Scar Night by Alan Campbell Read Free Book Online Page B

soured. “The
Adraki,
” she said. “Looks like Mark managed to dock the flagship without knocking the whole temple over.” Then, seeing his confusion: “Mark Hael, my brother.”
    Now Dill recalled where he’d heard her surname before. Mark Hael had been appointed commander of Deepgate’s aeronauts after his own father, General Edward Hael, had lost his warship to Heshette arrow fire in the northern Deadsands. Hampered by sand storms, aeronauts had been searching the wreckage for the general’s body for days. The significance of the
Adraki
’s arrival at the temple dock became apparent. They had now located Edward Hael—Rachel’s father was to be among the dead given to the abyss at this morning’s ceremony.
    “They must have found him—your father.”
    She folded her arms.
    “Then you will be at the Sending ceremony,” he said.
    “Not if I can help it,” she said, turning away.
    “But—”
    But she was already striding towards the door.
    “Hold on,” he called after her, waving the book. “Wait, you mentioned swordplay, poisons.” He didn’t care a whit about either, but he wasn’t about to let her walk out that easily; not with his cauldron of questions still bubbling. “If you’re supposed to…”
    She halted midway across his cell, slipped a tiny black phial out from a pouch on her belt and tossed it over to him. “You want to know about poisons?” she said. “Drink that.”
    Then she left.
    Dill stood there for a while, juggling the phial, book, and key, and tried to untangle his thoughts. He felt cheated. Why a Spine overseer? His first day of service, and he was to be shadowed by a temple assassin. Worse, he was to be
instructed
by a temple assassin. They weren’t scholars. They weren’t even proper soldiers.
Nightcrawlers!
What would people think? He gripped the soulcage key so hard it stung his hand.
    Don’t lose the key.
    Gods below, he was a temple archon, not a child. He coiled up the chain and slammed it on the mantel, then placed the phial and book beside it. A tiny snail he’d missed clung there. Dill pinged it away with a flick of his finger and heard it ricochet off the far wall.
    “Bastard.”
    He shoved on his boots, then cursed and yanked them off again before pulling his trousers on instead. The trousers were too large, but the sword belt kept them in place. The shirt pinched his back around his wings, and the straps were all too fiddly and complicated to tie up properly. He left half of them undone: it didn’t matter. No one would see them under his jacket. The jacket itself was stiff and equally difficult to get into—another garment adapted to fit around his wings by incompetent temple cassock-stitchers who never had to wear the stupid thing.
    Finally fully dressed, he took a deep breath and forced his eyes from their throbbing orange back to the appropriate grey. Then, at last, he looked himself over.
    Snails had left their greasy trails down one side of his jacket. One silver button was missing. His boots were loose, and somehow already scuffed, his trousers creased and covered with wisps of cobweb.
    He looked like a fool.
    “I’m a temple archon,” he said to his ancestor’s image in the window, but that didn’t make him feel any better.
    Then he grabbed his sword and thrust it into the scabbard at his belt. So what if the pommel had been sheared off? Maybe it wasn’t a Spine sword, or even a good sword, but it had once belonged to Callis, and that was enough for him. He patted the replacement guard. The Spine assassin was probably just jealous. Dill plucked a loose feather from his sleeve, brushed away imaginary dust, and then, proudly gripping the hilt of his sword, set off for his first proper day at work.
    He returned a moment later to collect the key.

4
    THE WEAPON SMITH
    T HE WHOLE CITY got out of Mr. Nettle’s way. Crowds parted at the Applecross fleshmarket, merchants hushed their hollering, pedlars and servants and jugglers and fools stepped