The Pact - Dark Roads, Book One

The Pact - Chapter One

The man you are looking for is far ahead of us. It may be weeks before we catch up.

"All the more reason for us to be quick."

Time didn't matter. Serenity understood long walks and lonely roads. She and D'aej had walked across nearly the whole western half of the Geiral continent, from the lowland mining and farming towns, up the spine of the mountain ranges and even into the creeping shadow of the Rachalör, the demon country. They'd visited more taverns and gambling houses than they could name, and walked away from more cold trails and dead ends than most bounty hunters cared to put up with. They'd brought in more marks than those bounty hunters, too. A few more weeks—a bit more desert—would soon be forgotten.

"It's nothing new," she murmured. "Now let me sleep, or we'll get sick as well as sore. And I know how much you'd love adding that to your list of complaints."

Grim silence—his sour way of conceding—was the only reply.

***

Serenity dreamt of the Wolf's Den.

A small tavern, but the only tavern in Eclipse, a northern town sprung up in a thick pine forest of the mountain ranges. The town of Serenity's youth, and home to loggers, trappers, and a few humble farms. The Den stayed quiet most of the day, but livened up near sunset, when the dinner bells rang and the folk came in from their work. Then the bar, with its several tables scattered about for cardplayers and work crews, and its offering of spiced northern liquors and good, hearty cooking, came alive.

An enormous stone fireplace took up most of the wall opposite the entrance. There, one of Magda's girls kept the flames going all through the evening, longer as nights got steeper and colder. A set of stairs led up to the six small rooms above, where travelers could have their rest for the night, given the right coin. The rooms on the ground floor belonged to Magda, the Den's proprietress, and her girls—young ladies who found their way to her, needing work and a place to stay.

The Den always smelled of warm, roasting venison and Magda's best beer, of the sweat of hard wilderness men and their industrious women, the elusive perfume of the serving girls winding like ribbons among them. Magda herself, tall and wiry, kept a shrewd watch from her place at the bar. But all of that started when the customers came. In the now of Serenity's dream, the Den rested, looking forward to a later rush when it would be full to bursting, hardly a chair left empty.

Serenity sat at a table near the back of the room, a child of twelve, her serving towel across her lap and a small brown journal on the table before her. The pages were filled with scribbled symbols and jumbled notes, line after line of them, written in a child's uneven scrawl. As Serenity dealt out hand after hand of cards, carefully pondering the results, she added more to them and nibbled at her lip. The gamblers at the other tables dealt poker; Serenity cast the runes. The ancient language, discourse of Geiral's secretive arcane class, philosophers delving into the spiritual realms and mysteries of the otherworld. Diligent and tireless, Serenity dealt, studied, jotted down a note in her journal, shuffled, studied, dealt again. She'd finished her work among the serving tables, and Magda wouldn't need her again until six, when they served dinner. This gave her hours to indulge in her lessons. She cast again, studied, scribbled, shuffled, cast.

A warm hand came down on her shoulder.

"The darklings won't play today," she grumbled.

Jack—of course Jack, who else would it be?—offered her a gratifying chuckle. "Then it's good you're only throwing practice."

Jack Chamberlain served as Eclipse's homegrown lawman. Constant patron of the Den, he'd taught Serenity all she knew about runes. He was an expert when it came to arcane study and magic. He picked up her notes and read them over, hming and mm-hming as he did.