Free Sentinelspire by Mark Sehestedt

a fight. Unless we’re up against a bunch of little girls.”
    “You—!”
    “Leave it,” said the other man. “Sauk’s already threatened to feed you to Taaki. Don’t let this blond pretty boy drive you into the tiger’s jaws.”
    Berun glanced back. Kerlis looked ready to tear logs with his bare hands. The other man just looked weary.
    “Wonderful company, aren’t they?” said Val, his smile undiminished.
    Berun turned around in time to see something flit off the path and into the brush. For a moment, he hoped it was Perch, whom he hadn’t seen since last night, but a closer look showed it was just a spider. A big one. A bark spider. Nasty bite, but the venom did no more than cause a rash and make you thirsty.
    “Something tells me you don’t have many friends,” Berun said to Val.
    He heard the man chuckle. “I didn’t come to Sentinelspire to make friends. Besides, working for the Old Man provides the only kind of companionship I’m interested in.”
    Thinking of Perch brought a twinge of worry. Berun felt sure Sauk would have said something had he found—or harmed—the lizard, but he didn’t know these other men. They killed people without hesitation. Most of them probably enjoyed it. They likely wouldn’t give a moment’s thought to harming a treeclaw lizard. Berun kept his eye on the path, let his body do the walking, and tried to relax his mind, to quiet his thoughts, and stretch his senses.
    “It true what they say,” said Val, “that you and Sauk used to be friends?”
    Berun ignored him.
    “Word around the campfire is that you used to be the best cold-blooded damned butcher Sauk ever knew—and that’s something, coming from Sauk.”
    “Valmir,” said Berun, “I don’t share your campfire, so I don’t care what is said around it.”
    Val laughed, the chuckle of a mischievous little boy pulling his sister’s hair. “Like it or not, you’re going to be sharing lots of our campfires. Talk or don’t. But you don’t tell your tale, and others’ll tell it for you.”
    It wasn’t working. Perhaps it was the pain. More likely the constant chatter. But Berun could not sense Perch in the area. He knew the lizard was likely following them, staying out of sight, but even a slight reassurance would have done much to ease Berun’s mind.
    “The villages,” said Berun.
    “What villages?”
    “Out on the steppes. Hubadai Khahan’s new settlements. The attacks on the flocks, the attacks on the shepherds, the dead man … that was you?”
    “Me?”
said Val.
    “This band,” said Berun, motioning wide with his hands at their procession, and regretting it. He winced at the pain it brought to his shoulder.
    “Nah,” said Val. “Not me. Nor any of the others. That was Sauk’s doing. Sent that tiger of his. He and Taaki … not natural, if you ask me, but that damned creature will do whatever Sauk wants her to.”
    “And Sauk wanted Taaki to kill that shepherd?”
    “Kill?” said Val. “Don’t know that he put that much thought into it. You’d have to ask him. But Sauk knew that the locals’d hire you once they thought some beast had come hunting them. Knew it’d draw you out. Swore it. Said he knew you like a brother. That true? You and him blood brothers?”
    Berun ignored the question and sidled around a thorn bush that crowded the path. Broken spider webs clung to its waxy leaves where Sauk had cleared the path. Dozens of spiders—little budbacks no longer than Berun’s thumbnail—crawled over the brush in an agitated swarm. The budbacks’ venom wouldn’t hurt a man—not even so many—but they liked to bite when annoyed.
    “Can’t stand all these cursed spiders,” said Kerlis as he sidled around the bush. “Damned woods are full of ’em. Makes my skin crawl.”
    The man slapped at the bush with his sword, then hurried away.
    Wait, and let your prey give you the chance to attack. Berun smiled.

Chapter Eight
    S auk pushed them hard. They ate and drank while