I’d blame the bards for it, if I could. It would be easy to say that they never let the truth get in the way of a marvelous story, but my life’s tale is more complicated than that. Whose is not?Though the bards I’ve known tell no lies, sometimes they will craft their songs without knowing all the...
Sooner or later, my disappearance would be discovered and then Lord Artegal would send out search parties. He would probably lead the one headed to Connacht. It wouldn’t do to have some less seasoned man present himself to Father saying, “Greetings, Lord Eochu. Is your daughter Maeve here? We see...
I was tired in body and soul from a day spent searching every part of the sweet-natured giant’s old campsite. Daimu was still somewhere out there in the surrounding forest, moving in gradually widening circles, seeking his uncle’s bones. We had found nothing, not even the smallest glimmer of a wh...
The mat on which I slept took up most of the space, and a small, square table occupied what little was left. A few pieces of clothing were stuffed into a small box kept beneath the table, though most of my garments remained in Lady Aithra’s room. She was overseeing preparations for the wedding, w...
The Kamenskys’ apartment was spotless, and so were the homes of most of the other tenants in their building, but the building itself had its seedy corners and neglected areas. The six-story brick structure where Rachel lived was spick-and-span, from the well-swept sidewalk out front all the way u...
It’s not. It’s a cave, an ordinary cave, not something made by human hands, not a sacred place, not consecrated to the dead.It was the same recitation I made to myself every night since we’d come here, to a place so close to the great valley of tombs that it might as well have been a part of that...
I regained my feet and found myself again face to face with Iolaus. “Thank you, sir,” I said. “I got separated from my master in the woods. What’s happening? Do we have the boar?” He grimaced. “That depends on if you ask the boar or the hunters. He’s got his back to the wall and there’s no way he...
I didn’t go back to the fields during that time. That was her decision. She announced it to me the next morning as we ate our breakfast.“Yesterday you saw your mother, and the meeting upset you. Next time, she might be the one whose heart would suffer for it. Also, if you return, there is the cha...
All her armor except the mail shirt she wore was bound onto it and all her weapons too, except the sword whose familiar weight hung from her waist.The sun beat down with merciless late-summer strength, turning the packed dirt of the high road to a white blaze before her. Little dry puffs rose aro...
I enjoyed talking with Amenophis very much, and our conversations ranged over everything from the latest palace rumor to the news from other kingdoms allied to the Black Land to the problems the royal baboon-keeper was having training his newest animals to pick dates from the tallest palm trees. ...