Free Touch of Iron (The Living Blade #1) by Timandra Whitecastle Page A

knife. She’d need both. Becca tugged at the reins and the horse moved to the side. Nora looked up at her.
    “Go slow until you reach the pine tree at the baker’s,” she whispered. “Then ride as hard as you can.”
    Becca nodded. “Stay safe.”
    “Just go, now. All right?”
    Nora stood in the shadows under the stable’s thatched roof, watching Becca vanish into the night. Her coal-black cloak helped mute the shine of white in the darkness. Her friend was a silver ghost light hovering along the path. Nora readied her blade. But the guard in front of the inn didn’t come running. His partner didn’t come running. No one shouted a warning. The well-trodden dirt in the back lane muffled the hoofbeats. And then the horse and its rider were gone.

Chapter 9

    N ora waited another few minutes. Then, not finding any conveniently placed barrels or ladders, she ran at the door of the stable, grabbed the top of the door frame, put one foot on the handle, and scrambled onto the thatched roof. All that shoveling and carting the charcoal had been good for a few things at least: building muscles, sleeping light, being out on moonlit nights. If she lived to see the morning, she’d be able to make a passable living as a thief. Nora chuckled to herself and scrambled up the wet thatch. She really needed food, though.
    The two buildings, the stable and the inn, were adjoined. The inn’s guestrooms on the first floor were higher than the stable, but now that she was on the roof, it would be simple getting into one of the rooms through a window. Nora crept to the ridge of the roof and lay down in the thatch for a breather. The moon was slowly setting into the pitch black of night. It was late. Or early. She crawled across the top to the inn wall. Here were two small windows, left and right. Becca said the chief had taken the suite to the right, the tax suite. The empire’s tax collector, who made his rounds in the late autumn, always stayed a few days in the best room of the inn. Looked like he wasn’t coming this year. Nora grinned despite herself and stepped closer. It was dark within. Quiet, too. She couldn’t see anything.
    Nora crept down the street side of the roof and crouched low, looking over the edge to the inn’s main door. The smoker still leaned against the wall. His mate had not returned. She crept to the other side and peered into the backyard of the inn. There was no one to be seen. Maybe the other guard had gone inside? She bit her lip. But the odds were against her, however she calculated.
    She crawled back to the window and slid the blade of her knife under the frame, lifting it a notch so that her fingers could reach under and push it open. She swung noiselessly over the windowsill and closed the window behind her.
    Nora stepped into a dark corner and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. It was warm inside, and she could make out a huge shape under the blankets. The chief was asleep. She stepped up to make sure his eyes were closed before she searched the room for Ethelwyn. He must be a big man, a fat man, filling the whole of the double bed. One arm lay beside his square, bearded face, and the size of his hand was such that she could easily imagine it grappling with a bear or grasping her entire head and crushing it. In the orange light that shone through the windows from the torches lit outside, she saw his armor leaning against the chair. The sword in its scabbard was nearly as long as her legs. Her knife seemed like a toy next to it. She crept even closer to the bed to check if Ethelwyn was smothered under the blankets next to the mountain of a man. No.
    A gold gleam in the half-light caught her eye. Curiosity piqued, she slowly, slowly pulled out a dagger from under the snoring chief’s pillow. The blade itself was about as long as her forearm and curved. The gilded hilt was heavy, making the dagger ill balanced. Pretty piece of crap. She half expected it to be blunt, but someone had sharpened