Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 by Ian C. Esslemont Read Free Book Online Page B

course to abut the north gate.
    He crouched behind the shallow lip of the flat roof and renewed his study of the compound’s buildings and the comings and goings of Pung’s guards and hirelings. Behind him, in piled rattan cages, pigeons cooed to the night. How to get in? That was the problem. Three times he’d tried an approach, and each time he’d been spotted long before getting close enough.
    He edged forward to peer down into the torchlit crowded market below. The main warehouses were closed for the night, but food stalls lined the way, and inns and drinking houses were just now picking up business – most drawing trade from travellers who’d entered from the vast Seti Plains to the north. He settled in for another long watch. Eventually, one of these nights, his quarry would show himself. The bastard couldn’t stay hidden in there for ever, surely.
    For even he had heard the stories making the rounds of the taverns and corner idling-spots.
    The news that Pung had hired the services of a new mage. Some had him a towering magus with eyes of fire; others, an aged oldster crippled and bent from the soul-twisting horrors of his wizardry; still others named him only a faint voice in the darkness whispering of things that made one’s blood freeze. Some swore he could kill with a look, or a word. His Warren was variously speculated to be that of Rashan, D’riss, or Thyr; some claimed that he was a mystic shaman, or a necromancer with access to Hood’s own paths.
    Yet upon one feature all these differing accounts were in accord: the mage hailed from the sun-scorched savannahs far to the south, from Dal Hon.
    It was his man – that slippery youth. The damned prick might disguise himself as an oldster but Dorin knew better. It was he. The one who’d laughed at him. Who’d cheated and stolen from him.
    And no one got the better of Dorin Rav. Ever. It simply could not be allowed to stand.
    So he eased down to his shins for yet another fruitless eve’s watch, hoping to catch sight of his quarry out along the crowded bourse. The night darkened, the hours passed, his head drooped. Startled, glancing up, he noticed a tall shadow at the roof corner – a figure that had not been there before.
    He watched while keeping himself absolutely still. Behind him the pigeons had all gone quiet. His hands slowly rose to cross his chest and close on the roughened grips of the slimmest throwing daggers pushed through his baldrics.
    The big brass bell in the main temple to Burn began to ring out the mid-night hour. The shape stirred itself, broad wings unfolded, and it fell away to glide off in utter silence. He let out a long breath and relaxed his grip – what had that been? A mere bird? As tall as a youth?
    The sight left him uncharacteristically unnerved. Was this the source of all the recent strange night sightings of unnatural daemons, spirits, and flying creatures? Some large predator, lost or imported? Perhaps Ullara knew of it; he’d have to ask . . . his thoughts shifted away, however, as a new sound reached him from the street below: the tapping of a thin sharp walking stick against stone flagging.
    He jumped to his feet and ran down the length of the roof’s edge, searching the shifting crowds below. Was it he? What might he be wearing now? He’d been a short fellow – but that stick! That stupid vanity of a walking stick . . .
    He thought he caught the glimpse of a short dark figure far down the street before it disappeared from the flickering torchlight. He ran for the side of the building over a narrow alleyway and threw himself over the side to climb down.
    In the market he walked swiftly – not too swiftly – yet resolutely towards the north gate. Weaving round wanderers and revellers, he congratulated himself once more on his personal choice not to wear clothing that would mark him outwardly as anything other than one more poor labourer in search of a night’s entertainment: a hookah of d’bayang, perhaps, or