Assassin's Shadow (Veiled Dagger Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

may want. Turning at the next cross street, Rothar headed north towards the sounds and smells of the Witherington stables, where the merchants and farmers kept their horses while they did business in the city.
    A loosed horse came galloping down the street towards Rothar, sending peddlers and villagers scrambling this way and that, for fear of being trampled beneath it’s hooves. Rothar moved out into the middle of the lane and spread his arms wide. He did not move aside or retreat as the horse approached. He simply motioned calmly with his hands and maintained eye contact with the beast. The horse slowed and stopped before Rothar, allowing him to take the reins and lead him back.
    Upon arriving at the stables, Rothar found the place in great confusion. It seemed that the horse he returned was not the only one to escape, for someone had left a gate open.
    “It was that dirty mongrel that I chased out of here this morning, I am sure of it,” shouted the stable keeper, dragging a stubborn mare back into her stall. “He was slinking around and eyeing the horses. I knew I did not like the look of him.”
    Rothar led the escaped steed into an open stall.
    “A horse thief, you assume?” he asked the stable keeper.
    “Aye, but not a professional, I can tell you that.”
    “How so?” Rothar inquired.
    “He looked as though he could barely climb atop a horse, let alone ride one,” he replied. “He shook and trembled, like a tavern wretch.”
    Rothar looked around the stable yard. The dusty ground was pock marked with hoof prints everywhere, no human footprints could be discerned.
    “What do you suppose this is all about?” the stable man asked, bending over to pick something up out of the dusty soil. He handed it to Rothar, a small scrap of parchment with a star printed upon it in black, and in the center of the star was an eye.
    Rothar looked at the paper, then removed the other from the pocket of his cloak - the one he had found on the assailant in the Banewood. The two notes were identical.
    “What does it mean?” the stable man asked. He was peering over Rothar’s shoulder.
    “I do not know,” answered Rothar, “but I think I am going to find out.”

Chapter 9
    Returning at last to his home, Rothar laid down for some much needed rest. Sleep always came with difficulty after going for so long without it. Whenever he felt himself beginning to drift off, he was wrenched back into wakefulness, as though his mind had been working for so long that it could not easily shut down.
    In the hazy space between sleep and consciousness, his thoughts ran the gamut. Taria’s face danced across his mind’s eye, whispering promises and smiling coyly. Other faces took her place; the madman in the Banewood, the wretch on the street. His mind kept going back to the black star. What did it mean? Did it have anything to do with the strange and dangerous behaviors he was witnessing in the City?
    Finally, sleep settled over him.
    ***
    When he awoke, it was dark. He had slept through the rest of the day and half the night. Now, refreshed and alert, he stepped outside into the shrouded calm of night. Torches flickered at intervals, up and down the narrow, dirt streets of Witherington, and a pale moon shone on the thatched rooftops of the peasant homes. An owl called and a stray dog darted down the lane, but otherwise the night was still and quiet.
    Rothar decided to take a slow walk to Castle Staghorn to retrieve Stormbringer. He had always had a fondness for the night. As a man who was always hiding, even in plain sight, the night afforded him a chance to relax in the shadows. There was something effortless about the darkness, and Rothar embraced it just as it embraced him. He was invisible, moving about the King’s City under cover of dusk.
    He reached the castle stable in short order, slipping in silently through the back. Rothar knew that the castle stable boy lived in the loft above, and he did not wish to disturb or alarm him at