“His lady friend must be taking it hard,” he commented, fishing. Neither his parents nor the files had said anything about a lady in Demodir’s life, but Greddark had seen from his corpse that the man must have been handsome and well-built in life. Surely he’d caught the eye of some attractive young girl.
“Gaida? She wasn’t really his lady, you know. Any more than she was Martel’s, Lucien’s, or Kyrin’s. And she wasn’t really much of a lady, either, if you know what I mean.” The maid’s leer was no doubt meant to be enticing, but the Well would have to be twice as deep and filled with Frostmantle Fire before he’d take that bait.
He steered her back to the conversation. “Kyrin d’Vadalis?”
“Yeah, that one. Bit of a temper. He and Demi almost came to blows over the little hussy, Flame knows why. It’s not as if she’s even that pretty.”
“Huh. I’m surprised he wasn’t a suspect.”
“Oh, they questioned him, all right, on account of the fight being only a few days before Demi turned up dead. But, what with the shifters and Demi having his throat torn out and all, well, they never really suspected Kyrin. I mean, what’s the point? Everybody already knows who’s doing the killing.”
What was the point, indeed? Especially when Kyrin’s innocence was such a given that they hadn’t even bothered to include him as a witness in the reports. Greddark wondered if the omission was due to his being from one of the dragonmarked Houses, or to the fact that he wasn’t a shifter.
“When was the last time you saw Kyrin?”
“Why? He ain’t all that pretty, either.”
Greddark smiled apologetically and whispered in the woman’s ear before sliding another coin her way and excusing himself from the table. He had to suppress a laugh as she gasped and put a horrified hand to her mouth, making the sign of the Flame against evil.
Once outside, Zoden, who’d been under strict orders to keep his mouth shut while in the Well, could contain his curiosity no longer.
“What did you say to her?”
Greddark shrugged.
“I just told her that dwarves don’t like loose women, and they like loose lips even less. And what exactly dwarves do when the lips attached to the women continue to flap after they’ve been warned not to.”
“What?”
“Cut them off.”
Back at Zoden’s house, Greddark double-checked his wards and gathered his things.
“Where are we going?”
“I am going to the House Vadalis compound to question Kyrin. You are staying here.”
Zoden stopped in the midst of donning his scarlet cloak to glare at the dwarf. “I thought we went through this already!”
“We did,” Greddark agreed. “That was before, at the Cathedral, and when we were questioning the Throneholders. I needed your help then. I freely admit it. I do not, however, need it now.”
As he spoke, he palmed an orange bloodspike.
“But I helped you! You wouldn’t have made it this far without me!”
“You did help me. And now you can help me even more by staying here, out of harm’s way, until I return.”
“No! I’m not—”
The bard didn’t get any further. As he threw his arm out in a typically theatrical gesture, Greddark darted in and jabbed the bloodspike into the soft flesh of Zoden’s neck. The young noble had only a moment to register hurt surprise before his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped forward. Greddark caught him before he could fall and eased his body to the floor. The potion, brewed for a dwarf’s constitution, should keep the slim human sleeping peacefully until Greddark returned. Hopefully, with the case solved. And as long as the bard stayed put, he would stay safe—Greddark didn’t call himself a security specialist for nothing.
“Sorry, Zoden,” he said as he let himself out, pausing only long enough to reset the house wards. “I tried to tell you. I work alone.”
Chapter
SEVEN
Sar, Therendor 21, 998 YK
Stepping outside of Aruldusk’s so-called East Gate—actually on the city’s northeastern side—Andri was overwhelmed by a hundred shelters in a dizzying array of colors, fabrics, and shapes, encroaching on either side of the Orien trade road like fantastical weeds. The camp boasted everything from waterproof tarps barely large enough for one person to sleep in, to tents made of stitched animal hides, to great pavilions streaming rainbow ribbons into the breeze. The tents housed both people and businesses, organized in roughly concentric circles. As might be expected with a race so sensitive to scent, the more aromatic trades—trappers, butchers, and tanners—were located downwind, on the fringes of the settlement, along with the livestock pens and horse corrals, while the herbwives and sellers of produce and breads were located closer to the center. Closer still, clothing and weapons could be found, and in the center of the encampment, two large pavilions faced each other over a group of fires—a temple to Balinor and the quarters of Ostra Farsight, the shifter leader. It was to this tent, the plainer of the two, that Irulan led him.
