Reawakening Read Online Free

tartly. “Where in the world did you come from?”
    “High Amel,” he said.
    “Straight from the halls of the dragon king, I suppose,” she shot back. “Spit on the other foot, boyo, it’s waterproof. You not got a better story than that old one?”
    “Let him be, Ia,” the carter said. “Can you truss the horses back in place?”
    She shrugged sourly. “I can try. You and the boy going to shift your asses and get the cloth loaded?”
    The crowd was starting to move around them again, the low hum of conversation rising as they lost interest. The carter scowled at the woman, his eyes darting back to the spilled cloth anxiously. “Gam spit on it, Ia, remember who pays your wages, and keep a more civil tongue in your head.”
    “Civil is as civil does,” she returned and swung to face the dragon. “I’m desperate for a piss and a drink, and this waste of space won’t sully his hands by lifting a finger, even to shove it up his fat ass. So you, brute, want to earn a shilling of his cash by loading this crap up?”
    “You can’t promise my money, Ianthe!”
    “Man just saved you the wainwright’s fee,” she pointed out. “You can spare a shilling.”
    “Fine,” the carter said, and stalked back to stand over his cargo.
    Ia turned back to the dragon. “So, what are you waiting for?”
    “No brute, I,” he told her, with a shrug. “A spellsword, rather.”
    “Bright Lady save us, what bard’s tale are you living in? It’s easy money, man. Take it or leave it.”
    It wouldn’t hurt, he decided. He needed cash, and these three obviously knew the road. Perhaps one of them could point him toward work on the desert route. Without another word, he set to tossing the bales onto the back of the cart. It was easy enough, and the cloth was pleasantly warm and soft below his hands, even where it was marked with road dust.
    He watched the woman as he worked, saw how her sharp words belied her gentleness with the horses. She fixed the shafts with quick efficiency and coaxed the geldings in calmly.
    When they were both done, she turned to him with a quick nod of approval. “Nicely done. You want a ride into town?”
    “Gladly,” the dragon said and swung up onto the seat beside her as the carter and his boy climbed on the back. She clicked the horses forward, and they began to move, jolting over the rough cobbles.
    “Can’t wait to get done with this,” she muttered at him. “I can’t believe I thought it was a good idea to work my way down the road. Serves me right for being a tight purse. I should have just hired a post horse and come straight through from Reth Stela.”
    “You do not work this route?”
    She spat into the road. “No. I’ve got a job waiting in Hirah—an old friend needs someone to head up his guards, and he tempted me back out of retirement. Had a plushy job playing bodyguard to a banker’s daughter in Stela, but an old shai-dhakni soldier can only put up with twittering ninnies for so long. I fancied a last shot at the road through the Alagard, and the job with Sethan’s crew has always been mine for the asking.”
    “Aye,” he said, studying the thick walls as they passed through the city gate. Beyond the walls, the stink of the city hit him hard, human waste, rotting food, and the stench of too many beasts and men in too small a place. It smelled like an army after the first battle, but there was no war that he could see here.
    “Chatty one, aren’t you?”
    He shrugged. He could understand the quick patter of the modern trade tongue well enough now, but he could only speak it slowly, with the words sometimes out of place.
    “You got a name, strongman?”
    His true name was a rush of winter storms and wildfire, impossible to shape with human tongues. His human armies, however, had called him by the name of his dominion, and Killan had shortened it with affection. He would use that, and remember. “Tarn.”
    “Tarn, out of Amel? Going to claim you’re descended from the