The King of Dreams

Chapter One

"That has to be what we're looking for," said the Skandar, Sudvik Gorn, standing at the edge of the cliff and pointing down the steep hillside with harsh jabbing motions of his lower left arm. They had reached the crest of the ridge. The underlying rock had crumbled badly here, so that the trail they had been following terminated in a rough patch covered with sharp greenish gravel, and just beyond lay a sudden drop into a thickly vegetated valley. "Vorthinar Keep, right there below us! What else could that building be, if not the rebel's keep? And easy enough for us to set it ablaze, this time of year."

"Let me see," young Thastain said. "My eyes are better than yours." Eagerly he reached for the spyglass that Sudvik Gorn held in his other lower arm.

It was a mistake. Sudvik Gorn enjoyed baiting the boy, and Thastain had given him yet another chance. The huge Skandar, better than two feet taller than he was, yanked the glass away, shifting it to an upper arm and waving it with ponderous playfulness high above Thastain's head. He grinned a malicious snaggletoothed ... read full excerpt from King of Dreams, The ebook