“Ostra doesn’t follow the Flame,” Irulan warned him as they walked towards the tent, “so don’t expect him to cooperate simply because you’re a paladin. You’re going to have to convince him to help us, and the fact that you’ve been sent by Cardinal Riathan isn’t necessarily going to weigh in our favor.”
Riathan was known as a shifter supporter, but his sympathy was largely theoretical. When it came to helping the shifters in any meaningful way, the Cardinal’s voice was often conspicuously silent. If Andri were a shifter, he wouldn’t think much of anyone who’d been sent by Riathan, either.
A tall shifter with black hair stood guarding the open tent flap. Vivid red and yellow tattoos twined up through the thick fur on both arms to disappear beneath a sleeveless leather jerkin. Twin scabbards rode his hips, and long fangs protruded over thin lips that pulled back in a grimace when he caught sight of Irulan.
“Thorn,” Irulan said, nodding her head at the larger shifter.
“Irulan,” he replied, returning the gesture but not looking especially pleased to see her. “I see you’ve returned from Flamekeep.”
“Yes. And I’ve brought a gift for Ostra, from the Keeper herself.”
“A gift? From the Keeper?” That got his attention. “What is it?”
“Not what. Who.” Irulan jabbed a thumb in Andri’s direction. “Him.”
The inside of Ostra’s pavilion was as plain as the outside. Heavy linen curtains divided a small sitting area from the rest of the tent. Unpadded wooden chairs sat around an unlit brazier in the middle of a swept dirt floor. Thorn ushered them in then disappeared into the deeper recesses of the tent to fetch Ostra.
“So I’m a gift, now, am I?” Andri asked, genuinely amused.
Irulan’s cheeks colored. “Well, I’m sure your parents think you are,” she said, trying to cover her embarrassment with humor.
Andri felt the mirth drain from him like wine from a spilled glass. If his parents had thought anything of him in their last moments, it certainly wasn’t that he was a gift—quite the opposite.
“My parents are dead,” he said, earning him an unreadable glance from the shifter. Her parents were dead, too, he remembered, feeling a sudden surge of sympathy, followed quickly by a wave of shame. A lot of people had lost their families in the War. The loss did not make him unique, even if the circumstances of his bereavement did.
Much to his relief, Irulan ignored the comment, continuing on in a more serious tone. “The camp shifters consider themselves a tribe, however loosely organized and fluid their numbers might be. And you never approach a tribal leader empty-handed, unless you plan on leaving the same way.”
“Unusual wisdom from one of our more ‘fluid and unorganized’ members,” a sardonic voice said, and Andri and Irulan turned as one to see a shifter silhouetted in the tent opening.
“Ostra!” Irulan exclaimed as the old shifter stepped into the tent, closing the flap behind him. As he did, An
dri caught a glimpse of black, red, and yellow beyond—Thorn, returning to his accustomed duty. Apparently the wily elder had left the tent by another exit and lingered outside the opening to judge the merit of the Keeper’s “gift” for himself.
“Irulan, my child. I am pleased to welcome you back to the fire.” He extended a hand, and Irulan rose from her chair to grasp it, then she bowed low and touched his claws reverently to her forehead. As Ostra withdrew his hand, Irulan straightened.
“I am grateful to find it still burns, Father,” she replied, apparently completing some tribal ritual. Then she returned to her chair and waited while Ostra looked them over.
