, she—and her lanky companion—would be expressionless. There would be no lovers, no future married man, for Veralidaine Sarrasri, merely as there would exist no more cabalistic discoveries for Numair Salmalín, Ozorne's one-fourth dimension friend.

"I desire the box," he said, never looking away from the nighttime pool.

Two new arrivals entered the epitome in the pool. One was an immortal, a basilisk. Over seven anxiety alpine, sparse and fragile-looking, he resembled a giant lizard who had decided to walk on his hind legs. His optics were calm and gray, set in beaded skin the colour of a thundercloud. In 1 manus he bore his long tail equally a lady might carry the railroad train to her gown.

The other newcomer rode in a pouch made of a fold of skin on the basilisk'southward stomach. Alert, she surveyed everything effectually her, fascination in her large eyes with their slit pupils. A young dragon, she was small-scale—only two anxiety long, with an extra twelve inches of tail—and bore little resemblance to the adults of her kind. They reached twenty feet in length past midadolescence, after their 10th century of life.

"Numair! Daine! Tkaa, and Kitten—welcome!" A tall, black-haired human with a close-cropped beard, wearing blueish linen and white silk, approached the new arrivals, holding out a hand. The swarthy human being gripped it in his own with a smile. Every bit the immature dragon chirped a greeting, the basilisk and the girl bowed. Jonathan of Conté, male monarch of Tortall, put an arm effectually mage and

daughter and led them away, saying, "Tin can yous assist us with these wyverns?" Basilisk and dragon brought up the rear.

Something tapped the Stormwing'due south side. A ball of shadow was there, invisible in the half-light except where information technology had wrapped smoky tendrils effectually a pocket-size fe box. The Stormwing brushed the latch with a steel claw; the height flipped back. Inside lay five small, lumpy, flesh-colored balls. They wriggled slightly as he watched.

"Patience," he said. "It is nigh time. You lot must try to make your mistress proud."

Mortals approached from the camp. They stopped on the far edge of the Stormwing's dark puddle; the paradigm in it vanished. Two were Copper Islanders. They were dressed in the soft boots, flowing breeches, and long overtunics worn by their navy, the elderberry with a copper breastplate showing a jaguar leaping free of a wave, the younger with a obviously breastplate. The third man, a Scanran shaman-mage, was as much their opposite as anyone could be. His shaggy blond mane and beard were a crude dissimilarity to the greased, complex loops of the Islanders' blackness pilus. Hot though it was, he wore a bearskin cape over his stained tunic and leggings, but never sweated. Few people e'er looked at his apparel: All optics were drawn to the large ruby ready in the empty socket of one eye. The other eye glittered with cold amusement at his companions.

"Still watching Salmalín and the girl?" asked the senior Islander. "My king did not send us for your private revenge. We are hither to boodle. The central cities of Tortall are far richer prizes than this ane."

"You lot volition have your richer prizes," Ozorne said coldly, "afterwards Legann falls."

"It volition take all summertime to break Legann," argued the Islander. "I desire to reunite my fleet and strike Port Caynn at present! Unless your spies take lied —"

"My agents can no more lie than they can unmake themselves," replied the Stormwing coldly.

"Then an set on from my fleet at full strength will take port and capital! I want to do information technology now, before aid comes from the Yamani Islands!"

Ozorne's amber eyes glittered coldly. "Your rex told yous to heed my instructions."

"My king is not here. He cannot run across that you forced u.s.a. into a fruitless siege but to lure a common-born man and maid into a trap! I—"

The Stormwing reached out a wing to bespeak at the aroused Islander. The black pool on the ground hurled itself into the air. Settling over the human'southward head and shoulders, information technology plugged his eyes, ears, olfactory organ, and mouth. He thrashed, ripping at the puddle. It reshaped itself abroad from his clawing hands, flowing until it pinned his arms against his sides. The onlookers could hear his muffled screams.

When the human's thrashing ended, Ozorne looked at the remaining Islander. "Take yous questions for me?"

The younger man shook his head. Aerosol of sweat flew from him.

"Consider yourself promoted. Bury that," the Stormwing ordered, significant the dead human. He looked at the Scanran shaman-mage. "What exercise you lot say, Inar Hadensra?"

The man grinned. Crimson sparks flashed in his ruby eye. "My masters sent me to meet that Tortall is stretched thin," he said in a cracked voice. "Where our forces go is no affair, so long as this bountiful realm is weak as a kitten in the spring."

"Wise," Ozorne remarked with a shrug of contempt.

Fire blazed out of the ruby, searing Ozorne's eyes. He covered his face with his wings, sweat pouring from his living flesh, but the agony went on, and on. A harsh phonation whispered, "Remember that you are no longer emperor of Carthak. Have care how you lot address me." The pain twisted and went icy, chilling Ozorne from elevation to toe. Each identify where his flesh mixed with steel burned white-hot with cold. "The power for which I plucked one center out of my own head is enough to defeat the magic of a Stormwing, even ane then tricky as yous."

When Ozorne's vision cleared, he was alone with the dark puddle on the ground, and the shadow adjacent to him. "I'll gut you lot for that, Inar," he whispered, looking at the box. "Just not before I settle my score with Veralidaine and the onetime Arram Draper." Grabbing his fe box in one claw, he took off, flapping clumsily into the dark heaven.

Two days afterward, the girl and the man who had drawn Ozorne'southward attending hovered over a cot in a baby-sit tower at Port Legann. Their eyes were locked on the small, blueish-white class curled up in a tight ball at the cot'due south center. The dragon's young wings were clenched tight on either side of her backbone. The tall grayness basilisk Tkaa was there besides, gazing through a window at the courtyard beneath.

