Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

head to find a cold damp cloth laid there. ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Manners? Also very unthief-like.’
    Dorin felt his face scrunching up in annoyance. ‘I told you . . .’
    She waved her hand. ‘Yes, yes. Here you are, wounded, hiding on our roof, yet you are not a thief. However, I believe you because you’re clearly the one who’s been robbed.’ She gestured to indicate his full length.
    Frowning, he roused himself to peer down. His jacket was gone, his shirtings were torn and blood-spattered, his trousers were likewise torn, scuffed and bloody, and his feet were bare. They’d taken his shoes? He didn’t remember that happening. Now, his feet were blackened and filthy and oozing blood from innumerable cuts. At least he still possessed his laced inner vest of toughened leather lined with bone strapping.
    By the beast gods, I’m a stinking wreck! One day in Li Heng and I’ve fallen to the lowest dregs!
    All he felt was excruciating embarrassment and a rising dark fury. Embarrassment at his condition; rage against those who had thrown him into it.
    ‘Come inside,’ the girl urged. ‘Soon it will be light enough for the guards on the wall to see you.’ She pointed up.
    He glanced up to the wall of the Inner Round, then peered about. He studied the surrounding shadowed maze of rooftops and the distant vista of the Seti Plains beyond, now brightening under a slanting pink and purple light; dawn was near.
    Nodding, he eased himself up on to his feet, then winced and hissed, tottering on the blazing pain from his soles, and dizzy, his head pounding. The girl steadied him. ‘This way.’ She led him to the front of the gable where the shutters now swung open and guided him within. Here was a tall attic space, crowded with dusty chests and bales, with straw scattered about the wood floor. Birds fluttered their wings and flew about, disturbed by their entry.
    She helped him ease down on to a heap of straw. ‘Rest here. I’ll bring food later.’
    Dorin did not know what to say; he’d never felt so helpless. ‘Thank you. You are . . .?’
    ‘Ullara.’
    ‘Why are you . . .?’
    The girl blushed and looked away. Having sufficient clarity of mind to study her now, he noted the smudged dirt on her freckled cheeks, and how her sleeveless tunic was stained and much mended, as were her old faded skirts. Perhaps feeling his steady gaze, she edged away while motioning about the attic, saying, airily, ‘Oh, I collect things I find on the roof.’ And she swung her legs over an open trapdoor in the floor and disappeared.
    Dorin frowned his puzzlement as he peered round. Perched all about on the trunks, bales, rafters, and roof-struts was a multitude of birds. All studied him with unblinking bead-like eyes. He was amazed as the dawning realization came that each one of them was a bird of prey. He recognized the common red plains falcon, the spotted hawk, owls large and small, and even two tawny eagles. Many, he noted, sported makeshift bandages on wings and legs.
    He snorted into the swirls of hanging straw dust.
Greetings. Guess I’m the new wounded brother
.
    *
    Ullara was of course the shortened nickname of her much longer Hengan given name. She returned later that day with scraps of food and sat, her long thin legs drawn up beneath her skirts, to watch him eat. Dorin had to shake off his irritation at feeling like a rescued cat – or bird, in this case – and thus being in her care.
    Finishing the crust of bread and mushed leavings of vegetables he set down the bowl and wiped his fingers in the straw. ‘I should go now.’
    The girl had watched him with an eerie sideways intensity, as if not really looking at him at all, her chin resting in one hand. She seemed to lack all the usual self-consciousness and attention to decorum of the Talian girls he’d known. ‘You are not used to saying thanks after all,’ she observed, matter-of-factly.
    He forced his teeth to unclench. ‘Thank you for all you have done.’
    ‘You