Andri returned the favor, studying the old shifter even as the camp leader assessed him. Like Thorn, tattoos covered both his arms, but where the colors of the younger shifter’s decorations were still distinct and vivid, Ostra’s markings were faded and blurred around the edges, reminders of the glories of a youth long passed. He had lanky brown hair, with thick gray sideburns framing a strong face, and wore plain clothes. Though he bore no visible weapon, Andri knew that no shifter was ever truly unarmed, thanks to the legacy of their lycanthropic forebears. His only badge of office appeared to be a three-stranded necklace with a set of claws on each strand—rat, wolf, and bear, if he knew his shifter lore. The wolf claws at least he was sure about. They matched the set of werewolf claws he wore about his own neck.
“I understand you’ve brought me a small token of honor, Irulan?” the old shifter said, his keen glance having already taken the measure of that gift.
Irulan rose, gesturing for Andri to do the same.
“I present Andri Aeyliros, paladin of the Silver Flame and chosen of Jaela Daran. A brother to the shifters, he is descended from those who hunt the moontouched.”
Ostra’s lips twitched, and he stepped forward, reaching out one clawed hand to lift Andri’s chin. Andri stiffened, but did not pull away as the shifter scrutinized him. He half expected the camp leader to check his teeth, as if he were some prize stallion Ostra was considering putting out to stud.
“So, he’s to be my personal manservant? My bodyguard?” Ignoring Andri’s dark look, Ostra dropped his hand and turned to Irulan. “No? My cook, then? I could use a good cook—Leata always burns the meat.”
Irulan frowned, taking her seat once more. After a brief hesitation, Andri followed suit. “Aeyliros is not the gift. His services are. He’s come to help us prove the shifters are not behind these murders.”
“Ah.” Ostra’s twitch grew into a smile that was not entirely pleasant. He turned his bright gaze back to Andri. “Flamekeep has sent the shifters an advocate, then?”
“I am an advocate for the truth,” Andri said. Ostra was trying to provoke him. And very nearly succeeding.
Ostra’s smile widened to show pointed teeth, and Andri realized that the old shifter was enjoying himself. And he was just getting started.
“Real truth doesn’t need advocates, paladin. It is like the sun, the moons, or the earth upon which we tread. It abides without regard for the smallness of the beings who try to comprehend it. To think that one could be its sole possessor or its chosen defender is, indeed, the height of arrogance.”
“Hrazhak!” Irulan spat the word out at the old man before Andri could respond. She came to her feet angrily, and much to Andri’s surprise, she had shifted, her claws now twice as long and thick as they had been. He half-rose from his own seat, looking from her to Ostra and back again, confused. Hrazhak was a shifter game, he knew that, played on a sort of combined obstacle course and battleground. Which, he supposed, was not too different from this conversation.
“Peace, child,” Ostra responded, holding up both hands, palms out. “I will not challenge your hero further.”
The camp leader gestured for Andri and Irulan to resume their seats and took one himself. He called for wine and waited until they each held a short-stemmed glass before pouring out a small libation onto the dirt floor. Though Irulan did the same, Andri noted that she had not yet retracted her claws, and when she tossed the drink back, he could see that the hackles on her neck were still raised. The shifters finished their wine nearly simultaneously, then bent as one to slam their glasses upside down on the dirt floor, as though it were some sort of contest. And perhaps, given the hrazhak, it was.
Ostra grinned at Irulan and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then turned his deep, intelligent gaze on Andri once more.
“Now tell me, child of the moontouched, how you are going to help my people.”
Andri blinked, startled by both Ostra’s words, and his imperious tone.
Child of the moontouched. Did the old shifter just deliberately misunderstand Irulan earlier, or was he referring to Andri’s past? Andri guesses it was the latter—he had a feeling that there was very little the camp leader did not understand.
Well, then. The best defense against insinuation was candor.
“I think the question is: How are you going to help them? There’s nothing I can tell you about this matter that you don’t already know, but I think that the reverse is not true.”
“Meaning I have information about these murders that you don’t?” Ostra asked. “If that were true, don’t you think I’d be using it to free my people?”
“Not if that information implicated them.”
Both Ostra and Irulan glared at him. Andri raised his hands, palms out, as the shifter leader had done.
