The Beast of the North Read Online Free

made me feel like a log. She was family. Sand would be disappointed. He would pummel me, I would hurt him back, and we might wrestle. We fought often, and we loved each other like real brothers. I was far from a weakling myself, hard, dark, and wild.
    ‘Did Mir make anything from the shipwreck last week?’ Sand asked me gruffly as he was pulling me away through the dispersing crowd. He called Mother by her first name, something that was strangely irritating, though of course, he did, but it was weird anyway. I did not know our last name, which was strange as well, but I had been told not to ask. I was Maskan. That’s it.
    I nodded. ‘Some bastards brought her a chest of moderately fine loot. There were satin and silken women’s clothing and nice noble’s shoes as well. Expensive red leather and silver. A box of strange trappings of rank, gold, and emeralds. Some were bloody. Freshly bloodied.’
    ‘Cutthroats,’ Sand agreed with mild disgust. ‘The guards should be faster when a ship gets wrecked down the coast, but then they usually get wrecked at night, anyway.’ He began to hum a grating song.
     
    ‘They were lured by the butchers and to the shoals they crash.
    In the murderous lot goes, to rob the jewels and the cash.
    The ships will be stripped, the goods snipped.
    The guards at the gates, cannot change the victim’s fates.’
     
    ‘Shut up,’ I told him.
    He looked hurt. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’
    ‘Yes, it was. Was it a Sand original? Let us keep it like that, unique. Possibly even a one-time performance.’
    He cursed and said nothing more about that. ‘But she bought them?’
    ‘Yeah. Mother sold them to an Atenian trader. Made good coin,’ I told him as we were pushing our way through the irascible crowd. Alrik had been liked in the Laughing Lamb, the local tavern, known for the Trade, which meant anything illegal. He had been liked, even if he had connections to the major harbor gangs, which competed with the minor ones of the Bad Man’s Haunt. We had a cellar shop below the Lamb, where we outwardly sold crabs and oysters to noble kitchens. It was named “The Shifty Crab,” our business. Of course, I had never eaten a live oyster in my life and only seen some. I did see the barrels of empty shells that had been gathering dust in our haunt to make up for an acceptable facade. Nor had I caught even so much as a fish from the Arrow Straits. Mother paid her taxes and the inevitable extra for the criminal taxmen, who would never believe we were a near destitute provider of the crustacean wares. It was a shoddy cover for our business, but nobody cared to fight her claims as long as she paid up. So far.
    ‘I want my silver,’ he sulked.
    ‘Harbor?’ I asked him. He shrugged and nodded. He had neither talent for cutpursing nor the fingers for pocket picking, but I did. We would go there, mingle in the crowds, and pick someone to pickpocket, someone who was not paying attention. There were plenty of those around, but one had to be entirely preoccupied to qualify as a victim. That is why I nearly always picked off wealthy women’s purses. They rarely noticed anything, being enamored by the many stalls full of treasures of the fabulous Harbor Side Market, and the wares of the Horned Brewery, a famous den of debauchery. The noble families ventured out to sample the goods of both. They would especially enjoy the many exotic foods in the Old Outdoor Winery of the Brewery, and some would go inside to gamble with foreign sailors and merchants. And, of course, there were the girls who were pretty as our star the Lifegiver and the Three Sisters, our moons and willing to have some fun for a price. The nobles did this during the daytime. Never at night. Not if they were wise.
    ‘Sure, harbor,’ Sand said. ‘I’ve got my knife.’ He lifted his leather tunic. A white bone handle flickered in sight just for a second. Sand was there to make sure things settled down if any keener member of the many harbor