Free The Dark Lord by Thomas Harlan Page A

hearing the smirk in Thyatis' voice. "Stealing from the Emperor isn't a crime..."

CHAPTER FIVE
The Pyrenees, The Western Roman Province of Narbonensis
    Rain drummed on mossy stone, sluicing down out of a leaden sky. Clouds clung to the mountainside, slowly rolling across the crest of a narrow ridge. Among massive granite boulders, dwarf trees clung to the slope, glossy green leaves pointing downhill. A path wound among the stones, itself a tiny running stream as the sky rumbled and cracked with distant thunder.
    A figure appeared out of the mist, head bent, a thin white hand gripping a tall bone-colored staff. Water beaded from a heavy woolen cowl and the woman climbed slowly, exhausted by the steep ascent from the valley floor. Mud beaded on her bare white feet, slipping away from the skin like oil separating from water. The path ended, opening out onto a narrow way surfaced with fitted stones. Fallen limbs and broken stones lay scattered across the road; grass, flowers and long-rooted shrubs grew in cracks between the slabs. No one had dared use the road up the mountain in a long time.
    The sky grumbled, flashing intermittently with muted silver light. On the road, the woman made better time, striding wearily along, her will refusing to admit exhaustion, flat tendrils of sleek wine-red hair peeking out from under the hood of her robe.
    The road wound around the shoulder of the mountain, rising steeply, then twisted back like a snake and ended in a looming, dark gate of scarred and blackened stone. The peak itself ended in a massive wall of granite and shale rising up into the mist. Once, a heavy gate closed the tunnel mouth, but the portal had been torn away long ago and hurled down the mountainside in anger. Without a pause, the woman strode into the passage, deftly stepping over and around blocks of fallen masonry and a scattering of ancient, rusted metal.
    "Children!" The woman's tired voice whispered through the tiny yard beyond the gate passage. Slit windows stared mournfully down into the court. Blooming roses and dark green ivy climbed the walls, slowly eating away at the mortar. A ramp of steps led up onto a battlement on the left and another tunnel opened out to the right. "Attend me!"
    The woman grimaced, dried rose-petal lips sliding into a frown. Where are the wretched creatures?
    Standing in the shelter of the tunnel mouth, she flipped back her hood, revealing an elegant pale neck and colorless eyes. Despite the humidity, her hair did not tangle or run riot, but swept behind her head and over her shoulders like a bird's wing.
    "If you do not come out to greet your Queen," she said, voice rising and carrying over muted thunder, "I shall come into this house and root you out, each and every one."
    The soft padding of feet whispered out of the nearby tunnel. Yellow eyes flickered in the darkness, first one, then a dozen. A musky smell suffused the air and the Queen nodded, tucking the staff under one arm. "Come here, children, let me see you."
    Something like a wolf, but with a longer, rangier body and larger head loped out of the tunnel and sniffed the Queen's feet. She smiled, teeth white in the dim light, and the creature whined and licked at her hands. Three more of the creatures slunk out of the tunnel, heads low, tails dragging on the cobblestones. The Queen laughed and pulled their ears and whispered to them, growling deep in her throat. At the sound—a merry greeting in their rough language—men and women crept out of the tunnel. Their hair was long and sleek, their tunics and shirts and woolen trousers simple and unadorned. They too bowed before the Queen.
    "You are a ragged lot," she said, looking them over with a sharp eye. Rain continued to spatter out of the sky, but she ignored the soft mist beading on her porcelain skin as she went among her children. With care, the Queen examined their teeth, poked a long blood-red nail into their ears checking for mites, ran fine thin hands over their pelts,