The Way of Shadows

Book 1: The Night Angel Trilogy

by Brent Weeks

Genres: Epic Fantasy; Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure

Synopsis

From NYT bestselling author Brent Weeks comes the first novel in his breakout fantasy trilogy in which a young boy trains under the city's most legendary and feared assassin, Durzo Blint.

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art -- and he is the city's most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly -- and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics -- and cultivate a flair for death.

Release date: October 1, 2008

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 688

Sample

Azoth squatted in the alley, cold mud squishing through his bare toes. He stared at the narrow space beneath the wall, trying
to get his nerve up. The sun wouldn’t come up for hours, and the tavern was empty. Most taverns in the city had dirt floors,
but this part of the Warrens had been built over marshland, and not even drunks wanted to drink standing ankle-deep in mud,
so the tavern had been raised a few inches on stilts and floored with stout bamboo poles.


Coins sometimes dropped through the gaps in the bamboo, and the crawlspace was too small for most people to go after them.
The guild’s bigs were too big and the littles were too scared to squeeze into the suffocating darkness shared with spiders
and cockroaches and rats and the wicked half-wild tomcat the owner kept. Worst was the pressure of the bamboo against your
back, flattening you every time a patron walked overhead. It had been Azoth’s favorite spot for a year, but he wasn’t as small
as he used to be. Last time, he got stuck and spent hours panicking until it rained and the ground softened beneath him enough
that he could dig himself out.


It was muddy now, and there would be no patrons, and Azoth had seen the tomcat leave. It should be fine. Besides, Rat was
collecting guild dues tomorrow, and Azoth didn’t have four coppers. He didn’t even have one, so there wasn’t much choice.
Rat wasn’t understanding, and he didn’t know his own strength. Littles had died from his beatings.


Pushing aside mounds of mud, Azoth lay on his stomach. The dank earth soaked his thin, filthy tunic instantly. He’d have to
work fast. He was skinny, and if he caught a chill, the odds of getting better weren’t good.


Scooting through the darkness, he began searching for the telltale metallic gleam. A couple of lamps were still burning in
the tavern, so light filtered through the gaps, illuminating the mud and standing water in strange rectangles. Heavy marsh
mist climbed the shafts of light only to fall over and over again. Spider webs draped across Azoth’s face and broke, and he
felt a tingle on the back of his neck.


He froze. No, it was his imagination. He exhaled slowly. Something glimmered and he grabbed his first copper. He slithered
to the unfinished pine beam he had gotten stuck under last time and shoveled mud away until water filled the depression. The
gap was still so narrow that he had to turn his head sideways to squeeze underneath it. Holding his breath and pushing his
face into the slimy water, he began the slow crawl.


His head and shoulders made it through, but then a stub of a branch caught the back of his tunic, tearing the cloth and jabbing
his back. He almost cried out and was instantly glad he hadn’t. Through a wide space between bamboo poles, Azoth saw a man
seated at the bar, still drinking. In the Warrens, you had to judge people quickly. Even if you had quick hands like Azoth
did, when you stole every day, you were bound to get caught eventually. All merchants hit the guild rats who stole from them.
If they wanted to have any goods left to sell, they had to. The trick was picking the ones who’d smack you so you didn’t try
their booth next time; there were others who’d beat you so badly you never had a next time. Azoth thought he saw something
kind and sad and lonely in this lanky figure. He was perhaps thirty, with a scraggly blond beard and a huge sword on his hip.


“How could you abandon me?” the man whispered so quietly Azoth could barely distinguish the words. He held a flagon in his
left hand and cradled something Azoth couldn’t see in his right. “After all the years I’ve served you, how could you abandon
me now? Is it because of Vonda?”


There was an itch on Azoth’s calf. He ignored it. It was just his imagination again. He reached behind his back to free his
tunic. He needed to find his coins and get out of here.


Something heavy dropped onto the floor above Azoth and slammed his face into the water, driving the breath from his lungs.
He gasped and nearly inhaled water.


“Why Durzo Blint, you never fail to surprise,” the weight above Azoth said. Nothing was visible of the man through the gaps
except a drawn dagger. He must have dropped from the rafters. “Hey, I’m all for calling a bluff, but you should have seen
Vonda when she figured out you weren’t going to save her. Made me damn near bawl my eyes out.”


