What Remains of Heroes Read Online Free Page B

protruding from beneath a flailing arm. He couldn’t chance trying to pry the thing away, nor could he wait for the flames to sputter and die. If there were other Swordsmen in the catacombs, they were certain to hear the cries of their comrade. Lannick turned his back to the burning body and tried to outrun the light of the blaze. The screams followed him for a long while, but that was well enough. His heart held a special hatred for Fane’s Scarlet Swords, those awful thugs retained by the general to do his darkest work.
    Like what they did to my family .
    After a time, the cries fell silent. Lannick fumbled through many turns and twists in the dark, and then the corridor came to an abrupt end at a door of moldy wood. Lannick grimaced as he neared it, for the air carried a gut-turning stench. He pulled an arm to his face, burying his nose in the crease of his elbow, then tugged at the door.
    The door opened to a sewer bathed in light from iron grates above, a brown and yellow stream of waste. Putrid lumps floated amidst eddies of oily liquids, and Lannick swallowed hard to keep his stomach from emptying. Perhaps one thing smells worse than I do today .
    He cursed and forged ahead in knee-high muck, thinking this to be a suitable place for him after his actions. His boots would be more difficult to replace than his shirt had been, but such was his fate. He thought of Brugan, and knew he owed his friend far more than coin.
    He located a grate he was able to shake loose, although its weight was not easily moved. With some effort he worked it far enough to a side, and pulled himself from the sewer.
    He found himself in the middle of a livestock tent, surrounded by more than a dozen lowing cows. Lannick looked at their wide, confused eyes and felt a strange kinship. They were all destined for slaughter.
    “I know the feeling,” he said, patting them gently as he passed.
    He emerged from the tent and into the midst of Ironmoor’s Old Market. It was a vast square crowded with tents of every color and patrons from every corner of the world. Bejeweled Khaldisian merchants jabbered with thick-faced highlanders from near the Waters of World’s End over the proper price of wool, while tall, dark-skinned warmasters from Harkane tested swords and bows with skeptical frowns. All mentioned the coming war as either a reason to inflate or decrease the price, and Lannick guessed both merchants and patrons saw their game approaching an end.
    He walked slowly as he moved among them, figuring the crowd would swallow him and that running would only draw attention. He was close to his quarters, where he kept another sword and a few other possessions. From there he could make the docks. Perhaps he could manage a long journey as a stowaway or even a stint as a deckhand if there was work to be had. By the time he returned, maybe his indiscretions would be forgotten or he’d be presumed long dead.

    The colorful tents of the Old Market gave way to storehouses and then to rough industry, with filth-covered roads separating slaughterhouses from rendering mills. Lannick’s already-sullied boots squelched through what seemed a mix of entrails and mud, and his nose burned from the hot stink.
    Beyond lay the Hollows, the roughest, bleakest corner of Ironmoor. A maze of alleyways weaved amidst dilapidated shanties and unsavory establishments, all crowded against Ironmoor’s outer wall like garbage swept into a corner. The city guard had long ago abandoned any notion of enforcing the High King’s Law in the Hollows, so it provided a welcome home for every manner of burglar, prostitute, and panhandler in the city.
    Lannick slowed as he entered the Hollows, looking for any suspicious eyes. A couple of ruffians sat fingering their blades on a bench outside a tavern. Lannick guessed they were looking for someone with coin, such as a wealthy merchant seeking a discrete dalliance in one of the local establishments. They merely glanced at Lannick, and for