Legacies Read Online Free Page A

out. “Nightsheep need the dry and the quarasote bushes. They say there weren’t any quarasote bushes before the Cataclysm—and no nightsilk anywhere. There’s little enough now. That’s why the Lanachronans pay well for our nightsilk. They can’t raise nightsheep there.” He snorted. “That’s also why we need a militia. Didn’t have one, and they’d be here, taking everything we have.”
    â€œDid the dark days change anything else?” asked Alucius.
    â€œThey changed plenty.” The older herder pointed. “There’s the tower. Won’t be that long now.”
    The first building that was considered part of Iron Stem was the ancient spire that loomed over the Pleasure Palace. Its brilliant green stone facing could be seen from several vingts to the north. Alucius flushed as he recalled the first time he had asked about the name.
    After they had crossed several low rises, the long wooden sheds of the dustcat works appeared to the left of the road, a warren of enclosures, all sealed to the outside.
    â€œHave you ever seen a wild dustcat?” Alucius knew the short answer, but hoped Royalt would say more.
    â€œNot since I wasn’t much older than you. You know that.”
    â€œThey aren’t many, you said.”
    â€œThere are more than most folk think. The dustcats aren’t stupid. They know people are trouble, and want to capture them, and they’ve moved into the rock jumbles just below the plateau or into the deeper swamps of the Sloughs. They still hunt people, but they only do it in packs, and they won’t attack unless they can kill, and make sure that the hunters won’t survive.”
    â€œAre they that smart?”
    Royalt frowned, then replied. “Old man Jyrl used to say that the soarers warned the cats when hunters were around. Claimed he’d seen it happen. Said that was why he never hunted them again, that any man who had both dustcats and soarers against him was as good as dead.”
    â€œBut people still hunt them, and they keep them in the sheds there.”
    â€œAnd the cats kill one or two scutters a year.”
    â€œI don’t understand. Why do people work there if they are going to be killed.”
    Royalt sighed. “It’s hard to see it when you’re young. But the dust—it’s dander really—that comes off the cats makes some people feel…well, the best they’ve ever felt, better than a good meal, better than…lots of things. That’s why the scutters work for so little. They’re around that dust all the time, and they never think about anything else except gathering the dust. Gorend and his son Gortal sell the dust to the Lanachronans—and anyone else who will pay good golds for it, and they’ll pay ten or twenty golds to hunters for a cat that’s healthy. Ten golds is more than most crafters make in a year, Alucius. It’s a huge amount of coin.”
    â€œDo you make that much?”
    Royalt laughed. “We don’t bring in the kind of coins Gorend does, but we make enough.”
    â€œI don’t think I’d like caging the dustcats like that.”
    â€œGood, because I don’t think much of those that do. But keep that between us, boy.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Before long, the wagon rolled over the low rise and past the empty green stone tower and the lower building next to the road. Despite its brilliant color-faced stones laid in an alternating pattern, the structure looked more like a nightsheep barn, garishly colored, and was only fifteen yards in length, with almost no windows. The five lower courses were of alternating blue and green stones, and the six above had blue alternating with a faded yellow.
    The tower stood alone, fifty yards north of the smaller building, its gutted interior empty.
    â€œGrandfather?” Alucius asked tentatively. “The people who built the building in front—” He