“Hey, Potroast,” said Viv. The gryphet startled and looked at her, his eyes huge. “Yeah, I’m talking to you. Remember, I hauled you down that hill last night?” She crouched in front of him and pulled a scrap of bacon from her pocket, holding it out to him between thumb and forefinger. “Gallina never gave you bacon, did she?”
He eyed her, then very gently extended his feathery neck and nipped it out of her grip.
Fern smiled at them both. “Well. That’s a good omen, I guess.”
Viv eased to a seat beside Fern and the gryphet and gently ran a finger along the silky feathers of his head, down past the point where they transitioned to short fur. His hide twitched and quivered behind her touch, but he didn’t protest.
“Huh,” she said. “How about that.”
They sat in comfortable silence while Viv scratched behind Potroast’s pointy ears. She even managed to wring some leg thumps out of him.
“There it comes,” breathed Fern, and leapt to her feet.
Clattering along the road from the fortress walls came Pitts, laboring under a bigger load than Viv had ever seen him pull.
When he rumbled to a stop in front of them, she spied three crates in his cart.
“Got somethin’ for you to sign,” he said, digging papers and a stylus from a pouch on his belt. While Fern attended to the paperwork, Viv began sliding a crate out the end.
“I’ll get ’em,” called Pitts as Viv hoisted the first off the buckboard.
“I got this one,” she said. She grunted as her muscles bunched hard against the weight of it, but she still hauled it to the door without too much difficulty. “Who knew a box of words could be so heavy?”
“Small stones tossed in the river. A thousand tiny prayers. The course is turned,” observed Pitts.
Fern furrowed her brow. “Is that from one of the poetry books? I don’t remember it.”
“Nope,” replied Pitts simply.
As Viv returned empty-handed for the next crate, she and Fern shared a glance, and neither could think of a thing to say.
The two orcs hauled the remaining crates while Fern hovered around the edges, whiskers twitching anxiously.
When Pitts had left, Viv unslung Satchel’s bag and Fern dusted him awake. Then the three of them stood together in the shop, inspecting the new arrivals while Potroast sniffed around the boxes.
The crates were new, made of raw wood, heavy with the scent of cut pine. The tops were nailed down, but there was a lip around the edge, and Viv found enough of a grip to wrench them back with a squeal of nails.
“I could’ve found a hammer,” observed Fern.
Viv shrugged. “Like you said, there has to be a reason you keep me around.”
Inside, packed tightly and precisely, were stacks and stacks of books. The smell of leather and cloth and ink nearly overpowered the piney scent.
Fern bent over and ran her paws along the covers, inhaling deeply. “Gods, that smell.” She sighed. “Have you ever smelled anything so good?”
Viv smiled. “I don’t think you really had to look that far to figure out why you still have this shop.”
The rattkin grinned back. “Maybe you’re right. Let’s get these unpacked. There’s a few in here I ordered just for you.”
Viv was more than happy to be distracted from the misty memories of her dream, and of a cruel blue smile.
34
Many of the volumes were surprisingly colorful, with stenciled or foiled illustrations on the covers. And Fern was right, the scent of the fresh volumes was intoxicating, so much so that it made Viv a little dizzy. When she opened one to inspect the fresh print, the spines creaked in a crisp and deeply satisfying way.
“The letters are so clean,” observed Viv.
“New gnomish printers,” said Fern, still grinning ear to ear. “Cheaper to produce and they wear better. Which means I can sell them for less, too.”
Viv and Satchel unpacked the individual books. Fern made a big production of inspecting each one and created a special pile on the front table according to some unknowable criteria. The rest she shelved carefully, and as every gap was filled, each row of books fattened with fresh additions. It was like seeing a wooden puzzle assemble until the scene painted on it became suddenly clear.
In the middle of it all, the door banged open and Gallina trooped in, startling Potroast from his doze in a slab of sunlight. “So they showed, huh?”
“You’re just in time to help,” said Viv, straightening with an armload.
“Nah, I’d just get in the way.” She ran a hand through her spiky hair. “Besides, I can’t reach anything in here. You want me to fall into a crate?”
“You know, your height only comes up when you don’t want to do something. So, why exactly are you here?”
Gallina flopped into a chair. Viv noticed that she had a folded piece of paper in one hand, which she fiddled with self-consciously. “Uh, well. Just thought when you were done doin’ this job you might want to do somethin’ you’re a little more familiar with.”
“What are you talking about?” Viv’s brow wrinkled.
The gnome held the paper up between two fingers. “Bounty. Pay’s not great, but it’s pretty close, I guess. I could do it on my own, o’ course, but I thought maybe if you were bored and not feelin’ too delicate …”
Viv caught Fern’s sidelong look and tried not to sound interested when she said, “Bounty, huh? What sort?”
The gnome twirled a hand. “Spineback nest. South a little ways down the coast. Some farmer’s losin’ sheep to ’em, I guess.”
“A loathsome species,” said Satchel with sudden vehemence, looking up from the stack of books in his bony arms.
Viv glanced at him in surprise. “You’ve spent time around spinebacks?”
“More than I care to relate,” replied the homunculus darkly. His osseoscription momentarily burned a bright blue.
Still wondering at that, Viv replied to Gallina, “Let me think about it.” She passed a book to Fern, who gave her a searching look. “I don’t know if I want to be away for that long.”
What she didn’t voice was her worry that if she left Murk for any length of time, Varine or Rackam would show up the instant she was gone. She couldn’t decide which was more worrisome.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll pay to cart us down, if you wanna go. Don’t wait too long, though. I can’t just sit around coolin’ my heels at The Perch for much longer.”
“Mmm. Just going to take care of it yourself, then?” Viv’s voice was mild. “How many spinebacks did you say?”
“A manageable number,” said Gallina flatly.
Satchel cleared his throat. “If you do decide to deal with those creatures, I may be of some assistance.”
“No offense,” said Gallina, “but I think spinebacks kinda like to crack bones between their teeth?”
“Nevertheless,” he said, and the flames in his eyes flashed like a knot popping in a hearth fire.
“You know, Satchel, the longer I know you, the less I think I know about you,” said Viv. She wondered again what services Varine might have required of him.
As Gallina was getting up to leave, Fern called out, “Oh, that book you wanted should be in here somewhere.”