Chapter Four
A Stranger Arrives.
The pub is especially loud. The village men are waving their tankards around, their heads flipping back as they project their laughter like cannonballs at what Mr. Cavenish’s intrusion forced them to confront earlier. The air is thick with the stench of sour sweat and pungent ale, and as I skate over and pick up another empty tankard, I check the door. Since I returned, I’ve been able to sneak into my hovel under the stairs a couple of times and prepare more of the chews that will help Elly.
That husband of hers better show.
Grimly turning away, I weed back through the tables and chairs, which take up most of the floor. The bar runs down the far side, and I go to the end of its pitted, stained counter, adding my lot to the dozen or so I will have to clean before the end of the night—
There’s a shout, and a crash of chairs falling over. Then an explosion of laughter, as three men who can’t walk straight start to navigate toward the exit.
“Don’t just stand there, get the mop,” Mr. Lewis says.
He’s emerging from the doorway in the corner, the one that opens into his private quarters. In all his grumpy disapproval, he is the opposite of the wife he lost a couple of years ago. I tried to save her, but didn’t catch the timing right. I might believe he resents me for this, but the truth was, he didn’t like me even before he became a widower.
“Yes, Mr. Lewis.”
The mop and bucket are behind the bar, and the tender, who’s yanking at the barrel pulls like he wants to tear his arm out of its socket, glares at me as I enter his territory. He is the one person I take no offense at when he shuns me. He doesn’t like his job, doesn’t like the pub, doesn’t like Mr. Lewis. Doesn’t like anybody or anything.
There’s a water pump and a drain right by our employer’s private door, and I steer the bucket with the mop into place under the spigot. The iron grip is warm as my hand as I throw my shoulder into the work of— “Aye! Do it!”
“Do it— ”
“— it!”
A chant starts up, and then the chatter calms a little. Sallae Mae casts a flirty glance at the sweaty, bearded man who’s called out to her the loudest. She’s wearing a sky- blue dress that’s so low- cut, a deep breath would fully expose the top half of what she barters with, and that long blond hair of hers is a peekaboo shawl around her bare shoulders.
“A copper, then,” she taunts as she goes over to him, lifts her skirting and plants an arched, stocking foot between his legs on his chair seat.
When the coin is in her hand, she holds it up and the customers hush into murmurs. With every eye in the place on her, she tucks the penny into her cleavage and sashays over to the bar. The tender looks as though he’s about to quit, but he ducks under the counter and produces a thin glass on a slender stem.
“Thank you,” she says with an exaggerated curtsy.
“Those aren’t cheap,” Mr. Lewis mutters.
Sallae Mae holds the flute high as she sits herself up on the bar. “Neither I am.”
I’ve seen this parlor trick before— well, we all have, but the men like to watch her take a deep breath and I don’t care about her respiration—so as she clears her throat, I take advantage of the crowd settling. Pushing my bucket over to where those drunken departures spilled several tankards, I flop my dirty mop on the floorboards. Over on the bar, Sallae Mae opens her mouth and projects a high note at the glass. The tone pierces like a knife into the ear, and she goes even higher and louder. Higher. Louder. Higher—
The glass shatters with a spray that shimmers in the lantern light.
The gasps and cheers are loud and prolonged, as if she’d lifted a plow horse up over her shoulder. Sallae Mae is delighted with the attention and stays right where she is, holding the slender stem while she fluffs her hair— The front entrance opens.
What comes inside sucks all the sound and air out of the pub.
The man of war stands nine lengths high, at least. His heavily muscled upper body is clad in a drape of corroded mesh and a padded black leather surcoat, and his thick legs are wrapped in black leather as well. He has a dirk at his hip, a dagger upon his opposite thigh, and over his shoulder, the thick handle of a broadsword is within ready reach.
Nobody moves, not even Sallae Mae to slip off the bar.
He takes a single step forward and shuts the cold out with a clap. His hair is long and black, a braid on both sides keeping it out of his face. He’s clean- shaven, his jaw square and pronounced, his nose straight as an arrow. I’m careful not to meet his eyes directly, but my peripheral vision tells me that one has been lost to battle, a scar slashing down through his brow and continuing to his temple, an opaque whiteness staring out into the world. The injury does nothing to diminish the power and authority of him, however— or the sexual charge that rolls off him like lightning.
He possesses . . . a brutal beauty.