The lanky man turned. His voice was slow, broken. “I killed six men tonight. Are you sure you want to make it seven?”

Azoth slowly caught up with what they’d been saying. The lanky man was the wetboy Durzo Blint. A wetboy was like an assassin—in
the way a tiger is like a kitten. Among wetboys, Durzo Blint was indisputably the best. Or, as the head of Azoth’s guild said,
at least the disputes didn’t last long. And I thought Durzo Blint looked kind?


The itch on Azoth’s calf itched again. It wasn’t his imagination. There was something crawling up the inside of his trousers.
It felt big, but not as big as a cockroach. Azoth’s fear identified the weight: a white wolf spider. Its poison liquefied
flesh in a slowly spreading circle. If it bit, even with a healer the best an adult could hope for was to lose a limb. A guild
rat wouldn’t be so lucky.


“Blint, you’ll be lucky if you don’t cut your head off after all you’ve been drinking. Just in the time I’ve been watching,
you’ve had—”


“Eight flagons. And I had four before that.”

Azoth didn’t move. If he jerked his legs together to kill the spider, the water would splash and the men would know he was
there. Even if Durzo Blint had looked kind, that was an awful big sword, and Azoth knew better than to trust grown-ups.


“You’re bluffing,” the man said, but there was fear in his voice.

“I don’t bluff,” Durzo Blint said. “Why don’t you invite your friends in?”

The spider crawled up to Azoth’s inner thigh. Trembling, he pulled his tunic up in back and stretched the waist of his trousers,
making a gap and praying the spider would crawl for it.


Above him, the assassin reached two fingers up to his lips and whistled. Azoth didn’t see Durzo move, but the whistle ended
in a gurgle and a moment later, the assassin’s body tumbled to the floor. There were yells as the front and back doors burst
open. The boards flexed and jumped. Concentrating on not jostling the spider, Azoth didn’t move, even when another dropping
body pushed his face briefly under water.


The spider crawled across Azoth’s butt and then onto his thumb. Slowly, Azoth drew his hand around so he could see it. His
fears were right. It was a white wolf spider, its legs as long as Azoth’s thumb. He flung it away convulsively and rubbed
his fingers, making sure he hadn’t been bitten.


He reached for the splintered branch holding his tunic and broke it off. The sound was magnified in the sudden silence above.
Azoth couldn’t see anyone through the gaps. A few feet away, something was dripping from the boards into a puddle. It was
too dark to see what it was, but it didn’t take much imagination to guess.


The silence was eerie. If any of the men walked across the floor, groaning boards and flexing bamboo would have announced
it. The entire fight had lasted maybe twenty seconds, and Azoth was sure no one had left the tavern. Had they all killed each
other?


He was chilled, and not just from the water. Death was no stranger in the Warrens, but Azoth had never seen so many people
die so fast and so easily.


Even taking extra care to look out for the spider, in a few minutes, Azoth had gathered six coppers. If he were braver, he
would have looted the bodies in the tavern, but Azoth couldn’t believe Durzo Blint was dead. Maybe he was a demon, like the
other guild rats said. Maybe he was standing outside, waiting to kill Azoth for spying on him.


Chest tight with fear, Azoth turned and scooted toward his hole. Six coppers was good. Dues were only four, so he could buy
bread tomorrow to share with Jarl and Doll Girl.


He was a foot from the opening when something bright flashed in front of his nose. It was so close, it took a moment to come
into focus. It was Durzo Blint’s huge sword, and it was stuck through the floor all the way into the mud, barring Azoth’s
escape.


Just above Azoth on the other side of the floor, Durzo Blint whispered, “Never speak of this. Understand? I’ve done worse
than kill children.”


The sword disappeared, and Azoth scrambled out into the night. He didn’t stop running for miles.



Four coppers! Four! This isn’t four.” Rat’s face was so rage-red his pimples only showed as a scattering of white dots. He
grabbed Jarl’s threadbare tunic and lifted him off the ground. Azoth ducked his head. He couldn’t watch.


“This is four!” Rat shouted, spit flying. As his hand slapped across Jarl’s face, Azoth realized it was a performance. Not
the beating—Rat was definitely hitting Jarl—but he was hitting him with an open hand. It was louder that way. Rat wasn’t even
paying attention to Jarl. He was watching the rest of the guild, enjoying their fear.


