Halcyon The Complete Trilogy by Joseph Robert Lewis Read Free Book Online Page A

glanced at the remains of the other man, his shredded belly and intestines spilled across the cobblestones. Atoq sat down and began licking his drenched paw to wash his face.
    Turning, she saw the dark figure of Lorenzo standing beside three bodies, his sword already sheathed and hidden in the folds of his greatcoat. The rain fell harder and colder, drumming on her bare head. Qhora slipped her dagger back into her belt and pulled her feathered cloak tight around her shoulders as she walked over to him to look at the men. Clad in patched trousers and stained shirts, armed only with scrap wood and rusted pig iron rods, they lay in a neat pile at the side of the road. Briefly, she wondered if Lorenzo had moved the bodies or somehow contrived to kill them in such a way that they all fell on top of each other. Both seemed equally likely as she knew how much Lorenzo valued cleanliness. She asked, “Are you hurt?”
    “No. Are you?”
    “No. Who are they?”
    He paused before saying, “Desperados. Men who can’t find work, I suppose. It’s not uncommon here. We should not be out so late. It isn’t safe.”
    Qhora nodded slowly. “I had noticed that.”
    They resumed their unhurried walk through the rain to the hotel. Atoq followed behind them, sniffing about in the gutters and puddles along the way.
    “Enzo, I owe you an apology,” she said.
    Lorenzo stopped abruptly and snatched the wide-brimmed hat from his head. He stared at her, eyes wide with a strange mixture of horror and confusion. She studied his thin, pale face as the rainwater ran down over his sharp nose and cheeks. Once he had worn a tanned skin and a ready smile, and he was as likely to be laughing as singing when she found him. But now he was merely this, merely a thin figure, dark and quiet, anxious and uncertain. The lines around his eyes had deepened so much in the last few months, aging him beyond what had once been a youthful twenty-five. The rough stubble on his cheeks added a few years of their own.
    She said, “I’ve been unkind to you, my love. Over the last year, you’ve done nothing but serve me with great skill and greater patience. And I’ve done nothing but complain. I complain about your boring priests and your bland food, your ghost stories, and even the weather.”
    He nodded slowly, his face a blank. “It is very cold in España, my lady.”
    “But what good does it do to complain about it?” Qhora shivered as a trickle of freezing rain snaked down from her hair along the curve of her spine. “I realize that I’ve been comparing España to Jisquntin Suyu, which is unfair. España is a strange place, but it is beautiful too in its own way. And your people have many fine qualities. Loyalty, devotion, discipline. Beyond that of my own people, I admit.”
    “No, my love.” Lorenzo wiped his gloved hand across his face to push his soaked hair back. “We’re only people, no better or worse than any other.”
    “Of course you’re better than others.” Qhora tried not to snap too sharply at him. Sometimes his humility goes too far . “You’re better than these Mazighs. You’ve sung their praises to me for the last two weeks, and here I find a filthy city full of vagrants and killers. No. I’m sorry, Enzo. The Espani are a fine and noble people and I am grateful that you took me in when I had no place to go. And I will be just as grateful to be done with this errand and back in Tartessos, listening to your hymns and ghost stories again. And with a much more grateful heart.”
    “I know it’s been difficult for you. Maybe, after we go home, we can find a way to make things more comfortable for you.” He smiled faintly as he replaced his hat and they continued walking, the saber-toothed cat always just a few paces away. “Tonight may count as a ghost story, you know. If Ariel hadn’t warned me, we might have been unprepared. We might have been hurt.”
    Qhora pressed her lips for a moment before answering. “Yes, Enzo. But the