Shadow's master

girls, some just children, in high-necked smocks and aprons filtered through the crowd carrying fistfuls of foaming tankards.

Caim didn't look at Shikari as she sat down next to him. He hadn't forgotten their strange conversation over breakfast, nor the fervent look in her eyes. The woman saw too damned much.

Malig and Dray reappeared with large mugs, but only for themselves.

“Thank the gods they have beer here!” Malig said as he took a long swallow. When Caim raised an eyebrow, he shrugged. “The wench said she'd send over some more.”

“And food, I hope,” Caim said.

Malig set down his cup, foam dripping from his beard. “So what are we going to do here, Caim? I mean, we don't exactly fit in.”

“On the contrary, I think we look the part down to our toenails.”

“What part?”

Caim ran a hand over his whiskered chin. He hadn't shaved in over a sennight. His clothes were worn and travel-stained. “Slave-catchers, down on our luck.”

Dray raised one black eyebrow. “I hope you're joking. We don't know the first thing about-”

“Slavka!”

Two northern women in brown leathers pushed through the crowd, each hoisting a foaming stein. Caim started to take them for barmaids until he saw the longaxe hanging from one's belt, and the other woman wore a pair of shortswords and at least five knives that he could see. Both had long hair that hung down in braids past their shoulders, one blonde and the other brunette. They might have been halfway fetching if not for the mannish garb, and the rune letters the brunette had tattooed around her left eye in blue ink.

The blonde axe-woman looked around the table and said something. Caim was about to shake his head to show he didn't understand when Shikari rattled off a phrase in northern.

The brunette made a deep noise that might have been a laugh. “Eregoth? You far way from home.”

“We are,” Caim answered. “Can we help you?”

“Mayhap,” the blonde answered, and winked at the other woman. “You just arrive in Braelsalr?”

“Maybe. What of it?”

The blonde woman elbowed her comrade. “Have you any to sell? We pay good.” She reached into her jerkin and shook something that made a metallic jingle.

“No,” Caim replied. “They all died on the journey. We're just staying a few days to restock before we go out again.”

The Northwoman clucked her tongue. “Poor luck. The next time you come in, you ask for Yersa and Grunhild. We pay you top coin, ya?”

Malig slammed his cup down on the table. “What if we want more than your coin? What if we want a gander at what's inside those tight pants?”

Not now. Caim had been afraid one of them might do something foolhardy. The blonde Northwoman laughed and said something to her friend, but the brunette didn't so much as smile. “Mayhap we cut off your little spear and make you eat.”

Her fingers tapped the pommel of one of her swords as she and her friend sauntered away. Caim leaned across the table, fighting the impulse to grab Malig by his face. “What the fuck is your problem? This isn't the time.”

Malig belched and turned over his empty cup. “I'm fine.”

“He's fine,” Dray echoed.

Caim rapped the tabletop with his forefinger. “I have to go out for a look around, and I need to know that you can handle-”

“I said I'm fine. Go do what you have to do.”

The owner of the establishment finally arrived with two young girls who delivered beer and meat stew-Caim didn't inquire about its provenance-served in bread trenchers. Caim remembered then that he'd given the last of his money to Egil, but Dray had some coin. The owner jabbered at them cheerfully in his language, and Shikari replied. They carried on a short conversation, at the end of which the owner nodded several times and left.

“What was that about?” Caim asked as they ate. The stew was piping hot and so good he wanted to cry.

“I took it upon myself to procure a place to stay.” Shikari pushed her plate away, and Malig snatched it for himself. “He only had one room open, but promised it was large enough for all of us.”

After they had finished, and Malig polished off a third cup of beer, they followed a serving girl with a lantern out the back door and across the courtyard to a smaller building. The inside was divided into a central common area and two private rooms. She led them to their door and handed over the lantern. When Malig asked her fee for staying the night, the girl left without giving any indication she'd understood his question.

Caim dropped his pack in a corner. The owner hadn't been lying. The room was large enough to sleep a dozen. Rope hammocks hung from wooden pegs on the walls. They looked inviting, but he was too anxious to sleep. While Dray kicked off his boots, Malig tried to maneuver himself into a hammock. Shikari picked a spot on the floor between two hanging beds and sat cross-legged, eyes closed, hands resting on her thighs. Hoek rested his bulk on an adjacent sling.

Malig produced a bottle from somewhere, and the astringent smell of spirits filled the room. “You got a plan yet?”

Caim pulled up his hood. “I'll be back soon. Don't go wandering off.”

“Why? You going to skip town without us?”

Caim left without answering. The courtyard was empty. Checking to make sure his knives were loose in their sheaths, he started off down the side street. He avoided the lights shining from windows. With this many Northmen packed together-the town was large enough to hold a thousand or more with ease-he might have expected fighting and carousing to be commonplace. He passed a few drunks wandering the streets, but no soldiers or constables. The town had an air of lawlessness, and yet despite that it was as quiet as the grave. He found himself treading lighter, as if afraid to disturb the stillness, as he worked his way around to the north end.

The tugging in his head was stronger again. He wanted to bash his forehead against the side of a building. Kit, this would be the perfect time to come back. But she didn't appear, and that compounded his irritation.

Beyond the buildings, Caim reentered the snowy tundra of the wastes. Distant lights twinkled to the northeast. Another town, perhaps, but smaller. He looked to the west and thought he could make out another settlement in that direction, but the tugging pulled him due north toward the hills outside of town. He followed.

Caim was so intent on his destination he almost stumbled into the path of a tragic procession. The crack of a whip made him stop as a double line of slaves approached. Backs bent, legs straining, they pulled a massive block of glossy black stone behind them. Caim hunkered down to watch. The slaves were a scrawny, unhealthy-looking bunch. Mostly men, but a few women as well, clad in dirty rags. While one team pulled, a second group of slaves kept the block moving on a series of log rollers, taking them from behind once the stone passed over and rushing them to the front to go under the block again. Northmen in long cloaks and tall helms coerced them with kicks and buffets.

Caim slipped away. The terrain became rougher underfoot as the foothills rose to chalky, gray cliffs littered with snow and scree. When the slope became too steep, he picked his way around until he found a chimney in the cliffs. There were enough cracks in the bedrock he could almost climb it like a ladder. A grand sight was revealed to him at the summit.

Massive black walls rose from the plateau atop the cliffs. Round towers more than a hundred feet tall studded the ramparts. From where he had climbed up, Caim saw the mammoth gatehouse, by itself as large as the palace in Othir. Beyond the walls rose the tops of cyclopean towers. Not round, but not completely square either, they were constructed with sharp vertices and bowed lines unlike anything in the south. Caim thought back to the slaves he had seen below and the huge block they'd been dragging. He imagined other camps strung around the citadel, all providing slaves and material.

This had to be Erebus. He'd found it at long last. Some part of him had despaired of ever finding it, fearing it was a lie, one last torment inflicted by his aunt before her demise. But it was real.