Free The Dark Glory War by Michael A. Stackpole

of carpets had been overlapped to form the floor. Many had intricate designs on them—the sort of thing that came from Naliserro or Savarre—and the rest were plain. All were well worn. A long dining table complete with twelve chairs had been set up, but I noticed that all of them could be taken apart and broken down for easy storage and transport. An easel dominated one corner, and on it had been placed a board to which had been tacked a map of the area, with small pins stuck into it at the sites of the kills.
    The rather stark nature of the furnishings both did and did not surprise me. I knew, from having been at Norrington Manor, that Lord Norrington could afford the finest furnishings from anywhere in the world, so the simplicity and pure utility of these pieces suggested a tightfistedness on his part that I knew wasn’t true. By the same token, in the field, these furnishings were exactly what he needed. While he was a man who could enjoy the finer things of life, he let various situations dictate what he demanded.
    My little tent was very simply appointed, with a carpet rolled over the ground and three thick blankets folded on top of a small chest that I assumed held my new clothes. I pulled off my party costume and wrapped myself in one of the blankets. I used the other two to form a pillow, and despite it being mid-morning, I dropped immediately into a dreamless sleep.
    The sun hung straight overhead by the time I emerged from the tent. My new hunting leathers fit me better than Nay’s fit him. His were tight across the shoulders and through the arms, but he shrugged off the problem. We both grabbed a small loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, and an apple from the provisions table in the clearing, then joined the rest of the hunters. We all seated ourselves in a semicircle facing Lord Norrington and a wizened, stoop-shouldered old man with long white hair and enough knotted mage-braid hanging from his mask to let us know he was a magicker of considerable power.
    Lord Norrington waited until a few stragglers sat down, then addressed us. “We are here to hunt for frostclaws. We want to find them this afternoon, because while the sun is up we will have an advantage. In their native northern range, during the winter, there is very little sunlight available, so they have big eyes to gather in the light. Here and now the sunlight will be a bit more than they can bear, so we will be hunting for their lairs.”
    He reached down and lifted the skin from the temeryx we’d killed. “Frostclaws hunt in a pack, and packs are believed to be formed from a single clutch. All the frostclaws in a pack will be related to each other, and this will make finding them easier. Archmage Heslin will explain.”
    The old man shuffled forward and plucked a feather from the skin. “Blood knows blood. If you can see in the aether-realm, you can see the way the lines are mixed.” He squinted at us, enlarging one brown eye as he closed the other. “You and you, you’re cousins, and you and you are brothers, eh?”
    The huntsmen he pointed to with a crooked finger gasped in astonishment.
    The old man cackled gleefully. “The temeryx feather here is linked to those of its bloodkin, and I will be fixing feathers to show you the way to go after them.”
    One huntsman raised his hand. “Will you be enchanting our weapons to kill them?”
    “If such a spell existed, why would I need any of you here?” His riposte brought a ripple of laughter. Heslin waited for it to subside before he continued. “They won’t be easy to kill, but not hard for you, either. Finding them will be difficult, but I’ll see to that. Get yourselves fed and outfitted, then you’ll have your feather and go.”
    Norrington held a hand up and circled it. “Break into your groups, get yourselves armed, and then we move out. You have a quarter hour.”
    Two lesser mages joined Heslin and started to pluck feathers from the edges of the skin we’d harvested. Sandes walked over to the trio of us and