undying legion 01 - unbound man Read Online Free Page B

scene.
    The black amber egg lay quiet at the bottom of her bag, wrapped once more in rags. She’d been a fool to take it out back at the inn; a fool to forget the hatred that stirred whenever the egg identified another of them, and the chafing desolation that could only be assuaged with another death. But she’d been weary, worn out by her negotiations in Spyridon and exhausted after her first day on the road. She’d not even realised what she was doing until she touched the polished egg, and then it was too late. After so long carrying the accursed object, she’d known exactly what its complex pulses meant: four servants of the Oculus, token-bearers all; three of them more distant, probably in the common room below, and the fourth in the room just across the corridor from her own.
    The door had been unlocked; the room dark save for a candle by the bed in which the man lay. His head had been wrapped in wide linen bandages, but the bindings had shifted on one side to reveal angry, burned flesh across his cheek and ear. She’d been careful, creeping up beside him without a sound, not even a stumble from her bad leg. He’d had no idea she was there until she pressed the blanket over his face.
    Afterwards, as always, she had resolved to cast the dark egg away. And then she had wrapped it and returned it to her pack, as she invariably did.
    Never again. She looked up at the road, pressing her legs to her horse’s sides and loosing an involuntary hiss as it broke into a trot. I will never unwrap the damned thing again.
    But, of course, that was what she always told herself.
    There was no single point where the fields ended and the city began. Here a slaughterhouse abutted the road, there an inn and stables; then she was riding past a cluster of partially constructed buildings, some nearing completion, others little more than timber skeletons. Builders and craftsmen laboured under the sun’s steady gaze, shouting and hammering and crowding the road, many working with beams and other materials marked with the symbol of Eilwen’s own guild. A high redoubt loomed away to her right, and ahead of her, the wall, cutting off her view of the city beyond. She turned her horse toward the hulking, pale grey gatehouse, its high flags of indigo and gold fluttering above the permanently open gate. Between the flags crouched the great winged leopard of Anstice, cast in snarling, weather-stained stone.
    The road split beyond the gate, bifurcating into the twin thoroughfares that passed through the city’s heart and out the other side. Eilwen chose the eastern branch, resignedly settling in behind a covered wagon too wide to navigate around. Ah, Anstice. Welcome home. Largest of the five Free Cities worth the name, Anstice ranked among the most important trading hubs on the continent. Eilwen wouldn’t have wanted to live anywhere else. But gods, I wish this place had fewer people.
    Distracted by her thoughts, she almost missed her usual detour. She yanked the reins, steering her horse off the main road and walking it down a narrower side-street. The hunger would be near-impossible to rouse today, what with her still recovering from a kill; but avoiding the Oculus building was a good habit all the same, and in the wake of her latest lapse, she needed to make a point of reinforcing good habits.
    After a few blocks, she rejoined the main thoroughfare.
    Her first order of business on arrival, she decided, would be a bath. Pel would not expect her full report until tomorrow, and both her bags — one of trade samples, the other containing her personal items — would remain packed and ready for her next trip, whenever that might be. As a factor for the Woodtraders Guild, Eilwen was expected to be ready to travel whenever the instruction came down from the Trademaster. Such journeys were becoming less frequent now, as Pel did his best to allocate those assignments to others and so spare her leg the strain of travel. But Pel’s influence only