With a strength born of desperation, Zoden lifted his sword and charged. The werewolf made no attempt to avoid his blow, laughing as the length of metal slid into his gut.
“You’ll have to do better than that, Zoden.”
The werewolf reached out and grabbed the blade with both hands, yanking it from the bard’s grasp. He pulled it slowly back out of his stomach, hand over hand, grinning all the while. When he’d removed the sword completely, he hefted it in one hand, flashing it in the light from the foyer to demonstrate that it was still clean. Then he threw the useless weapon to one side with another laugh.
“Care to try something else? No?” The lycanthrope stepped aside, gesturing to the yard and the open gate beyond. “Then you’d best take my advice—run.”
Zoden didn’t need a written invitation. He bolted past the werewolf and down the front stairs, nearly falling as he struggled to get his leaden legs to move the way they were supposed to. As he headed for the open street, he considered crying out for help, but knew it would do no good—in a city gripped by terror, no one was going to brave the dark to aid a neighbor, for fear of becoming a victim themselves.
He was on his own.
Zoden ran for the Imaradis’ home two streets over, knowing even as he did so that he’d never make it.
The werewolf brought him down before he’d gone more than a dozen paces, leaping onto his back and sending him sprawling, face-down, in the street. The werewolf tore at the nape of his neck, coming away with a mouthful of cloak that he spit out in disgust. Zoden could feel the thing’s hot breath against the side of his face, as the lycanthrope bent close. His jaws dripped drool onto the ground as he whispered in Zoden’s ear.
“You could have died like a man on the rail, but you ran then, too. Now you’re going to die just like your brother did, weeping and pissing in your pants like a frightened child.”
No!
With an enraged cry, Zoden summoned every bit of strength he had left and thrust himself away from the ground, throwing the werewolf off him and rolling onto his back. Unable to stand, he scrabbled backward on all fours, trying to put as much distance between him and his attacker as possible.
The lycanthrope landed lightly on his feet and stalked after him, the moonlight catching his fur and making it glow like fire.
Host! What was he going to do? He had no way of hurting the lycanthrope, and the lingering effects of Greddark’s drug made any hope of flight impossible.
It looked like he was going to be joining his brother tonight, after all.
He almost laughed as the werewolf advanced on him. He’d wanted this confrontation, wanted the chance to prove himself, to claim the hero’s death that Zodal had stolen from him that night—was it only three weeks ago? And now look at him, scuttling across the rutted street like some misshapen crab, his hand and legs tangling in his precious scarlet cloak.
His cloak.
Of course!
He stopped trying to flee and sat down hard on the ground, one hand reaching up to loosen the pin still lodged in the folds of his ruined cloak.
It had been a gift from Zodal when he’d first joined the Throneholders, its head shaped like a tiny wyvern to symbolize their loyalty to Diani. His brother had thought it ironic to have the pin made of the very metal that epitomized the Church Zoden so ridiculed—silver.
The werewolf stood over him now, gloating.
“Get up. Die on your feet like the man you profess to be. Or would you rather do as your brother did, and die on your back like a coward?”
“My brother was no coward!” Zoden bellowed, trying to surge to his feet, the pin grasped tightly in his hand. “He was a hero, facing a death meant for me!”
Still wobbly, Zoden couldn’t quite stand. He stumbled and went down on one knee. Mustering strength from some heretofore unguessed-at inner reserve, Zoden lunged forward and stabbed the silver wyvern deep into the werewolf’s thigh.
Roaring in agony, the werewolf reached down and tore the cloak pin from his flesh, his warm blood spurting in Zoden’s face. He grabbed the bard’s head, one clawed hand on either side, and twisted. Zoden heard a snap that echoed through the quiet street.
As both pain and awareness faded, the last lines of the poem Zoden had been working on flitted through his mind.
“No more cheap honor to defend,
The bard welcomes his fated end
His guilt and grief all proven lies,
A coward—now a hero—dies.”
