Free Kingmaker's Sword (Rune Blades of Celi) by Ann Marston

idolized him. He was tall and strong, quick as a mountain cat. He always had time for me when I was a wee lad. He never minded me trailing along after him. You favour him a little, as I’ve said, but his eyes were grey as smoke, not brown. I was ten when he left the Clanhold. He said he wanted to see something of the world before he settled into the position of Master of Sword for the clan. When he came home three years later, he had Twyla with him. You were born three months after they came home. Leydon called you Kian after our grandfather.” He laughed with the memory. “You were a lusty wee bairn. Good lungs you had. Healthy and robust as a young stallion. I used to carry you around on my shoulders when you were two and three. You ran me ragged trying to keep up with you. By the time you were four, you showed a lot of promise with both a sword and a bow. Sturdy as an ash tree, with a good eye. Quick and graceful as your father with the sword.”
    I watched him, fascinated. It was a captivating story, but it was a story about people I didn’t know, people I had no recollection of. Cullin reached out and put a hand to my head. His fingers found the ridge of scar tissue behind my ear.
    “You have no idea at all who I’m talking about, do you, Kian?” he said gently.
    I shook my head. “No,” I said softly.
    “Because of this, I think,” he said and traced the scar with his blunt finger. “Do you know how you got it?”
    Again, I shook my head.
    He frowned and his eyes clouded. “You were almost seven. Twyla had been very quiet for a few weeks, then one day about two months before your name day, she told Leydon they had to take you to her father. To tell him he had a grandson. She said something about how you had to be presented in the shrine, and she owed at least that much to her father. So she and Leydon started out for Honandun. I went with them, along with a half dozen guards.” His voice trailed off and an expression of pain turned down the corners of his mouth.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    “We were attacked as we came out of the mountains,” he said quietly. “Bandits. More than a dozen of them. They came so quickly, we hadna much chance to defend ourselves. It was almost dark, and we were just beginning to set up camp. I remember seeing one of them knock you down, then something bashed me in the head.”
    His eyes were curiously glazed and blank as he paused for a moment. He wasn’t seeing me, nor was he seeing the orchard and the stable yard at the little inn. I merely waited in silence for him to continue.
    Finally, he shook himself like a dog shedding water. He glanced down at me. “When I woke up, the bandits were gone, and so were you. Almost everyone else was dead.” His fists clenched in his lap and he grimaced. “I found your mother. She was dead. I wept for her, Kian. It hadna been an easy death for her.”
    I remembered Rossah and shuddered, grateful he gave no details. I knew well enough what happened to a woman used by men little better than beasts.
    “And my father?” I asked quietly. “Your brother?”
    “I found Leydon still alive, but dying. Ah, Kian, he had taken so many wounds.... But he sold his life dearly, for all that. He took five or six bandits with him.” Cullin shook his head. “He told me he saw them take you away, and he made me swear I’d find you and either take you back to the Clanhold, or see you home.”
    “See me home?” I repeated, unfamiliar with the expression. From the way he used it, it meant something different from what just the words suggested.
    “A clan thing,” he said softly. “I promised him. And when he died shortly after that, I saw him home, too.”
    I sat quietly for a moment, trying to assimilate all he had said. It was too much. It made my head whirl. I reached up unconsciously and touched the scar hidden by my hair. “I don’t remember at all,” I whispered.
    “Aye, well,” he said. “I’ve heard of a blow to the head doing