Stranger of Tempest: Book One of The God Fragments Read Online Free Page B

much.’
    That stopped her short at least. This part of the Riven Kingdom hadn’t seen the worst of So Han’s violent spasms of conquest. There wasn’t the hatred ingrained in the very earth that he’d find in the Greensea or the Hand Valleys if he was ever stupid enough to visit them.
    So Han was the westernmost of the so-called warrior republics, nestled in the lee of the mountains off which most of the rivers in the area flowed. The Greensea lay to the south of So Han, a prosperous scattering of principalities around the shore of that inland sea, while the Hand Valleys was the long region to the east through which mountain rivers flowed and merged. The victories there had been swift and accomplished – the brutalising of the population seemingly a punishment for not proving enough of a challenge.
    ‘You clearly learned your trade there well enough,’ Pellow said, a smaller note of antipathy in her voice. Lynx could tell her enthusiasm for it was waning. ‘You still live by the sword and the gun.’
    ‘Sometimes it ain’t so easy to escape your past,’ Lynx muttered, ‘and yeah, I was good at the fighting. Wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but I’m good at it still. It
was
a war at first, you had men out there looking to kill you and you knew your purpose. Might’ve been the goal was a crock of shit, but I didn’t know that at the time, was just a stupid kid with dreams of glory. Been in a few more since … well, since I came east, but none of ’em you could much call a war. Handful of skirmishes over some small slight – no real cause to fight for or sense of purpose.’
    She had no questions after that and Lynx found himself sitting alone, morose and brooding on times past.
    Must be ten years since the start of the war
, he realised sourly.
And look at the world now, just a little more broken and miserable than before. So much for the Shonrin and his grand vision. Hope he’s enjoying his life stuck up that miserable bloody mountain.
    Lynx groaned and stood, stretching expansively.
One day, mebbe, I’ll go and try to kill him, even if it does mean going back to that place.
    Finally deciding he was capable of something real to drink, Lynx shifted his mage-gun and other valuables with him to the bar. He knew what people were looking for in a guard, or anything else Lynx was capable of. Slumped in the back room was hardly the best advertisement, while at the bar he would be in view of all the shopkeepers and traders heading in for the evening.
    Sit upright and look big
, Lynx told himself as he found a quiet corner where he could sit at the bar, out of the way but in view for the curious.
Folk want a man who looks dangerous, but ain’t causing trouble or drinking too hard. Not sure I’m capable of either of those right now anyway.
    After receiving a stern look his late mother would have been proud of, Lynx found himself nursing a battered tankard of beer while the evening trade filtered in. First the town’s shop boys and apprentices clattered in, then their masters and mistresses once everything was locked away. Towns like this flourished on the travelling routes, Lynx knew, so he was unsurprised when the door opened again and the smell of horses and dust heralded more strangers to town.
    He was careful not to stare at those when they arrived, knowing they wouldn’t want to deal with hiring extra guards until they had rooms secured and the weight off their feet. Slowly the room became filled with a gentle babble of noise and the smell of stew. Lynx let it all flow over him, pulling out one of his most treasured possessions from the bag at his feet; a leather-bound book from the heyday of the Riven Kingdom.
    It was an account, of sorts, retelling an adventurer’s travels across the kingdom and as far as one man could travel into the east. It was a story unlike most Lynx got his hands on – a meditation on that supposed golden age as much as it was an account of the adventurer’s journey, but also a