And the working women clearly recognize the virility of him. All around at the tables, they plume in a way that has nothing to do with their profession. The men, on the other hand, don’t seem to be breathing at all.
Mr. Lewis loops his suspenders, which have been hanging loose, up onto his shoulders. His voice is tense as he says, “Well, what d’ya want, then.”
Like he’s very much done with that door opening up to bad surprises tonight.
The warrior scans the pub slowly, and the drunks shift in their seats, making me think of a restless herd aware that a hungry predator has entered the grazing pasture.
As we all wait for the man to speak, I wager that most are thinking what I am: No royal insignia. So he’s a mercenary looking for somebody, and when he finds them? There’s going to be bloodshed.
“A room,” he says in a low, resonant voice. “And some food.”
Chapter Five
The Dream of Horses.
“Take it to him. G’on then.”
At the bar, the tender’s command to me is impatient and he shoves a tin plate in my direction. There’s a wedge of bread, a hunk of cheese, and a roasted turkey leg on it. All of the food is cold, having been prepared over day in the kitchen by the cook and myself. I’m surprised the tender isn’t delivering. He hates dealing with combustibles, but Mr. Lewis doesn’t want me near the eat or drink because of the Pox. I only deal with empties.
Glancing over at the mercenary, I don’t want to go near the man, either. He’s dampened the establishment like a fierce winter storm, dropping the temperature, causing us all to hunker down into ourselves. The pub has emptied out, most of the drunks stumbling off out of self- preservation, the women banished upstairs by Mr. Lewis.
Much to their disappointment.
Our employer is planted at a nearby table with two shepherds and a farmer, and he’s listening in on me and the tender while his suspicious stare stays locked on the mercenary. When he nods impatiently in the man’s direction, and then glares at me, I know I have no choice. Not that I’ve ever really had one.
“Yes, sir.”
I dry my hands on my cloak. They shake as I take the plate, and the already hushed voices get quieter as I begin the trek through the tables. No doubt the men want to see what gets eaten. Me or the food.
The mercenary has finished his tankard. It sits at his elbow, empty. As I approach, I feel his stare on me and I become the mead, something he drinks in. I keep my eyes on his hands, noting the healed scratches, the calluses. He’s missing the first sections of both pinkies, and I wonder how he lost them. I picture him captured, someone with a blade threatening him.
If that’s how the mutilations happened, I also imagine whoever it was didn’t survive to tell the tale.
“Thank you.” His voice is surprisingly soft, and I pick up on an accent. “I am hungry.”
Coming back to attention, I realize I’ve just been standing in front of him, and I place the plate on the table. When he doesn’t move to take the food, I’m forced to lean over and push the meal toward him. Up closer, his chest is massive under the leather and steel of his fighting garb, and his arms seem thick as tree trunks.
Is he from Prosperitus? I doubt it. From what we’ve heard here, King Rehm the Just keeps strict control of his populace, and mercenaries aren’t allowed inside the territory to disturb the order.
Well, most of the territory. A transgression here in our village wouldn’t be so much excused as irrelevant to the King.
I clear my throat. “Would you care for more ale— ”
“I would, yes.”
He holds out the tankard instead of letting me pick it up. I’m careful not to make contact with him as I take the weight, but he moves his forefinger at the last moment. The stroke over my thumb is a shock, something sizzling between our flesh.
“I’ll keep using this particular tankard,” he says softly. “If you don’t mind.”
In a trance, I turn away, and I can feel his eye on me as I return to the bar. When I put the tankard in front of the tender, the man recoils as if it’s contaminated, and I know what he’s thinking. I’ve already been sacrificed to disease, and he doesn’t like the idea of touching anything I have unless it’s been washed first.
“He wants to use this one,” I explain.
“Then you fill it.”
Shuffling behind the bar, I take a cloth and cover my hand so as not to be accused of contaminating the drink. Then I draw the ale from the barrel’s base, and too soon, I’m back over at the table. The mercenary nods as I place the serving by the plate, and as he shifts to the side, I jump out of range on instinct.
Although given the size of his shoulders, there is no out-of- range for him.
He stops in mid- motion. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
The copper he takes out and slides forward makes a rasping noise over the rough wood planks. Everything about him seems very loud. Then again, he’s sucked the sound out of the rest of the continent.
“For you,” he tells me.
