Leave it to Aggar to find something to joke about in the middle of this ever-burgeoning debacle.
“So who will be taking Blackiron’s place?”
“One of his apprentices. Rockfist, I think his name is. Supposedly very smart, but doesn’t have a lot of trial experience—none, at this level. He’s actually supposed to be here right now. Hopefully he’s just running late and didn’t walk through any dark alleys or shadowy hallways on the way to see me.”
Wonderful. A defendant everyone would hate on principle and a barrister no one had ever heard of. The chances of winning this case had just shrunk from highly unlikely to virtually impossible.
But, then, that’s why she was here. Mountainheart had clearly intended to broker her fame for Aggar’s pardon. He should have just told her that back in Stormreach—she could have saved them both the trip.
Just then, the door opened and a short, harried-looking dwarf hurried in, carrying a sheaf of papers and pushing up violet-lensed spectacles that kept sliding down what, for a dwarf, was a very small nose. He couldn’t have been more than forty years old. Sabira and Aggar exchanged skeptical glances and stood.
“So sorry I’m late!” The newcomer exclaimed, sticking out a hand first to Aggar then, a little less enthusiastically, to Sabira. “I had to fight my way through an awful crowd outside Ferrous House. They’ve even called in the city guard! Apparently there’s some other murderer here called ‘Shard Axe’ that they’re demanding to see released. Ridiculous! And what sort of self-respecting criminal would name themselves after an urgrosh, anyway …?” The dwarf trailed off as he caught sight of the shard axe strapped to Sabira’s back. “Oh.”
“Other mur—” Sabira repeated incredulously, ignoring the barrister’s chagrined look. Aggar cut her off with a quick shake of his head.
“No, it’s fine, Saba. A good advocate always presumes his client’s guilt, because that’s what his opponent is going to do—you’ve got to think like your enemy if you want to defeat him. Isn’t that right, Rockfist?”
“Exactly so,” the junior barrister replied, nodding vigorously. Evidently he thought his slip of the tongue had somehow won Aggar’s approval, and he was obviously relieved to have done so.
Aggar just grinned at the advocate’s undue enthusiasm, looking a bit like a cat that had eaten his owner’s beloved but annoying songbird. “By the way, Rockfist, meet Sentinel Marshal Sabira Lyet d’Deneith. She’s the ridiculously named ‘Shard Axe.’ And she’s going to be my lead defender, and your new boss.”
“Aggar, you can’t be serious—” Sabira began, only to be drowned out by Rockfist’s own angry protests.
“What do you mean, lead defender? She’s not even a barrister, let alone a dwarf! You can’t do that! And the Council will never—”
“She’s the Shard Axe. If you’d bothered to study recent history instead of just ancient law, you’d know she’s as close as you can get to a dwarf without being born one, or formally adopted into a clan. The Council will hear her, and they’ll give far more credence to what she has to say than they will to whatever arguments you might come up with. You tell her the right words to use, she says them, and maybe I might actually get out of this thing alive.” Then Aggar, who’d been walking toward the barrister as he spoke, stopped in front of the other dwarf and lowered his voice. His hand shot out to grab a fistful of Rockfist’s short beard, his gold Aurum rings gleaming in the light of the room’s single everbright lantern. “And don’t you ever presume to tell me that I can’t do something. As long as I’m paying your bill, I can do whatever I want, and you’ll keep your opinions about it to yourself. Understand?”
“Y—yes,” Rockfist spluttered weakly before Aggar released him.
“Now,” the Tordannon heir continued, as if nothing untoward had happened, “I’ve already briefed Sabira, so why don’t you two go over Blackiron’s notes and figure out how you’re going to keep me from hanging?”
Blackiron apparently hadn’t had a great deal of time to review Aggar’s case before his ill-fated fishing trip, because his notes consisted of little more than the details of the murders, including the times of death, and Aggar’s relationship to each of the victims, as well as his whereabouts during their deaths. In short, nothing she didn’t already know, and nothing that was going to help.
Something did strike her as odd as she went over the dwarven characters, and she asked Aggar about it, not trusting in either her translation or Rockfist’s helpfulness.
“Is this right? All of the bodies were found within a day or two of the victims’ deaths, and the latest victims were found the fastest?”
“Yes, that’s right.” It was Rockfist, clearly perturbed that she was ignoring him. He pushed up his spectacles officiously. “Ag—that is, the murderer—took less care hiding the bodies as time went on. Almost as if he wanted to be caught.” He said that last dramatically, like it was some sort of brilliant deduction, and Sabira snorted.
“Or as if he wanted someone else to get caught—which, by the way, is the crux of Aggar’s defense. Namely, that he was framed. Try to keep that in mind, hmm?”
Turning back to Aggar, she continued, “Except for Goldglove, right? His body wasn’t discovered for a week.”
“That’s right,” Aggar replied, the crease in his brow showing that he wasn’t quite following her admittedly circuitous line of reasoning.
“So, when someone dies and their body is found quickly, it’s relatively easy to determine exactly when they died. But when a body sits for a while, it becomes much harder—predators, weather, and rot all take a toll. So how do they know exactly when Goldglove died?”
“His logbook,” Rockfist answered before Aggar could, grabbing some of the papers out of Sabira’s hands and leafing through until he found what he was looking for. “Here.”
Sabira took the proffered sheet back and skimmed it quickly. The journal was mentioned halfway down, where Blackiron had apparently jotted down notes from an official report that listed the items found on or near each of the victims.
Goldglove’s body had been found on the 9th of Eyre, a little over a week after he’d met with Aggar, an appointment that was mentioned in the logbook. Subsequent entries dealt with the hot springs he’d been examining and continued up until five days before his corpse had been discovered, and presumably the day he’d died. The final entry was short, cryptic, and unfinished.
New hot spring found, approximately a quarter-mile from the last and deviating from the postulated straight-line progression by only four hundred fifty feet. See map in D.’s Tombs report. Evidence suggests spring is not natural, including …
But whatever evidence Goldglove had been referring to had never made it from his head to the page.
“What’s this report the last entry refers to?” she asked Rockfist. If the barrister wanted to prove his usefulness so badly, he could start by giving her the information that wasn’t in Blackiron’s notes.
“I don’t know,” the dwarf admitted. “We don’t have a copy of the logbook, only the entries spanning the time from Goldglove’s meeting with Aggar up to his death. But I can’t see how it’s relevant—unless you’re suggesting he was killed to cover up this business with the hot springs, and every murder since then has simply been an effort to divert attention from it?”
Sabira glared at the bespectacled barrister. He was really starting to get on her nerves. But she’d seen enough of the bureaucrat now to know how to deal with him.
“I’m not suggesting anything. But there could be a link, and we owe it to our client to pursue any avenue that leads away from him as the main suspect, don’t you think?”