When Demons Walk Read Online Free PDF Page A

prophet. The only one who dared to chastise him as freely as this boy was his mother, and the boy lacked her malice—though Kerim hadn’t missed the lad’s initial motion toward the armsheath. He hadn’t missed the aristocratic accent the boy spoke with either, and wondered which of the Southwood noblemen had a son wandering about Purgatory in the night.
    The novelty of the conversation distracted him momentarily from the familiar cramping of the muscles in his lower back. Soon, he feared, he would have to give up riding altogether. Scorch was becoming confused by the frequent, awkward shifting of his rider’s weight.
    The Leopard turned back from the sea, but the boy was gone. Kerim was left alone with an enemy that he fearedmore than all the other foes he had ever battled; he knew of no way to fight the debilitating cramps in his back or the more disturbing numbness that was creeping up from his feet.
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    S HAM TROTTED THROUGH the narrow streets briskly to keep warm. The cottage she’d found for the Old Man was near the fringes of Purgatory in an area where the city guardsmen still ventured. It was old and small, roughly cobbled together, but it served to keep out the rain and occasional snow.
    She didn’t live there with him, although she had used her ill-gotten gains to buy the house. The Whisper kept him safe with their protection, and Sham was well known as a thief among the Purgatory guards. Her presence would have caused them to disturb the Old Man’s hard-won peace, so she only visited him now and again.
    The Old Man accepted that, just as he accepted her chosen work. Occupations in Purgatory were limited and tended to shorten lives. Good thieves lived longer than whores or gang members.
    Sham dropped to a walk, as the lack of refuse in the streets signaled her nearness to the Old Man’s cottage. She didn’t want to come in out of breath—the Old Man worried if he thought she’d been eluding pursuit.
    It was the extra sensitivity necessary to survive in Purgatory that first alerted her that there was something wrong. The street the Old Man lived on was empty of all the little shadowy activities that characterized even the better areas. Something had caused the tough little denizens to scuttle back to their holes.

TWO
    S ham began to run when she saw the door of the Old Man’s cottage lying broken on the dirty cobbles of the street. She was still running, the dagger from her arm sheath in her hand, when she heard Maur scream in a mixture of rage and terror that echoed hoarsely in the night.
    As she reached the dark entrance she stopped, ingrained wariness forcing her to enter cautiously when she wanted to rush in howling like a Uriah in full hunt. She listened for a moment, but other than the initial cry the cottage was still.
    As she stepped across the threshold, the tangy smell of blood assailed her nose. Panicked at the thought of losing the old wizard as she had everyone else, she recklessly flooded the small front room with magelight. Blinking furiously, her eyes still accustomed to the dark, she noticed that there was blood everywhere, as if a cloud of the stuff had covered the walls.
    The Old Man was on his knees in the corner, one arm raised over his face, bleeding from hundreds of small cutsthat shredded clothes and skin alike. There was no one else in the room.
    â€œMaster!” she cried out.
    At the sound of her voice, he turned toward her. Urgently he said, “Go child, hurry. This is not your battle.”
    As he spoke, a broad red slice appeared on his upraised arm as if drawn there by an invisible artist. Though she had caught a bare glimpse of something moving, it was gone before she could tell what it was.
    His command was voiced so strongly that Sham took a step backward before she caught herself. The last magic her master had wrought was twelve years before. Blind and crippled, he was as helpless as a child—she wasn’t about to