In the Shadow of the Gods Read Online Free Page A

that mad smile, and impossibly, Joros felt his mouth matching shape.

CHAPTER 2
    A pounding at his door awoke Kerrus, and his breath formed a heavy mist before his face as he let it out in a frustrated sigh. “Can’t sleep a whole night through, gods help me . . .” he muttered as he swung his scrawny legs over the edge of the bed, toes quickly finding his fur-lined boots. “Coming, coming!” he groused as the pounding continued. He pulled on his thickest coat and mittens before setting his hand to the door’s cold handle, but the thing wouldn’t budge. Grumbling more, he put his shoulder to it, and after a few hits that left his old bones feeling bruised, the snow that had been keeping the door shut gave up its hold. The winter air rushed in to swallow what little warmth had built up, and snow crept in to touch the toes of his boots. An eye peered at him from the darkness beyond the cracked door, and thin fingers helped Kerrus pull the door wider.
    Mora, with her hair wild as the nest of a psychotic bird and her eyes almost as wild, said in her low voice, “You gotta come, Parro. There’s trouble.”
    Kerrus sighed again. The Parents’ work was never fecking done. He took a bracing breath before joining Mora out in the snow that fell so pretty and in such a deadly way. Together they shoved his door closed again; Kerrus wasn’t going to let the winter get any tighter a hold inside his home.
    They turned together down the line of orderly huts, and Mora clanked as she walked. She could still walk faster than Kerrus even with the iron chain stretched between her ankles. She was a runner, was Mora, foolish a thing as that was. The chains kept her to a quick walk.
    â€œWhat’s the trouble?” Kerrus asked her, tucking in his chin against the cold.
    â€œPatrol come back, yeah? Brought somethin’ with ’em they found in the snows.” She licked at her teeth, eyes fixed ahead, body straining forward faster than her feet could bear her.
    Excitement was low in Aardanel, locked in by snow and high palisades; Kerrus couldn’t fault her her for relishing a little drama. “What did they find, Mora?” he pressed.
    She looked at him, and her smile was made as much of fear as anything else. “A boy.”
    Kerrus pushed his legs to go faster, the camp courtyard coming into view and shouting voices beginning to reach his ears.
    A group of wardens stood gathered in a circle of torchlight, hands jabbing, voices raised in varying degrees of fury. Chief Warden Eddin stood silent among them, the torchlight casting shadows on his practiced mask of composure. He caught Kerrus’s eye and beckoned him closer, and the priest squeezed with relief into the warm press of bodies, leaving Mora to lurk behind in the shadows, too cautious of the wardens to get any nearer.
    That was when he saw the boy.
    No more than eight perhaps, he stood at the center of the group of wardens, thin-faced, wide-eyed, half naked. His clothes were little more than rags, and the exposed skin was, Mother help him, even dirtier than the rags themselves. The boy’s hands were tied before him, fingers tinged blue, and another rope wound tightly around his ankles. He was trussed up tighter than most of the prisoners who came to Aardanel, eyes wide as he watched the dozen wardens shout over his head.
    Kerrus sucked in a breath, feeling the cold burn in his lungs, and let it out in a bellow, “What in all the hells is this?”
    The wardens fell silent, staring at their feet like chastised children, and Eddin nodded approval. One of the wardens finally spoke up. “My patrol found this Northman bastard wandering the snows. Brung him in for questioning.”
    â€œAnd I say throw the brute back to the snows he come from!” another warden shouted, not to be outspoken.
    Someone muttered, “Ill luck, to have a Northman about.”
    Kerrus looked at the boy, and the boy looked back