Free The War Of The Black Tower (Book 3) by Jack Conner

the protected feeling a father brings to his
children, or something else?
    “Tell me,” said Albrech, “are you
my son?”
    “None other.”
    “How can I be sure?”
    Wondering that himself ,
Baleron said nothing.
    “I was fooled before,” mused the
king, “and it cost me dearly. Then I failed to notice the telltale sign;
Rolenya did not sing. Would not sing. That was a distinctive characteristic the demon couldn’t
mimic. As for you, the only distinctive characteristic I can think of is a
penchant for fouling things up, the more profoundly the better.”
    “Father, I—”
    “ Don’t you call me that! How dare you!” Albrech leapt down from his
chair and stalked over to Baleron, knocking knights and sorcerers aside.
    “Lord, don’t!” advised Logran,
stepping between father and son, and forcibly halting the king with a hand on
the latter’s royal chest, just as, on a previous occasion, he had prevented the
king from embracing Rolenya. “It’s a demon. It has to be. There is no other
reason Gilgaroth would have arranged this but to loose another of his agents in
our midst. The only reason we allowed him to enter, remember , is that he brought the sword with him. Remember .”
    Trembling, the king nodded and took
a step back. “You’re right, of course.”
    “Right about
what?” Baleron said. “What use is Rondthril to you?”
    But Logran never got the chance to
answer.
    In that endless moment, it occurred
to part of Baleron even as he was asking the question that he was as close to
both Logran and the king as he might ever be. They might kill him. They might
imprison him. It was unlikely they’d ever let him this close to one, much less
both, of his primary targets again. If he wanted to save Rolenya, now was the
time. After all, Ungier was seemingly untouchable; there was no way Baleron
could kill him and so make Rondthril a threat to even higher powers. This left
Baleron with no plan and no recourse save to either let Rolenya be thrown to
the Borchstogs or else save her by guiding the fall of Havensrike.
    A creeping coldness came over him.
Tendrils of ice snaked their way throughout his body, even his mind . . .
    Urgently, he pushed it away.
    My
Doom! Damn it all, this is it! Steering me along my path. It makes me do what I’d tend to do anyway, but it makes sure that I do it, and
to it to the Shadow’s satisfaction. That is why Gilgaroth holds Rolenya against
me. Not just to lay a claim on me, but to give my Doom something to work with,
some leverage to move me by.
    But
I will not be moved.
    He thought all this in the flash of
an instant. Even as he put the question about Rondthril to Logran, he made his
decision and forced down that creeping, icy tendril, tried to lock it away
within himself .
    Rolenya
will be cast to the Borchstogs!
    I
will not be moved!
    He shoved that icy tendril down,
down, though it squirmed and twisted, and its voice reverberated throughout
him. He saw an image of Rolenya being tossed to the ravening hordes, the hordes
that viewed torture as the ultimate act of veneration to their dark master . .
.
    He fought it.
    His Doom was strong, though.
    And it was not alone.

 
                   

 
    Baleron and his left hand shared the same blood, and, as
Baleron reasoned afterwards, the foul spirit of Rauglir tainted that blood,
spread the demon’s influence throughout his entire body.
    Just the same, it was indeed the
left hand that darted to the side at that moment, just as Logran was prepared
to answer the question (or not) put to him. The hand struck like a snake,
moving lightning-quick, wrenching a dagger loose from one of the knights, where
it was strapped to the man’s side.
    Stepping quickly forwards, Baleron,
or at least his body, drove the curved blade into Logran’s backside—the Archmage had been facing the king—severing the sorcerer’s spine
and puncturing his left lung.
    Blood burst from the sorcerer’s
lips, as Baleron saw when the man