It was, he thought, a fitting epitaph. And then the darkness closed in. Warm, welcoming, and permanent.
Chapter
TWELVE
Zor, Therendor 26, 998 YK
Irulan felt her pulse pounding in her throat as they galloped through the shifter camp toward the gates of Aruldusk. Shifters, awakened by the early morning bells, scattered out of their way as they thundered past, and she didn’t blame them. Flame-burned horses, she thought as she gripped the saddle horn with both hands. If she wanted to be astride something that moved this swiftly, she’d take her chances on the roof of a lightning rail cart. At least elementals didn’t step into snake holes at breakneck speeds and kill themselves, along with their hapless riders.
As they neared the East Gate, she realized that the guards were not going to see Andri riding behind her in the saddle. Since Andri had chivalrously insisted that she ride in front of him, the guards were going to think some crazy shifter was barreling toward them on a warhorse for the Flame only knew what reason. They would feather her full of arrows first and check papers later.
“Andri! Slow down!”
She ducked as she yelled, pressing herself against the horse’s neck and trying to make Andri as visible as possible. As she felt the steed’s muscles surge beneath her—gaining speed, if anything—she realized she was also making him a perfect target.
Well, she thought, wrinkling her nose at the heavy scent of equine sweat, at least he’s wearing armor.
“Hold!”
Andri pulled the horse up just short of the gate, stopping so abruptly that she might have flown over the stallion’s neck if Andri hadn’t reached out and grabbed a handful of her tunic.
“What’s your business?”
Andri pulled out Riathan’s letter and passed it to the guard, the horse prancing in response to his impatience.
“I’m on the Cardinal’s urgent business, and you are delaying me.”
The guard read the letter over quickly, but stood his ground.
“What about her?” he said, gesturing to Irulan.
Andri, his fingers still bunched in her tunic, hauled her up unceremoniously into a sitting position. “She’s with me.”
“The letter doesn’t say anything about a shifter.”
Though Irulan couldn’t see the paladin’s face, she felt him go still.
“The letter,” he said, enunciating each word with painstaking clarity, “says that you are to render whatever aid I require. And I require that you stop acting like a fool and let us through—now.”
He spoke as if to a small child or a simpleton, though Irulan couldn’t imagine him ever using such a furious voice with anyone so innocent. And while a simpleton might have known enough to obey the tone, if not the words, this guard didn’t appear to be quite that smart.
“What’s going on here?”
Another guard in Thrane livery walked up—a captain, by the looks of him.
The gate guard showed him Andri’s letter.
“He wants to bring the shifter in.”
The captain perused the letter, his eyes widening slightly as he read. He stood up straighter.
“And you’re going to let him.”
“But—”
“Your pardon, my lord,” the captain said, raising his voice and glaring the other soldier into silence. “Hal is new to the guard and apparently has never seen the Diet crest before. Please forgive us for delaying you.”
“Of course,” Andri said, with icy politeness. “There�
��s been another murder?”
The captain nodded, handing the letter back to Andri.
“Yes, my Lord. In the Garden District, I believe, though I don’t know anything more than that. We’ve just been alerted to watch for shifters trying to leave the city.” He glanced at Irulan. At least he had the grace to look uncomfortable.
“Which explains perfectly why your man is trying to prevent one from entering,” Andri said, obviously still angry. He slapped the horse lightly with the reins to get it moving and maneuvered around the guards and through the gates without another word.
Behind them, Irulan heard the captain say, in a low voice, “Send a runner to the Bishop. Now.”
“Andri.”
“I heard. We can’t worry about that now. What’s the quickest way to the Garden District?”
Finding the way to the murder scene wasn’t difficult. They simply had to follow the crowd. For a city that had seen more murders in the past year than it usually saw in five, its people never seemed to tire of the spectacle—everyone wanted to gawk at a fate that could have been theirs but wasn’t, thank the Flame.
