Free The Last Dragonlord by Joanne Bertin Page A

better left out of these discussions, my lords and ladies. He has been ill. This will take too great a toll on him.”
    He knew he’d made the right decision when Rann sagged against him with a soft cry of relief. But for a moment Linden thought Beren would challenge him to a duel. The duke’s face was purple with rage.
    Peridaen looked surprised but pleased. His voice grave and gentle, he said, “Thank you, Dragonlords. I have already said my nephew is not strong enough for this. He needs his rest. Shall I—” He stood up.
    So did Beren. “Sit down, Peridaen. If anyone goes with Rann—”
    But Linden was already striding to the door. He opened it and leaned into the hall. The two soldiers guarding the room swung around to face him, hands on sword hilts, eyeing their prince sitting in his arms. Linden closed the door behind himself as he stepped into the hall.
    “Hello Captain Tev, Cammine,” Rann said, his head once again resting on Linden’s shoulder. He yawned.
    The soldiers saluted, murmuring, “My lords,” and relaxed.
    “Would one of you send for His Highness’s nurse—” Linden looked down at Rann.
    “Gevianna,” Rann supplied, sounding a trifle petulant that Linden hadn’t remembered.
    “Thank you, Your Highness,” Linden said gravely.
    The younger soldier set off down the hall at a nod from her superior. Linden waited in the hall with Rann, grateful for the respite. The captain took up his post again, too professional to be distracted by anything less than an invasion of the palace.
    “I hate these things,” Linden muttered under his breath. He hoped Gevianna would take her time coming for Rann.
    Rann lifted his head. “My mama and papa did, too. When I am king, I shan’t go to councils. I shall be a soldier. Were you really a soldier, Dragonlord, with Bram and Rani—just like in the stories? There was a Yerrin bard who sang for my mama; he told me some of them.”
    Linden chuckled. “That sounds like my friend Otter. He’s on his way to Cassori now, and if you want I’ll ask him to tell you more tales.” He returned Rann’s grin of delight. “And yes, I was in Bram and Rani’s mercenary company. It was the dead of winter when I ran away to join them. I was hardly sixteen at the time and hadn’t enough brains to bait a fishhook with, as the saying goes, else I’d have stayed at my father’s keep—at least until the spring.”
    Rann laughed aloud. Even Captain Tev allowed himself a small grin.
    The boy leaned in and whispered confidentially, “There were some scary parts—all that about Harper Satha. It gave me nightmares. Otter didn’t say much about him, but … Satha wasn’t really dead—was he?”
    Linden felt the blood drain from his face at the mention of the undead Harper-Healer’s name. He cursed himself in his mind: Damn it! You’re not sixteen anymore to be frightened by him. Stop being a fool!
    Yet even as he railed against the old terror, cold sweat trickled between his shoulder blades as for the second time that day memories returned unbidden.
    … The stench of Satha’s rotting flesh and the croaking horror of his voice as it whistled and bubbled past the slit throat …
    Worst of all, the memory of Satha kneeling over him as he lay mortally wounded … Fingers of burning cold, slick with his blood, groping alo ng the edges of the gaping wound, and a smell of rotting meat following him as he fell into the welcome darkness, away from the agony of the Healing …
    Linden looked into Rann’s eyes. “No,” he lied. It was not something he did lightly, but if a small falsehood would ease the child’s mind, he’d lie gladly. Someday he’d come back
when Rann was older and tell him the truth. “Satha wasn’t dead.” He smiled; it felt tight and false.
    He thanked the gods that the younger guard returned then, sparing him any further questions. Cammine resumed her post by the door. Her eyes slid to look back the way she’d come.
    A slender young woman turned