I shake my head and back away just as the pub door opens. Everyone except the mercenary looks to see what is arriving. What else is arriving—
The farrier steps through and locates me with ease through the subdued stragglers, his big belly turning toward me like it’s homing in. I glance at the winding clock over the bar. At least he’s on time.
“Friend of yours?” the mercenary asks me.
“Enjoy your meal.”
I duck my head, even though it’s covered by my hood, and hustle off for the back of house. No one stops me, not even Mr. Lewis.
Out by the stairwell, I bend down and spring the latch on my crawl space’s panel. Squeezing through, I orient thanks to the light that filters through the gaps in the steps overhead. I have a sleeping pallet that I keep scrupulously clean, and an array of cloaks that hang from pegs I have driven into the underside of the staircase. Then there’s my worktable, which is little more than a discarded board I have set on two stacks of bricks.
A collection of small earthenware pots contain various unguents, and my pestle is filled with dried leaves that I’ve not had time to continue working with. The collection of wads I have managed to prepare for Elly are bundled in one of my collection sacks, and I grab the medicine.
Reemerging, I confront the farrier, pressing the satchel into his meaty paw. “She must have a fresh one of these put into her mouth every four to five hours. Tell your niece to do it. I will bring more on the morrow.”
He looks down at the little bag as if he’s never seen one before. “And I shall bury my son at the Resting Place—”
“I care only about your wife who still lives. This will change her pupils so I’ll know whether or not it’s been given to her— ”
We have an audience. Both Mr. Lewis and the scarred mercenary who brought the storm inside with him are standing in the archway. The plate I delivered is in the man of war’s left hand and he holds the heavy pewter weight laden with food as if it’s but a leaf.
“Take him to number eight,” Mr. Lewis orders me.
The farrier drops his head and lumbers away like something that should be in a forest, not inside a pub or lodging house. Mr. Lewis makes room for him to pass. The mercenary does not. Him, the farrier squeezes against the dirty wall to get around.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
Gathering my cloak, I start to walk up the stairs, and as the warrior falls in behind me, I imagine he’s not led very often by another. My employer stays below, watching us, but not because he’s protecting me. He’s curious to find out, as the others are, what this killer in my wake will do to me as a way to judge what might come in their own direction.
The Gauntlet’s second floor is a cave- like hallway of closed doors that’s illuminated by oil lanterns that have stained the ceiling and walls with smoke residue. I go straight ahead, and given the sounds of moaning and creaking beds, I gather that business continues apace, in spite of our newest lodger. I blush ferociously as I take him down to the last room on the left, and I feel his presence looming behind me, the floorboards protesting under his weight, the soft jangle of his weapons and chain mail like the hiss of a coiled viper.
Though he brought the cold in with him, he makes me think of fire: At the moment, he is banked and contained, but the potential for destruction is never far, and I tell myself that it’s because of this latent threat that my body is aware of every move he makes.
Yet I’m not afraid, for some reason. I feel . . . alive.
When we get to the door, I go to open it for him, but a long arm extends over my shoulder to push the panels wide. He smells like leather, metal, and cedar soap, and I breathe in deep as I stare into the darkness of the room he’s been assigned. Only a slice of restless, golden light spills inside, and even still, he walks right in. The fact that he doesn’t know what’s awaiting his entrance seems not to worry him in the slightest. Then again, anything with a wink of self- preservation would get out of his way.
As he turns around, the illumination from the hall bathes him, and nothing else. He’s not just of the shadows, he’s tamed them.
“Are you not coming in?” he asks as he sets his plate and tankard down out of sight.
“Why would I . . .” I clear my throat. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Or has that villager already engaged your services?” I feel his eyes traveling down my cloak. “Never mind, I can wait while I eat my meal.”
With a frown, I struggle to understand. “The farrier? I have no business with him— ”
“Didn’t look that way.” He shrugs. “There’s no need to be shy about our professions, is there? I do what I do best for pay, so I don’t judge others for the same.”
Someone orgasms across the hall, as if to back up his point, and all I can do is stare in disbelief at the mesh covering his chest. Incredulity aside, when I consider all the illegal things I’ve done, I guess it’s far better to be thought of as a whore than risk anything even close to my truth.
“I’m glad you understand,” I mumble.
“So you come back. When you’ve finished with him.”
Lifting some of my cloak up, I lean in. “Do you not know what this is?”
“Of course I do. It’s a Pox cloak.”