“Who’s next?” Rat asked, dropping Jarl. Azoth stepped forward quickly so Rat wouldn’t kick his friend. At sixteen, Rat was
already as big as a man and he had fat, which made him unique among the slaveborn.


Azoth held out his four coppers.

“Eight, puke,” Rat said, taking the four from Azoth’s hand.

“Eight?”

“You gotta pay for Doll Girl, too.”

Azoth looked around for help. Some of the bigs shifted and looked at each other, but no one said a word. “She’s too young,”
Azoth said. “Littles don’t pay dues till they’re eight.”


Attention shifted to Doll Girl, who was sitting in the dirty alley. She noticed the looks and withered, shrinking into herself.
Doll Girl was tiny, with huge eyes, but beneath the grime, her features were as fine and perfect as her namesake’s.


“I say she’s eight unless she says different.” Rat leered. “Say it, Doll Girl, say it or I’ll beat up your boyfriend.” Doll
Girl’s big eyes got bigger and Rat laughed. Azoth didn’t protest, didn’t point out that Doll Girl was mute. Rat knew. Everyone
knew. But Rat was the Fist. He only answered to Ja’laliel, and Ja’laliel wasn’t here.


Rat pulled Azoth close and lowered his voice. “Why don’t you join my pretty boys, Azo? You’ll never pay dues again.”

Azoth tried to speak, but his throat was so tight that he only squeaked. Rat laughed again and everyone joined him, some enjoying
Azoth’s humiliation, some just hoping to put Rat in a good mood before their turn came. Black hatred stabbed through him.
Azoth hated Rat, hated the guild, hated himself.


He cleared his throat to try again. Rat caught his eye and smirked. Rat was big, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew how far he
was pushing Azoth. He knew Azoth would crumple, afraid, just like everyone else.


Azoth spat a wad of phlegm onto Rat’s face. “Go bugger yourself, Ratty Fatty.”

There was an eternity of stunned silence. A golden moment of victory. Azoth thought he could hear jaws dropping. Sanity was
just starting to reassert itself when Rat’s fist caught him on the ear. Black spots blotted out the world as he hit the ground.
He blinked up at Rat, whose black hair glowed like a halo as it blocked the noon sun, and knew he was going to die.


“Rat! Rat, I need you.”

Azoth rolled over and saw Ja’laliel emerging from the guild’s building. His pale skin was beaded with sweat though the day
wasn’t hot. He coughed unhealthily. “Rat! I said now.”


Rat wiped his face, and seeing his rage cool so suddenly was almost more frightening than seeing its sudden heat. His face
cleared, and he smiled at Azoth. Just smiled.


“Hey-ho, Jay-Oh,” Azoth said.

“Hey-ho, Azo,” Jarl said, coming to join Azoth and Doll Girl. “You know, you’re about as smart as a box of hair. They’ll be
calling him Ratty Fatty behind his back for years.”


“He wanted me to be one of his girls,” Azoth said.

They were propped against a wall several blocks away, sharing the stale loaf Azoth had bought. The smells of baking, though
less intense this late in the day, covered at least some of the smells of sewage, rotting garbage piled on the banks of the
river, and the rancid bite of the urine and brains of the tanneries.


If Ceuran architecture was all bamboo and rice fiber walls and screens, Cenarian architecture was rougher, heavier, lacking
the studied simplicity of Ceuran design. If Alitaeran architecture was all granite and pine, Cenarian architecture was less
formidable, lacking the deliberate durability of Alitaeran structures. If Osseini architecture was airy spires and soaring
arches, Cenarian architecture only soared above one story in a few nobles’ manses on the east side. Cenarian buildings were
everything squat and dank and cheap and low, especially in the Warrens. A material that cost twice as much was never used,
even if it lasted four times as long. Cenarians didn’t think long term because they didn’t live long term. Their buildings
frequently incorporated bamboo and rice fiber, both of which grew nearby, and pine and granite, which were not too far away,
but there was no Cenarian style. The country had been conquered too many times over the centuries to pride itself on anything
but survival. In the Warrens, there wasn’t even pride.


