Of Blood And Fire Ryan Cahill (nice books to read .txt) 📖

front door of the Two Barges inn. His pulse slowed a little as he wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his coat. He hadn’t realised quite how much of a panic he had been in. He laughed out loud at himself. Sometimes I can be such a fool. He was hardly looking at me.

His heart was still thumping a bit harder than usual as he pushed open the door to the inn.

Farda flicked his coin up in the air, never lifting his gaze from the other side of the docks, where he had seen that boy skulking about.

He heard the metallic whoosh as the coin spun in the air. The flight of the coin did not concern him. He had flipped it enough to know where it would land. On which side it would land was what interested him. His eyes still fixed on the alleyway, he extended his arm out to his side and snatched the coin from mid-air. Finally pulling his gaze from the docks, he opened his palm and looked at the result. Crowns.

“Your lucky day, boy,” he whispered to himself. I don’t usually tolerate people who snoop, but the gods have spoken.

Plodding footsteps approached. The familiar creak of the wooden deck reminded him of how long he spent cooped up on that damned ship. He didn’t turn to face the approaching soldiers.

“Sir, the ship has been checked over, and she is secured fast to the moorings. Inquisitor Rendall has insisted we start the search. Those Southern rats can’t have gotten far.”

There was a metallic clink as the coin flew back up into the air. Farda reached out once more and opened his palm. Lions.

Farda’s black cloak billowed in the breeze as he pondered. He tucked the coin back into his pocket. “Good. I will be joining you.”

CHAPTER 10

Where Two Roads Meet

The waft of warm air hit Calen as he walked through the doors of the inn. The honeyed aroma of mead and the oddly satisfying smell of burning wood filled his nostrils. The inn was far busier than it had been earlier in the day. All the tables were packed with townsfolk, travellers, and merchants, who traded stories and played games of dice and cards. The serving women dashed about, filling their bellies with mead and stew. A bard in the corner of the room played a lute. Well, attempted to play the lute. Failed to play the lute.

As he searched the room for Dann and Rist, Calen heard a triumphant roar erupt from across the room. He looked over to see a group of men huddled together about twenty feet from a thick sheet of wood hanging on the wall. They were dressed in furs and worn leathers, their unkempt beards marking them as strangers to the villages. They smashed their tankards off one another in celebration.

On the sheet of wood were five red circles within each other, each one smaller than the last, until the middle was a solid red dot. There, the head of an axe was buried, its handle protruding outward. Calen watched with curiosity as one of the men strutted over to remove the axe from its rest. As the man turned, Calen’s eyes widened in surprise.

Dann?

Just as Calen was about to call out to Dann, a hand jutted above the canopy of heads, waving in his direction. There was a lethargy to the wave, as if the owner of the hand were not aware it was being held up in the air.

Rist was seated at a table in the middle of the room, a book splayed out in front of him. His eyes were glued to the pages, a tankard of mead in his hand. Calen made his way over and pulled out the empty chair beside Rist. He let his shoulders sag as soon as his ass touched the seat, his heartbeat finally settling to a normal rhythm.

His face must have betrayed him, as Rist raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I’m fine,” Calen panted. “Just got a little overexcited is all. There are imperial soldiers at the docks.”

Rist looked up, his eyes narrowing at Calen over the edge of his book. He folded over the corner of the page he was reading, then closed the book. “Here, in Milltown? Why would they be here?”

“I’ve no idea, but one of them may have caught me staring. I decided not to stick around.”

“Isn’t Dann supposed to be the one who does stupid things?” Rist suppressed a laugh. He folded his arms and pondered. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen imperial soldiers.”

“I have. Once. When Dad brought me along to a trade fair in Camylin. There were imperial guards outside the house of the Lorian Emissary.” Calen wasn’t eager to stay on the topic. He had heard stories of imperial soldiers. The things they did to Southerners – some of them had to be exaggerated. The stories mostly came from the likes of Valtara and Varsund, where the High Lords had rebelled or started wars. But there were a few from Illyanara. The stories made him shiver. “Dann found a few new friends?”

He tried to get the attention of a young serving girl with porcelain skin and fair blonde hair tied in a long braid.

“He’s been at that for an hour or so,” Rist said. “Of course, he is fantastic at it.” A sigh escaped his lips before he took a deep draught of mead.

“You weren’t interested in joining him?” Calen asked. He finally managed to grab the attention of the serving girl and order the mead that had been on his mind since he walked in. His throat felt like it had been rubbed with cotton.

Rist let out a soft chuckle as he peeled open his book. “No, I’m perfectly fine here with my book and my mead. A History of Magii. The merchant didn’t want to part with it cheaply, but I managed to bargain him down