Shadow Prowler Read Online Free Page A

curse. The magicians of the kingdom were unable to cope with it and decided to seal off the cursed section of the city from the others with a wall. There have always been rumors about the terrible creatures inhabiting the Forbidden Territory, but no reckless daredevils who are prepared to check these stories have ever been found.
    All right, that’s enough! If I start going through all the places of interest in our beloved city, I’ll still be listing them off when night falls.
    I stopped outside an old, entirely unremarkable building like many others in the Port City. The only thing that distinguished it from its peers was a signboard: THE KNIFE AND AX . There were a huge knife and an immense ax made of tin hanging there, too. I suspect that even a thick-witted Doralissian would understand just what kind of men gather in this establishment. I pushed open the wooden door and plunged into the loud hubbub of the crowd.
    Unlike other establishments, this inn, the refuge of rogues and thieves, would be working all night. Old Gozmo, the owner of this fleapit, knew how to rake in the cash all right.
    I nodded to the two bouncers standing at the entrance with their cudgels at the ready, and set off toward the bar.
    Several individuals cast malicious glances after me and I heard whispering behind my back. This world is far from perfect; it contains plenty of envious people who have reason to resent my dexterity. Let them grumble. They won’t dare go any further than muttering behind my back.
    I finally made my way through all the tables and nodded to Gozmo, who was standing behind his own bar today. The stooped old rascal, who was once fond of strolling into the homes of the rich residents of Avendoom during the night hours, had settled down now and opened this establishment, where individuals who were not entirely respectable and whose hands were not exactly clean could feel relatively at ease. This waswhere the lads in my profession relaxed as they looked for their next job, for buyers and clients. “Aaah . . . Harold,” he greeted me warmly. Gozmo was always glad to see his clients—it came with his new profession. “Haven’t seen you in quite a while. Seems like years since you last visited your old friend.”
    “I’ve been busy, you know the way it is,” I said, shoving the bundle with the statuette across the bar into the round-shouldered innkeeper’s hand.
    Gozmo provided good information, and he was the one who had passed on the Commission for a trip to the town house of the recently deceased Duke Patin. The innkeeper deftly caught the bundle and, with a movement as inconspicuous as my own, dispatched into my hand a purse containing the promised twenty pieces of gold. The goods were immediately seized by one of the inn’s serving men, who shoved them into a dirty canvas bag and bore them off to the client.
    I counted out five coins from what I had received.
    “Now, that’s why I’m so very fond of you, my boy, you always settle your debts,” the old rogue said merrily, and I frowned.
    Of course, I steal other people’s property, but I have to pay the informant out of my own pocket, with the gold I receive for the sale of those items. I’m not exactly a skinflint, but even so, being left with fifteen gold pieces instead of twenty is rather annoying. However, I still owed the old swindler for my last job, so he had a perfect right to take the amount owed to him.
    “Have you heard that milord Patin up and died all of a sudden two days ago?” Gozmo asked apropos of nothing as he wiped the beer mugs. He seemed not to notice my sullen expression.
    “Really?” I said, expressing my seemingly genuine amazement at the unexpected departure from this life of the duke, who had the strength of all the plow horses in Valiostr and Zagorie combined.
    “Yes, yes. They found him with his throat torn out. And the garrinch that guarded his treasure was scratching itself and taking no notice of anybody.”
    “Really?”