The Starfollowers of Coramonde Read Online Free PDF Page B

drank.
    The captain
got back to their errand. “The man is called Wintereye. He is an Oathbreaker,
stripped of sword and status, but I knew him in the days of his prosperity. Now
he roots out his living as best he may. While Bey was in power he often—”
    A man had
come to their booth. He was unkempt; a stale stink drifting from him. His eyes
darted nervously, reconning the room. At the captain’s invitation he seated
himself next to Brodur, refusing a drink. He kept his head lowered, disheveled
hair hiding his face.
    “I am glad to
see you, Wintereye,” said the aide. “It is some space of time since last we
met. You are slimmer now but tired, I venture.”
    Wintereye
lifted his gaze. His cheek was branded with a stylized Faith Cup, broken at the
stem, stigma of the Oathbreaker. The man scowled.
    “These days,
Captain Brodur, living’s lean and skittish. In fact, you may know someone who
can use this?”
    From some
inner fold of his ragged shirt his left hand brought a pellet the size of a
pea, of a waxy, kneaded material. Gil noticed Wintereye wore odd tubes of
painted leather on his fingertips.
    “Finest
Earnai from the south, and at a reasonable price. No? What makes two gallants
deny the Dream-drowse? Life is sweet but ah, visions sweeter still! Open the
Doors that lie Between; here is the Key that unlocks fastnesses of the mind.
With it, you’ll see inward, and Beyond, and find your Answers.”
    Brodur
refused a second time. “As you will,” Winter-eye surrendered. “The Dreamdrowse
always comes to him for whom it is destined.” He left the Dreamdrowse
conspicuously on the table.
    “Permit me to
present my associate,” Brodur went on. The American tilted his hat brim lower.
“My associate’s name has no importance, but he is interested in where he might
reasonably seek a former employer of yours.”
    Wintereye
thought a moment. “There are few things, very few, worse than the life I lead,
yet one is the enmity of Yardiff Bey.”
    “Ah, money
could take you even beyond the reach of the Hand of Salamá.”
    Wintereye
shuddered. “Nothing can take a man that far!”
    Brodur showed
his teeth, his suave mask dropping. “You once drank a Faith Cup with
Springbuck’s father. Then you betrayed the son, would have murdered him, given
the chance.”
    He caught
Wintereye’s right forearm and held it up. The hand had been lopped off, its
wrist bound in leather. “I convinced the Ku-Mor-Mai you were not worth
executing, traitor. Others were impaled and hung outside the Iron Hook Gate for
less.” The angry captain released the arm. “The hour is too late for you to
begin protecting your trusts, Wintereye.”
    It drove home
to Gil just how serious oathbreaking was. In a world with few written contracts
a man was, quite literally, only as good as his word. A violation of that word
placed on him a mark no decent person would wear. Wintereye, with missing hand
and branded cheek, would never know honest companions, and was ejected from the
profession of arms forever. His face twitched with anger.
    Gil looked
away, and noticed a bulky man, face cowled and hidden like Brodur’s, enter the
snug. The man seated himself, scanning the room.
    Wintereye,
glowering at Brodur, asked, “You have money?” Gil brought out the wallet of
coins Springbuck had given him without inquiring how the American would use it.
Brodur had his hand on his sword, insuring that Wintereye wouldn’t bolt. But
when the informer had tucked his fee inside his tattered shirt, he set his
forearms on the table and leaned forward.
    “Now, as to
my master Yardiff Bey—” He stopped suddenly, lurching at Brodur, catching the
aide’s sword-hand. His accomplice must have stolen up very softly; a leering
face and a burlap-wrapped arm and torso appeared around the edge of the
high-backed bench. The man swung a heavy cudgel at Gil.
    The
American’s reflexes were good. If he hadn’t been so intent on Wintereye, he
might have dodged. But he only