[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.“Because you’re the best, the absolute best an’ our customer wanted the best the Guild has to offer.Silent an’ swift! Most importantly on this job—silence! Discretion! Not a word to anyone! The best!” He banged his fist on the table.“The best, I tell you!”“Right,” said Ronan.He shrugged.“Innkeeper!” bawled Smede.“S’more ale!”“My friend will be paying for my lunch,” said Ronan to the innkeeper.“Lunch!” echoed Smede.“Thank you, my friend.” Ronan clapped the little accountant on his shoulder.“Have some more ale.”“S’more ale!” hollered Smede.Ronan turned and left the inn.He had not realized how far gone the day was.The sun was already past its zenith.There was a chill in the air.He flipped his collar up and strode along, not bothering to mind where he was going.It was a strange job, to say the least.Definitely not the sort to boast about afterward.However, he could see the wisdom in having the likes of himself doing the job.He, more than anyone in the Guild, understood the need for discretion.Loose lips shed blood.He shook his head.Who’d have thought the regent of Hearne himself would be hiring the Thieves Guild to do his dirty work?He found himself down on the docks.Waves crashed against the seawall.Gulls circled through the sky.A fishing boat was rounding the breakwater.He could hear its lines creaking in the wind.The sea was alive with light.Something shivered and tightened inside him.The regent.Who’d have thought it?CHAPTER NINEFEN AWAKEFen desperately wanted to stay asleep.It was so much more comfortable in the darkness.The darkness was soft, and she had the notion that waking up might prove to be painful.It’ll be bright, she thought.The sun in my eyes will be bright and I’ll blink and squint like one of those little barn owls caught outside in the daylight.They must hate that.The barn.Something about the barn.Something dreadful had happened in the barn.And then she was no longer able to hold onto sleep.She drifted up through the depths, growing lighter and unbearably lighter with each exhalation.Her body shivered alive with agony.Her leg was burning.She opened her eyes and remembered.A shriek burst from her lips, but she bit down hard the instant it escaped her mouth.She lay trembling and listening.There was only silence.Morning sunlight slanted down through cracks in the wall.Dust gleamed, hanging in the light.Fen was able to inch her way up by getting her left foot onto the axle of the harrow.She stood up as slowly as she possibly could.The spike slid greasily through the hole in her thigh.Tears ran from her eyes and her teeth chattered.Her body quivered in agony.She could not see for her tears.She must have blacked out again, for the next thing she knew she was lying face down in the hay.From the slant of the sunbeams she could see it was late afternoon.She looked up.For a moment she thought Hafall was alive, stirring from his nap just inside the barn door.The shape of his body, shadowed by the light outside, moved and seemed almost to rise.Fen limped forward, and the crows stooping over the corpse rose in a flutter of wings.They hopped away, croaking in irritation at her.Sobbing, she stumbled after them, scooping up dust, straw, anything to throw at them.But her left arm was numb and would not obey her.She tripped and fell flat on her face.Behind her, the crows settled back to their meal.Movement caught her attention across the yard.A pair of rats rocked back on their haunches and stared at her with beady-eyed malevolence.They were crouched over a body lying across the threshold of the miller’s house: a tall man with a head of hair nearly white blond in the sunlight.The same color as her hair, but stained and spiked with blood.She could not breathe.Her heart was bursting, too big to be held within her small chest, and she screamed and screamed and screamed until the world dulled down into gray around her, until there was nothing except the sound of her voice dying away into a whimper of nothing that no one heard, that meant nothing within the darkness falling on what could have been a perfect sunlit day.CHAPTER TENTHE EDUCATION OF NIONio stomped up the tower stairs.He slammed the door shut and stalked to a window.From there he could look from his house out over most of Hearne.And beyond.East.Something there had drawn his attention for the past few months.First in a dream and then, whenever he was within the tower, in unconscious habit.Tonight, though, he glared out over the city.He saw nothing
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]