Spirit Walker Read Online Free PDF Page B

leave town, and the slavers won’t come.”
    Scandal eyed him a moment. Realization dawned. The word slave frightened Tull, put him on the defensive. “Oh, they’ll leave town when their families get hungry enough, if only to hunt up in the mountains. Just go out and let your eyes drift—they’re already leaving. And as for the slavers, they’re already here among us. Every shipping season someone disappears from the region—one or two people—not enough to rouse the city.”
    Tull said, “You’ve got fog between your ears! Some merchants who sail these waters have tentacles, and they may snag one or two a year—but you accuse friends of that?”
    Ayuvah touched Tull’s wrist. “Scandal didn’t mean to offend,” Ayuvah warned Tull. He turned to Scandal. “We were attacked by slavers on the trip. Denni and Tchar are dead.”
    Scandal sat back in his chair, grunting as if he’d been slugged. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea. And here I have been talking about them as if it were a joke. Five kegs of honey for two good men. It’s a bitter trade.” Scandal sat a moment, looking off at nothing. He said gently, “Have a seat here a moment boys, I’ll get your pay for the trip.”
    He went to his office, got the money, came back out and surveyed the guests quickly, making sure that the customers had plenty of food and drink on their tables. He stopped at a table, told a bawdy tale to a sailor and winked at one of the whores, signing for her to sit on the fellow’s lap. When he got to Tull and Ayuvah, he held out a bag of coins to Tull, jingled them in his hands.
    “Three steel eagles a day, as promised,” Scandal said. “I put in a little extra for Denni and Tchar’s families, all right?”
    “Ayaah,” Tull nodded.
    “I made up your receipts,” Scandal said. “Put your marks down here.” Tull looked at the receipt and frowned, took the quill and signed his name. Ayuvah saw his concern, grabbed his arm, but Tull did not offer to read the human words on the receipt for him.
    “I don’t mean to push,” Scandal said. “But a final word: You can look for work tomorrow and the next day, and with the harvest coming in, I’m sure you’ll have work a-plenty. But if you come with me, you won’t have to look for work. You'll get three steel eagles a day. If you can convince more Pwi to come, just remember it won’t be a trip for boys, but there will be a bonus in it for each person you recruit.”
    Ayuvah spoke up in Pwi. “I have a final word for you: My grandfather sadly knew a Pwi—Ayanavi the Wise.”
    Theron sensed a tale coming, and he scrunched his brow in concentration. Pwi tales often had a moral, but the morals were not always easy to understand.
    “When Ayanavi was young and happy, the slavers took him to Craal. He tried to escape, so they put him to work in the mines and chained him to the wall. For three years, only the sweet memory of his wife and children kept him alive, and one day he finally chopped off his hand with a sharp stone and escaped his shackles. After hardships that gave him misery in the brain forever after, he found his way home.”
    The room quieted as patrons began to listen in.
    “But when he got home, his dismay overpowered him, for he found that his wife and children had been captured only five days before, and taken as slaves into Craal. Remember Scandal: that though to you this tale may seem an unfortunate irony, such are the tales of all men who escape Craal. The land is ruled by Adjonai, the God of Terror, and those who enter will find every detail of their lives controlled by him forever after.”
    Theron didn’t believe in evil gods made of shadows, and perhaps his easy stance alerted the young Pwi. So Ayuvah leaned forward and said and whispered, “You speak lightly of making this journey because you do not believe in Adjonai, but he is real. If you go to Craal, he will control you forever after. Even speaking his name, I can feel his hand