They had to dismount because the press of people was simply too great to navigate on horseback. Leading the warhorse by the reins, Andri pushed his way through the crowd, with Irulan trailing behind, dodging angry looks and occasional globs of spit.
Andri finally had to draw his sword and let the magical silver flames clear a path for them. When they got closer to the scene of the murder, the way was blocked by guardsmen who took one look at Andri’s blade and let them pass.
Irulan had never been in the Garden District and so was somewhat surprised at the overgrowth, the rundown nature of the homes, and the general aura of neglect. If memory served, most of Aruldusk’s old noble families lived in this area, the ones who still held out hope that one day the ir’Wynarn family would regain control of Thrane. Seeing how they lived, Irulan could understand why—if Queen Diani returned to the throne, the fading fortunes of her supporters would bloom again. It was a feeble hope, of course—Thrane had been a theocracy for nearly a hundred years now, and the people seemed content to let it remain so for another hundred. These nobles were stubbornly holding onto a way of life that was doomed to disappear. In that, Irulan mused, they were not so different from the camp shifters.
A group of people clustered around the body, which was stretched out in the middle of the street and covered with a scarlet cloak. More guards, a House Jorasco healer, and a dwarf who was barking orders. No priests yet, though that was bound to change.
As they neared, Andri extinguished his sword and sheathed it, but not before making sure the guards saw it. He walked up and handed the horse’s reins off to one of the flustered soldiers, telling the young woman to tend to the mount, as if he had every reason to expect his orders to be followed. And perhaps he did, for the guard obeyed without question.
“Who is in charge here?”
Another of the guards, this one considerably more seasoned, stepped forward.
“I am, sir. I’ve secured the scene and am waiting for the watch captain and His Excellency, Bishop Maellas, to arrive.”
“And who is he?” Andri asked, cocking his head toward the dwarf, who was busy examining the ground around the body and taking notes in a thin book.
The dwarf looked up. Irulan noted that his brown eyes were rimmed with red, as though he’d been drinking. Or holding back tears.
“I’m Greddark d’Kundarak,” he answered, not bothering to rise from where he knelt. “I’m an inquisitive in the employ of Zoden ir’Marktaros, here to investigate the murders.”
Irulan exchanged a quick look with Andri.
Ir’Marktaros. The brother of the man her own brother was accused of killing, and the only surviving witness to one of the murders.
“He’s back in town?” she asked. “Where is he?”
The dwarf pulled the cloak away, revealing the slack face and staring eyes of the blonde man they had rescued on the lightning rail to Sigilstar.
“Right here,” he replied bitterly, before reaching over to close the dead man’s eyes with surprising gentleness.
Andri bent down on one knee next to the body and made the sign of the Flame on ir’Marktaros’s cold forehead. Then he murmured the words of the Final Prayer, meant to guide the man’s soul to the cleansing light and warmth of the Silver Flame.
Standing once more, he asked, “What happened? He doesn’t look to have been killed the same way as the others.”
“He wasn’t,” the dwarf confirmed, pointing to long furrows on the bard’s neck. They were white and puckered, their edges crusted in dried blood. “His neck’s broken. The other wound happened after.”
“How do you know it was the same killer?” Irulan asked. She could smell the stale scent of alcohol and sweat coming from ir’Marktaros’s corpse, and a muskier odor, tantalizingly familiar, coming off the dwarf’s clothes. The fresh pink scars on his right forearm looked suspiciously similar to the wounds Zoden bore.
The dwarf looked at her appraisingly before responding, his tone clipped.
“Never said it was. But there’s a witness. Of sorts.”
He pointed over to a man sitting on a nearby bench, talking to a guard in subdued tones. The man was disheveled and clearly hung over. His eyes darted wildly, trying but unable to stay away from the sight of the dead bard.
“A neighbor. Coming home late from a night out on the town. Surprised the killer before he could do more than slice Zoden with his claws.” The dwarf glanced at her, his eyes sharp. “Said it was a shifter.”
