Free The Towers of the Sunset by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page A

knees.
    After all his uneven progress, he arrives, breathing hard, on a level stretch. Less than two dozen cubits away is the road he had observed from the hills behind him. Creslin sets down the skis and ponders.
    He first strips off the leather thongs, winds them into a ball, and places them in his pack. Then he hides the skis in a deadfall, for they would be a giveaway. The sword he leaves in the scabbard strapped across the pack.
    Less than ten cubits from the road, he stands in snow halfway to his knees, snow that would have melted were it not shaded by the pines. Terwhit . . . terwhit.
    The call of a bird he does not know, for there are few birds indeed upon the Roof of the World, whispers through the bare branches of the oaks and the green needles of the pines.
    Terwhit ...
    With the gentle echo of the unseen bird still in his ears, he steps toward the road, if he dares to call it a road-more like two clay tracks surrounding a center space of dirty white. The clay lanes represent the sun's light upon the two wagon wheel tracks, melting them outward until each is nearly a cubit wide. The center snow is marked with irregular holes remaining from earlier footprints.
    Creslin studies the road and the prints-just a single wagon and one rider, perhaps a pair of travelers walking, all of them heading to the west several days ago.
    At least the day is pleasant, and walking on the cold and packed clay of the road will be a welcome change from slogging through the damp snow of the lesser mountains. He does miss the crisp cold of the Roof of the World and the easier strides across dry power.
    "Do you?" he asks himself, recalling the powder-filled pits he had tumbled into. "Maybe not everything ..." He glances back along the winding road to the west. Nothing. His footsteps carry him from the snow that is little more than ankle-deep by the roadside onto the dark surface. Underfoot, the clay gives way, as if the mud is neither fully frozen nor completely loose.
    He turns to the east, the sun at his back, and stretches out his legs. After so much time on skis, it will be good to walk for a while. The novelty will pale quickly, he knows, especially as the sun stands low in the western sky.
    Are there any way stations on this road that should lead to Gallos? He does not know, nor does he know whether it would be wiser to use them or to avoid them. He does know that the coins in his belt pouch will not go far and that the heavy gold chain concealed within the belt itself is too valuable to display. Even a single link would betray his origin and make him a target. More of a target, he corrects himself.
    At least the guards have not reached this far east. Not yet.
     
     
    XVII
     
    CLUNUNNNG . . . CLUNNGGG . . .
    The impact of hammer and heavy steel chisel on cold iron echoes through the near-deserted smithy.
    A red-haired woman kneels on the stone pavement, one wrist extended onto the anvil.
    "That's one, your grace." The smith holds the heavy hammer and glances from the woman in traveling woolens kneeling before the anvil to the blond woman wearing the white of the Tyrant.
    "Go ahead. Strike the other," orders Ryessa.
    The kneeling woman extends her other wrist to the iron, her lips tightly pressed together.
    "As you wish, your grace." But the smith shakes her head. The hammer falls.
    "Thank you." As she rises, the redhead's words are addressed to the smith. She turns to the Tyrant. "And you also, sister."
    "An escort awaits you, Megaera."
    "An escort?"
    "To Montgren. I thought it would make your task somewhat easier. I prevailed upon the Duke-"
    "What did it cost you?" Megaera's fingers touch the heavy scars on her wrists, almost as if she cannot believe that the iron bonds are gone.
    "Enough." The Tyrant's tone is sardonic. "I hope you and your lover are worth it."
    "He's not my lover, and he never will be." The Tyrant shakes her head. "Who else could there be?"
    "You think that I intend to let you and Dylyss dictate my life? I may