Watcher of the Dead Read Online Free PDF

city at such a
moment but he didn’t believe in luck.
    The city on the red lake glowed pink
and golden in the early light. Angus entered by the West Gate, and as
he was traveling without horse, pack, or serious weaponry he was
waved through without examination. The Morning Guard’s interest
had fallen on a group of mounted Half-Bluddsmen. In an earlier life
Angus might have stepped in to aid the fierce yet nervous-looking
clansmen. In this life he slid quietly away.
    The Star, as the city was known to its
residents, was split in two by the Eclipse River, which ran north
from the lake. Entering by the West Gate placed you in the West Face
of the city and to cross to the East Face meant taking a short ferry
ride or crossing one of the half-dozen bridges and paying the Lord
Rising a copper penny for the privilege. Angus Lok was just fine
where he was. It was the poorer half of the city, peopled by
fishermen, workmen, beggars, bidwives, mercenaries, men-at-arms,
prostitutes and market traders. He knew this place, knew its streets
and its dangers, knew where to go to get the best ale in the city and
where to avoid unless you were spoiling for a fight.
    The area just north of the gate was
known as the Crater. A shanty-town of wood huts, tents, cabins and
lean-tos had been raised in a bowl-like depression on a mound above
the Eclipse. Spring was flood season and not all the streets were
passable. Angus took what routes he could. Boards had been laid
across the mud in some places. In other places the brown red mud
flowed like lava, its surface slowly hardening to crust.
    Money was Angus’ first order of
business. Since Ille Glaive he’d been spending coin raised in
the sale of his sword and he was down to his last coppers. Normally
money wasn’t a problem. The Phage were many things and poor
wasn’t one of them. Any city in the North, most large towns,
some villages and even some one-room alehouses on the road: Phage
gold could be had in all of them. The brotherhood held wealth in many
locations. A word in the right place to the right person and a purse
with enough currency to live on for a year would be dropped
discreetly into your hand. The Phage hoarded Sull gold, Forsaken
gold, Forsaken property, Bone Temple riches, treasure sneaked from
failing kingdoms, jewels given for services rendered, and others
taken when debts went unpaid. They sat on their wealth like an old,
suspicious man, stashing it in different places so that no one could
get everything if he died.
    Morning Star was the Phage’s main
staging ground in the North. There were rooms in this city that, if
you were to enter them with a lamp, you’d swear you’d
walked into an enchanted palace made of gold. Angus had been in those
rooms—they were belowground, always belowground: you could not
trust the weight of gold on wood planks nailed across a frame—but
they were not his destination today. Phage currency came at a price.
Take it and you would be tracked. Somewhere someone would stick a pin
in a board and think to himself, There is Angus Lok.
    Even now, careful as he had been, Angus
rated his chances of evading the eye of the Phage as low. This was
their city. Even if the Morning Guard had not marked him, a walk down
any street might be enough. Angus knew to avoid certain places—the
arms market in the west, the scribes’ quarter, river gardens,
and courthouses in the east—but you could not plan for a chance
encounter on an unlikely street as someone who knew or worked for the
Phage was out buying fresh fish or hothouse melons for his or her
family. Angus accepted this risk. There was a point in most missions
where stealth had to be cast aside.
    The shortest route to the money-lending
quarter required crossing the silk market. Angus foresaw no problem
with this and entered the colorful tents and stalls of the largest
clothing market in the North. It was early and vendors were