CHAPTER 60

Voiceless, still, dark, and starless. Some middle-aged women walked in the shadows, with animal skin drooping on their flat chest and with the tongue of torches to light alight the unspoken words that hung on the cloak of the night. But for the giggles coming from the huts, the little village would have passed for a ghost town. Somewhere, the wind danced with the trees, slowly and quietly as if afraid to perturb the solemn harmony in matrimony.

Ume sniffed and hurried through the brush. The women had disappeared into the shades on the right-hand side of the village, yet he kept to himself and did not walk into the clearing. They had not seen him, he was one with the night, just as his many training had kept his feet voiceless.

He picked the pace and continued further into the village. The hilt of his dagger was cold, and the adrenaline urging his feet forward kept his skin warm. It was an important mission, one that would enrich his pocket, one that would buy him the w