"I don't like her color," Daine said. "She's never been that shade before. Pale blueish, aye, but—going white forth with the blue? It's every bit if she's turning into a ghost."

"She is weary," replied the basilisk, turning away from his view. "For a dragon as immature as Skysong, the endeavour of will required to send a wyvern virtually his business is tiring. She will exist fine when she awakes."

"What if the wyverns return earlier then?" Numair Salmalín showed the effects of the jump'southward fighting more than than Daine or Tkaa. As well many nights with little or no sleep had etched creases effectually his total, sensitive mouth and at the corners of his nighttime optics. For all that he was only xxx, at that place were ane or two white hairs in his crisp, black mane of hair. "The male monarch was—unpleased—when I attempted to fight them last fourth dimension."

Daine smiled. Unpleased described Rex Jonathan's reaction to Numair'due south employ of his magical Gift on wyverns besides as cakewalk described a hurricane. "You were ordered to keep your strength in reserve," she reminded him. "Archers can exercise for wyverns as well every bit you lot, and there might come something archers can't fight. And so he'll need you."

"The wyverns should not return for at to the lowest degree a day," the basilisk added. "They too used up their strength, to defy a dragon'southward command for as long equally they did."

"I tin can't believe they ran." Daine pushed her tumble of smoky brown curls away from her face. "She's not even three years former." She and Kitten had risen at sunrise to handle the attacking wyverns; there had been no time to pin upwardly her hair, or even to rummage it well. With a sigh, she picked upward her brush and began to drag it through her curls.

Numair watched her from his position next to the sleeping dragon. He could run across weariness in Daine'southward blueish-gray eyes. The two of them had been in motion since the bound thaws, when Tortall's foreign enemies—an alliance of Copper Islanders, Carthaki rebels, Scanran raiders, and untold immortals—had struck the northern border, western declension, and a hundred points within the realm. With the wild magic that enabled Daine to ask the animals and birds of Tortall to fight the invaders, Kitten'due south dragon power, Tkaa'south ability to plow whatever who vexed him to rock, and Numair'southward own dandy magical Gift, they had managed time afterwards fourth dimension in the last twelve weeks to stave off disaster.

Port Legann was their most recent terminate; the four had ridden all night to reach the rex. Remembering that ride, only 2 days agone, Numair wondered how much more of this pace they would be able to stand.

The rest of the state was in petty better shape. "Our truthful allies are pressed to the wall," Male monarch Jonathan had told them over supper on the dark of their inflow. "Maren, Galla, Tyra—immortals hit them at the same time they striking united states of america. Emperor Kaddar does his best to guard our southern coast, but he's got a rebellion on his hands. The emperor of the Yamani Islands has promised to send a fleet, but even when it comes, it volition exist needed to relieve the siege on Port Caynn and on Corus."

Kitten stirred in her sleep, interrupting Numair'due south thoughts. "Shh," he murmured, stroking her. The dragon twisted so that her belly was one-half exposed, and quieted again.

A boy stuck his caput in the open door. "'Scuze me, m'lord Numair, Lady, um—um—sir." His confusion over the proper title for a basilisk was brief. "His Majesty needs y'all now, up on the coast wall, the northwest drum belfry. If y'all'll follow me?"

Now what? was in the looks Daine and Numair exchanged, before the girl remembered the dragon. "Kitten—"

"I will remain with Skysong," Tkaa assured her.

Daine stood on tiptoe to pat

the immortal's cheek. "You're fair wonderful, Tkaa." She and Numair followed the runner at a brisk walk.

A man, a commoner by his sweat-soaked dress, knelt at the rex'southward feet, drinking greedily from a tankard. Beside him was a tray with a pitcher and a plate of sliced bread, meat, and cheese. The king, in tunic and breeches of his favorite blue and a manifestly white shirt, leaned against the tower wall, reading a grimy canvas of parchment. In direct sunlight, Daine could see that Jonathan had as well caused some white threads in his black hair since the arrival of spring.

"This is Ulmer of Greenhall, a village southeast of here," the king said when he saw them. "He has ridden hard to reach united states, and his news is—unsettling."

Watching the man eat, Daine realized he didn't kneel but from reverence to his monarch—greyness with burnout, he was too weak to stand. Information technology seemed that all he could manage was to chew his food.

"'Unsettling'? I don't like the sound of that," Numair remarked.

"The village headman writes that five things came out of the Coastal Hills nearly Greenhall the day before yesterday. They kill what they bear upon—"

"Skin 'em, with magic," Ulmer interrupted. "Tin can't shoot 'em." He refilled his tankard with trembling hands. "I mean, y' can, but it does them no hurt. Swords, axes—" He shook his head. Realizing that he'd interrupted the king, he ducked his head. "Beggin' your pardon, Sire."

"It's all right, Ulmer." To Numair and Daine, Jonathan added, "Sir Hallec of Fief Nenan went to fight them at sunset yesterday. They killed him." He grimly rolled up the parchment. "Fortunately, the Skinners don't move after dark, and are irksome to start in the morning—they seem to need to warm up. The people of Greenhall have fled, but . . . there are rich fields in this part of the realm, as you know. We volition need those crops this winter." He looked at Numair, then at Daine. "I'm sorry. I know you're wearied, but—"

"You lot need your other mages to bargain with the enemy fleet, and the siege," Numair said. "This is why you've kept me in reserve, Your Majesty."

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