Implied Spaces Read Online Free Page B

last rivulets draining from his legs onto the flags, then slipping into the pool like some covert boneless sea creature seeking shelter beneath a coral ledge. Not a drop was left behind. There was a salty taste in his mouth. Aristide accepted his clothes from the attendant and donned them. He slipped Tecmessa’s baldric over one shoulder, shouldered his pack, and tipped the attendant.
    “May the pool give you many lives, warrior,” the attendant said.
    “And you.”
    He stepped out into a courtyard filled with dust and noise. A turbulent circle of gesturing travelers had formed around the towering figures of Nadeer and Captain Grax, both of whom were gesturing for order.
    Nadeer’s patience was exhausted. “ Silennnce!” he bellowed, each hand drawing a curved sword that sang from the scabbard.
    The crowd was struck dumb by sheer force of character. In the sudden hush Aristide shouldered his way through the crowd, and laid eyes on a bruised, bleeding young man kneeling before Nadeer, surrounded by Free Companions brandishing arms. The seneschal stood by, watching in silence.
    Grax looked at Aristide and grinned with his huge yellow teeth. “Your advice was good, stranger. We caught this spy riding from camp to alert the bandits.”
    The young man began what was obviously a protest, but Grax kicked him casually in the midsection, and the man bent over, choking.
    “Confess!” roared Nadeer, brandishing both swords close over his head. The prisoner sought for resolve, and somewhere found it.
    “You but threaten to send me to my next incarnation,” he said through broken lips. “I welcome such an escape.”
    Nadeer snarled around his tusks, then replied in his booming lisp.
    “You miss the point, spy. We don’t threaten to send you to the next incarnation, we threaten to make this incarnation an extremely painful one.”
    With a flick of the wrist, he flashed out one sword, and the flat of it snapped the prisoner’s elbow like a twig. The prisoner screamed, clutched his arm, turned white. Sweat dripped slowly from his nose as he moaned.
    The seneschal watched this in silence, his expression interested.
    “Who are you?” Grax asked. “Who sent you? What are your orders?”
    The captive’s breath hissed between clenched teeth. “It won’t make any difference,” he said. “I may as well talk.” He seemed to be speaking more to himself than to his audience.
    Though speak to the others he did. His name was Onos. He was a younger son from the Green Mazes, his only inheritance a sword, a horse, and a few bits of silver. In a spirit of adventure, he and some friends joined the army of Calixha. At this point the horse disappeared from the narrative. Finding service during the siege of Natto not to his taste, he and his friends stole horses, deserted, and became caravan guards. Finding this tedious as well, they became robbers.
    “He isn’t good even at that,” Grax remarked. “What the lad needs is discipline.” He looked down at the captive. “If he were in my company, I would make a proper soldier out of him.”
    Onos bled quietly onto the flagstones. “I thought a life of adventure would be more fun,” he muttered.
    Grax kicked him once more in the midsection. “It’s fun for me, ” he said. “Perhaps you lack the proper attitude.”
    The captive gasped, spat, and swore. Nadeer looked down at him. “You have my leave to continue,” he said.
    Onos wiped blood from his mouth with the back of a grubby hand. “Our gang joined another gang,” he said. “We weren’t given a choice. So now we’re servitors of the Brothers of the Vengeful One.”
    “Never heard of them,” said the seneschal, the first words he had spoken.
    “Neither had we,” said Onos. “Neither had anyone, until a few months ago, and then all the freebooters heard of them.” He grimaced and put a hand to his ribs. “We joined them or we died.”
    “Who are they?” Grax asked.
    “Priests. Monsters. Monsters and