The Beast of the North Read Online Free Page A

gangs of criminals accosted us. Or if our victim noticed something. He had never killed, neither had I, but sometimes it could get interesting and dangerous when we found something worth stealing. Thievery in the harbor was risky, but not too if done right. If a rival saw you do it, it might be like feeding the fish. Throw a bit of bread in the water, see one grab it and the others try to tear it from his mouth. Sand made sure our pieces of bread mostly reached our bellies. I could fight well enough as well, but he was the fighter, I was the thief. ‘Mir wanted you to go home after the hanging, no? She will be frantic—’ Sand began, having just remembered this bit of instruction we had been given that morning.
    ‘Frantic with worry,’ I said and rolled my eyes. ‘She told me to stay near home to help her with some crates of stolen pewter mugs. Boring. Boring! I could do that, but I’ve got to make a living some other way than peddling shit. Can’t be supported by her forever. Don’t want to inherit the business either. Rifling through dead people’s clothing and jewelry, haggling like a southerner? No, thank you. No, thank you indeed.’
    ‘Shouldn’t throw our silver away then,’ Sand spat. ‘To imagine you could be living up there on the side of the Tower of the Temple with the nobles. Just imagine. Pampered, carrying a sword and a shield probably. Riding like a lazy lording, bullying the lesser folks.’
    ‘Shut up, you damned, stupid, dirt snuffling peasant,’ I told him brusquely, and he snickered. He was not a fool, not by far though his occasional inane and rough looks sometimes gave one that false impression. Few looked in his eyes. Blue and sharp, they were always on alert, always articulating dangers. He was his father’s son, and Bear was one tough to catch criminal. Some called him the Bear, others the Uncouth Lord, and none knew his name. He always left his victims tied up on trees, most on their knees, robbed and poor. But Sand was right. My father had been a nobleman. That much I had gathered from Mother, but not much more. He had been a famed soldier in the Hawk’s Talon brigade, the First Army of Red Midgard and even an artist in the Red Daub Guild. He had painted King Magor Danegell once; it was rumored.
    Then, something terrible had happened. Two decades ago.
    He died. A criminal. Mother escaped.
    Later, I had been born in Bad Man’s Haunt, and my formerly noble mother was a fence of illegal substances and stolen items, not a high lady of wealth and riches and respect, and I had no horse nor a sword nor a chain mail and a band of warriors to lead around. I had no flag or a house, except for the Lamb and our Shifty Crab. Father had died before I was born, and the king had had him hung. I felt a sour taste in my mouth. Had I not just told Sand the king was trying to protect the land? He was mad, a criminal king, a murderer. And I spoke in his defense? Mad. If I wished it, on Odin’s Crest, the day of high summer celebration, I could hike from the First Ring to the Fifth, all the way up to the Tower of the Temple, the house of the Danegells, of the king. There, before the walls of the Tower of the Temple in the midst of the Sun Court, surrounded by a garden of colorful flowers was a special tree, old as time. It was rumored that it had been planted by the now absent gods. On the thick branches of that tree, countless painted skulls were hung from chains, all adorned with silver bells. These were those fools who had at some point opposed the king and his nobility. Red skulls for treason, yellow for cowardice, black for murder. These were the colors of the skulls. Father’s skull was red, Mother said. The dominant color on the tree, I might add, for the King Magor Danegell deemed many things treasonous, especially since the High King had begun to demand the universal, all-encompassing obedience, and worship. The Singing Garden. That was what it was called, and the dead inhabited it, and when