Messenger’s Legacy by Peter V. Brett Read Free Book Online

smiling. ‘If that ent the night calling it dark, dunno what is. Might have more time for Mery if I wasn’t waiting on Lady Elissa in your place.’
    Just her name sent a thrill through Ragen. ‘She is well? The child …’
    ‘Looks like she swallowed the base of a snowman,’ Arlen said, ‘but the Gatherer says everything’s sunny.’ He turned to give a shout into the back. ‘Cob! Ragen’s back!’
    A moment later, the grizzled old Warder appeared. ‘Ragen! How was your last tour?’
    ‘Easy and safe, for my part,’ Ragen said.
    ‘Did you make it all the way to the desert?’ Arlen asked.
    Ragen shook his head. ‘Settled for a night on Lookout Hill.’
    Arlen’s smile soured. ‘Been settling for looks too long. Can’t wait till I get my licence and can see for myself. Going to go places no Messenger’s ever been.’
    ‘You want to be Marko Rover, then?’ Ragen said.
    Arlen shrugged. ‘Every Messenger wants to be Marko Rover.’
    ‘Ay, the boy has the right of that,’ Cob said. ‘Used to beg the Jongleurs for tales of the Rover when I was a lad.’
    Ragen nodded. ‘Fair and true. The tales tell of the wondrous places Marko went, but they always seem to leave out the weights his heart brought home.’
    ‘Are you saying it’s not worth it?’ Arlen asked.
    ‘Creator, no.’ Ragen winked. ‘I’ve got letters in my bag from half the Merchants and Royals south of the Dividing, asking for Arlen Bales to take my summer run to Lakton.’
    Arlen’s eyes widened. ‘Honest word?’
    Ragen nodded. ‘With Count Brayan in your corner after your mad adventure to his mines, Guildmaster Malcum will have a hard time refusing.’
    Arlen leapt to his feet with a whoop. It was so unlike the serious boy that Ragen did not know how to react. He looked to Cob, finding the old Warder equally dumbfounded.
    ‘Elissa won’t like it,’ Ragen said. ‘Nor Mery, I imagine.’
    ‘They won’t hear it from you,’ Arlen said, taking in both men with his gaze. ‘Neither of you. I’ll tell them when I’m ready.’
    Ragen nodded. ‘Now all that’s left is for me to decide what to do with the rest of my life.’
    ‘I’ve some thoughts on the matter,’ Cob said, ‘since you’ve all but ensured I’m losing my partner.’



4
Mudboy
333 AR Autumn
    M udboy watched the bog demon prowl the refuse mounds from the safety of one of his many hogroot patches.
    ‘Hogroot grows angrily as a weed,’ his mother used to say. Simple cuttings grew stalks of their own in almost any soil. In the fertile ground of the dump they spread like firespit, choking out other plants to form islands of safety in the naked night.
    The cory sniffed, finding the first rat, blood still warm on its fur. The demon gave an excited croak, catching the rat on a talon and tossing it into its open maw. It bit once and swallowed the creature whole.
    Mudboy kept perfectly still. The demon was mere feet from him, but it heard nothing – saw nothing. The hog resin and mud on his clothes blended him perfectly with his surroundings, and the stink of him was enough to turn any demon’s nose.
    Some cories were content to rise in the same place every night, hunting within a small radius and sinking back down in the same spot at dawn. Mudboy knew the ones in the area, and where they were apt to be found.
    Other demons tended to roam, falling back to the Core wherever their wandering left them and rising in the same spot that night. This one had been drifting closer for days. Mudboy had planted clusters of hogroot at every approach, but the dump drew cories like standing water drew skeeters. Cories hungered for human flesh most of all, and the dump was thick with people stink.
    Mudboy dug pits, laid tripwires, and even burned hog smoke in its path, but despite his every incentive to hunt elsewhere, the bog demon had got uncomfortably close to the briar patch, his hidden lair. It couldn’t be allowed to stay.
    The rat had barely been a mouthful, but a few feet