Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
And sooner or later, he will insist. Anyone as used to giving orders as he is will have to address his own needs.
Hauling up my cloak, I mist down the alley that runs behind all the empty row houses. I’m dizzy and breathing so hard that my lungs pump as fast as my legs, and all along, there’s a single driving voice in my head.
Hide. Hide. Hide—
The drumbeat is relentless. As soon as I check on Mare, I’ll steal some provisions from these vacant houses, give her most of it, and find a place to hide out the night. After dawn? Maybe I can catch a hidden ride in a hay cart or something—
There’s a sudden commotion out on the main lane. Shouting. Racing footfalls. And it’s approaching me, rather than heading in the direction of the mob.
When I come up a passageway between two blocks of houses, I duck in and try not to make too much noise as I catch my breath and look out to the thoroughfare. Four men are pounding down the lane, and the knives in their hands flash like heat lightning as they pass by the hanging lanterns. I know where they’re going. They’re racing for the Gauntlet to try to find me and bring me to the crowd—and those blades of theirs are already bloody, so they must have sworn a mortal oath for their violent duty.
No doubt up on that platform, to the cheering of the crowd.
I flatten back against whatever house I’m next to and clap my hand over my mouth to keep my terror from coming out in a scream.
After they go by, I lean around once more.
And that’s when I see him.
The mercenary is sauntering down the center of the lane, heading for the market square and all the commotion. When a couple of stragglers come out of their houses, they give him a wide berth, and he pays them no mind—
He stops. Lifts his nose.
And then turns to my hiding place in the passageway.
Another man hurries by him, and when the lane is empty, the mercenary walks down toward me. His massive body and all of his weapons represent a threat I’m not going to get away from unless I start running now—and oh, the coin he could make from kidnapping me and charging the village for the delivery of their source of torment.
Yet I’m frozen. My legs are jelly, my heart is flickering instead of beating, and there’s not enough air in the whole of Anathos to cut the suffocation in my lungs. I am the deer stalked and unable to bolt.
And now he’s standing right in front of me.
I’m careful to look only at his jaw, his chiseled, strong jaw, with its frame of black braids and waves. Unlike the golden knight’s, this warrior’s armor and weapons are of the darkness, and seem more deadly because of it.
“You aren’t going to see what the fuss is all about then,” he drawls.
Not a question. And now I’m narrowing my eyes on his chin. “You already know. You heard it in the pub.”
“So it’s true.” The mercenary’s tone is bored. “You cursed those boys, and killed two of them.”
“Absolutely not. But there’s no defense to the accusations of a murderous crowd.”
Footsteps approach out on the lane, and suddenly he’s blocking any possible view of me with his body, pushing me back against the clapboard wall. As I go face-to-face with the blade of his enormous broadsword, he takes a wrap of wensel from his fighting vest with a steady and sure hand. As he lights it, the smoke is fragrant in the cold air, but it’s the scent of him that really registers.
Unprincipled though he may be, he still smells so good. Clean male and leather. And that cedar.
I remember what he said about my own scent.
“You’ve got to leave this place,” he says softly on the next exhale.
Before I know what I’m doing, I blurt, “How much.”
He glances over his shoulder, and I trace the tail end of the braid that falls my way. There are black beads on the leather thong that ties it, stacked one atop the other. I wonder who put them there, for they seem too frivolous for him to have wasted the time on the decoration.
“You cannot afford me.”
“I can’t go alone.” My eyes flood with tears as my reality falls onto my head like boulders from our crumbling wall. “And I can’t stay here.”
And the golden knight wants to use the very magic that got me into this mess.
“I have … to hire you.”
Eleven
A Terrible Discovery.
“Exactly where are you going?” When I don’t reply, he exhales a stream of blue smoke and pivots to face me. “My price depends on the engagement. Where are you going?”
“The Badlands,” I mumble. “I want to go to the Outpost in the Badlands.”