Read Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles for Free Online

just…I’ll leave for a bit.”
    Nicolas swung his legs over the side of the bed, but as he began to stand, Kaitlyn tugged him back down.
    “Tomorrow,” Kaitlyn said. “You tell me everything .”
    “I will. And I’ll introduce you to Mujahid, if he’s around here. You’ll like him…well…if he’s not being all crotchety like he can be sometimes. But I’m sort of his boss now. No, wait…he said I’m his postulant. So is he my boss? How can anyone be the archmage’s boss? What the hell does the archmage do, anyway? Oh God, I’m so screwed.”
    “Nick.”
    “What?”
    “It’s going to be okay.”
    He sighed. Sometimes she knew exactly the right thing to say.

    Aelron’s fate had been decided by The Moot , the court of elders at the ranger mother house, and there was nothing he could say to Captain Jacobson to change it. Still, there was a growing anger inside. His pulse thrummed at his temples. There was nothing he could do except stew in an impotent rage that would only get him killed if he didn’t get it under control.
    He took a deep breath and looked out at the desolate countryside.
    It was as if they’d ridden into one of the hells. The fragrant pine forests of the north ended abruptly, giving way to a dead land, devoid of even a blade of grass. The rangers traveled light, only packing water. Food was something they could hunt for with ease. But the lack of game trails worried even Simmons, their best hunter.
    The terrain of the northern region of the Shandarian Union grew flat as the rangers made their way inland through a torrential downpour. They’d stopped and donned Arinwool, making sure to cover their adda-ki as well, rendering them invisible to all but each other.
    Aelron couldn’t see them, though. Being unmoored meant he didn’t share a mystical bond with an adda-ki, and so he didn’t have the creature’s heightened agility or keen eyesight.
    Aelron donned his as well, but when he asked why they were traveling with stealth, all Jacobson said was “We’re not ready to meet with our southern brothers just yet. Best we give that some time.”
    Several hours into their journey, soaked from rains that slowed but never stopped, they emerged from the near-barren fields onto a muddy road that, according to Jacobson, ran between the capital city of Shandar and the city of Caspardis.
    Aelron recognized the names. He’d even been to Caspardis once. But he was five when his father sent him to live with the rangers. After forty years under the dome, he doubted those cities existed as anything other than ruins anyway.
    His opinion changed when he spotted crops growing a few hundred paces up the road. A herd of domestic adda grazed there—shorter versions of the adda-ki. Muscular, hooved, less agile. More a source of food and transportation than a weapon of war. Could there be survivors? Someone must have tended those fields and shepherded those adda.
    And there was smoke rising from nearby thatch-roofed buildings.
    Aelron thumbed the silver ring Master Nigel, his blademaster, had awarded him. It was set with a stone resembling the cat’s eye symbol of the Shandarian Rangers, and was only supposed to go to a moored ranger. But Nigel had made an exception.
    “Whoa, men,” Jacobson said, pulling his mount to halt at the head of the group.
    Aelron could see Jacobson’s outline, but only because he knew what to look for.
    The rangers formed up around him.
    “This is as far as we take you,” Jacobson said.
    “But Captain,” Orvin said. “Our agreement was to take him to his father.”
    Jacobson struck Orvin with the back of his hand, and Orvin grabbed the pommel of his saddle to steady himself.
    Striking a subordinate without cause was forbidden, and from the looks on the faces of two of the other rangers, they intended to do something about it.
    They urged their adda-ki forward. But before they reached Jacobson, Simmons rode between them and waved for them to stop. He whispered something