Read Online The Stealers' War by Stephen Hunt - Free Book Online

between a warehouse and a shipping agent. Nocks’ reedy voice sounded as irritatingly dissatisfied as always. ‘You could have picked somewhere outside the city walls, eh. What’s left of them standing at any rate.’
    Light from a public oil lamp fell on the squat man’s face. The scar split the hard, mean features like a river, but Leyla never had a problem looking him straight in his glinting rodent eyes. Nocks was a murderous, uncouth killer, but he was very much her creature. Not out of love or even his fumbling lust which she occasionally satisfied, but out of grim necessity. King Marcus had passed the care of this mongrel wolf to Leyla, and Nocks complemented her own skills well enough. A little brawn to flex alongside her cunning and wiles.
    ‘Nobody’s looking for you very hard,’ said Leyla. ‘I’ve seen to that.’ ‘So, you’re still the king’s eyes in the north. But what about me?’ ‘King Marcus is travelling up here to stamp his authority on the retaken prefectures,’ said Leyla. ‘And I can tell you that he is less than happy at the ease with which Jacob Carnehan and the pretender Owen Hawkins managed to escape the siege and flee north.’
    ‘You can’t hang that failure on me,’ said Nocks.
    ‘Oh, I am well aware,’ said Leyla. The cold corpse of the king’s assassin, Thomas Purdell, discovered in Midsburg among his dead agents spoke volumes of how that particular debacle had ended. ‘But you are still to hang if the law catches up with you. For trying to murder my darling husband’s son.’
    ‘On your orders, you sly bitch.’
    Leyla slapped him hard, but the squat brute hardly moved. It was like striking granite. ‘You answer to me, Nocks. The very day you forget it, you will find the court gallows waiting for you.’
    ‘Then maybe I’ll sing a little song of my own before I stretch, eh?’
    Leyla stroked his face, a touch of silk to remind him how harsh the leather could bite by comparison. ‘You’re a cold-blooded butcher, Nocks. But you’re not an unintelligent one. The realm isn’t large enough now to escape from King Marcus should you turn against him.’
    ‘You’d know all about that.’
    ‘I am more than the king’s mistress now.’ And I will be more yet, through careful planning and application. ‘But not if you continue to fail me.’
    ‘Duncan Landor got lucky. I was about to put a bullet in the boy’s back when his friend Paetro turned up and stopped me.’
    ‘Yes, that idiot Captain Purdell couldn’t even slit the Vandian’s throat successfully. Although I understand Paetro’s body now carries more scars than skin. Purdell’s fondness for torturing his victims rather than a quick, efficient finish always was the man’s weakness.’
    ‘A good scar reminds you to be more careful next time,’ said Nocks, rubbing the split in his face.
    Yes, you’re a living advertisement of that . She knew he blamed the rebel pastor Jacob Carnehan for his wounds . . . a loathing as deep and passionate as any man felt.
    ‘Scars aside,’ growled Nocks, ‘I’d still rather have the imperial bastard Paetro planted rotting under the dirt.’
    ‘I have turned your failure into what success I could,’ said Leyla. ‘Paetro returned with news of Willow Landor’s betrayal of him – helping that infernal outlaw pastor escape; how easily Willow broke her oath and betrayed the royalists to join the rebels. It was a simple enough thing to convince Duncan that your attempted murder of him was just another part of his wayward sister’s schemes.’
    ‘Well bugger the lot of them. I need a royal pardon,’ said Nocks. ‘I had to flee Weyland once before, one step ahead of the executioners. I’m too old to sign up across the sea in the Burn as a mercenary.’
    ‘And a pardon you shall have, my loyal little beast. Just as soon as you’ve redeemed yourself.’
    ‘You still need me to slip a dagger in that prig Duncan Landor’s back? I’d be glad of the job, but he knows