Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)(41)

“It’s him,” replied the gnome, her eyes wild.

Viv didn’t need further clarification. She grabbed her saber by its scabbard and didn’t bother to belt it on. She caught Fern’s gaze. “Stay put,” she said, as every angle of her sharpened.



* * *



He was dead. Very dead.

It was the man in gray all right, sprawled between a dune and a slowly disintegrating clapboard storage building behind one of the rows. If his tangle of colorless clothing hadn’t been enough to mark him, up close, that cold smell prevailed, dry and metallic in Viv’s nose.

“Did you kill him?” She strapped her saber onto her back and squatted beside the corpse, scanning the sand, but it was a muddle of inconclusive traces. The wind wasn’t helping the situation much either.

“Gods, no!” said Gallina. “Found him this way. Okay, I didn’t find him. It was that orc with the wagon.”

“Pitts?”

“Hells if I know his name! How many orcs with wagons have they got in Murk?”

The sand drank in the man’s blood, and his ashen cloak writhed along the churned earth like a living thing. Overhead, the sky darkened, and the smell of a landbound storm rode the breeze.

“Where did Pitts go?”

“Didn’t ask. Ran off that way.” The gnome flung a hand toward the fortress walls.

Viv sighed. “Off to find the Gatewardens then, and that means Iridia. Shit.”

“Well we didn’t kill him, so I don’t know why that’s a problem for us. Hells, we should be relieved, right?”

Viv glanced at her. “That depends a lot on who killed him—and why—doesn’t it? And whether he was alone? After all, who broke him out of that cell?”

On a hunch, she stood, hooked her good foot under one of his armpits, and flipped him over.

His face was expressionless, pale eyes staring sightlessly. He might as well have been out for an evening stroll from the set of his mouth.

She squatted again, grunting at the thrill of fire along her thigh, and twitched his cloak aside. His magestone was belted at his waist. There was a money pouch, too, both conspicuously left behind. Viv shucked his sleeves up to the elbow on each arm.

“Whatcha doin’?” Gallina moved to get a better view. She had a dagger in hand, as though he might scramble up and lunge for them. Given what Viv was looking for, she thought it was a worthwhile precaution.

She didn’t answer, instead pulling his bloody and torn shirt up to his neck. The hiss of indrawn breath had nothing to do with her leg this time.

A few inches above the stab wound that killed him, etched into the skin below his clavicle, was a diamond with branches like horns.

Varine the Pale’s symbol.

“Oh, shit,” said Viv.

“What?” Gallina’s voice thrummed with anxiety. “You’re freakin’ me out.”

Viv rose and looked down at the gnome. “Was there anything else here? A pack? His satchel?”

“No, nothin’! What’s that symbol?”

Viv sighed. “It’s Varine. He’s one of hers.”

“The necromancer? But he’s not dead, though! Uh, I mean, he wasn’t dead. He—” Gallina huffed in exasperation. “You know what I mean!”

“Her followers aren’t all wights,” said Viv grimly. “Kick around in the sand. See if that satchel is buried around here.” Viv climbed awkwardly up the dune and peered over the crest toward the fortress walls. She didn’t see any Gatewardens headed their way, not yet anyway. “If it’s still around, I want to find it before Iridia gets here.”

“Because … ?”

“Because I don’t think this is over, and I don’t trust her to listen to a gods-damned thing I have to say.”

They searched the immediate area, combing the sand and clumps of beach grass, before Viv stopped to consider the outbuilding. It was leaning as though in a stiff wind, gaps yawning at the corners where the wood had pulled free.

She circled the structure, peering into the shadows and hidey holes until she drew up short. A soft gleam beckoned from the blackness.

“Find somethin’?” called Gallina, coming around the other side of the building and looking harried.

“I think so,” said Viv, getting down on one knee again and regretting the stiffness all this was going to cost her tomorrow. She reached into the darkness and withdrew the battered leather satchel, its copper fittings winking in the light. “He hid it in here from somebody.”

The sound of approaching voices rose above the hiss of the grass and sand.

Viv shoved the bag back into the shadows and quickly rose.

Gallina opened her mouth to say something, but Viv saw her figure it out before the words came. The gnome nodded.

“Later,” she said.

“Later,” Viv agreed.

Together they moved toward the approaching Gatewardens.





20





“Of course I’d find you two here,” said Iridia. She looked at the both of them from the other side of the corpse. Storm clouds clotted the sky above, and flickers of lightning licked at the sea in the far distance. A brace of Gatewardens flanked her, while Luca the dwarven nightwatchman examined the body and checked the man’s pockets.