The God Tattoo: Untold Tales from the Twilight Reign Read Online Free PDF Page A

cloak that looked like the one I was after. As I reached the door I realised it was a kitchen as the smell of fried onions and garlic wafted
out, but there was also a scuffling sound like boots brushing a stone floor. With his back to me his long cloak obscured whatever he was doing, but just as I pushed the door open he put his arm out
to shake it free of the cloak. In his hand was a blood-stained dagger.
    I shouted for him to stop, but no sooner than the sound had left my throat he bolted – not even pausing to look around as someone taken unawares might but darting away with sudden,
surprising speed. I fired as he disappeared through a doorway on the far wall, out of surprise as much as anything, but in my haste I missed. He vanished around the corner in the next heartbeat,
leaving a twitching man splayed over a long table, his exposed chest pin-cushioned with half-a-dozen ornate daggers. I felt a red mist descend over my eyes and raced to pursue the monster, charging
after him into a corridor lit only by the moon shining through a far window.
    Catching my shin on a low table that stood just around the corner, it was fury rather than athleticism that saw me upright to the other end – a mad violent scrabble where I careened from
one wall to the other before reaching the window. My foe was already halfway out by then so I leaped blindly, grabbing at anything I could.
    Fingers closing around the hem of his trailing cloak, I crashed in a heap below the window. I hauled back as best I could, body braced against the wall, and felt a great lurch as the man was
wrenched back against the wall. My fingers sang with pain as I took his full weight, but a moment later the clasp popped open. The cloak billowed up in the moonlight like a vengeful ghost while a
crash and clatter came from the alley below. A few moments later my sergeant pounded up the corridor behind, hauling me up but I hardly noticed. In my eyes the cloak hung on the air by a taunting
breeze as I dragged it towards me to grip the top end – the silvery moonlight shining down onto one the broken clasp there. The broken clasp in the shape of a bee with wings outstretched. The
king’s bee device; worn by all in his employ.
    With a roar of anger I threw myself through the window without a thought to safety. I fell heavily, a six-foot drop on the other side, but rage eclipsed the pain in my knees as I saw a door bang
shut across a small courtyard. A woman shrieked from within the room and when I staggered to the doorway she pointed with mute terror to the right-hand choice on the far side of her kitchen. This
brought me to a storeroom and a brief glimpse of my prey as he half-emerged – turning as I entered and dragging the door shut after him.
    I gave a wordless bellow of triumph. He had to have run himself into a corner, most likely down in a wine cellar. There’d be no exit there and he’d retraced his steps too slowly. I
stopped a moment to catch my breath and cock the pistol-bow I somehow had managed to retain. My short-sword I had dropped somewhere so I drew my nightstick instead. It was a poor alternative, but
better than a dagger and capable of cracking the thickest of skulls.
    Forgetting to wait for my sergeant I wrenched the door open. No sooner had light crept through the breach than a curved blade lashed out, but I was ready for it and deflected it into the
doorframe. With the knife trapped I launched myself forward and put the boot in, in the finest traditions of the Narkang Watch.
    With a strangled squawk the man crumpled over my steel-capped toe and clattered backwards. For good measure I punched him in the side of the head and smashed him back down the short flight of
steps again. He hit the dusty floor hard and collapsed in a heap.
    Taking no chances I fired the fresh bolt into his thigh – just in case he thought me stupid enough to have never seen a man play dead before. I was rewarded by a scream of pain and the man
scrabbled at