Covenant's End by Ari Marmell Read Free Book Online

greatest of Galice's southern cities was well and firmly closed.
    Shins couldn't see the sun, of course; hadn't all day. Still and all, she knew her sense of the time couldn't be too far off. It was a few hours past noon, still early for the many merchants and shoppers who would stick around after the bulk of the markets had closed down, hoping to finagle special bargains for themselves. And that trade was fed, during all but the winter months, by a steady feed of goods from outside.
    Never, in Shins's memory, had the gates been shut before dusk.
    Nor was that the only abnormality she noticed, now that she could see. Sentries stood below, in and around the watch-house by the gate; and sentries stood above, patrolling atop the narrow wall. Just as always.
    But their numbers were not just as always. Shins didn't bother doing a head count, but she figured there were at least twice as manysoldiers on duty as she'd have expected; possibly nearer to three times. If the other gates were equally overstaffed, the thief couldn't imagine how the Guard could have enough other people on duty to even begin to keep the peace inside.
    Then again, the sentinels clearly didn't expect anything remotely resembling “peace,” either inside or out. Shins was accustomed to the traditional armament of the City Guard: a simple rapier and a so-called “bash-bang,” a heavy pistol with a stock of reinforced brass rather than wood, to double as a brutally effective skull-cracker. And she did see those here, yes, but so, too, did she see guards wearing braces or bandoliers of additional, smaller flintlocks. She saw long-barreled muskets and gape-mawed blunderbusses; the wire-wrapped hilts of main-gauches or other secondary blades.
    No enemy showed itself on the surrounding field, no damage scored the walls, but the men and women who stood watch appeared to be defending against a full-on siege.
    â€œWhat do you think?” Shins asked, then shook her head almost before the image of the cyclopean beast faded. “No, I don't think so. I don't see any signs it's gotten anywhere near the city, and the Houses sure as all fungus aren't going to close the gates over a rumor. For pastries’ sake, even if that thing or something like it had gotten here? My one shot couldn't drop it, but I'm pretty sure a whole fusillade or a cannonball would, yes?
    â€œNo, something else is going on here. That thing, or things, on the road was part of it. Were part of it? Does language have half-plurals? Anyway, that thing's part of it—too much of a coincidence for it not to be—but there's more.
    â€œHeh. Mystery, confusion, and violence. Must be Davillon.”
    Still she stood. Studied. Soaked in the rain.
    And then decided to play a hunch.
    â€œHome!” She dropped the bridle and gave the roan a light slap on the haunches. “Home!” she shouted again.
    Without a single look back, the horse trotted forward, head hunched against the weather, making for the gate.
    The voices of the sentries rang out in challenge, falling quickly into a confused babble as they realized the animal was riderless. Several guardsmen braved the rain, emerging from the shack to examine the peculiar traveler.
    And examine it they did. Shins had never observed as thorough a search of entrants to the city—human, animal, or vehicle—as she saw now. They removed the tattered bits of harness, checking carefully beneath. They examined the horse's teeth, its shoes. A short argument erupted, and only when one young sentry shuffled around, sullenly and nervously, to grip the beast's tail did Shins realize where else they were searching.
    â€œI am going to turn away, now,” Widdershins announced, as she did just that. “And you are going to swear to never, ever, put that image back in my head, or I will find a priest to bless a cabinet and so help me, I will lock you in a drawer.”
    She knew full well that Olgun's silence meant only that he