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Craig Halloran [The Chronicle Hunt for the Hero (epub)
April Angel Wounded Soldiers A Hero's Pride
Discworld 27 The Last Hero Pratchett Terry
C'est Beau Nathalie Sarraute
Beau Bitten Jana Downs
Beau and the Beast Hanna Hart
Barbara DeLeo [Weddings in We The Bouquet List (epub)
[erotik] Paige, Laurelin Tiefe Sehnsucht
[heft] Perry Rhodan 0760 Kampf der Diplomaten
Between a Rock and a Hard Place Clare London

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.Now was the time to strike.“Good man!” Ren exclaimed.“I have—” Ren paused, thinking.He had to tread carefully here.“I have recently had someone watching over my faithful, named weapons, and there will be a fee for the fellow watching them.”“That seems reasonable.” Celestrian’s cheeks glowed the palest pink from the wine.“Can’t have a Hero without weapons.”“Well said.” Ren raised his glass.“And tomorrow we can visit the bazaar and see if we can round up some other specialist equipment.”Celestrian frowned for a moment.“I had hoped we would leave tonight.Mother said speed was of the utmost importance.” Celestrian already felt a bit tipsy from the wine, and he reconsidered.“Although it won’t do to run off ill-equipped either, I suppose.”“You suppose right, my friend.Trust to your Hero,” Ren said, happier than he could ever remember being.“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why don’t you tell me what our little quest is all about? Lost artifact, I shouldn’t wonder.Magical too, I’d wager.”“Not exactly.” Celestrian finished his glass of wine.“One more?” Ren inquired.“I probably shouldn’t.It seems to be going to my head.”“Oh, one more can’t hurt,” Ren cajoled.His glass was empty as well.“Why not?” Celestrian smiled.“After the day I’ve had, it’s kind of nice to relax.”“Amen, brother,” Ren agreed, calling for two more from Bort.This is the life, Ren thought, ordering drinks, not worrying where he would sleep.He could get used to this.Bort brought the bottle and refilled their glasses.“So what’s the quest we’re on?”“Why is that funny man staring at me?” Celestrian asked, ignoring Ren’s question.Ren followed the path of Celestrian’s gaze.“That’s just the Owl Man,” Ren said dismissively.“But he doesn’t have feathers or a beak.”“Well, no.But if you squint,” Ren tried to assist.Celestrian tried it and had to admit that maybe there was some similarity.“Why does he just stare and smoke those funny little things?”“Bort and I have discussed this, and we decided that a wizard turned an owl into a man, for whatever reasons wizards do those types of things, and probably died before he could teach it to talk or do anything else, and now he’s trapped as a man, and all he knows how to do is smoke those funny little things,” Ren explained.“Or at least that’s our theory.”“That’s sad.” Celestrian sipped his drink while Ren pondered the mystery that was Owl Man.“I’m glad I’m not stuck as one or the other,” Celestrian muttered.Ren heard the words, but by the time they made it to his alcohol-soaked mind, they didn’t make sense anymore.For some reason this reminded him he’d been planning to ask Celestrian a question but wasn’t sure how to do so.He was feeling quite good about this quest and life in general, and it happened his better judgment couldn’t quite handle its liquor as well as his curiosity, making Ren blurt out the question he’d been holding onto most of the evening.“Why’re you wearing that funny little false-horn thingy?” His vision had gone a bit wonky, and he actually saw two horns with a blurry little trail between them.He started to point at one, then decided the other was the actual one but chose to split the difference and point between them.“How’s it shtay on?”“What?” Celestrian said, reaching up to touch it.“It’s not false.It’s my horn.All Unicorns have them.”The room did a small tipsy jiggling that Ren liked slightly less than the words he just hoped he hadn’t heard properly.“Who has what now?” Ren tried desperately to get back that warm, happy feeling.“Unicorns have horns.I’m a Unicorn.It stands to reason therefore that I should have a horn.”“You’re a—” Ren shook his head, trying to clear it.“Aren’t Unicorns a little bit more, um, well, horsey?” The warm feeling was quickly giving way to an odd, cold feeling, that Ren, had he not been piss drunk, would have described as dread.“Well, yes of course.But Mother Dragon taught me how to shift my form to that of a human.She could do it as well.”“Uh?”“That’s really what this quest is about, you see.My Unicorn parents took me to Mother Dragon for my protection when I was just a foal.They were destroyed in the battle with Grimthorn, and Mother Dragon raised me.But she died tonight, and it was her magic keeping the glade safe.Everyone believes the Unicorns are dead, but Mother Dragon is sure that there are still some alive.That’s why I needed a Hero, to get me to the Crystal Coast or wherever the remaining Unicorns are hiding,” Celestrian finished.Ren stared at him.“You’re a shape-shifting Unicorn who was raised by a shape-shifting Dragon, and now you have to find your people who everyone knows were killed?” Ren tried desperately to wrap his mind around the whole thing.“That’s a bit oversimplified, but yes, basically.” Celestrian fell silent as a battle raged in Ren’s mind.At the moment, Ren’s rational mind was having it out with Ren’s mercenary sense.His sense of preservation put in on the rational side, but his hope to one day be an actual Hero was pulling out a named short sword to tip the battle when his drunken mind slipped past the commotion, unnoticed, to send a signal to his mouth.“You’re off your bloody rocker!” Ren’s mouth relayed the signal to the tavern.“I beg your pardon!” Celestrian shouted, offended.“I am not.If you don’t believe me, I’ll change right here!” He stood up.Ren’s common sense pushed all the other bickering facets of his personality out of the way and headed for his mouth.“No!” he bellowed.Every eye in the tavern was on them, and he had just realized it.“No.You can’t do that here.” He added to himself, if it’s even true.“These people might mistake you for a witch and burn you.” In his head flashed a vision of the bazaar and all the wonderful things available to someone who had gold, while his hope to be a true Hero and his mercenary sense were shaking hands on the battlefield.“I think I could believe you.Maybe we should get a room and discuss the matter further in private.”Celestrian looked around the tavern at all the eyes and ears straining in their general direction.“Good idea,” he said, standing and dropping some coin on the table.Ren knew if the coins were left there, Bort would never see them again, so he scooped them up to give them directly to the Dwarf and purchase an extra bottle or two to take to the inn.“WELL, check it again,” Ren bellowed over the front desk of the Fancy Dragon Inn.The night manager, who was also the day manager and one half of the married couple who owned and ran the inn, looked at Ren with a polished expression of professional indifference, which had been perfected over a lifetime dealing with ignorant and demanding customers [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]