Brimstone Angels Read Online Free PDF Page B

years.”
    Brin nodded, racking his brain. Athkatla … was the capital of Amn—south. Not so far south as Darromar, and while Athkatla was closer—probably—to Darromar than they were now, they were farenough apart that Brin would have no cause to have visited the larger town … except—
    “Was the road north always that bad?” he said. “It felt like we’d never make it to Waterdeep.”
    Tam shrugged. “It was a long time ago. I left on the road east.”
    Brin shrugged and looked back at the road again, a bad feeling creeping through his thoughts. If Tam didn’t mention Athkatla because of the road, then why? Was he just looking for something they had vaguely in common? Or was he trying to catch Brin in a lie? He looked at the odd priest out of the corner of his eye.
    He’d felt sure that no one who knew he’d left would be willing to send out hunters or postings. He’d assumed they would just send Constancia and her warrior-priests …
    He’s not a bounty hunter, Brin told himself. And if he were, he couldn’t be sure Brin was who he was looking for: There were no portraits to show a hunter, and besides, Brin had stained his blond hair regularly since leaving Cormyr. A hunter would be told he was seventeen, but Brin had been relying on his short height and scrawny build to pass for younger—the wagon master thought he was fourteen, which would have mortified Brin a few months ago but now felt like a special triumph. And the hunter would be looking for someone to answer to another name.
    Still Brin was sure of none of these things, and his stomach pulled with the familiar unease that puzzling out someone else’s motives always gave him.
    “Where are you coming from?” Brin asked the strange priest.
    Tam smiled again, but there was still that look in his eye. As if he knew they were playing a game. As if he could manipulate and maneuver all day long against a little turncoat Cormyrian. As if he knew exactly how Brin’s stomach felt, and how weak that made him.
    “Westgate,” he said.
    “Did you flee Neverwinter then?”
    “No, just lending a hand.” Tam seemed to consider Brin a moment, and he was a little less certain of his assessment—Brin’s mother used to give him a similar look. “Are you sure nothing’s weighing on you?”
    “It’s weighing on me that you keep asking that,” Brin said as lightly as he could. “I must look wretched. How soon will we reach Neverwinter, do you think?”
    Tam began to answer, but a ululating cry out of the forest startled both of them, and no amount of maneuvering or manipulating would have made any difference then.

    “Come on,” Havilar said, stomping her foot. “Hurry up. A good hard sprint and we’ll catch them.”
    It was too hot to be sprinting after anyone. Farideh shifted her haversack to her right shoulder. Her scar itched where the strap had rubbed against it for the last few miles. The sweat that trickled over her skin made the itch sting in places.
    “Do that,” Mehen said, coming to stand beside her on the crest of the road, “and you’ll spook our bounty.” He raised a spyglass to one eye.
    “You don’t even know the bounty’s
on
the caravan,” Havilar protested. “Because you won’t let us catch up!”
    “What do you think is going to happen if we wait?” Farideh asked, joining them. “We’re miles from anywhere.” Ahead on the road, the caravan that had been slipping in and out of sight for the past day was close enough to make out the black dog hanging its head over the edge of the last cart, the bright pink of its tongue.
    “This one might … I don’t know … run into the woods and join up with bandits,” Havilar said, “and then what will we do? Hmm? Creep through a bandit fortress for another three bloody tendays?”
    Mehen collapsed the spyglass. “Havi, calm down. Let them get ahead. Let them get to the next waystation if they need to. Then at least we’ll have a room and someone we can buy passage