Path of the Paladin by Melissa McShane EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author:Melissa McShane
- Language: English
- Genre: Dragons & Mythical Creatures Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Smell was an odd thing. Some smells took Ginnevra back to her childhood,
like hot metal at the forge or the way horses smelled when they came into
the paddock after a long day’s riding. Other smells were only good at times.
Just that morning she’d woken to the scent of honeyed pastries filling the
air through the streets of the city of Ghibele. That had been pleasant for the
first hour, and then it was cloying and awful.
At the moment, with her face crushed firmly into the turf, all she smelled
was damp earth and the nose-tickling scent of grass gone dormant for the
winter. Her hand curled more tightly around the handle of the silver mirror.
This was not at all the way she’d meant to spend her morning.
She pushed herself to her knees, groaning with effort. Goddess-enhanced
reflexes and stamina didn’t make her invulnerable, and half an hour of
fighting this monster had started to wear on her. Even without armor, just
her padded red gambeson and coif to keep stray locks of hair out of her
eyes, she had raised a sweat in the autumn chill.
Two feet away, a cow regarded her placidly, its jaw working as it chewed its
cud. It showed no sign it knew it was in danger. Ginnevra groaned again
and got to her feet. That was how the monstrous catoblepas hunted: it could
walk right up to a cow because it looked and smelled just like its prey, save
for the serpentine neck four feet long and the permanently drooping,
oversized head. A catoblepas looked so harmless—right up until an animal
or human caught the creature’s gaze and dropped dead.
She angled the mirror to look over her shoulder. She and Eodan had
managed to herd the catoblepas away from the other animals, but it kept
drifting back in an aimless yet eerily malevolent way, drawn there like
water funneling down a drain. There it was, taking another step closer to the
unsuspecting cows. And there was Eodan, hovering behind it, black woven
sack in hand. His hair was tangled in windblown hanks, and he looked as
weary as she felt.
“This isn’t working,” Ginnevra shouted over her shoulder, hoping the wind
would not blow her words too far away. “The damn thing doesn’t care what
we do to it. I swear it’s as stupid as the cows.”
Eodan lowered the sack. “We need different bait.”
Ginnevra’s gaze shifted to the cow. It let out a sound somewhere between
“moo” and “blart.” “I promised the farmer I would save his cows.”
“Sacrifice one for the survival of the rest,” Eodan said. “And if the man
doesn’t butcher us a few steaks after this, I’m going to feel very ill-used.”
Ginnevra sighed. “I can’t argue with that logic. Besides, with two dead
workers along with more than a handful of cows, I’m sure the farmer will
see sense.”
She lowered the mirror and walked toward the cow, who continued to eye
her in a dull, uncomprehending way. “Go on, you,” she said, smacking the
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