Croak shrugged. “What about it?”
“It wasn’t the Shroud of Faybhen.”
CHAPTER THREE
Terena and Croak reached the port town of Laurica a fortnight later. The weak evening light barely broke through the heavy mist and rain. It didn’t seem to bother anyone; there were masses of people everywhere she turned. This close to the northern border, towns were sparsely populated, having lost many to the warmer climes of southeastern Elis over the last year.
With her hood up and head down, Terena navigated the puddled streets, passing the dressmaker’s shop, heading for the blacksmith’s stalls.
Sudden shouts and running feet sloshing through the street behind them made Terena turn her head.
Croak came up behind her. They watched as shadowed figures danced in the rain. Angry shouts and cries of pain rang out. She took a step closer. Bodies rushed past them.
Croak grabbed her arm. “Don’t.”
Terena frowned. She heard more screams and cries. Soldiers yelled and someone moaned; Terena could just make out a slumped figure on the ground.
The mist cleared enough for her to see three soldiers surrounding the pitiful lump lying still in the street. Two others huddled togethernearby, weeping. One soldier backhanded a man who’d stepped forward.
A girl rushed to his side while another soldier grabbed up the figure on the ground. He shouted something at another soldier, and the two hefted the limp person between them, dragging their burden away.
The other man reared up once more, only to be cuffed again for his troubles, the girl wailing and clawing at him to stay down.
“I’m goin’ in,” Croak grumbled at her back.
Terena didn’t follow. Her jaw hurt, and she released a breath.
“You coming?”
Terena said nothing. Striding through the rain, she yanked the soldier who’d backhanded the man by his hair, her other hand holding a dagger to his throat.
“Drop him. Now.”
The soldiers holding the unconscious man froze. The man she held squirmed, trying to get loose from her hold, but she tightened her grip on his wet hair and he yelped.
“Do it now,” she said again.
The one to her right—much younger than his friends, with a scar running across his lips—peered closer at her, then gasped and looked at the other soldier.
“Luca,” the other one, a bald man with a heavy brow, sneered and spat on the ground. “Your father’s not Captain of the Imperial Guard anymore. You don’t want to interfere. We’re here on the emperor’s orders.”
“I won’t say it again.”
“We have orders,” the young one said, glancing desperately between her and the bald soldier.
Terena’s response was to dig the tip of her dagger deeper. The soldier screeched obscenities. “Fucking do it, Connor!”
Pushing the man he held to the ground, Connor, the bald soldier who had spat at her, warned, “The general will hear of this.” The other soldier let go with more care.
“Peleon knows how to find me.”
When the soldiers stepped back from the unconscious man, she dropped her hand and shoved her captive toward his friends. “Fuck off. Now.”
The girl rushed to the man’s side as she and the other man, much older and in no fit shape himself, tried to revive him.
Terena sheathed her dagger and strode back to the blacksmith’s where her brother waited. He leaned against one column framing the entrance, arms crossed at his chest and rain dripping from his sodden hat as he frowned over at her.
Terena dropped her chin and closed her eyes. She could still hear the wailing of the girl and the whimpers of the old man. Feeling satisfied those folks would no longer be bothered, she turned back to Croak and followed him inside.