“But that’s not what I was referring to. Based on everything Irulan has told me and everything I’ve learned through questioning both witnesses and the families of the deceased, I’m not convinced your shifters are behind these murders. The arrests seem far too convenient. It’s as if someone with a grudge against shifters is either committing these murders and framing them, or is taking advantage of someone else’s misdeeds and making sure the blame is laid squarely at your feet. If that’s true, then it’s likely you know who the culprit is, even if you don’t realize it.”
Ostra considered this, idly clicking his claws together as he thought it through.
“If someone has a grudge against my people, then why is he targeting the citizens of Aruldusk? Why not just kill shifters?”
Andri paused. He’d been thinking about that, and though he’d told Irulan the killer could be a lycanthrope, werebeasts were few in number and most avoided civilized areas at all costs. Especially in Thrane. And a lycanthrope—a werewolf—was the last thing he wanted to have to face, and not just because they were deadly, cunning foes who were nearly impossible to track.
But perhaps there was another solution to this mystery.
Ostra’s appearance had given him the idea. Maybe the killer was a shifter, after all—not a blond or white-haired one, but an old one. Perhaps the tuft of fur Irulan had found did not belong to some rare albino shifter from across the Bitter Sea, but to an elder of the tribe. Not Ostra—Andri would have sensed the evil about him the moment he laid eyes on the camp leader. But a compatriot of his, one who had, perhaps, been driven from the tribe for some transgression?
It was an avenue worth pursuing, at least, though a tiny voice inside him—one he’d been trying to ignore from the moment the Keeper had summoned him—pointed out that Jaela Daran would not likely have chosen him for this task if she didn’t believe a lycanthrope was involved. He shied away from that thought, like a skittish horse from a telltale hiss and rattle. There had to be another way, another enemy he could face without having to become what he most hated—his father.
With a casual shrug, Andri laid out his idea, careful to keep his voice neutral, to keep from betraying how desperately he wanted—needed—this to be the answer.
“Maybe killing them is too easy. Maybe his feud is with the entire community, and his revenge will only be complete if the tribe is completely destroyed. What better way than to have you branded as murderers and driven away from your home? Once word spreads of what’s happened here, no city will ever welcome you again. Your tribe will be spl
intered, scattered to the winds, forced to purge the name of Aruldusk from their history if they have any hope of blending into society again. That, or they will have to return to the Reaches with the shame of their failure here as their only legacy.”
Ostra’s lips pulled back to show teeth, but Andri pushed on.
“Why settle for your deaths when he can have your dishonor?”
The shifter leader rocked back in his seat as if Andri had struck him. And, in a way, Andri supposed he had. In a culture with such a unique and fierce sense of honor, the thought of a tribal member intentionally bringing disgrace not only to himself, but to his entire clan, was an offense so egregious that to even mention it was to risk blood insult, or worse. It was, in a very real sense, blasphemy.
“You dare?” Ostra snarled, and even Irulan looked furious. Or perhaps she was just angry that he had not conferred with her before springing this theory on Ostra. Either way, Andri knew that his position had just become extremely precarious.
“Forgive me, Ostra. I mean no offense to you or your people. But with so many lives in peril, and perhaps the very existence of your tribe, we have to be willing to look at every possibility, no matter how unsavory.”
Andri’s smooth words and calm tone seemed to mollify the old shifter somewhat, but the paladin knew he’d better end this quickly.
“Is there anyone you can think of who might feel that he’s been wronged by the tribe? Anyone unstable or vindictive enough to sacrifice his own honor for the sake of vengeance?”
Ostra was silent for so long that Andri feared he’d pushed the shifter leader too far. Or, worse, that there was no vengeful shifter to pin these crimes on, and he would have to take on the role that had ruined his father, his family, and his life. Lycanthrope hunter. Moon stalker. Werebane.
“We do not air tribal grievances to outsiders,” Ostra finally said, his shoulders sagging, “but … there is … someone.”
Andri felt a rush of relief so heady it nearly made him dizzy. He fought to keep his words even and composed.
The Inquisitives [3] Legacy of the Wolves Page 11