“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.