The Gaslight Dogs by Lowachee Karin

Author:Lowachee, Karin [Lowachee, Karin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: FIC009020
ISBN: 9780316088473
Publisher: Hachette Book Group
Published: 2010-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

The third day came and he heard no carriage, no horse’s harness. No word. He packed his bedroll and his saddle sack, hoisted both over his good shoulder, and clumped his way down the steps. Louna was just emerging from the kitchen and started in surprise.

“Cap’n Jarrett, where ye goin’?”

“Home.” He handed her the key to the girl’s room, even if she had one already in order to feed the Aniw, but he certainly didn’t need it now. He stared for a pointed second into the familiar old eyes. “Don’t let her out.”

“But your father….” The servant woman, out of anyone else in the house, knew the rift between them, what had been there even before his mother and younger sister had died. He had never learned the reason for that, and it didn’t matter when the conclusion was disdain. “Stay, boy. Sober up before you—”

“I’m sober. It took being drunk to realize that I truly don’t need to be here.” And he truly had no desire to gain answers to his questions. Not if the source was his father, who dangled insanity before his eyes like a hungry fisherman. And he was somehow both bait and fish.

“Your career, boy.”

Because they both knew that it wouldn’t be beyond the general to throw his own son into the stockade.

“My furlough’s been up. If he sent word to my post superiors, it wasn’t to tell them that I’ve been holed up in this bloody house minding an Aniw woman and her cursed magic. I’ll take my chances on the frontier.” He leaned to kiss her cheek. “Don’t fret. Now I’d better go to the stables and retrieve my horse. If that abo gives you grief, shoot him in the foot.”

He felt lighter at this decision, at the ability to move and the thought of being back among his men. Those were familiar grounds, and even if his father chased him all the way to his post, he knew he could count on his troop in such an instance. Even if it were a danger to them. They had survived too many skirmishes and pitched battles to desert each other so readily. The general, on the other hand, had never fought alongside him. As a son he felt even less obligation to be loyal than he did as a soldier. Those were the bare facts of the matter, what endowed all the proper lines and carefully displayed memories in this house. Such was the confidence in this thought, with the light of day and an absence of parent to blaze the trail. He might as well act on it once he could.

He turned from Louna’s worried expression and pulled open the door.

And there sat the sight of his father as he climbed down from the carriage. It had rolled up at the end of the short walk from the porch, and he hadn’t heard it in the cascade of his own thoughts. Instinct almost made him shut the door again before the general looked up, but no such fortune befell him.

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