She found that vaguely annoying. “Viv!” she hollered after him. He just nodded without looking back.
“Eight hells,” said Viv. “Great town. I can see why everybody stays.”
She struggled to her feet. Gathering her crutch and saber, she went to the end of the boardwalk, retreating out of sight into a valley between two dunes.
She couldn’t see the water, the wind was cut off completely, and the stillness itched at her so much that she tossed the crutch to the sand and limped to the crest of the beachward dune, hissing in pain the whole way.
The breeze up there was sweeter, and she gave her breath a minute to even out before unsheathing the saber. Viv tried to execute a couple of sword forms, keeping her weight mostly to her undamaged leg. She’d hoped to at least manage a few sets of transitions from high to low to feint, focusing on precision and upper body work, but it was a lost cause. Her leading leg shifted suddenly, and when she rocked back, the weight of the blade forced her onto the weak heel, and then she was tumbling over in a plume of sand and profanity.
Five minutes after her embarrassing flail down the dune, she stumbled back onto the main thoroughfare. Angry, thwarted, and keenly aware of the mix of sand and sweat up inside her shirt, she started the grueling trek up the hill toward The Perch. The gentle slope was more of a trial than it had any right to be, and all she had to look forward to at the end was an empty inn, an empty room, and a set of very narrow stairs.
She should’ve been shoulder to shoulder with the Ravens. She should’ve been hacking her way closer to Varine.
She should’ve been anywhere but here.
With most of her attention fixed on the sand-covered cobbles and where she’d next place the crutch, she was startled when a shadow stepped into view.
Glancing up, she found herself staring into the slitted serpent’s eyes of a tapenti. The woman wasn’t as tall as Viv—few people were—but situated upslope, Viv had to look up at her.
Or maybe it just felt that way.
She was powerfully built, the delicate patterns of her hide sculpted over muscular shoulders and legs. Her scaly hood flared along her temples and neck, salmon where the light glowed through it, and the long, rattle-like braids of her hair slithered dryly in the breeze.
The lantern of a Gatewarden gleamed where it hung at her waist opposite a longsword, and she wore a badge on her blue tunic.
The woman cocked her head in a way Viv couldn’t interpret as anything but disdainful. “A stunning display of martial prowess.” Her eyes darted beyond Viv to the crest of the dune and the site of her aborted blade practice.
Viv’s skin crawled in a hot flush, the kind that could tip from embarrassment into rage with no more than a feather’s weight. She wasn’t fool enough to let it happen, not with the local law, but she didn’t have to be polite either. “Guess there’s not much else to look at, huh?”
The tapenti smiled thinly, and her eyes narrowed. “It’s a sight I’d rather not see around my city. I like it quiet, and little girls hauling swords around promise to be noisy. I suggest you keep your steel sheathed, or better yet, back in your room. No reason you shouldn’t stay there too, in my estimation.”
Viv sputtered, “Little girl … ?”
The Gatewarden rode over her roughshod, her voice a relentless hiss. “When they dragged you in, I took one look at you and knew I’d need to watch you. Highlark certainly won’t forget your arrival anytime soon. If you cause the slightest trouble here, I won’t hesitate to toss you in a cell to ride out your convalescence until your … friends show up to take you off my hands.”
Viv could only stare in mute fury. Her hand twitched toward her saber’s hilt, but she mastered the impulse even as she saw the tapenti’s eyes follow the motion with grim amusement.
“Good day.” The woman tilted her head mockingly toward the inn. “And be careful on your way up the hill. A bad fall might extend your stay, and neither of us would want that, would we?”
Then she was gone, and Viv could only stare up the street toward The Perch and fervently long for something to stab.
If Rackam didn’t come back soon, she’d have to leave and find him herself, before she did something she might really regret.
3
Still seething from her encounter with the Gatewarden, Viv considered The Perch with a renewed lack of enthusiasm. Unable to face a tedious, lonely walk to a tedious, empty room for the rest of a tedious, pointless day, she angled for the boardwalk and the nearest occupied shop.
As she brought her crutch down in front of Thistleburr Booksellers, there was a tortured crack. She swore as the rotten wood buckled beneath the weight. Viv almost went tail over tusks for the second time in a quarter of an hour but managed to hike the crutch up before it went all the way through.
She stared at the half-disintegrated plank. “Shit.”
With adrenaline still sizzling up her arms from the near miss, she pushed open the door and staggered into the dim light of the bookshop.
The interior smelled almost exactly as she’d imagined—of old paper, mildew, and disappointment—but with the additional odors of dog and … henhouse. She wrinkled her nose.
Books crowded a long, narrow shop—squeezed into leaning shelves, scattered on top of them, teetering in stacks on the floor. Some volumes seemed new, but most were old, with errant threads poking from leather or cloth-covered wooden bindings.
Sea charts and maps lay in a disorganized heap on a low shelf below the front windows. A hurricane lamp with a cracked chimney flickered weakly where it was mounted on the wall.
The inside was constructed of the same planks as the exterior facing. Once painted white, they now looked tea-stained and peeling.
Charting an unfortunate path through the room was a shabby carpet crusted with salty sand and … stray feathers?
A tiny countertop crouched at the back, with another wall of books stacked behind. It seemed in danger of disappearing under a landslide of old words. A crooked hall ran into the rear, and she thought she heard rustling around the corner. A battered old woodstove—also piled with books—squatted to the left of the hall. Nobody appeared to be manning the shop.
“By the Eight, what a pit,” said Viv, curling her lip. This had been a terrible idea.
As she awkwardly turned to go, her saber slapped three piles of books, which scattered in a tumble of pages and dust. Viv winced, took a breath … and then two adjoining piles slumped over to skitter atop the rest.
A strange, barking hoot echoed from the rear of the shop. Suddenly, a thunder of paws preceded the appearance of a squat little animal that barreled directly toward her in a cloud of feathers and shed hair. Its claws caught in the ragged carpet and bunched it together in dusty humps beneath its belly until it shot forward again, sounding for all the world like a dog barking underwater.
She didn’t flinch as it came to a skidding stop before her, bouncing on four stubby legs, its short golden hair abristle along its spine. Its head was owlish and oversized, with great luminous eyes and a small black beak. Sprigs of fur and pinions hinted at vestigial wings. Triangular, canine ears were folded back over the feathers of its head in the righteous fury of a guard dog.
Viv put a hand on the hilt of her saber, but despite the creature’s aggressive squawking, she couldn’t imagine she was in much danger. Her surprise was already turning into a disbelieving chuckle.