The Raven's Shadow by Elspeth Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

was swift, if brutal. A harsh Gimraeli voice barked a command, steel thunked into flesh and a dripping object was hoisted into the air. The crowd bayed their approval and the Superior shuddered.
    ‘Did they . . . ?’
    ‘Yes.’ Gair forced himself to release the sword-hilt as, amazingly, the press of bodies and vehicles ahead began to stir. Faintly, he heard the distinctive ringing of hammers on nails and guessed what was happening to the merchant’s corpse. ‘When we pass the well, I suggest you don’t look up.’
    One by one, wagons lumbered into motion. The crowd was still hooting and chanting, but as it thinned around the edges space opened up for the carts to pass by. The pace was hideously slow. Every yard of the way, Gair expected a shout to ring out and a horde of yellow-sashed swordsmen to appear around the nuns’ wagon. The back of his neck itched with imagined scrutiny, but no one spoke up and the mules plodded on across the square.
    As they passed the well, he couldn’t prevent himself glancing across at the scorched shapes of the trees. What he saw made his gorge rise. Poor Hamesh’s body was propped in a sitting position against the largest tree, his colourful robes defiled by gory stains. Flies swarmed around the bloody stump of his neck and the slack-jawed head that sat above it, pinned to the tree’s trunk with long black nails through the eyes.
    Stomach surging, Gair dragged his gaze forwards again before he gave himself away. The act was horrific enough, but what truly sickened him was the Cult warrior standing to one side of the corpse, grinning triumphantly, brandishing the bloody sword above his head as if he was proud of what he’d done.
    Gair’s pulse pounded so hard it made his head swim. Dear Goddess, was there no depth to which the Cult would not stoop? He caught a worried glance from the Superior and realised he had a white-knuckled grip on the qatan again, and his jaw ached from grinding his teeth. It took a half-minute or more to make himself let go. It took another half a mile of crowded street before his heartbeat slowed to something close to normal.
    Close to the Lion Gate, the wagon’s progress became erratic and then stopped altogether. The larger vehicles could only pass through in single file, and the city watchmen in charge of the gates also had to contend with travellers outside wanting to come within the walls before nightfall. It made for a frustrating wait, everyone packed into the foregate square like so many salt fish in a barrel. Sulky teams stamped and shook their heads at the flies and their drivers grumped to each other like wagoneers everywhere. Gair pitied the poor sisters sweltering in the wagon-bed under the heavy canvas; the heat wasn’t a great deal less outside, but at least there was fresh air to be had.
    He watched the gate guards over the heads of the crowd in the square. They didn’t appear to be overly vigilant; with luck they’d be as bored and lazy as the guards had been in Dremen when he’d fled the motherhouse, at their post more for the look of it than any real effort at security, but given the tension and violence in the city – never mind what he’d just witnessed – that might be too much to hope for.
    Bending low in the saddle so only the Superior could hear him, he asked, ‘Will the watch want to see a manifest, or inspect the cargo?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered back. ‘It’s been more than twenty years since I came through here on a supply wagon.’ Lines of strain pinched the corners of her eyes as she hunted back and forth from the watchmen at the gate to the carts in front of her. Most were waved through, but some drivers were being quizzed. ‘I am loath to ask this, but as they say, when a nail needs driving . . . Is there anything you can do to help us remain unseen?’
    With less of a crowd around them and more time to prepare, he might have been able to spin an illusion to disguise both her and the wagon. He had a