Andri looked up at Irulan. “I’ll go talk to him.”
He rose and walked over to the bench. The guards moved away as well, as did the healer, whose services were obviously no longer needed, leaving Irulan alone with the body of the only other person in Aruldusk who had believed her brother was innocent. And the dwarf.
She eyed him distrustfully.
“House Kundarak, huh? Zoden hire you for protection?”
“The details of my employment are none of your concern,” he said, standing and dusting off his knees. He began to walk down the street, following faint tracks. Two sets—one booted, one clawed.
Like a shifter.
“Maybe not,” said Irulan, “but considering he was the only witness to the murder my brother was falsely accused of committing, what happened to him is.”
She walked after him, careful not to disturb the footprints. They led to an open gate and up a short path toward a large house.
“Wait,” she said, holding out a hand to stop the dwarf from stepping on another set of tracks, even fainter than the first. She bent down to get a closer look.
“There are only boot prints leading into the yard.”
“So the shifter came in another way,” d’Kundarak replied, shrugging.
“Maybe. Let me see your foot.”
“What?”
“This is ir’Marktaros’s house, right? I assume you’ve been here recently?”
“Of course,” the dwarf said, an interested gleam in his eye. He grasped where she was leading and lifted his foot so she could examine the sole of his boot.
“Look. There are three sets of boot prints here. Three different sizes. One set clearly belongs to ir’Marktaros—they’re the ones leading to the body. These are yours”—she pointed out the smaller set of prints to the dwarf, aware that he would likely only see them as a vague broken outline, obscured as they were by more recent tracks. “That leaves this set, which leads into the yard from back there”—she jabbed a thumb over her shoulder towards the house across the street—“unaccounted for.”
“A guest?” the inquisitive mused, but Irulan shook her head.
“Not unless he’s still in there—the tracks lead in, but they don’t come back out. Your tracks come in and out, Zoden’s do, too, but these don’t. One set of booted prints in, one set of clawed prints out.”
The dwarf had put his foot down and was looking up
at the front of the house.
“Looks like Zoden also acquired a new statue while I was gone,” he said, mostly to himself.
Irulan followed his gaze to see a gray stone wolf in the open doorway, glaring reproachfully out at them.
“Some sort of familiar?” she wondered aloud, but d’Kundarak shook his head.
“A canary.”
At her puzzled look, he explained. “Dwarves sometimes use them in unfamiliar tunnels to make sure the air is good. You send them in first, and if they come back out alive, you know you’re safe. If they don’t, you find another way, and buy yourself a new canary.”
Irulan nodded and turned her attention back to the wolf. The sight of it reminded her of the wounds on the dwarf’s arm. They could have been made by a wolf. Or by whatever—whoever—had killed the bard.
“So, where were you last night, if you weren’t with Zoden?”
“Following a lead.”
“Looks like the lead fought back.”
D’Kundarak snorted. “You could say that,” he replied, unconsciously rubbing his arm.
Irulan abruptly placed the odor that hung about him like an old lover. She’d smelled it before in the Reaches—not this exact scent, but one very similar, and she was certain of its origin.
Not a wolf. A cat, and a big one.
Where could the dwarf have been that he’d come back smelling like a tiger’s chew-toy? Only one place—the House Vadalis compound.
And if he was following a lead there, then maybe he had a suspect—one that wasn’t a shifter.
But if the murderer wasn’t a shifter, then who was Ostra trying to protect? Because he had to be protecting someone, didn’t he? Why else would the shifter leader have sent her and Andri into a trap?
By Tira’s Sword, none of this made any sense! Just thinking about it was starting to give her a headache. If she didn’t get some answers soon, she thought her head might explode.
She’d start with the dwarf. He had to know something. It would just be a matter of convincing him to share.
“So who won? You or the cat?”
He didn’t even blink. “I did.”
The Inquisitives [3] Legacy of the Wolves Page 16