Watcher of the Dead by J. V. Jones Read Free Book Online

she got into Sull territory
the greater the risk. She was Jal Rakhar, the Reach, and the Sull
could not decide whether they wanted her alive or dead.
    Ash glanced down at her hands as they
worked the reins. They looked like normal hands, with veins and
tendons and horse dirt beneath the nails, but they weren’t.
They were rakhar dan, and if they were chopped into pieces they could
kill the Unmade. So the question for the Sull was: Did they kill her
and divide her corpse, or keep her alive and farm her?
    She didn’t much like the sound of
either of those and rejected both of them. Ash Mountain Born was
determined to decide her own fate.
    A pair of blue herons flew over the
path, whooping as they beat their blade-shaped wings. Ash wondered if
they were close to water. She couldn’t see anything beyond the
massive, shaggy cedars and the fern gardens below them.
    â€œHear that?â€

CHAPTER 31
    Watcher of the Dead
    THEY CARVED A large circle in the last
of the spring snow, trailing the scent that called the coven to
order, soundlessly tracing and retracing the circle, laying down the
old magic, waiting for the daughters to arrive.
    â€œUp. Now.â€

CHAPTER 32
    Strike Upon the Weasel Camp
    â€œHERE. LET ME dust your face with
this.â€

CHAPTER 33
    Floating on the Sull-Clan Border
    RUFUS RIME’S RULES for traveling
in the Reed Way were: Don’t travel unless you know where you’re
going; take water; take a lamp; never go east.
    Two out of four wasn’t bad.
    Effie Sevrance had a lamp and water
waiting in the boat.
    Now she had one final thing to fetch.
    It was dusk as she walked from the dock
to the roundhouse. The sky was green and pink, like it could only get
over the marsh. The sun was a big blurry shape, no longer round.
Reeds were swaying like corn in a field and marsh birds were calling
for the night.
    Effie entered the roundhouse and headed
straight for the kitchen. The Salamander Hall was quiet but people
had begun to gather in the kitchen for supper. Effie had to push past
them to get to Lissit.
    The girl saw her coming and tried to
duck. Only she couldn’t, not really, as she was serving up some
sort of broth with chunks of fish in it, stirring and ladling it into
bowls. All she could do was sort of tuck her head low and train her
gaze upon the broth. As if that was going to help.
    Effie walked straight up to the broth
pot and pushed her chest against the rim. “You’re coming
with me,â€

CHAPTER 34
    Watcher of the Damned
    ANGUS LOK LAY in the stinking filth of
the drain culvert and watched the street. Men’s bodies were
pushed to either side of him, huddling for warmth in the darkest and
stillest hour of the night, the one before dawn. The men reeked of
urine and the sourness of unwashed flesh. One man was jerking
rhythmically, either insane or pleasuring himself. Maybe both. Angus
ignored him.
    He was waiting as he had waited every
day and night for the past four days, watching the crossroad of two
streets, scanning for Sarcosa.
    The surgeon’s rooms were located
in a house along the east-west-running street. Angus had arranged it
so that whenever the surgeon left his home he had no choice but to
move through this corner, which was to the east of his rooms. The way
to the west, the end of the street which led down to the river and
the water gardens, was flooded.
    Angus dismantled small sections of the
city’s flood walls discreetly every night. It was the time that
caused him the most anxiety—not the crow-barring of masonry and
the resulting possibility of detection, but the fact that he was away
from his watch. Anything could happen at night. Surgeons were called
out for the dead, the dying, the sick, the hysterical, the seizing. A
call might come at any time, a messenger sent running to the
surgeon’s door. Come quick.
    It was Angus’ greatest fear that
a call would come while he was maintaining the flood, and