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Back The Invisible Ring Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgements
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. About the Author

“Lord Krelis.”

Breathing hard, Krelis stepped away from the straw man and stared at his second-in-command.

Something slithered in the depths of Maryk’s eyes as he regarded the figure tied to the whipping posts.

“He was a difficult slave,” Maryk said carefully, lifting his voice at the end to make it almost a question.

Puzzled, Krelis looked at the straw man.

He saw the blood. Smelled the bowel. And couldn’t remember the exact moment he’d exchanged the straw practice figure for a living man.

“I’ll take care of it,” Maryk said quietly. “Get cleaned up.”

Krelis dropped the knife and walked away, stumbling a little now that the fury was gone. Stumbling a little, and feeling more than a little sick, because the something in Maryk’s eyes was pity.

SEVENTEEN

SEVENTEEN

021

“Well?” Jared asked when Blaed met him where the main road forked with a stony track.

Blaed patted the sweating mare’s neck, then lengthened the reins to give her a chance to stretch her back.

“I didn’t see any sign of riders passing down that track,” Blaed said cautiously, “but it’s stony ground.” Then he took a deep breath and huffed it out. “Hell’s fire, Jared, I’m not a trained guard. I can handle a knife, and I know how to fight with Craft, but I could have looked at something obvious and not known it. The track does seem to run straight north. It’s wide enough to accommodate the wagon, although there’s a stretch that looks like it was cut out of the rock. No maneuvering room there.”

“So once we’re in that stretch, we’re committed to going forward.”

Blaed nodded.

Jared rubbed his thumb over the saddle horn. “Anything else?”

“There’s a large nest of viper rats among the boulders. I didn’t see them, but I heard them.”

Jared smiled grimly. “If we lock the boys in the wagon, we just might avoid having one of them get bit.”

Blaed waited. “Well?”

Jared looked back up the road he’d spent the past hour scouting, probing. “I found signs of a large group of riders having come this way recently. A day ago. Maybe two. But I didn’t find them.”

Blaed rubbed his neck. “A Red probe can cover a lot of ground.”

“And a Black Widow can spin a web that would defeat that probe.”

An uncomfortable silence settled between them.

The four of them had gathered inside the wagon late last night. During the talking and planning, a lot of things had been revealed.

Lia had told Thera and Blaed the reasons the “Gray Lady” had gone to Raej one last time. She’d told them about the wrongness she had felt and about the warning note that had sent them fleeing cross-country.

But she didn’t tell them why she hadn’t been able to buy passage on a second Coach.