Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles by Nat Russo Read Free Book Online

in it. Or the way he lined his daggers up before going to sleep—he might need to retrieve one in a hurry. Though he wondered, sometimes, if the absence of the coin would be any worse than its presence.
    I could make my way around the northern building. Then they wouldn’t see me coming.
    The fewer people he encountered, the safer the village would be. All it would take is someone asking the wrong question, and it could set off a chain of events that demanded the coin’s intercession. That’s the way it always worked. If anyone—himself included—asked a question with only two possible answers, the coin’s malevolent compulsion would take hold, squeezing him in its grip until it drove all other thoughts from his mind.
    Better to take some food and vanish than to confront a bunch of inbred farmers who felt invincible around strangers.
    But which way would be safer, taking the road, or using stealth around the building?
    As soon as he formed the question, the compulsion returned in the form of tension in his neck and shoulders. It was mild at the moment, but if he didn’t didn’t consult the coin, panic would follow.
    He took the coin out of its pocket.
    Adda, I follow the road. Adda-ki, I sneak around the building.
    He tossed the coin and caught it on the back of his left hand. The tension evaporated even before he glanced at the result.
    Adda. Road it is.
    As the wind shifted, driving the rain into his face, sounds of merriment and song came from the village center. What would people be doing out in a storm like this?
    Celebrations meant foreign merchants and craftsmen. Perhaps this town would be less suspicious of strangers than other hamlets he’d visited in the northern country.
    He stopped at the corner of the building on the north side of the road and listened.
    Too many conversations to pick one out. There must be at least twenty people.
    The music swelled and with it the crowd’s laughter.
    At least twenty more dancing. Musicians. Cooks. Serving people.
    A familiar dull crack told him someone was on the losing end of a punch to the jaw.
    He reached for his daggers and swore when he remembered they’d been taken.
    But he couldn’t stop now. The only way was forward.
    He leaned around the corner to get his first look at the village center.
    The village was little more than a ring of buildings circling an area one hundred yards in diameter. The glow of torches lit an expansive, rectangular cloth canopy that spanned the village center, held aloft by tall poles decorated with corn stalks and gourds. Beneath the canopy, people danced in time to festive music played by a troupe of bards at the far end of the makeshift pavilion. Smaller tents lined the outer ring between the canopy and the buildings, and people stumbled in and out carrying tankards.
    Harvest festival. I could go for one of those tankards about now.
    “Oy!”
    An aging, high-pitched voice startled Aelron from behind.
    “Who are you, skulking about then?” the voice asked.
    Malvol’s festering stones! If I’d been listening, I’d have known he was coming.
    “No skulking,” Aelron said as he turned. “I promise.”
    Standing before him was an older man in his late fifties, wearing a tall hat, a hide cloak, and a chain of office around his neck. It was too dark for Aelron to make out which office it represented, though.
    I’ll have the advantage of speed. I can tangle him in his own cloak. His arms are folded under it, so he’s probably not very good with a blade. And he’s favoring his left knee.
    “And what do you call it, then?” the man said. “Looks a lot like skulking to me.”
    Aelron straightened up and held his hand out. “Aelron. You are?”
    “The bleedin’ constable, that’s who.”
    Wonderful.
    “Well met, sir,” Aelron said. “You have a name, Constable?”
    “Constable. Now what are you about?”
    “Look, I’m just passing through. I’ve never been here before and wanted to see what I was getting myself into.