Free Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima Page A

would ever detect. It helped that green magic was considered witchery in Arden, and so was forbidden.
    Even if his poisons were identified, it was always too late, anyway. Once he got to someone, they were alreadydead. By then, young Adam Freeman would be on his way somewhere else, trailing death and misery in his wake.
    Often it was one of the nobility—perhaps a thane who supported the king. It might be a commander or a general, or a blackbird who was known to be especially cruel. Sometimes an entire column of mercenaries took sick and were unable to march north for weeks. The Summer Sickness, they called it, guessing that it might be caused by mosquitoes.
    An encampment of recruits would break out with pustules that drove them absolutely mad with itching. Or a severe dysentery that had them in the privy for days. That was attributed to bad water. When all else failed, Adrian resorted to his array of blades. He preferred to avoid bloodshed, because that left no doubt that there’d been an enemy in their midst.
    He rarely took the life of a line soldier if it could be avoided, since many were unwilling recruits from the captive realms. It wouldn’t make much of a difference strategically, anyway. The king of Arden viewed them as expendable.
    He never targeted the horses, either. For one thing, it would draw attention to his work as a farrier. For another, he preferred horses to most people.
    â€œThis is not your usual hunting season,” Taliesin said.
    â€œI thought I’d try something new. In the summertime, the southerners I want to kill are all in the Fells, killingnortherners. In autumn, I might find them at home.”
    She finally turned to face him, shading her eyes against the declining sun. The sun was at his back, and his long shadow slanted across the rows. “You’ve grown so tall, Mageling, in these four years,” she said, as if she hadn’t really looked at him for a while. “And handsome. Are you taller than your father was?”
    â€œI don’t know. It’s hard for me to remember now.” That was a lie. He remembered—exactly—the measure of his father’s arm around his shoulders, the distance between them when he leaned down to speak at Ash’s level, even the scent of him—leather and sweat and fresh mountain air.
    â€œOther young men your age come to me seeking love potions.” She looked him up and down again. “I suppose you’re not in need of those.”
    â€œNo,” he said, shifting from foot to foot. Taliesin still had the power to put him off balance. She was the closest he’d had to a mother since coming south. A mother who was nobody’s fool.
    â€œQuit fondling that jinxpiece,” Taliesin snapped. “It makes me edgy.” Witches had no use for amulets. She wiped sweat from her brow with her forearm, leaving a smear of dirt, then tossed a digging stick at him and pointed with her fork. “Here. Finish that row.”
    Idle hands made her edgy, too. Ash squatted next to her. He was in a hurry, but he knew better than to rush hislongtime teacher. There was a price to be paid for access to Taliesin’s vast inventory of plants and expertise in poisons.
    â€œWhere are you off to this time?” Taliesin said. She seemed to have a talent for breaking into his black moods.
    â€œMe? I’ll be in the Southern Islands, studying in the library of the arcane and collecting herbs for the healing halls.”
    â€œWhere will you be, really?”
    â€œIt’s better if you don’t know,” Ash said. Though she’d never admit it, he knew that she worried whenever he was away.
    â€œThey killed your father, and now you’re killing them. What makes you different from them?”
    It was part of their bargain that he would listen to these lectures now and then.
    â€œThey fired the first bolt,” Ash said. “If they’d stayed in the south and left us alone,