Read Ravens Shadow 02 - Tower Lord for Free Online Page A

for it makes us weak, servile to the Heretic Dominion.
With that he had beaten her for the crime of hiding a sack of straw in the barn to sleep on.
    She waited a good two hours. Al Sorna never snored, in fact he barely made a sound or moved at all when sleeping. She watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest beneath the blanket for a while longer to be sure, then slipped from her own coverings, picked up her shoes and made her way barefoot to the river. On the bank she splashed water on her face to banish any lingering tiredness, pulled on her shoes and followed the current downstream.
    The vagrants’ camp wasn’t hard to find, the smell of woodsmoke announced its location before the cluster of shacks and tents came into view. Only one fire burned in the camp, raucous laughter echoing from the few occupants. Four men, passing a bottle around.
Must’ve scared the rest away,
she thought. She crept closer until their voices became clear.
    “You rutted on that bitch when she was dead, Kella!” one of the men laughed. “Fucking a corpse, you filthy animal.”
    “Least I didn’t rut on the boy,” the other man shot back. “Against nature that is.”
    Reva saw little reason for stealth or further delay. This needed doing quickly before Al Sorna missed her.
    The four men fell silent as she walked into the camp, surprise soon replaced by drunken lust.
    “Looking for somewhere to sleep, lovely?” the largest of the men said. He had an extensive mop of unkempt hair and the gaunt, wasted look of a man who lived from day to day without regular meals or shelter. There was also a gold ring hanging on a string about his neck.
Too small for a man’s ring, if I’m any judge.
Reva remembered the sight of the woman in the forest, the finger hacked from her hand.
    She said nothing and stared back.
    “We’ve got plenty of room,” the man went on, coming closer on unsteady legs. “Everyone else’s pissed off. Can’t think why.”
    Reva met his gaze, saying nothing. Drunk as he was, some faint warning must have sounded in his head for he stopped a few feet short of her, eyes narrowing. “What you want here gir—!”
    The knife came free of the sheath in a blur, she ducked forward then upwards in a fluid motion, the blade slicing through his neck, then twisted away as he fell, blood spraying through his fingers.
    The second one she killed was too shocked to react as she leapt, wrapped her legs about his chest and stabbed deep into his shoulder, once, then twice. She leapt free, darted towards the third man, now fumbling for a cudgel in his belt. He managed a single swing which she ducked with ease, rolling on the ground then slashing back to sever his hamstring. He fell, cursing and screaming. Reva turned to the fourth man. His fevered gaze took in the scene around him as he fidgeted, a long-bladed knife in his hand. He gave Reva a final terror-stricken glance, dropped the knife and fled. He had almost reached the sheltering darkness beyond the firelight before her knife throw took him between the shoulder blades.
    Reva went to the large man’s body, pushing it over to retrieve the ring from around his neck. There was also a good-quality hunting knife in his belt, Realm Guard issue from the regimental crest on the handle. She took the knife, pocketed the ring and walked to the man with the severed hamstring, now weeping desperate pleas through a cloud of snot and spittle.
    “Don’t worry, Kella,” she said. “I promise I won’t fuck your corpse.”
    ◆ ◆ ◆
    Ellora made them a breakfast of eggs and mushrooms fried in butter.
As good a cook as she is a dancer,
Reva thought, tucking in. She waited until Ellora and Norin had gone to tend to the drays that pulled their wagon, then took the ring from her pocket and tossed it to Al Sorna. He looked at it for a long time. “The sun and the moon,” he said softly.
    Reva frowned. “What?”
    He held it up for her to see, an engraving on the inside of the band, two circles,