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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: Shanna, fleeing a life of luxury at her father's court, was captured--while still on her father's land--by a deposed neighboring prince who had sought unsuccessfully to make an alliance with her father. When the messengers sent to her father did not return, and the cousin who had usurped the prince's throne showed up with an army, Shanna had to decide just what she considered worth fighting for, and who her allies were.

eBook Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, Published: Sword & Sorceress 2, 1985
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2009

This eBook is part of the following series:

• Diana L. Paxson's Shanna Series

8 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [39 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [43 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [21 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [200 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [23 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [71 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [94 KB] , hiebook (KML) [81 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [54 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [19 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [24 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [57 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [35 KB]
Words: 7001
Reading time: 20-28 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Shadow Wood ... Shanna tested the name against the reality of the forest before her. On maps the sea of trees that flowed across the rising land between Sharteyn's fertile farmlands and the mountains had some ancient name, but Shanna preferred the title the countryfolk used. The sky looked very dark beneath the massed trees, and after the heat and dust of the road, very cool.

She straightened in the saddle and snapped open the clasps of the quilted jerkin of red leather she wore. Her new breeches were sticking damply to the saddle, and sweat trickled down her backbone. She wondered how the men in her escort stood the additional weight of breast and back plates of leather sewn with little plates of iron. They had become accustomed, she supposed.

After the half-hour it had taken to argue her old nurse, Nellis, into allowing her to wear her warrior gear instead of the draperies of a Royal Daughter of Sharteyn, Shanna did not dare complain. She had won only on the grounds that they were nearly past Sharteyn's borders. But many leagues stretched between the forest and the Imperial City of Bindir, where they would meet her brother Janos and bring him home again - this was the Old Road, easier on the wagon, but longer and less-traveled than the one the Emperor's couriers used. Shanna shifted her shoulders beneath the thick leather and grinned. I will become accustomed, I suppose....

Her bay mare danced forward, responding to an involuntary, excited squeeze of Shanna's long legs, almost colliding with Big Hwilos' gray.

"Peace, Calur!" Shanna shortened her reins, avoiding the old soldier's eye. The road unreeled before her like a white banner, she had a good horse beneath her and the sword she had risked her life to win hung at her side. She was finally free!

Or if not free - she considered her escort - then at least she had escaped the intrigues and etiquette of the Court of Sharteyn.

And perhaps somehow, somewhere, along her way, she would find the liberty her soul craved as a hawk craves the skies.

The trees loomed larger as they plodded on. Shanna identified oak and hazelwood, the narrow-leaved ash and stately elm. Crows flapped toward the forest from a day spent gleaning the rich harvest of Sharteyn, black against a golden sky. The road ahead was dim beneath its canopy of gilded leaves.

And then abruptly they were inside. Shanna blinked, trying to adjust her sight to the shadows, then jerked on the reins as her cheek felt the swift flight of something she could not see. A soldier ahead of her cried out; to her returning vision the arrow-shaft seemed to sprout from his throat as he fell. Men shouted, a horse screamed. There was a crash and Shanna saw the gaudily painted wagon in which Nellis had been riding tipped over on its side, wheels still spinning helplessly.

"Stand! Put up your weapons or you die!" came a deep shout, but it was too late.

Three more arrows flicked accurately past. Two of her father's men screamed as feathered serpents found gaps in their armor. The other arrow glanced off a helm and rattled past a tree. Shanna crouched over her mare's mane, twitching when a bowstring twanged, for the fine-linked vest of gilded mail she wore under her jerkin would not protect against a bolt from a powerful hunting bow.