The night passed uneventfully, and Andri was drowsing when he heard Irulan stirring with the morning sun. His eyes shot open and he came fully awake, cursing himself for his laxity of duty.
“What … what happened?” she asked, her voice thick with weariness and thirst. She tried to rise and failed, still too weak from the wight’s attack.
“Shh. Don’t try to talk,” he said, moving to her side and placing a steadying arm around her shoulders as he eased her into a sitting position. When he had her propped up against the base of Dol Arrah’s statue as comfortably as he could, he opened his canteen and helped her drink.
“What happened?” she asked again when she’d drunk her fill, her voice stronger now and her gaze sharp, taking in the headless body rapidly rotting away not five paces away from her, and the pile of dust that had once been Thorn, now being scattered by the gentle morning breeze.
“It was supposed to be a trap. Somehow Thorn got here before we did-”
“Longstride reachrunner,” she said, and he nodded. Of course. Longstride shifters gained the speed of their wolf ancestors when they shifted, and he had heard that reachrunners were the fastest scout and trackers alive. Combine the two, and it was no wonder Thorn had been able to beat them here, even with them riding hard on a fast horse.
Too bad his speed hadn’t been enough to save him.
“The wight must have surprised him while he was setting the trap up for us. I found a net-”
“The wight,” Irulan repeated, and he could see the memories come storming back as the ghosts of fear, anger and remembered helplessness flitted through her dark eyes. “The wight got Thorn. And it almost got me, too. Would have, if it hadn’t been for you.”
Andri looked away, oddly embarrassed by the emotion in her voice.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied, covering his discomfort by rummaging in a pouch for some hard tack. He offered it to her with an apology. “The rest of the rations are with the horse. I didn’t want to leave you to go get them.”
“It’s still there?” she asked, her tone light and joking.
“The horse, or the food?” Knowing Irulan’s aversion to horses, she could be talking about either one.
“There’s a difference?”
He chuckled, and Irulan smiled, but her merriment soon faded, and she looked at him with serious eyes.
“Thorn was the only shifter to have visited this place in a very long time.”
It took a moment for her meaning to sink in.
“Skunk?” Andri asked, and she shook her head, then looked away, blinking rapidly.
He didn’t ask how she knew-a lack of tracks, or scent, or perhaps she’d used some ranger magic. Whatever it was, she was certain, and coupled with Thorn’s botched trap, it could only mean one thing.
Ostra had betrayed them. The shifters really were behind the murders, after all.
“Irulan, I-”
“Don’t. I can’t … think about it. Not yet.”
Andri nodded. They would rest today, so she could regain her strength, then leave on the morrow. They would still have a two-day ride ahead of them. Plenty of time to figure out how to bring her people to justice. Not nearly enough for Irulan to come to terms with the pain of the shifters’ treachery. But then, two years would likely not suffice to heal that wound, let alone two days.
He should know. It had been twice that number of years since his father turned on him, and his heart still ached anew every time he thought of it.
But Irulan was strong. She would survive the heartbreak, just as he had. What other choice did either of them have?
As it turned out, two days wasn’t enough. They were within sight of Aruldusk’s walls on the morning of the third day and still, every time Andri tried to bring the subject up, Irulan pleaded fatigue or faintness. It wasn’t entirely a charade, Andri knew-the wight had drained part of her life essence, and it was going to take time for her to fully recover, even with the aid of Andri’s healing. But she was dodging the issue. And, while he couldn’t blame her, they had to come to some consensus on how to deal with the shifters, or his only recourse would be to inform the Keeper that Maellas’s suspicions had been correct all along.
Irulan reacted with predictable outrage at the suggestion.
“You can’t be serious! You would be handing him the very thing he wants most on a silver platter, complete with garnish!”
Riding in front of him as she was, Andri couldn’t see her expression, but he could feel the tautness of her anger vibrating through her slim form.
“I don’t want to give the Bishop a reason for his prejudice any more than you do, Irulan, but we can’t just ignore what happened. Why would Ostra set a trap for us if he weren’t guilty, or at least complicit? If you don’t want me to go to straight to the Church with this, then give me another option.”
Irulan was spared from answering by the sound of bells in the distance, the deep, insistent ringing that signaled an emergency.
As Andri spurred his mount into a hard gallop, Irulan turned her head, grabbing her braids to keep them from scouring his face and exchanging a worried glance with him. They both knew without speaking what the nature of the emergency must be.
There had been another murder.
Chapter TEN
Sul, Therendor 22, 998 YK
Greddark froze.
“Good,” said the voice. “You’re smarter than you look. Now put that damned spike down-slowly! — and get off my son!”
Kyrin’s father.
Wonderful.
Greddark complied, slowly lowering the bloodspike to the floor and releasing it with difficulty from his crippled hand. He levered himself up and away from the handler with his good arm, sneaking a glance over at the speaker as he did so. A large man, easily a head taller than the six men arrayed on either side of him with crossbows cocked and aimed straight at Greddark. Bald, with a copper and silver beard and a golden House Vadalis hippogriff hanging around his neck on a thick chain. The Mark of Handling snaked across his scalp, down both sides of his neck and beneath his shirt, only to reappear at his wrists and across the backs of both hands.
The head of the compound and an heir of Siberys.
This just kept getting better and better.
Kyrin scrambled to his feet.
“Father! He killed Sharihon!”
The elder d’Vadalis turned cold green eyes on his son.
“I see that. Now suppose you tell me what she was doing out of her cage?”
His words quivered with rage, and Kyrin took an unconscious step backward.
“Well? Nothing to say? Maybe your two-crown doxy will tell me, then.” He gestured, and one of his men dragged Gaida in through the now open barn door, her face streaked with tears and a large red mark on her cheek that looked like a handprint. The man threw her to the ground in front of Kyrin’s father, where she collapsed in a weeping heap.
“Father, I-”
“Enough!” he snarled, silencing his son with a dark look. D’Vadalis turned to Greddark. “How about you, dwarf? I’m sure you must have something to add to this tale.”
Greddark drew himself up to his full height, struggling to look professional and competent when all he really wanted to do was thrust his forearm in a barrel of ice-cold water to numb the screaming nerves.
“I am Greddark d’Kundarak, an inquisitive in the employ of one of Aruldusk’s noble houses. I’ve been asked to investigate the murders that have been plaguing the city. During my examination of the body of the latest victim, Demodir Imaradi, I discovered a sword wound hidden by the bite marks of a great cat. When I learned that Kyrin not only had such a creature in his care, but was also one of Demodir’s rivals for the young lady’s”-he nodded toward Gaida-“affections, I naturally wanted to question him.”