Read Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel for Free Online Page A

choked laugh. He tucked his back up against mine and began to sing the
     oddest crooning lullaby in words I could not understand. The melody wound like a nest
     around my heart, shielding me from the ills of the world.
    I slept heavily and woke before dawn, determined to succeed. Luce arrived with the
     chests. We walked in a trundle of carts through the predawn gloom toward the harbor.
     Rory pushed a cart among the other men. I walked in the center to be less conspicuous.
     Luce held my hand. The menfolk bantered in a half-awake, early-morning way. I could
     not rein in my thoughts, which galloped from the impossibility of rescuing Vai out
     of the jaws of the Master of the Wild Hunt to the pain of being sundered from my dearest
     Bee. It was easier not to think at all.
    West Quay was the farthest west of the wharves in the main harbor, mostly used by
     Phoenician ships, and notably marked by a pair of tall wooden posts the locals called
     Heracles’s Pillars for the famous straits at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. On
     the opposite side of the jetty was an inn called Nance’s, with a sprawling wooden
     deck flanked by buildings. The edifice had a grand view of the harbor and of the monumental
     arch that led into the walled confines of the old city. Almost two months ago, Vai
     and I had been separated here by an unexpected meeting.
    At tables along the railing, men ate with the concentration of sailors savoring their
     last good meal before shipping out. Barrels were lined up street-side next to the
     steps. A man leaned against a barrel with an open book in his hands. He met my questing
     gaze with a polite nod of greeting.
    “Blessed Tanit!” I released Luce’s hand. “Rory, we’ve got to run.”
    The leaning man closed the book with an audible snap. Kofi looked around with a curse.
     A piercing whistle cut through the hush of dawn. Rory dropped the handles of the cart
     he was pushing, and the entire line of carts came to a juddering halt. Taino soldiers
     trotted onto the jetty from where they had been hiding amid stacks of crates. The
     men who had been eating clattered down the stairs to fan out onto the jetty, brandishing
     the short swords known as falcatas that were famous as the preferred weapon of Iberian
     infantrymen. We were surrounded.
    The man with the book approached with a measured tread that drew all eyes. He had
     height and breadth, the look of a man who fought in wars once and means to do so again.
     Silver streaked his mane of wavy black hair. His face bore the stamp of his father’s
     noble Malian ancestors in having brown skin and his mother’s patrician Roman lineage
     in having a bold nose.
    My enemy, General Camjiata.
    “I’ve been waiting for you, Cat,” he said with the friendly smile the victor can afford
     to give the vanquished. “I admire your plan for a bold escape, and your ability to
     gather allies. But you’re going to have to come to the Council Hall to address the
     charge of murder.”

4
    “Shall I eat him, Cat?” murmured Rory.
    “Rory, don’t move. They’ll shoot you.” I faced the general. “How did you find us?”
    “You see, Cat, it isn’t that you need to have the dragon dreamer at your side at all
     times,” said General Camjiata as he strolled up to me. “She does not dream the day
     before of what will come to pass the next morning.”
    “She doesn’t?” I asked, thinking of my dream.
    He took no notice because he was too enthralled by the sound of his own voice. “Nor
     can she walk by purpose into a dream that will tell her what she wishes to know about
     a crossroads in her future. She may never even recognize what it is she has seen.
     What you need to make use of a dreamer’s gift is a record of her dreams, so you can
     study this record until you see patterns emerge and weave the pieces together.”
    He opened the book.
    “That’s Bee’s sketchbook!” I exclaimed. “The one you stole from her!”
    The page was a jumble of