“As you say, uncle.”
Wayland Smith raised his gaze and stared at Oliver. “You saw last night that there are spies in the gorge. There’s no telling how many of those frogs escaped. Even if the Nagas did not order you to leave, you risk danger from myriad sources every moment you remain. Even if there were no conspiracy, no Hunters, have you forgotten the price on your head? Word is spreading. You ought to-”
Oliver snorted. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He glared at Smith, then at Kitsune. “Kit, this is the guy Frost was talking to, right?”
The fox-woman did not raise her head.
“Bascombe,” Smith began, as though to admonish him.
The Sword of Hunyadi felt warm and light in his grip. Oliver raised it, pointing the tip at the old Borderkind in punctuation.
“Kitsune heard your little chat with Frost this morning, old man. I’m through with secrets. The Falconer was after me and my sister, that’s what you said. The legendary want us dead. You’re going to tell me what it’s all about, or I swear to God, I’ll take your fucking head off!”
“Oliver,” Kitsune whispered. “Don’t.”
He stared at her. “Don’t? My father had his eyes ripped out by the fucking Sandman. The thing has my sister. Come on, Kit, don’t you think I deserve to know why?”
Wayland Smith shook his head slowly. “You fool.” He gripped the fox-head of his stick and glanced at the innkeeper. Something about the look drew Oliver’s attention, and he saw that the innkeeper was looking back and forth between them as though trying to work out a puzzle.
“Now, wait a moment,” the man behind the counter whispered. He pointed to Smith. “He’s the one, isn’t he? Oh, you bastard, trying to keep it so quiet. You clever prick.”
Smith clucked his tongue and shot a meaningful glance at Oliver. “See what you’ve done?”
Then Wayland Smith leaped across the room, twisting in the air. He swung the stick with its heavy, carved head, and brought it down with a sickening crack on the innkeeper’s skull.
The man staggered back, crashed into the wall, and slid to the floor, unmoving.
Oliver stared, sword wavering in his grasp. “Oh, Christ. What the hell did you do?”
Kitsune stepped up, fur brushing him, and grasped his free hand. “We must go, Oliver.”
He gritted his teeth. “Not without the truth.”
“You’ll die here, then,” Smith said, eyes cold and gray. “You’ve said too much. I killed the man for your own safety, but there’s a chance others overhear us even now. And you cannot know how much Coyote may have guessed, or who else he will tell to save his own skin. Word will spread, the truth will out, and it will come to you eventually. It’s safest for you if you do not know.”
“Bullshit! If it concerns me, then it’s my truth! And you’re going to tell me, damn you.”
He started toward Smith, sword up, watching the walking stick warily. How many fencing matches had he won? Dozens, at least. But he had never fought someone with such uncanny speed, not at close quarters.
Wayland Smith removed his hat and set it on the counter. Even as the brim touched wood, he sprang. Oliver raised the sword, parried his attack, then darted the blade forward. Kitsune cried out, but Oliver could not hear her over his own howl of rage. All of his betrayal and fear went into his attack and he twisted inside Smith’s defenses, then drove the point of the sword through his shoulder, puncturing flesh and grinding against bone.
The old man grunted in pain, but grinned.
“Well, there’s proof, eh?”
Gripping the stick with one hand, he shot the other out and cuffed Oliver in the side of the head like he was an errant child. Staggered, Oliver lost his balance. Smith kicked him away, the blade slipped out of the wound, and then the old man stood there, glaring at him, one hand clasped over the piercing in his shoulder. Blood seeped through his fingers.
“Uncle,” Kitsune began.
“I heal,” Smith replied.
Oliver was disoriented from the blow, but determined. Blood dripped from the tip of Hunyadi’s sword as he raised it, ready to attack again.
Wayland Smith rushed at him with the speed of the wind. One hand gripped his wrist, keeping the sword at bay, the other grabbed his throat and he felt himself driven backward. In the span of three heartbeats he was nearly carried across the foyer of the inn. When he slammed into the door, it crashed open, and then they were at the top of the bridge that led to the inn, hanging above the Sorrowful River.
The sun splashed down upon them. Oliver twisted to escape its glare, trying to wrest himself from Smith’s grasp. The old man slammed him against the thick wooden balustrade of the bridge and Oliver was bent backward, a hundred feet above the river, nothing below him but a fall that might kill him.
“You will go,” Smith said, “because you have no choice. To stay is to die, but to go is to have a chance for yourself and your sister. You will see me again, Bascombe. Be assured of it.”
The old man glared at him with stormy gray eyes, then abruptly released him. Wayland Smith backed away, turned, and strode along the bridge, leaving Oliver to gasp to catch his breath. He pulled himself away from the balustrade and stared for a moment at the drop below, at the community of Twillig’s Gorge going about its business, none the wiser.
Kitsune stepped out of the front door of the inn. She raised her hood and looked at him from its depths, jade eyes gleaming.
“You’re fortunate to be alive,” she said. “Shall we be going now, and try to stay that way?”
The fox-woman turned and started along the bridge. Oliver took a deep, shuddering breath of frustration, slid the sword into his belt, and followed.
We’re not alone.
Julianna stood after tying her shoe, Halliwell’s words echoing in her mind. She looked at the detective, but his expression revealed nothing. Halliwell scratched at the back of his neck like a man dying of boredom and regarded her impatiently.
“You all set?” he asked.
“Yeah. Shoelaces. They come untied. It happens.”
A smile flickered across his face and was gone. By silent consent they started walking again. Julianna watched Halliwell, wondering when he would comment further. Obviously there was a purpose to his behavior. He’d said those words and now he was acting as though nothing had happened at all.
But his gaze was restless. Whenever she glanced at him, Halliwell’s eyes were moving, taking in the landscape around them, this copse of skeletal trees, that jutting rock obelisk.
Julianna saw the figure then, perched upon a rock fifty yards ahead. She had looked that way a dozen times and not seen the little man. Now, suddenly, he was simply there. Halliwell had noticed him, obviously. Or had felt that they were observed.
“Keep walking,” Halliwell said softly.
She had slowed nearly to a stop without realizing it. Now she picked up her pace, keeping stride with Halliwell. At the same time, she did not take her eyes off of the figure who sat on the rock slab like a child, knees jutting up, elbows resting atop them. In his hands, the little man held a flute and as she watched, he set it to his lips and began to play a lilting, pleasant tune, as though to greet the morning. The melody swirled and dipped, and in spite of her trepidation, she smiled.
As they came abreast of the rock, Julianna slowed again. Halliwell stopped entirely, so she did the same. The detective stood with his hands at his sides, fingers splayed, as though he expected an attack.
They stood together and listened to the jaunty, winding music, watched the little man play his flute. He was dressed in a gray cloth tunic with a thin black rope around his waist, almost like some kind of monk. His bald pate gleamed in the sun and against the early morning blue of the sky, his nut-brown skin seemed a shadow unto itself. Her first impression, that he was old, was borne out by the many wrinkles upon his face, though his skin was taut against his skull.