Free Ironcrown Moon by Julian May

the pocket of her apron and drove it into his throat just to the side of his windpipe, severing the great blood
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    May, Julian - Boreal Moon 2 - Ironcrown Moon vessels of the neck as she’d done many a time hunting, when putting a downed and wounded game animal out of its misery.
    Lukort uttered a bubbling croak and, staggering, caught her by the hair. She yanked the knife free and an amazing jet of blood shot from the wound, soaking the two of them as they fell in a tangle of flailing limbs. With him struggling beneath her, she stabbed him again, this time taking him between the ribs. She screamed, “Rusgann!”
    The maid rushed forward, a granite stone the size of a turnip in one hand. She used the other to pull Maudrayne aside and smashed the rock into Lukort’s crimson-smeared face. Kneeling beside him, she struck again and again and again until there was nothing human left of his features.
    “Stop,” Maudrayne said at last. “He’s dead, bled out like a stuck deer. But take care, his boy Vorgo is coming back in the little boat.”
    “Dad!” wailed the big youth, his lumpy countenance full of horror. He sat as though paralyzed in the coracle, which drifted in the shallows a dozen ells away. “Dad!”
    Maudrayne rose slowly to her feet, a figure tall and hideous with gore, holding the red-stained knife high. “Now for you!” she howled, wading into the sea. The youth stared at her in disbelief, then threw himself over the gunwale of the skin boat and began to thrash away frantically in the direction of the lugger.
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    Maudrayne took a few more steps in pursuit of the swimmer, shouting threats, while Rusgann splashed to retrieve the empty coracle, which she deftly flipped onto the sand.
    “Well done,” Maudrayne said. “Oh, well done, my dearest friend!” She came ashore.
    “Are you hurt, my lady?”
    “Scratches and bumps. The bastard didn’t get my necklace, but he left a smart welt trying to steal it.”
    Rusgann used her drenched apron as a wash-clout on both of them, removing the worst of the blood, until Maudrayne said, “Enough. We can finish cleaning ourselves on board the lugger.
    Poor Dyfrig must be terrified and we must go to him.”
    They launched the small craft and climbed into it, after helping themselves to Lukort Waterfall’s filleting knife and belt-wallet. A great mob of ravens and gulls had suddenly appeared and were wheeling in a cloud above the body, ready to begin feeding. The noise they made almost drowned out the sound of a distressed human voice.
    “It’s that poor dolt, Vorgo,” the maid said, “wanting us to pick him up. He knows he’ll never make it swimming to the fishing boat. The ice-cold seawater is sapping his strength.”
    “Go back to shore!” Maudrayne shouted to the youth. “Go back! If you strip off the soaked clothes draining your body heat, you may live.”
    After a momentary hesitation, the floundering swimmer changed direction and headed towards land.
    “The air’s warm,” Maudrayne said to Rusgann with a grim smile. “He knows the way to the steading, and he has his own pouch of magic trinkets to give him access to the sea-hag’s house.
    Mayhap Dobnelu will let him stay when she awakes. With us gone, she’ll need a new slavey.”
    three
    The prisoner in Zeth Abbey filled the hours of Solstice Eve with his usual quiet activities. In the early morning, before the sun made the enclosed garden too hot, he pulled weeds, and carried endless cans of water from the well in his strong arms so that the roses would not flag, and gathered whatever things Brother Herbalist had requested. Then, after eating solitary in his little apartment as became one
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    May, Julian - Boreal Moon 2 -