Measuring the power of his body, and his long, flowing hair, I shake my head and think of the way Sallae Mae and the other women stared at him with hunger that hadn’t been faked for effect.
“Whyever would someone such as yourself pay for something . . . like me.”
His nostrils flare as he breathes deeply, and when he closes his eyes, his head falls back a little, as if he’s savoring something. “Meadow flowers. Sunshine. And . . . a fresh, mineral spring in a basin of crystal stones.”
He relevels his face, and his voice is something altogether different now. It caresses me: “You smell of a freedom I once had, a long time ago. How could you not be beautiful.”
Before I can respond, he extends his hand. The copper piece he put on the table downstairs is in the center of it. “Take this. And come back.”
In the pause that follows, the loneliness that’s always defined me mixes with a need I’ve never felt before. I’m a virgin, utterly untouched, and up until now, my spinsterhood has always been the least of my concerns. Standing with this stranger? I suddenly find myself wondering what the sexual act is like.
And I decide that just once, I might want to share my body, especially with him—
“No,” I say sharply. “I’m not coming back here.”
“Why?”
I blurt, “I don’t know you.”
“You can call me Merc.” He bows. “And you are . . . ?”
“As in mercenary?” And no, I don’t want to know what he’s called. He’s already too close, no matter the physical distance between our bodies. “Your name is your job?”
“Precisely. So what does that make yours?”
“I am Sorrel.” I lift my chin even though my face is hidden under my hooding. “That’s my name.”
His voice softens again, and I feel the syllables he speaks flowing over my skin. “Like the horses that run wild and free by the ocean.”
My eyes flare wide. “What . . . ?”
“I have been to all the corners of Anathos. And some places no one should go. The most beautiful sight ever I saw was of the coastline where the wild horses hoof over the surf, and the ocean spray becomes their mane and tail.” My dream. The one I have told no one about.
Abruptly, my head aches, and for reasons I’ll wonder of later, I stammer, “Sometimes I have visions in the night of horses that run on the beach . . . their hooves pound through the surf and their manes tickle my face while we race along the ocean’s edge . . .”
He holds the aged penny between his thumb and forefinger, the stub of his pinkie cocked. “They have no black upon their coat, nor white. They are pure copper, and when the sun shines upon them, they gleam as this coin did when newly forged.”
And then he speaks my name: “Sorrel.”
When I refocus, he’s right in front of me, having moved without sound. I want to meet his eyes so badly I shake, but I keep my stare locked on his throat.
“Take this.” He presses the copper into my palm and curls my fingers into a fist. “For your services down below. We will see about what comes later.”
As I unfurl what he’s wrapped tightly around the coin, I’m confused. It was tarnished, but now the metal gleams as if freshly minted. . . exactly like the coats of those horses I visit in my dreams, and struggle to recall during my waking hours.
“What magic is this,” I whisper.
“There is no magic.”
My eyes lift to his lips, and everything disappears. The light behind me and the darkness around him, the Gauntlet and my village, the territory of Prosperitus.
Anathos itself.
“You lie.” My words are mostly breath. Which is a curious feat, for there is no air in my lungs.
“Look at me,” he commands. “You can’t really see anybody without meeting their eyes.”
Something in his tone awakens me out of the stupor, and I drop my stare to the copper. It abruptly appears as it was before, the surface dingy and dull.
“Never,” I mumble. “I will never look at you.”
“Is my injury so ugly.” His hand rises, as if he’s brushing his scarred cheek. “That it disgusts you.”
“No.”
“Now you lie,” he drawls. “Both my eyes work quite well, you know, in spite of what the one appears so my ugliness is well familiar to me.”
“I’m under a Pox cloak,” I snap back. “Your physical appearance and any of its imperfections don’t matter to me.”
“So look at me properly and prove it.”
By way of response, I hold the penny out. He does nothing. “Take this back.”
“It’s yours.”
“No, it’s not. And I’m not going to be indebted to you or anyone else.”
“The services that earned its worth have already been tendered.” He sweeps his hand off to the side. “My meal and ale have been delivered quite readily. And I have been delivered to this room.”
I drop the coin, which bounces on the bare floor. It’s still chiming as I leave him in the darkness by himself.
Yet I am the one who is alone as I flee everything that he wants, and all I must deny:
Hide.
Copyright © 2026 by J.R. Ward. Reprinted with permission from Tor Publishing Group.
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