Trail Of The Torean (Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

bronze lamps sat on small shelves that were nailed to the walls between each opening.
    She stopped and handed him the blanket.
    “Here’s your room,” she said.
    Garrick stepped into the sad little space.
    It smelled of dust and mold.
    A straw mattress lay against one wall. An empty basin was pushed against the opposite side, and a bedpan sat in the far corner. A slit near the ceiling let in a thin stream of daylight.
    “It will do,” he said.
    “It’ll have to.”
    She shut the door behind her and walked away, her footsteps fading into the distance.
    He stood in the room’s quiet stillness, then. Alone again. He had no plan. No direction. His sense of isolation was staggering. A few days ago his life had actually been happy. He realized that now. Just a few days ago he had been with Alistair, and, of course, with the rest of Alistair’s apprentices. He hadn’t realized until now just how much he enjoyed being in something akin to a family. He hadn’t realized exactly how happy he had been.
    Garrick shouldered his bag to the floor and threw the blanket on the mattress.
    The rattle of the gambling wheel reverberated up through the floor slats.
    He remembered the excitement of watching games when Alistair had first brought him to Caledena, and his fingers went to his pouch. The coins there were hard and cold. Their edges were sharp.
    Could he win enough to pay Dontaria Pel-An?
    What did he have to lose?
    Nothing. He had nothing to lose.
    And if he did win, well, that would go a long way toward solving his problems. A wave of certainty came over him. Perhaps it was his stubbornness kicking in, or maybe it was the voices of Sjesko still speaking to him, but he found it impossible to be morose for long.
    He was still Garrick, still a fighter.
    And he had to do
something.
    A wave of energy rolled over him as he stood. Yes, he thought. He had to do something.

Chapter 4

    The gaming floor smelled of stale tobacco and the residue of tallow lamps that burned throughout the nighttime. The clatter of the dragongriff ball called to Garrick as he descended the stairwell. Five men and a woman stood around the table, watching as the wheel spun.
    The woman was short. She wore traveling breeches and a blouse frayed at the neck. Garrick stepped between her and an older man who was thin and frail, and whose face was deeply lined. A small copper coin and a few bristling hairs darkened the ear of this older man, the coin placed there, Garrick assumed, for luck.
    The croupier was as large as a bear and nearly as hairy. A pair of daggers jutted from a sheath at his belt.
    Across the table, three others leaned in to watch the ball run along its track.
    The old man pleaded. “Griffin,” he whispered, rubbing a tattered rag between his thumb and fingers so hard Garrick thought the cloth might catch fire. “Give us a griffon.”
    There was pain here. Loneliness. There was a liver gone bad of drink.
    He thought Sjesko’s energy would be drawn to this pain, but something about this man felt wrong—he lacked something Garrick could not place.
    The ball of bone jumped across the wheel.
    “Dragon seven,” the croupier announced, placing new coins before the woman and another man across the table.
    The second winner was a younger man, probably Garrick’s age—thin, with dark eyes and darker hair cut short. He wore a mustache that looked like a wooly worm with leprosy. As he gathered his winnings into a tighter pile over the dragon square, the young man gave the croupier a playful glare and called out “Play on!”
    “Place your bets,” the game master grumbled, his voice deep enough Garrick could feel it in his chest.
    Mustache gave Garrick a toothy smirk. “Draw your sword or run, my friend,” he said.
    “I don’t run,” Garrick replied. He stacked two copper on the square labeled “Dragon.”
    “That’s what I like to see,” Mustache said, his expression expanding to a full smile. “Follow me and you’ll be fine.”
    The