Azoth absently ripped the loaf into thirds, then scowled. He’d made two about the same size, and one third smaller. He put
one of the bigger pieces on his leg and handed the other big piece to Doll Girl, who followed him like a shadow. He was about
to hand the small piece to Jarl when he saw Doll Girl’s face pucker in disapproval.


Azoth sighed and took the small piece for himself. Jarl didn’t even notice. “Better one of his girls than dead,” Jarl said.

“I won’t end up like Bim.”

“Azo, once Ja’laliel buys review, Rat’ll be our guild head. You’re eleven. Five years till you get review. You’ll never make
it. Rat’ll make Bim look lucky compared to you.”


“So what do I do, Jarl?” Ordinarily, this was Azoth’s favorite time. He was with the two people he didn’t have to be afraid
of, and he was silencing the insistent voice of hunger. Now, the bread tasted like dust. He stared into the market, not even
seeing the fishmonger beating her husband.


Jarl smiled, his teeth brilliant against his black Ladeshian skin. “If I tell you a secret can you keep it quiet?”

Azoth looked from side to side and leaned in. The loud crunching of bread and smacking of lips beside him stopped him. “Well,
I can. I’m not so sure about Doll Girl.”


They both turned toward where she sat, gnawing on the heel of the loaf. The combination of the crumbs stuck to her face and
her scowl of outrage made them howl with laughter.


Azoth rubbed her blonde head and, when she kept scowling, pulled her close. She fought against him, but when he let his arm
drop, she didn’t scoot away. She looked at Jarl expectantly.


Jarl lifted his tunic and removed a rag he’d had tied around his body as a sash. “I won’t be like the others, Azo. I’m not
just going to let life happen to me. I’m gonna get out.” He opened the sash. Tucked within its folds were a dozen coppers,
four silvers, and impossibly, two gold gunders.


“Four years. Four years I’ve been saving.” He dropped two more coppers into the sash.

“You mean all the times Rat’s slapped you around for not making your dues, you’ve had this?”

Jarl smiled and, slowly, Azoth understood. The beatings were a small price to pay for hope. After a while, most guild rats
withered and let life beat them. They became animals. Or they went crazy like Azoth had today and got themselves killed.


Looking at that treasure, part of Azoth wanted to strike Jarl, grab the sash, and run. With that money, he could get out,
get clothes to replace his rags, and pay apprentice fees somewhere, anywhere. Maybe even with Durzo Blint, as he’d told Jarl
and Doll Girl so many times.


Then he saw Doll Girl. He knew how she’d look at him if he stole that sash full of life. “If any of us make it out of the
Warrens, it’ll be you, Jarl. You deserve it. You have a plan?”


“Always,” Jarl said. He looked up, his brown eyes bright. “I want you to take it, Azo. As soon as we find out where Durzo
Blint lives, we’re going get you out. All right?”


Azoth looked at the pile of coins. Four years. Dozens of beatings. Not only did he not know if he would give that much for
Jarl, but he’d also thought of stealing it from him. He couldn’t hold back hot tears. He was so ashamed. He was so afraid.
Afraid of Rat. Afraid of Durzo Blint. Always afraid. But if he got out, he could help Jarl. And Blint would teach him to kill.


Azoth looked up at Jarl, not daring to look at Doll Girl for fear of what might be in her big brown eyes. “I’ll take it.”

He knew who he’d kill first.



Durzo Blint pulled himself on top of the small estate’s wall and watched the guard pass. The perfect guard, Durzo thought: a bit slow, lacking imagination, and dutiful. He took his thirty-nine steps, stopped at the corner, planted
his halberd, scratched his stomach under his gambeson, checked in all directions, then walked on.


Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Durzo slipped out of the man’s shadow and eased himself over the edge of the walkway. He held on by his fingertips.


Now. He dropped and hit the grass just as the guard thumped the butt of his halberd on the wood walkway. He doubted the guard
would have heard him anyway, but paranoia begat perfection in the wetboy’s trade. The yard was small, and the house not much
bigger. It was built on the Ceuran design, with translucent rice paper walls. Bald cypress and white cedar formed the doors
and arches and cheaper local pine had been used for the frame and the floors. It was spartan like all Ceuran houses, and that
fit General Agon’s military background and his ascetic personality. More than that, it fit his budget. Despite the general’s
many successes, King Davin had not rewarded him well—which was part of why the wetboy had come.


