Read Online The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids by Michael McClung - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael McClung
Tags: thriller, Literature & Fiction, Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Epic, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Sword & Sorcery, Thriller & Suspense, Women's Adventure
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grapnel around and dropped the line into the villa grounds.
There was a chance that the line would be noticed, but there was a greater chance that I would need a quick exit when it was time to leave, and having to recast the grapnel while people were trying to kill me wasn’t something I wanted to do. You figure the odds and you take your chances. I straddled the wall, slid myself down, hung by my fingertips for a moment, and dropped down quietly into the shadows at the base of the wall.
I made my way as quietly as I could over to a darkened, shuttered window. I used a knife to slip the latch on the shutter, and then I probed gently beyond with its tip. No glass, no parchment window. Just a shuttered casement, starting at waist height.
I listened, took a peek in the crack between the shutters. Darkness and silence on the other side; a stillness that betokened an empty, lifeless room. I threw the dice and decided to slip into the room.
Opening the shutters a bare necessary amount still flooded the room with moonlight. I froze.
I was almost right about the room. It was lifeless, but it wasn’t quite empty.
Sprawled on the floor with a dagger in his heart was the corpse of a man. Judging by his raw silk robes, his dark skin and his oiled, ringleted hair, he was an Elamner. Someone had chalked a protective circle around him on the parquetry. There was no blood. There was, however a crazy grin on the corpse’s face. A palpable sense of unwelcome poured out of that room, a... malevolence. As if the very air inside it wished me ill. Bad, bad magic that I’d probably be stupid to test.
Another tiger moth fluttered past my shoulder into the room, and instantly fell to the floor, lifeless.
Shit.
Something struck me then, once, twice, with blinding speed. I felt a flare of agony in my shoulder and cruel blow to the side of my head, and as I dove down into the black pit of unconsciousness, I felt once more the bile of unreasoning hate boiling up in the back of my throat.
Chapter Ten
I don’t know how long I was out. Not very long. The moon hadn’t moved across the sky perceptibly. I sat up, trembling and dazed. My shoulder was on fire. I was amazed to be alive. What had hit me?
The creature that had tried to break into my place. That insane, all-consuming instant hatred was not something I was likely to forget, or mistake.
I’ve no idea why it didn’t kill me. I would certainly have killed it , given the chance. With the feeling that welled up in me when it was near, I would have crawled through fire to slit its throat.
I shrugged. Now was not the time to be gathering wool. I did a once-over on myself and discovered a knot on the side of my head and a bloody shoulder.
And a missing dagger. I searched all around me in the dark beneath the window, thinking I had dropped it. It was gone. I shrugged, and sighed. Another knife lost to the creature, I assumed.
“All right,” I breathed, “that’s enough for one night, Amra.” I closed the shutter and made my way back to the wall.
Climbing the wall was agony. I tossed the pack into the sea. There was nothing in it I couldn’t replace, and I wasn’t going to try and negotiate the cliff face with it. After a moment, I threw the sweat-soaked vizard after the pack. At this point, if somebody saw my face I was dead anyway.
Even without the extra burden, that twenty feet of cliff would have been torture. I doubted very much that I’d be able to go back the way I came. If I tried, I’d end up in the Dragonsea, and the scent of fresh blood would make sure I wouldn’t last long. So I flattened myself down on the ground and crawled along the edge of the cliff, waiting for a crossbow bolt to find my back. I knew where it would hit. Just between the shoulder blades. A spot there the size of a gold mark burned and itched, waiting for the bolt to punch through.
When I finally made it into the slice of shadow cast by the wooden fence of the other villa, I
There was a chance that the line would be noticed, but there was a greater chance that I would need a quick exit when it was time to leave, and having to recast the grapnel while people were trying to kill me wasn’t something I wanted to do. You figure the odds and you take your chances. I straddled the wall, slid myself down, hung by my fingertips for a moment, and dropped down quietly into the shadows at the base of the wall.
I made my way as quietly as I could over to a darkened, shuttered window. I used a knife to slip the latch on the shutter, and then I probed gently beyond with its tip. No glass, no parchment window. Just a shuttered casement, starting at waist height.
I listened, took a peek in the crack between the shutters. Darkness and silence on the other side; a stillness that betokened an empty, lifeless room. I threw the dice and decided to slip into the room.
Opening the shutters a bare necessary amount still flooded the room with moonlight. I froze.
I was almost right about the room. It was lifeless, but it wasn’t quite empty.
Sprawled on the floor with a dagger in his heart was the corpse of a man. Judging by his raw silk robes, his dark skin and his oiled, ringleted hair, he was an Elamner. Someone had chalked a protective circle around him on the parquetry. There was no blood. There was, however a crazy grin on the corpse’s face. A palpable sense of unwelcome poured out of that room, a... malevolence. As if the very air inside it wished me ill. Bad, bad magic that I’d probably be stupid to test.
Another tiger moth fluttered past my shoulder into the room, and instantly fell to the floor, lifeless.
Shit.
Something struck me then, once, twice, with blinding speed. I felt a flare of agony in my shoulder and cruel blow to the side of my head, and as I dove down into the black pit of unconsciousness, I felt once more the bile of unreasoning hate boiling up in the back of my throat.
Chapter Ten
I don’t know how long I was out. Not very long. The moon hadn’t moved across the sky perceptibly. I sat up, trembling and dazed. My shoulder was on fire. I was amazed to be alive. What had hit me?
The creature that had tried to break into my place. That insane, all-consuming instant hatred was not something I was likely to forget, or mistake.
I’ve no idea why it didn’t kill me. I would certainly have killed it , given the chance. With the feeling that welled up in me when it was near, I would have crawled through fire to slit its throat.
I shrugged. Now was not the time to be gathering wool. I did a once-over on myself and discovered a knot on the side of my head and a bloody shoulder.
And a missing dagger. I searched all around me in the dark beneath the window, thinking I had dropped it. It was gone. I shrugged, and sighed. Another knife lost to the creature, I assumed.
“All right,” I breathed, “that’s enough for one night, Amra.” I closed the shutter and made my way back to the wall.
Climbing the wall was agony. I tossed the pack into the sea. There was nothing in it I couldn’t replace, and I wasn’t going to try and negotiate the cliff face with it. After a moment, I threw the sweat-soaked vizard after the pack. At this point, if somebody saw my face I was dead anyway.
Even without the extra burden, that twenty feet of cliff would have been torture. I doubted very much that I’d be able to go back the way I came. If I tried, I’d end up in the Dragonsea, and the scent of fresh blood would make sure I wouldn’t last long. So I flattened myself down on the ground and crawled along the edge of the cliff, waiting for a crossbow bolt to find my back. I knew where it would hit. Just between the shoulder blades. A spot there the size of a gold mark burned and itched, waiting for the bolt to punch through.
When I finally made it into the slice of shadow cast by the wooden fence of the other villa, I
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