by Prior, D. P.
“That I was going to hide away? Might as well bury me alive. Or did you think I was going holy?”
Jeb started to run back into Portis. His breathing came easier than any time he could remember. For all the disease he’d inherited from Mortis, he sure felt a darned sight better than he had in ages.
“Maybe when the killing’s over, Marlec,” he called back over his shoulder. Maybe when the rest of the Maresmen were back to the mud, along with their puppetmasters in the senate. “But I’m making no promises.”
EPILOGUE
“THOUGHT YOU WERE the wagonmaster,” Tizzy Graybank said. She spat a wad of tobacco in the bucket, then remembered she’d already packed it away. With a quick look to make sure she wasn’t seen, she rubbed the brown sludge into the floorboards till you could barely notice it. Weren’t perfect, but what the heck was these days? “Be with you in a minute.”
“Take your time,” the woman said. She looked around the shop, took in the stacked crates, the chairs upturned on top of tables, the painted sign bearing Tizzy’s name now leaning up against a wall. Eventually, she settled herself atop a crate. “Closing down?”
Tizzy’s knees creaked as she stood from the last of the crates she was packing with dried herbs and spices, all sealed in their own hessian sacks. “Brink’s where the future is, they say.”
“That a fact?”
Tizzy gave the woman the once over. There was something familiar about the face, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Few too many crow’s feet round the eyes, few too many streaks of gray in the once black hair. She was dressed like a fishwife in an ankle-length skirt and off-white blouse that laced up at the front. Not local, though, that’s for sure. Tizzy would have known her, if she was.
“Can’t offer you much, I’m afraid. All packed up and ready to go. Wagon should be here any minute.”
“That’s a pity,” the woman said. “I heard you made a decent haddock pie.”
“Best there is,” Tizzy said. For a moment, she had to fight back the tears. Donkey’s years she’d been in Portis, and everybody who was anybody came to her shop. She’d be leaving some old friends behind, that’s for sure. Bunch of folk she’d not waste spit on, too, if she was honest. “Times change, though, luv. People move on.”
“True enough,” the woman said. She lifted a finger to wipe beneath her eye.
They were strange eyes. Greenest Tizzy had ever seen. She did her best not to look too close; that would’ve been rude. But it was the eyes that tugged at her memories; them that she recognized, coupled with the hair.
“Do I know you, luv?” she asked.
The woman drummed her fingers on her knees, gave a half-smile. “Doubt that, but I know you.”
Well, everybody knew Tizzy; least everyone in Portis. But this woman wasn’t from Portis, was she? “How’s that, then?” Tizzy asked.
Suddenly, the woman looked up, a new intensity in her eyes. “Heard there was a spate of killings not so long ago.”
A rock of ice formed in Tizzy’s guts. Happened every time she thought about what she’d heard, what she’d seen. Truth be told, it’s why she had to move. Too many memories; and she was sick of jumping at her own shadow.
“That there was, luv. And to my way of thinking, it’s only gonna get worse.”
“Really?”
“Mark my words, since they found poor Sheriff Tanner’s body down in the basement of his office, there’s been no law and order in town. Place is run by crooks, if you ask me, and the biggest crook of all is him in charge.”
“Bernid Cawlison?”
“Ah, so you know him?” Tizzy did her best to keep an even tone. It was getting harder to tell who was with Boss and who was against him.
“Know of him. I’ve been poking around, trying to find out what happened… to someone I knew.”
“Oh?” Tizzy said. “And who’s that, then?”
“Davy Fana.”
Tizzy lowered herself onto the crate opposite. “Oh, luv, young Davy’s…” The image of the masked man pointing that thing at him and Davy’s head exploding still gave her nightmares.
“I know,” the woman said, leaning over to rest her hand on Tizzy’s knee. “I know he’s dead. What I want to know is, who did it?”
Tizzy filled her in on what she’d seen through the window. She reckoned she gave a pretty good description of the man in the mask. She mentioned that Maresman had been there, too—Jebediah Skayne, they called him—but she was quick to mention he didn’t do it. She was about to mention the masked man had got his comeuppance when the woman suddenly stood up to leave.
“Oh, you off, then?” Tizzy said. “I was gonna say—”
“You’ve said more than I’d hoped. Thank you.”
“But—”
The woman pressed a finger to Tizzy’s lips. “I’ll find him.”
Tizzy wanted to put her straight, but the look in the woman’s eyes gave her pause. She was dangerous, this one. Last thing Tizzy needed was any more trouble, especially when she was just leaving town.
“What, you gonna hire someone to, you know, pop him off?” She knew how things worked; knew there were men who did such jobs for the price of a good meal.
“No,” the woman said.
As she reached the doorway, the air about her face grew hazy for an instant, and a change came over her. She looked younger, somehow: no more gray in her hair; it was glistening black and fell halfway down her back. The crease lines were gone from her eyes, too, and her jaw had grown more angular. Then Tizzy noticed: her clothes had changed as well. Gone was the fishwife attire, and in its place she now wore a black leather bodice and britches, knee-length boots, and there was a sword sheathed at one hip, a dagger at the other. “I do my own dirty work.”
Her green eyes sparkled like emeralds as Tizzy stood there and gawped.
“I do know you!” Tizzy said. “Ilesa! Ilesa Fana. You’re Davy’s sister.”
“Glad someone remembers.”
Ilesa’s eyes darkened with resolve. She pulled the door open and headed out into the street.
Tizzy watched her go through the slats on the blinds. She could hear the rattle of the wagon coming down the high street, but she had no eyes for that.
Ilesa.
Ilesa Fana, after all these years. And to look at her!
Then it struck her: Jebediah Skayne—he’d picked up the mask, put it on.
“Oh, my shog!” Tizzy said to herself. She wouldn’t want to be the Maresman for all the money in Boss’s coffers. She tried to call out to Ilesa, but the words never left her mouth.
Best to let it go, she told herself. Ain’t none of my business.
All she had to do was get her things loaded on the wagon and there was a whole new life waiting for her in Brink. What other people got up to was between them and them alone. They’d work it out, she was sure. Once they had a chance to speak.
She continued to watch, even as the wagon pulled up and the driver started to climb down.
Ilesa walked with the grace of a dancer, lightly on the balls of her feet. Tizzy had seen others walk that way, poised and ready to strike at the slightest hint of trouble. As she watched, the air about Ilesa began to shimmer once more. Her clothing faded, and feathers began to sprout from her arms.
Tizzy blinked to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, and then she gasped as a huge brown eagle took to the air and soared toward New Jerusalem.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
D.P. Prior was born and bred in England, lived for a while in Australia, and now resides in Florida, USA with his wife, two children, and three cats. He writes and edits fiction for a living, has a passion for pumping iron, and frequently grumbles about taking care of five acres of snake-infested woodland.
Web: dpprior.blogspot.com
Facebook: facebook.com/dpprior
Twitter: @NamelessDwarf
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ALSO BY D.P. PRIOR
The Nameless Dwarf
A Dwarf With No Name
The Axe Of The Dwarf Lords
The Scout And The Serpent
The Ebon Staff
Bane Of The Liche Lord
The Nameless Dwarf: The Complete Chronicles
Shader
Sword Of The Archon
Best Laid Plans
The Unweaving
The Archon’s Assassin (forthcoming)
Rise Of The Nameless Dwarf (forthcoming)
Saphra (forthcoming)
Shader: First Trilogy: Against the Unweaving
The Memoires of Harry Chesterton
Thanatos Rising