The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) by Tim Stead

wrist, and they looked suitably worn, scuffed a thousand times by a bowstring.
    Gadilari looked more confident, but that could simply be age. He wore a long sword, a typical swordsman’s weapon, but he was dressed in cloth. There wasn’t a trace of armour or leather. That wasn’t typical. Arla preferred a short blade. If a man was far enough away that she needed a long pig sticker like that she figured she could put an arrow in him
    “Your sword,” she said, and held out her hand.
    Gadilari hesitated, which she took as a good sign. He wasn’t used to being without a blade. He drew it smoothly and offered it hilt first. Arla inspected the blade, but didn’t take it. It was good steel, and had seen some use, but it looked cared for. She looked at Gadilari himself.
    “You’re not Samaran,” she said.
    He shrugged. “Not originally,” he said. Arla waited. “East,” he added. “A town called Sarinka.”
    “And how good are you with that blade?”
    Gadilari thought about his answer for a moment. “Better than average,” he said.
    That was good. Arla liked that. It said enough without saying too much. She turned to Talis.
    “White Rock,” she said.
    Talis nodded. “Two years,” she said. “I wanted to see the south. That’s why I left. Everybody asks.”
    “And did you know the Mage Lord well?”
    “He spoke to me twice, directly,” Talis said.
    “And what did he say?”
    Talis flushed. “The first time he asked me to pass the wine,” she said. “The second he said: ‘do you think you can put an arrow in that bastard’s eye?’.”
    “And could you?”
    “Yes.”
    That, too, was a good enough reply. Arla decided that she liked her two lawkeepers, but there were other skills they might need in this line of work, and she was unsure that she possessed them herself. One of these was talking to people, getting them to talk to her, and she knew she had a tendency to be abrupt.
    “Go home,” she said. “Be back here at dawn ready to work.”
    They left. Arla stayed in the big room for a moment. Home. Home was a rather shabby room on the unfashionable side of the old town, about as far away from the harbour and Morningside as you could get. She didn’t like it, but it was all she had been able to afford. Now she could get somewhere better, somewhere with a view that didn’t smell like Gulltown.
    She slung her bow and winced. Another bottle of the physic’s potion would be useful about now, but she wouldn’t see her again until the morning.

Eleven – The Book of Low Magick
    Ella spent the evening in her father’s library. It was, without question, the finest library in Samara. The reason for this was simple. The trading house of Saine had effectively stolen a great number of books and paintings from the temple after the fall of the old kings. They had, naturally, claimed to have saved them. The temple had burned down, and what had not been taken had been lost. It was her father’s wish to return the books to the city, but until there was a suitable building they lived on in his private library.
    Tarlyn Saine and his predecessors had cared for the books, but age will tell on parchment and ink. Many had been copied and re-bound. Many had not. Ella herself had copied more than a dozen volumes. Her penmanship was good, and she enjoyed the task, and the quiet hours spent among the ancient pages. She had learned the old tongue, partly taught, partly deciphered herself, in order to better understand what she wrote, and her mind was now filled with ancient words.
    It took her a couple of hours to find the book.
    Each time she came to copy a new work she looked at many and chose one. This book was one that she had rejected, placed back on the shelf where it was slowly crumbling to dust. It had not seemed important, or indeed pleasant.
    She took the book carefully from its shelf and placed it on a table where it lay on a white silk cloth like a wealthy merchant on his death bed. The title had once been