After The Fall – Edward Ashton (1)

For three days, Martok hovered over him, clumsily checking his temperature and his pulse, fussing over his blankets, bringing him broth, and wiping down his face with cool, damp cloths. Martok’s fear was palpable, to the point that John began to worry that he actually was dying and that Martok knew it. When he woke on the morning of the fourth day, drenched in sweat from the broken fever and starving, Martok snatched him up into a hug, almost before he’d managed to climb out of bed, and clung to him, nearly weeping with relief.

Martok’s fear during John’s illness was real. John has to admit to himself now, though, that it’s possible that Martok’s fear was that of losing a prized possession rather than a friend. John is contemplating that thought when a garish blue-and-white-striped trundlecar stops in the road in front of him without pulling to the curb.

A window slides down, and the gray inside says, “Ho, there, little fellow. The Chairman sent me. You’re the one I’m to transport?” John gets to his feet and nods. The window closes again, and John hears the click of the lock on the rear door disengaging. After a moment’s hesitation, he yanks the door open and climbs in. THEY’RE WELL OUT of Lake Town, most of the way down the cracked, ancient highway, before the driver speaks again.

“You know, I don’t believe I’ve ever driven for a bondsman before.” John’s head snaps up. He’d been dozing, arms wrapped around the pill jar, half dreaming about his first encounter with Dana, of watching that knife dance in her fingers and imagining what it would feel like to have it plunged into his chest.

He blinks twice as his brain engages and processes what the gray in the front seat just said. “Yes,” John says finally. “I guess that’s probably right. We don’t get driven around much.” The driver laughs at that. He’s a younger male, huge and smooth- skinned, his crest nearly brushing the roof of the car. “I’d allow that’s true. I would indeed.

Thank you for buying this St. Martin’s Publishing Group ebook. To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters. Or visit us online at us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup For email updates on the author, click here. 1kitap1.com/en The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way.

Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillan.com/piracy. 1kitap1.com/en To everyone’s best pal, Claire! 1kitap1.com/en CHAPTER ONE “John!” Martok bellows as he bursts through the door. “I have news, my friend—wondrous, wondrous news! You’ll not believe what fell to me in the markets today!”

John turns away from the window, the only one in the bare boardinghouse room he and Martok have shared for the past two months, where he’d been passing the afternoon watching the machinations of a murder of crows as they attempted to scavenge the carcass of a dead rat from beneath the wheels of the passing trundlecars in the street below, to see his patron hanging his formal sash on the hook by the door.

Martok’s three-fingered hands are trembling with excitement, so much that it takes him two tries to get the sash to stay, and the crest that runs down the center of his broad bald scalp is flushed a happy pink. “John!” Martok says again, then crouches so that his head is nearly level with John’s and spreads his arms wide. “Come to me, my friend! This has been a truly wondrous day!” John hesitates a bare moment, then sighs, crosses the tiny room in three strides, and steps into the gray’s crushing embrace.

Martok lifts him, thick hands pressing John against the hairless, wrinkled skin of his chest, spins him half-around, and sets him down again with his back to the door. “Ask, John! You must ask!”

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 8b0500f8e0a0220b
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 4,202,630 bytes (4.008 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 248
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 413.89 minutes
• Total Words: 82,779
• Total Characters: 449,171
• Average Words per Page: 333.79
• Average Characters per Page: 1811.17

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