He had his reasons for wanting Kormak to go unrecognised. The last time the Guardian had been in Vermstadt he had killed five powerful men and the repercussions of that deed might still catch up with him.

Kormak suspected that there would be more killing this time. Vermstadt was the sort of city where men bartered their souls to the powers of Shadow. For a place sacred to the Sun, it was a most unholy metropolis. Something of the darkness Saint Verma had supposedly banished during her stay among mortals seemed to have clung to it down the centuries.

The tall tenements loomed menacingly out of the gloom. Snow piled up around the buildings. Fat flakes continued to fall, the cold wind driving the gusts down from the slopes of the nearby Thunderpeak Mountains. Cloaked and cowled citizens made their way home in the gloaming. A man with a hopeful air offered a cold pie half-price. Kormak shook his head. He was hungry after his long journey but he wanted to save his appetite for a real meal at an inn.

The street was wide enough for two carts to pass if the drivers were careful. The alleys leading away from it were not nearly so rich-looking or so well lit. In their mouths slatternly women, well-wrapped against the cold stood beneath red lanterns, looking to do some business even on this chilly evening. Off to the south were the great rotting slums of the Maze, where families of beggars huddled ten to a room.

Beggars extended hands for copper coins in a half-hearted attempt to get money, more for the sake of the thing than because they really expected it. A lad of about eleven fell into step beside him, looked nervously over his shoulder and said, “Looking for a tavern, sir?”

Most of the inns Kormak could see were exactly what he would have expected so close to the city gates—overpriced traps for the weary traveller fresh off the road, or drinking dens for the drovers and carters who would pass through the nearby West Gate. He wanted somewhere a bit classier and he had fond memories of one place and one woman in particular. They were the only good memories he had of this accursed city. He still had dark dreams about his last visit.

“No,” Kormak said. “I know where I am going.”

“And where would that be, sir?” The boy glanced over his shoulder again and then up at Kormak. His face was thin and nervous. He played with something on his arm. It was a scarf dyed yellow.

Kormak thought about footpads and their lookouts. This boy did not look like one, just starved and nervous but Kormak had led a life that left him prone to suspicion. “None of your business,” he said.

“Right you are, sir,” the boy said. He kept walking along beside Kormak. He did not say anything more.

Tall, half-timbered buildings with narrow mullioned windows loomed over the snowy road. Many of them had painted signs indicating the business of their owner.

A wheel indicated a cartwright, a barrel a cooper, an anvil a blacksmith. The warm, ruddy glow of the forge inside the shop brought back memories from Kormak’s long ago childhood, of his father’s massive figure beating out swords for the clan, back before the old man had been slaughtered along with everyone Kormak had ever known.

The boy kept walking beside him. He was tempted to tell the kid to move on but the lad looked up at him entreatingly and said, “You don’t mind if I walk with you a bit, sir. Least until we see a squad of watchmen.”

“Why?”

“Well, you see, sir, it’s like this.