The Alabaster Staff Read Online Free PDF Page A

paused to inspect a blade offered by an arms merchant(weapons were priced almost as exorbitantly as food) and, turning the polished bronze weapon in her hand to reflect the Jackal’s Courtyard behind her, caught a glimpse of the dark man moving parallel to her on the other side of the plaza. He was shadowing her, to her left and rear.
    The merchant stooped under his table, and Kehrsyn’s hand strayed to her sash, but she remembered her vow and forced herself to return the blade with a “thank you” and a dazzling smile. She continued on her way to a street leading off the plaza. Once out of the man’s view, she increased her speed and turned into an angled street on her right, quickly enough that he—whoever he was—could not have seen her.
    Just to be safe, she picked up her speed even more, then ducked into a narrow alley that opened to her left, keeping her free hand on her rapier to keep it from bouncing around. She wasn’t certain where the alley led, but, wherever it did, she was certain that she had evaded the stranger.
    Though the alley protected her from the chill breeze, the rain and the cold remained, enhanced somewhat by the foul smells of rotting refuse. For once, Kehrsyn found a reason to thank the cold weather. In the summers, alleys stank something foul. Her breath steamed around her limp hair as she moved down the alleyway, looking for an outlet to another avenue. Navigating by instinct, she moved through the narrow, winding gap, passing a few branches before coming to a dead end. She paused and stared blankly at the wall in front of her, concealed as high as her waist by a pile of decomposing garbage. She pulled a lock of wet hair out of her face and retraced her steps, but just as she arrived at the first juncture, she saw her way blocked by an armed man.
    She was relieved to see that it wasn’t the same man from the plaza … and, for just a moment, she also felt a slight pang of disappointment.
    He was short, shorter than she. The steam curling from his sneering lip combined with his powerful build to give the impression of a bull or a fighting dog. A thick cloak covered his head and shoulders, and a black tabard with some sort of gold emblem draped off his wide chest, the hem shedding droplets that splashed in the dirty puddles at his feet. A shield hung across his back. He straightened as he saw Kehrsyn approach, and her ears picked up the grate of steel on steel. He’s wearing mail beneath his cloak, Kehrsyn thought, splint or scale.
    “Olaré,” she said, for lack of anything better, and took another bite of her pear. “So, um, what kind of uniform is that? That’s no soldier’s outfit that I know. And you don’t have that medallion the Northern Wizards’ people wear. Are you a mercenary? Or some kind of deputized …”
    Kehrsyn’s words trailed off as the burly man drew a long sword from a well-crafted scabbard. He swung it at his side in a lazy figure eight and stepped toward her.
    Kehrsyn jumped to an unwanted conclusion.
    “I’ll scream,” she said.
    “Go ahead,” said the man in a surprisingly high-pitched voice with a noticeable northwestern accent. “If the local pikegrabbers get here, I don’t gotta trot you all the way over to the damn barracks to get my bounty.”
    Kehrsyn furrowed her brow.
    “Don’t try to act so damn innocent, pretty little thief,” he said, sounding more like a juvenile than the veteran he clearly was. “You stole that pear, and there’s a bounty on freeloaders like you.”
    Kehrsyn’s eyes widened as she stared at the half-eaten piece of fruit in her hand.
    “I did no such thing!” she blurted.
    She began edging backward, down the dead-end alley.
    “Of course not,” replied the man, “ ’cuz I hear that in this city, if you steal food, they don’t chop your hand, they chop your damn neck.”
    “I didn’t steal it!” said Kehrsyn, knowing how thin her protests must sound. “It was a gift! This boy, he liked—” She halted