Liar's Island: A Novel Read Online Free

badly hurt, and started to climb out from under the wreckage, but Rodrick played Hrym across the broken mass of crates until they were a fused and frozen lump of ice-locked wood, with the guards trapped underneath. The old guard had gotten his head free from the pile, and he glared at Rodrick as he struggled futilely to escape the crates pinning him down.
    â€œAt least you won’t be too cold under there,” Rodrick said. “Until that spell you’ve got protecting you wears off, anyway. Then … brr.”
    â€œI’ve reconsidered your offer,” the guard said. “I’ll take the gold.”
    â€œI like you,” Rodrick said. Feeling cheerful about his prospects, he flipped a coin through the air, making it land an inch from the soldier’s nose.
    He sauntered away. Nobody could saunter like Rodrick. He didn’t even have to practice it anymore. It just came naturally now.
    â€œThat coin you threw away is coming out of your half,” Hrym said.
    â€œI’ll be sure to make a note in the company accounts.”
    *   *   *
    They didn’t dare go back to the inn where they’d been staying before the job, in case the little lord sent more men looking for them, so they spent the evening loitering in shadowy alleyways with the other thugs and drinking in the sort of anonymous grog-holes down by the docks where no one would even bother to look around if they heard someone being axe-murdered at the next table. An hour before dawn Rodrick stumbled out, Hrym hidden away in a plain sheath at his belt, and went in search of the Nectar of the Gods .
    The docks of Absalom, the City at the Center of the World (depending on how you defined “the world,” admittedly), were bustling with activity even at such an inhospitable hour, all shouting sailors and grunting dockhands, crates and coils of rope and buckets of pitch, and the ever-present smells of salt and sweat and fish.
    â€œIs it possible to wake up with a hangover when you haven’t actually gone to sleep?” Rodrick mused aloud, but Hrym didn’t answer. He asked a harried-looking clerk of a woman if she knew where the Nectar was berthed, and got a mumbled reply and a slightly more helpful gesture in the right direction.
    The ship was medium-large, flying an unfamiliar flag that Rodrick assumed was that of Jalmeray, even though it didn’t have a monk or a tiger on it. (He really did wish he’d learned a bit more about the place. Knowledge wasn’t as good as wealth, but it was useful.) The crew seemed to be all dark-skinned men and women dressed in practical sailing clothes—billowing trousers and the like—and most were at least a head shorter than Rodrick.
    I think I’m going to stand out in Jalmeray, he mused, which made the idea of subtly strolling into the country and stealing a few things less likely. There were advantages to being a noteworthy stranger in town, too, though. There was always an angle to work, if you looked hard enough.
    He strolled toward the gangplank, and a middle-aged Vudrani woman wearing a broad red sash above her trousers came down and put a hand on his chest to stop him. She looked him up and down. “Do you need some assistance?” She wrinkled her nose. “Perhaps a helping hand back to the vat of rum you climbed out of? Or is it empty by now?”
    He yawned. “You can point me toward my stateroom. At least I assume it’s a stateroom, since I’m to be an honored guest of the thakur.”
    She stepped back, frowned, and then shouted something in a language Rodrick didn’t recognize at all, but suspected would become familiar (if not comprehensible) if he made it to Jalmeray. Rodrick’s hand moved to Hrym’s hilt, just by way of taking reasonable precautions.
    Another woman, this one ten years younger but with the swagger of authority and rather more earrings than the first, arrived and looked Rodrick