Durzo found an unlocked window on the second floor. The general’s wife was asleep in the bed: they weren’t so Ceuran as to
sleep on woven mats. They were, however, poor enough that the mattress was stuffed with straw rather than feathers. The general’s
wife was a plain woman, snoring gently and sprawled more in the middle than to one side of the bed. The covers on the side
she was facing had been disturbed.


The wetboy slid into the room, using his Talent to soften the sound of his footsteps on the hardwood floor.

Curious. A quick glance confirmed that the general hadn’t just come for a nocturnal conjugal visit. They actually shared the room.
Perhaps he was even poorer than people thought.


Durzo’s brow furrowed under his mask. It was a detail he didn’t need to know. He drew the short poisoner’s knife and walked
toward the bed. She’d never feel a thing.


He stopped. The woman was turned toward the disturbed covers. She’d been sleeping close to her husband before he got up. Not on the far side of the bed, the way
a woman merely doing her marital duties would.


It was a love match. After her murder, Aleine Gunder had planned to offer the general a quick remarriage to a rich noblewoman.
But this general, who’d married a lowborn woman for love, would react quite differently to his wife’s murder than a man who’d
married for ambition.


The idiot. The prince was so consumed with ambition that he thought everyone else was, too. The wetboy sheathed the knife and stepped
into the hall. He still had to know where the general stood. Immediately.


“Dammit, man! King Davin’s dying. I’d be surprised if he’s got a week left.”

Whoever had spoken was mostly right. The wetboy had given the king his final dose of poison tonight. By dawn, he would be
dead, leaving a throne in contention between one man who was strong and just, and another who was weak and corrupt. The underworld
Sa’kagé was not disinterested in the outcome.


The voice had come from the receiving room downstairs. The wetboy hurried to the end of the hall. The house was so small that
the receiving room doubled as the study. He had a perfect view of the two men.


General Brant Agon had a graying beard, close-trimmed hair that he didn’t comb, and a jerky way of moving, keeping his eyes
on everything. He was thin and sinewy, his legs slightly bowed from a life in the saddle.


The man across from him was Duke Regnus Gyre. The wing-backed chair creaked as he shifted his weight. He was a huge man, both
tall and wide, and little of his bulk was fat. He folded ringed fingers on his belly.


By the Night Angels. I could kill them both and end the Nine’s worries right now.

“Are we deceiving ourselves, Brant?” Duke Gyre asked.

The general didn’t answer immediately. “My lord—”

“No, Brant. I need your opinion as a friend, not as a vassal.” Durzo crept closer. He drew the throwing knives slowly, careful
with the poisoned edges.


“If we do nothing,” the general said, “Aleine Gunder will become king. He is a weak, foul, and faithless man. The Sa’kagé
already owns the Warrens; the king’s patrols won’t even leave the main roads, and you know all the reasons that’s only bound
to get worse. The Death Games entrenched the Sa’kagé. Aleine doesn’t have the will or the inclination to oppose the Sa’kagé
now, while we can still root them out. So are we deceiving ourselves in thinking that you’d be a better king? Not at all.
And the throne is yours by rights.”


Blint almost smiled. The underworld’s lords, the Sa’kagé Nine, agreed with every word—which was why Blint was making sure
Regnus Gyre didn’t become king.


“And tactically? We could do it?”

“With minimal bloodshed. Duke Wesseros is out of the country. My own regiment is in the city. The men believe in you, my lord.
We need a strong king. A good king. We need you, Regnus.”


Duke Gyre looked at his hands. “And Aleine’s family? They’ll be part of the ‘minimal bloodshed’?”

The general’s voice was quiet. “You want the truth? Yes. Even if we don’t order it, one of our men will kill them to protect
you, even if it meant hanging. They believe in you that much.”


Duke Gyre breathed. “So the question is, does the good of many in the future outweigh the murder of a few now?”

How long has it been since I had such qualms? Durzo barely stifled an overpowering urge to throw the daggers.


The suddenness of his rage shook him. What was that about?

It was Regnus. The man reminded him of another king he’d once served. A king worthy of it.

“That’s for you to answer, my lord,” General Agon said. “But, if I may, is the question really so philosophical?”

“What do you mean?”

