Keegan slipped the knife back into his boot. “Of course. They’re as dumb as rocks.”
“Is that why you almost pissed your britches?” Caim asked. Then Keegan saw the faint hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Go sod yourself!”
The wagon coasted to a halt under a huge stone arch straddling the road. Keegan didn’t like looking at the edifice, erected by the Nimeans to commemorate some big battle up north back in his father’s time. It made him feel small, which was something he wrestled with on a daily basis anyway. Everyone climbed out of the wagon. Caim shook hands with the farmer, and coins passed hands. Keegan thought he saw the shine of silver, and hoped he was mistaken. One silver plate was more than the man probably earned in a month. It would make him suspicious, but Caim didn’t appear concerned as he knelt down beside the wagon and retrieved several items, including their weapons and the mysterious bundles he carried. The soldiers hadn’t come close to finding the cache hidden under the wagon bed. Keegan wondered what Caim would have done if the weapons had been found. Probably something very unpleasant.
Keegan accepted his sword back, thrust it under his cloak, and took Liana by the elbow. “Good fortune to you,” he said with a nod.
Caim returned the gesture as he slipped the long bundles and bag over his shoulder. He looked just like a normal traveler, except for the nasty scabs down the side of his face. And his eyes.
“Wait.” Liana yanked her arm free. “We can’t just abandon him here in the street, Keegan.”
“We have someplace to be, Li. And so does Caim.”
“Where will he stay? He doesn’t know anyone.”
“I’ll find someplace to bunk down,” Caim said.
“No,” she said. “You can come with us. I’m sure our uncle would let you stay for a couple days, at least until you get on your feet. And you shouldn’t be going off on any expeditions until you’ve had proper time to heal.”
“Li!”
Keegan looked around. Passersby paid them little mind, but the duke’s spies were scattered throughout Liovard like fleas on a dog. His sister was going to land him in trouble with her big mouth. He thought of the blackened bodies on the stakes.
By a stroke of luck, Caim shook his head. “I need to be going. You two be careful.”
Keegan grunted. They should be careful? He knew this city better than any foreigner would. Warlock or not, Caim was the one who needed eyes in the back of his head.
Liana reached out to put a hand on Caim’s arm. “If you change your mind, the shop is in the south ward. Turnstile Lane. Look for a sign with a hammer and two nails.”
Caim nodded. “Farewell.”
Keegan started walking. It was too damned cold to stand around. If his sister didn’t want to follow, that was her problem. Would serve her right to get lost out here.
He reached the corner to turn toward the south ward and looked back. Liana was still talking to Caim. Then, as he watched, the foreign killer shook his head. Liana turned and walked away.
When she caught up to him, Keegan asked, “What was that about?”
She didn’t meet his gaze. “Nothing. I’m cold. Let’s go.”
Shrugging his cloak higher around his neck, Keegan headed toward their uncle’s store. Whatever was going on with Liana was her own fault. What was she thinking, following after him in the woods, and now practically begging Caim to come with them? The girl had gone crazy. And he was stuck with her, at least until he could figure a way to get her back home.
Keegan sighed as he tromped through the streets. His responsibilities never seemed to end. But it was good to be back in Liovard again. Although he’d been raised out in the sticks, he loved the feel of the city. Its busy streets, the tall buildings with their roofs sheathed in black wooden slats instead of rotting thatch, the energy of the people as they passed by. When they got rid of the duke and his cronies, he wanted to live here. He could run an ale hall, or a stable. He was good with animals.
He glanced back at Liana, who trudged a few steps behind him, lost in her thoughts. As usual. She never had any dreams, at least none she cared to share with him. She was the most boring person he’d ever known, except maybe his father. Like two bumps on the same log.
As he stepped around a stinking brown puddle, Keegan’s gaze was drawn to the east side of town where the prison house was located. He couldn’t see it from here, down by the riverbank, but he wondered how Caedman was doing, or even if he was still alive. His shame returned. He couldn’t change the past, but maybe he could make up for it.
Keegan looked around for a food vendor to take his mind off his guilt and spotted a group of men pushing through the street ahead. They wore coats of iron scales and carried enough weapons to start a war. Freeswords. Foreigners by their look, Hveklanders or Warmonds. It didn’t matter which; they were both bad news.
“Come on, Li.”
He turned down a side street to avoid the armored men.
“I’m coming,” she replied.
Caim watched Liana walk away. She was only trying to help, but he needed to cut his ties with them. And Keegan seemed to know where he was going.
Caim looked down the street in the opposite direction. He needed a physician, and then someplace he could warm up and get a decent meal. As he started walking he was glad for the dwindling sunlight; it would make moving around easier. He passed a group of young men in heavy wool coats and caps-maybe laborers heading to their favorite watering hole-and decided to follow them.
The city looked different than he remembered; it had loomed so large and forbidding in his memories, and the reality was disappointing. Othir could have swallowed Liovard whole and still had room for a couple more courses. The architecture was an odd mixture of northern and southern styles. The city was laid out like two-thirds of a wheel, with a bare hillock bordered by the river filling the missing space. Atop the tor stood the citadel, a stone fortress dwarfing everything around it. He recalled seeing it when he was a boy. Back then, its concentric walls and square towers had seemed so remote, like the moon or a different world, impossible to reach. Lesser buildings in red and gray stone tumbled down the hillside and surrounding land, intermingled with wooden homes and shops. All in all, the city gave an impression of past glories imposed by distant Nimean emperors. Combined with the antipathy he had received from Keegan’s people, it gave him something to think about.
Many of the stalls and shops he passed were already closed or in the process of shutting for the night. Few windows showed any light, and those that did were covered by heavy shutters. Even the noises of the city were muted. An odd stall was still open. Three venerable women in quilted shawls with handkerchiefs over their heads sat under a blue awning, chanting to the beat of small metal drums. Caim remembered something about the ritual from the months he’d spent living on these streets. The chanting was supposed to fight off evil or give good luck. As Caim stood watching, a man in a simple undyed robe ducked under the awning and gave the women a copper penny. Then he sat while they played and chanted for him. Caim moved on.
As he walked, the smells of the city filled his lungs. He’d missed them and the feeling of firm stones under his feet, the high walls around him. He would enjoy sleeping on a bed again instead of the ground, but sleep was the last thing on his mind. This city had an undercurrent; he felt it the moment they passed through the gates. It was a sensation he knew from his days in the south, the feeling of terror. It nipped at the back of his mind.
Caim crossed a broad thoroughfare, the bumpy cobbles underfoot changing to broad blocks with worn channels from the passage of countless wheels, and stopped at an intersection of two streets. On the opposite corner stood a pile of broken masonry covered by a blanket of unsullied snow. The ends of burnt timbers and long pieces of twisted iron protruded from the wreckage. Caim glanced down the street, but this was the only building he could see that had been demolished and left in its ruined state. He crossed the street for a closer look. Pieces of splintered wood hung from the doorway’s broken hinges. Stone shards covered the ground. He kicked one over with his toe and discovered it wasn’t stone, but a piece of dusty, yellow-stained glass. He took another look at the building as a whole, trying to fill in the missing details with his imagination. It had been a church.
Caim studied the structure as he walked past. He had become so accustomed to churches and holy grounds being sacrosanct that seeing one in ruins was disconcerting, like coming across an open grave in the middle of the street. He didn’t see any signs for barbers or medicine shops, but spotted the bright lights of a tavern. Deciding a
