Jimmy and the Crawler Read Free

of lamplight.
    Catching sight of the figure in the shadows drawing a sword, the men slowed and fanned out, each of them also drawing a weapon. Rather than rushing into an attack, they approached slowly. A few yards away from James, the two men on the flanks stopped while the one in the middle said, ‘Who passes this night?’
    James blinked in confusion for a moment, then pushed himself away from the wall. ‘Jonathan?’
    The acting sheriff, Jonathan Means, looked incredulous. ‘James?’
    ‘I could use a bit of help,’ said James.
    And then he fell forward, losing consciousness so swiftly that he did not even feel strong arms grab him to stop him striking the cobbles.

• CHAPTER TWO •
Mysteries
    J AMES OPENED HIS EYES .
    An oval shape hovered above him, and slowly it resolved itself into a face. Dark eyes looked down on him with concern, but there was an amused set to the lips. A woman’s voice asked, ‘Are you all right?’
    James’s first impulse was to say something clever, but he couldn’t think of anything clever.
    The face above him repeated the question.
    James smiled and blinked and he finally replied, ‘You’re so pretty.’
    A light laugh was echoed by a deeper masculine one, and someone out of James’s sight said, ‘I’ll send for the prince.’
    ‘It’s the drugs,’ said another male voice behind James.
    He tried to turn and felt agony rip up his left side. A soft hand pushed gently on his shoulder, firmly forcing him back down. A fog seemed to lift from his mind and at last he recognized the face above him. ‘Jazhara?’
    The Prince of Krondor’s magic-advisor smiled. ‘Welcome back. We were worried.’
    She was a woman of medium height and solid build, though her figure tended to curves and her legs were elegantly tapered. By any measure she was attractive, and she had a no-nonsense attitude that discouraged James’s usual tendency to try to disarm ladies with practised flirtation.
    The voice behind James said, ‘If Sheriff Means hadn’t fetched you here quickly, Squire, I think you might finally have left us.’
    The disapproving tone brought recognition even though the speaker was still out of James’s line of sight. ‘Ah, Master Reynolds, again I am in your debt.’
    The face of an older man moved into view, hovering over Jazhara’s shoulder. It was William, lieutenant of the prince’s household guard and son of the magician Pug.
    ‘Help me sit up,’ begged James, and Jazhara piled some pillows up behind him so that he could look around the room. As the last effects of the sleeping draught the chirurgeon had given him before sewing him up wore off, pain returned. He winced as he settled into the pillows.
    ‘I’ve sent for the prince,’ said William, walking into view. The young soldier had matured greatly since entering the prince’s service and had become James’s unofficial partner in crime. James’s best friend, Squire Locklear, had been banished to the northern frontier of Yabon as punishment for a transgression involving the wife of an influential man at court. James had thought more than once that women would be the death of Locklear.
    William was a different sort, something of a romantic idealist. Taller by half a head than his father Pug, he looked like the icon of the loyal prince’s soldier: broad shoulders, resolute expression, brown eyes that gazed unflinchingly upon danger. James often tried to get his goat with a barbed remark, but William would have none of it. He was as stalwart a man as James had ever met, and the former thief actually enjoyed that fact about William.
    James sighed as he shifted position, glancing from Jazhara to William. William had obviously been in love with Jazhara before arriving in Krondor, from when they had been students together at Stardock. His attempt to get over her had led to a romance with a local innkeeper’s daughter, who had come to grief. He had suffered greatly over Talia’s death. In James’s judgment Cousin