would clamber out of a thin slot in the side of the box and wing toward Redweir. It knew the only way to get the objectionable piece of paper off its leg was to present itself to a certain dwarf who lived there. It would fly at full speed and arrive by dawn, when a minor clerk in the dwarven embassy at Redweir would find it just as he was headed for bed. The clerk would take the message—unread—directly to the Envoy of that city, who would know exactly how to make it legible. The Envoy would also know exactly what to do with the information Snurrin had provided:
BARBARIAN LEAVING TODAY FOR VINC
MUST NOT FIND WHAT IS HIDDEN THERE
THE KING GIVES THIS UTMOST PRIORITY
HUMAN CASUALTIES ARE ACCEPTABLE
SEND BALINT
Chapter Sixteen
The band of adventurers passed through King’s Gate without any trouble—none of the guards were interested in stopping such a dangerous-looking crew from leaving the city—and before Malden knew it he was out in the world.
His reaction was immediate, and visceral.
Never, in his entire life, had he set so much as a foot outside the walls of the Free City of Ness. He was for the first time seeing that there even was a world beyond.
And it terrified him.
The land rolled like the waves of a vast ocean, a sea of tawny grain that never stopped moving under the lowering gray sky. In the distance the clouds broke and sunlight streamed down in impossibly long, straight rays to flicker on golden fields. A small army of peasants worked out there, bent over with sickles to harvest the glowing treasure. To the northeast a church stood white and straight, its spire pointing upward like an accusing finger. It looked terribly alone in that open space, its right angles and distinct shape like some piece of his life cut loose and cast down carelessly like a plaything by some cyclopean child.
Every hour of Malden’s life to that point had been spent in narrow lanes, or climbing over rooftops, or in well-mannered parkland hampered by walls. Now there was nothing on any side of him that he could reach out and touch. If I were plucked up into the sky by some violent wind, he thought, and tossed out into the middle of the ocean with no land in sight, this is how it would feel. He felt exposed, naked, vulnerable in a way he distinctly disliked.
Over time this unease ebbed, though it never left him.
For hours they ambled through the fields under the blustery rain, never seeing more than the occasional distant group of laborers. The only way to measure the distance they covered was to count the mile markers that stood by the side of the road, simple piles of stones marked with the sigil of the local nobility: a crudely drawn stork or a pair of chevrons or just a simple crown. To Malden the symbols meant only one thing, really: all this land belonged to someone else. He was trespassing on someone else’s property, and if they wanted to, they could run him off.
It seemed there was no place outside the city where a man could be free after all.
Despite his unease he soon found himself drowsing in his seat. He worried that if he fell unconscious he would slump and fall from the swaying wagon, and so was almost grateful when Croy began to sing a traveling song. It was a rather sentimental tune about a knight who went out riding to do battle for his lady’s honor. Malden knew a far different version, a much lustier tale of a farmer’s lovely daughters and dragons that disguised themselves as naked women (and only gave themselves away by a certain scaliness of their skin), but he knew there would be plenty of time to sing his version later. This journey was likely to take more than a week—no need to use up all his songs on the first day.
After about an hour’s travel Cythera dropped back to ride beside the wagon. “I’m surprised to see you here,” she told him, “though I’ll admit I’m rather glad.” She reached across to touch Malden’s face. “Oh. You’re hurt,” she said.
Malden shrugged, even though it pained him to do so. “ ’Tis a trifle only,” he told her.
“What happened?” she asked.
He puffed himself up and said, “A host of villainous assassins came upon me in the dark. Now, normally I would have been ready for them, but I was busy at that moment stealing