Shadow Prowler Read Online Free

waving their fists furiously at the riders’ receding backs. There’s a fat shopkeeper cuffing his boy apprentice round the ear to make him get on with closing the shop’s shutters.
    The Port City guard turns a blind eye to everything, even to a man with the outline of a crossbow clearly visible under his cloak. To be quite honest, it was illegal for ordinary citizens to carry such a weapon within the city limits, and if I had been noticed by the guard of the Inner City, it would have cost me more than just a simple smile. In fact, it would have taken at least two gold pieces to make the guardians of public order forget my face until the next time we met.
    I keep saying “Port City” and “Inner City,” but these names only mean something to someone who lives in Avendoom.
    For reasons lost to history the capital city sprang up on the shoreline of the Cold Sea, in the north of the kingdom of Valiostr. From the height of a dragon’s flight it has the form of a huge triangle, with its base thrust against the inclement, leaden-gray waters of the Cold Sea and its twoother sides enclosed by a high, forbidding wall with mighty guard towers built into it at regular intervals.
    There are eight city gates—four on each of the two landward sides of the triangle—and on the side facing the sea the city is protected against the enemy by a powerful fort armed with cannon made by the dwarves’ ancient enemies, the gnomes. Gnomes are not very fond of the sea, but in this case their liking for gold proved stronger than their dislike of saltwater. And now the fort provides Avendoom with secure protection on the seaward side, and the Miranuehans in their leaky tubs no longer dare to attack the massive gray bastion and its cannon.
    They say that not a single gate ever fell during the three assaults on the capital city that have taken place during the last three hundred years. But who can tell what will happen if the army of the Nameless One gathers its forces together and emerges from its centuries-long exile in the Desolate Lands to test our capital’s valor with an onslaught of ogres and giants? And the lads from the Crayfish Dukedom won’t just sit back and watch, they’ll be sure to help our enemies. Well, only time will tell for sure. Extending around the outer wall are the Suburbs. Immediately inside the gates, in the so-called Outer City, stand houses belonging to moderately prosperous citizens. Beyond them lies the Inner City, which is surrounded by an additional wall. (On one or two occasions I have been obliged to climb over it, when an especially zealous patrol decided to test how fast old Harold could run.)
    The Inner City consists entirely of houses belonging to aristocrats, big wheels, and magicians. There are good pickings here, but the chances of coming unstuck are pretty good, too. This is where the king’s palace is located.
    The Artisans’ City and the Magicians’ Quarter slice into the Inner City from the seaward side. Shops, smithies, tanneries, bakeries, little magic stalls, libraries, shrines to the gods, and so forth. The Port City runs along the very edge of the sea. Ships from all over the world visit the port. And in this district of the capital there are also streets which it is best not to enter without chain mail and reliable guards. Especially at night.
    All these things I’m telling you are only a small part of the overall picture, a mere drop of wine in an ocean of mud, because our capital contains a hundred other districts and areas. Some are inhabited entirely bywizards, others by the dwarves who did not fall out completely with men after we concluded a pact with the gnomes. And there is also the Secret Territory (or Forbidden Territory, or Stain, as it is also known), a district surrounded by a high wall impregnated with defensive magic. No one knows what goes on there.
    The Secret Territory, which is adjacent to the Port City, came into being about three hundred years ago as the result of a