Book 2 - Shadows Linger by Glen Cook

more of Raven’s background or motives.
    “Go that way,” Raven told him. “I’ll
check over here. Last stop, Shed. I’m done in.”
    Shed nodded. He wanted to get the night over. To his disgust, he
had begun seeing the street people as objects, and he hated them
for dying in such damned inconvenient places.
    He heard a soft call, turned back quickly. Raven had one. That
was enough. He ran to the wagon.
    Raven was on the seat, waiting. Shed scrambled up, huddled,
tucked his face away from the wind. Raven kicked the mules into
motion.
    The wagon was halfway across the bridge over the Port when Shed
heard a moan. “What?” One of the bodies was moving!
“Oh. Oh, shit, Raven . . . ”
    “He’s going to die anyway.”
    Shed huddled back down, stared at the buildings on the north
bank. He wanted to argue, wanted to fight, wanted to do anything to
deny his part in this atrocity.
    He looked up an hour later and recognized nothing. A few large
houses flanked the road, widely spaced, their windows dark.
“Where are we?”
    “Almost there. Half an hour, unless the road is too
icy.”
    Shed imagined the wagon sliding into a ditch. What then? Abandon
everything and hope the rig couldn’t be traced? Fear replaced
loathing.
    Then he realized where they were. There wasn’t anything up
here but that accursed black castle.
“Raven . . . ”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “You’re head for the black castle.”
    “Where’d you think we were going?”
    “People live there?”
    “Yes. What’s your problem?”
    Raven was a foreigner. He couldn’t understand how the
black castle affected Juniper. People who got too close
disappeared. Juniper preferred to pretend that the place did not
exist.
    Shed stammered out his fears. Raven shrugged. “Shows your
ignorance.”
    Shed saw the castle’s dark shape through the snow. The
fall was lighter on the ridge, but the wind was more fierce.
Resigned, he muttered, “Let’s get it over
with.”
    The shape resolved into battlements, spires, towers. Not a light
shown anywhere. Raven halted before a tall gate, went forward on
foot. He banged a heavy knocker. Shed huddled, hoping there would
be no response.
    The gate opened immediately. Raven scrambled onto the
wagon’s seat. “Get up, mules.”
    “You’re not going inside?”
    “Why not?”
    “Hey. No way. No.”
    “Shut up, Shed. You want your money, you help
unload.”
    Shed stifled a whimper. He hadn’t bargained for this.
    Raven drove through the gate, turned right, halted beneath a
broad arch. A single lantern battled the darkness clotting the
passageway. Raven swung down. Shed followed, his nerves shrieking.
They dragged the bodies out of the wagon and swung them onto stone
slabs nearby. Then Raven said, “Get back on the wagon. Keep
your mouth shut.” The one body stirred. Shed grunted. Raven
pinched his leg savagely. “Shut up.”
    A shadowy shape appeared. It was tall, thin, clad in loose black
pantaloons and a hooded shirt. It examined each body briefly,
seemed pleased. It faced Raven. Shed glimpsed a face all of sharp
angles and shadows, lustrous, olive, cold, with a pair of softly
luminous eyes. “Thirty. Thirty. Forty. Thirty.
Seventy,” it said.
    Raven countered, “Thirty. Thirty.
Fifty. Thirty. One hundred.”
    “Forty. Eighty.”
    “Forty-five. Ninety.”
    “Forty. Ninety.”
    “Done.”
    They were dickering! Raven was not interested in quibbling over
the old people. The tall being would not advance his offer for the
youth. But the dying man was negotiable.
    Shed watched the tall being count out coins at the feet of the
corpses. That was a damned fortune! Two hundred twenty pieces of
silver! With that he could tear the Lily down and build a new
place. He could get out of the Buskin altogether.
    Raven scooped the coins into his coat pocket. He gave Shed five.
“That’s all?”
    “Isn’t that a good night’s work?”
    It was a good month’s work, and then some. But to get only
five