“You still love Nalia, don’t you?” Nalia was Aleine Gunder’s wife.

Regnus looked stricken. “I was betrothed to her for ten years, Brant. We were each other’s first lovers.”

“My lord, I’m sorry,” the general said. “It’s not my—”

“No, Brant. I never speak of it. As I decide whether to be a man or a king, let me.” He breathed deeply. “It’s been fifteen
years since Nalia’s father broke our betrothal and married her to that dog Aleine. I should be over it. I am, except when
I have to see her with her children and have to imagine her sharing a bed with Aleine Gunder. The only joy my marriage has
given me is my son Logan, and I can scarce believe her own has been better.”


“My lord, given the involuntary nature of both of your weddings, could you not divorce Catrinna and marry—”

“No.” Regnus shook his head. “If the queen’s children live, they will always be a threat to my son, whether I exile them or
adopt them. Nalia’s eldest boy is fourteen—too old to forget that he was destined for a throne.”


“The right is on your side, my lord, and who knows but that answers unforeseen may arise to these problems once you sit on
the throne?”


Regnus nodded unhappily, obviously knowing he held hundreds or thousands of lives in his hands, not knowing he held his own
as well. If he plots rebellion, I’ll kill him now, I swear by the Night Angels. I serve only the Sa’kagé now. And myself. Always myself.

“May generations unborn forgive me,” Regnus Gyre said, tears gleaming in his eyes. “But I will not commit murder for what
may be, Brant. I cannot. I will swear fealty.”


The wetboy slid the daggers back into their sheaths, ignoring the twin feelings of relief and despair he felt.

It’s that damned woman. She’s ruined me. She’s ruined everything.

Blint saw the ambush from fifty paces away, and walked right into its teeth. The sun was still an hour from rising and the
only people on the twisting streets of the Warrens were merchants who’d fallen asleep where they shouldn’t have and were hurrying
home to their wives.


The guild—Black Dragon from the guild glyphs he’d passed—was hiding around a narrow choke point in the alley where guild rats
could spring up to clog both ends of the street and also attack from the low rooftops.


He had affected a bad right knee and pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders, the hood pulled low over his face. As he
limped into the trap, one of the older children, a big as they called them, jumped into the alley ahead of him and whistled, brandishing a rusty saber. Guild rats surrounded the
wetboy.


“Clever,” Durzo said. “You keep a lookout before dawn when most of the other guilds are sleeping, and you’re able to jump
a few bags who’ve been out all night whoring. They don’t want to explain any bruises from fighting to their wives, so they
hand over their coins. Not bad. Whose idea was that?”


“Azoth’s,” a big said, pointing past the wetboy.

“Shut up, Roth!” the guild head said.

The wetboy looked at the small boy on the rooftop. He was holding a rock aloft, his pale blue eyes intent, ready. He looked
familiar. “Oh, now you’ve given him away,” Durzo said.


“You shut up, too!” the guild head said, shaking the saber at him. “Hand over your purse or we’ll kill you.”

“Ja’laliel,” a black guild rat said, “he called them ‘bags.’ A merchant wouldn’t know we call ’em that. He’s Sa’kagé.”

“Shut up, Jarl! We need this.” Ja’laliel coughed and spat blood. “Just give us your—”

“I don’t have the time for this. Move,” Durzo said.

“Hand it—”

The wetboy darted forward, his left hand twisting Ja’laliel’s sword hand, snatching the saber, and his body spinning in. His
right elbow cracked against the guild head’s temple, but he pulled the blow so it wouldn’t kill.


The fight was over by the time the guild rats flinched.

“I said I don’t have time for this,” Durzo said. He threw back his hood.

He knew he was nothing special to look at. He was lanky and sharp-featured, with dark blond hair and a wispy blond beard over
lightly pockmarked cheeks. But he might have had three heads from the way the children shrank back.


“Durzo Blint,” Roth murmured.

Rocks rattled to the ground.

“Durzo Blint,” the name passed through the guild rats in waves. He saw fear and awe in their eyes. They’d just tried to mug
a legend.


He smirked. “Sharpen this. Only an amateur lets his blade rust.” He threw the saber into a gutter clotted with sewage. Then
he walked through the mob. They scattered as if he might kill them all.


Azoth watched him stride into the early