Read Penric and the Shaman (Penric & Desdemona Book 2) for Free Online Page B

mockery was tinged with unease.
    “I am a girl.” A considering pause. “He might be handsome, if he smiled.”
    “Don’t let Savo hear you say that. He’s already annoyed enough about his dog.”
    “I am not Savo’s dog .”
    Siblings indeed, for then he barked at her, and she hit him, and their squabbling voices faded out of even Inglis’s earshot.
    He coaxed the dog up under his arm with a bribe of smoked meat. Hugged him in, stared into the clear brown eyes, then closed his own and tried to sense . The animal’s spirit-density was almost palpable, hovering just beyond his present crippled reach. How many generations of dogs were poured into this Dog? Five? Ten? More than ten? How many generations of men had cultivated it? This could be a dog to make a shaman, immensely valuable.
    And who was Scuolla, to give such a treasure away? Was the man an illicit hedge shaman, had he made Arrow? Intended this nephew Savo for his secret apprentice? Or was he unknowing of what he’d possessed? Horrifying, that he might be unknowing.
    Appalling hope, that he might be wise.
    “As soon as I’m on my feet,” he told the dog with a little shake, “let’s go find this ungrateful old master of yours, eh?”
    Arrow yawned hugely, treating Inglis to a waft of warm dog-breath entirely lacking in enchantment, and rolled over like a bolster against Inglis’s side.

V

    Penric’s party came to the town of Whippoorwill, at the head of the lake, in the early winter dusk. It was half the size of the more successful Martensbridge, and a bit resentful of the fact, but still fivefold larger than Greenwell Town of Penric’s youth. Even the anxious Grayjay made no suggestion that they press on any farther this night. At the local chapter of the Daughter’s Order, which lay under the princess-archdivine’s direct rule, they found crowded, but free, lodgings.
    Then Oswyl made the first practical use of the troop that had trailed them by sending them all out, severally, to ask after their quarry in the inns and taverns of the town. He didn’t mention brothels aloud; Penric was unsure if they were tacitly implied, if he thought the fleeing murderer would make no use of them, or if he was simply respectful of the guardsmen’s oaths to the Daughter’s Order. All business in Whippoorwill was settling down to merely local traffic as the high roads to the northern coast countries closed off for the season.
    Penric and Oswyl had just finished eating at the tavern of their choice where, alas, no one remembered a dark-haired and dark-eyed Wealdean heading north alone in the past week, though any sensible fellow attempting the passes this late might have joined one of several parties and who would have noticed him then? Oswyl was rubbing his eyes in pain at this prospect when one of the guardsmen, Baar, came back. “I think I may have found something, sirs…”
    With open relief but guarded hope, Oswyl followed at his heels down the streets, Penric trailing, to a lesser inn just off the main north road. Its air was homey and shabby, and it mainly served frugal local countrymen.
    “Oh, aye,” said the tapster, when Oswyl had lubricated the man’s tongue with a pint of his own ale, and his purse with three more all around for their company. “Don’t know if he’s the man you seek, but certainly a well-set-up young fellow with dark hair and eyes. That describes half the Darthacans on the roads—”
    Oswyl nodded rueful agreement.
    “—but this one spoke with a Wealdean accent, and not lowborn. I thought he must be a scholar, because he said he wanted tales, as he was writing a book. Collecting them, see.”
    Oswyl’s eyebrows went up. “What sort of book?”
    “Old tales of the mountains, uncanny ones. Campfire tales, children’s stories, ghost stories. Not saints’ legends, much. He was especially interested in tales of magical beasts.”
    “Did he get any from you?” asked Penric.
    “Oh, aye! It was a busy night.” The tapster