Bastion Read Free

need a good manuring before winter set in.
    It might seem a mistake to put the two quarters cheek by jowl, but men who had just concluded a bargain always wanted to drink over it, and the animal market had to go somewhere. At least the road divided them—and the rules of the Fair were quite strict about sanitation. Every pen had two boys whose only job was to make sure that the pens were clean enough you wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to walk across them without watching where you were stepping.
    It did make for a very noisy passage, however, and a crowded one, as drovers competed with travelers for road space. It was almost enough to give him a headache at this point, and it made him weary all over again to be battered by so much noise and crowding. Much as he had always enjoyed a Fair, Mags was glad to get out of this one and onto the quieter city streets.
    Unusually quiet, which was all due to the presence of the Fair. Even merchants who could be found at their shops from dawn to dusk had closed up and opened little booths if their stock-in-trade lent itself to impulse purchases. And often enough, even if the merchant didn’t close his regular shop, he’d send a ’prentice or two down to the Fair with a booth and some stock.
    Mags breathed a sigh of relief as they found themselves on streets that held very little traffic. They were actually able to spread out a little, and the Companions, eager to be back in their comfortable stable and no longer kept to a slow walk by the press of the crowds, picked up their pace.
    Mags knew Haven intimately at this point; probably no one knew these streets better than he did except the City Constables who patrolled them. But the familiarity was not giving him a great deal of comfort, and the closer he got to the Collegium, the less easy he felt.
    And the more torn.
    Because being home didn’t really mean being safe. Not now that he knew what he was up against.
    On the one hand, he was almost desperately glad to be back with Amily, with his friends. But on the other hand—he’d been kidnapped practically right under their noses. All right, he had been taken from within Haven, not the inside the Palace walls, but . . . the assassins had penetrated the Palace grounds before. They could again. Now Mags truly knew what he was up against in their skills, and he was not going to underestimate them.
    Was he just bringing danger back with him?
    :At least you know after that dust-up with the Karsites, the assassins are not going to be tendering their services there anymore,: Dallen said, in an effort to comfort him. It was a good effort . . . and what Dallen had said was true. The Karsite priests who had hired the men who had taken him had no idea just what it was they had contracted with. When their goals turned mutually exclusive, well, it was not the Karsites who had triumphed, at least not as far as Mags had been able to tell.
    :I don’ think they were lyin’ when they burned up the contract,: he replied, as the street took another turn upward, and the neighborhood became more genteel, with fewer shops and larger homes. That had been why he’d allowed himself to be infected with those dreadful memories. It had been a bit of a devil’s bargain, but the only one he could see his way clear to making at the time.
    I won’t fight you if you pledge to leave Valdemar in peace and never attack the Royal Family and the Heralds again.
    At the time, there was no prospect of rescue. The contract with the Karsites was still to be fulfilled, and he had known that his kidnappers would fulfill it unless he gave them a reason not to.
    At the time, all he could think of was that his duty as a Herald was to sacrifice himself to protect the Kingdom. So he had made his offer, hoping that not fighting was enough of an incentive to them that they would agree to it.
    They had. He still was not entirely certain why , except that maybe their faith in their talisman wasn’t all that strong. The fact