Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

The goad worked as Greddark had anticipated. As craven as the noble might be, there was no way he would stoop to having a woman-and a grieving mother, at that-do his job for him. With a look somewhere between nausea and petulance, the bard did as he was bade, bending down low over the corpse and aligning his clenched jaw with the jagged flesh edging Demodir’s wounds.

Greddark pulled out a ribbon of fabric with measurements marked off regularly on its surface and gauged the size of Zoden’s jaw versus that made by whatever had attacked his friend. He wrote the numbers down in his book, noting that the bite marks were both wider and shallower than the human’s jaw line. As he wrote, Zoden made a small groaning sound.

“Are you done?” the bard asked between clenched teeth, the muscles in his neck standing out as he strained to keep from falling headfirst into the clammy mess. The petulance was gone, replaced entirely by bilious impatience.

“What? Oh, yes. You can get up.”

Zoden straightened and stumbled over to the doorway, drinking in the incense-laden air in great, noisy gasps like it was pure ambrosia.

Greddark tucked his tape away and pulled out a thin metal rod, similarly marked. With the utmost care, he inserted the rod into the wound between the fourth and fifth ribs. It went in easily, and Greddark stopped when he felt resistance, copying down the depth of the wound in his book. Then he did the same with the gouge between the fifth and sixth ribs. The rod sunk deeper this time, by another three inches, through the heart entirely and out the other side. Greddark withdrew the rod and wiped it off discreetly on the underside of Demodir’s sheet, then pocketed it again before recording the numbers.

“How long would you say an average shifter’s claws are?”

Zoden turned from the doorway.

“I don’t know-two inches? Maybe twice that if you’re dealing with a razorclaw. Why?” His curiosity overcame his repugnance and he stepped closer to the corpse.

Greddark didn’t answer, instead grabbing the candle from Arawai’s hand and bending close to the body once more. He used his quill to gently lift the flesh around one of the gouges, shining the candlelight down into the shallower wound. As he suspected, it was ragged all the way down, evidence of a claw forcing its way in and twisting about as it tried to find anchorage. Repeating the process with the deeper gouge, he noted that the unevenness went to the same depth as in the other wound. Beyond that, the flesh was smooth, as though parted with a keen blade.

“What are you doing?” Zoden asked, his tone reflecting simultaneous horror and fascination.

Greddark thrust the candle at him.

“Figuring out who killed your friend,” he replied as he finished up the last of his notes.

Zoden replaced the candle in Arawai’s outstretched hand, automatically kissing his fingertips and placing them to her lips in a reverential gesture. Then he turned back to Greddark.

“Who? Not what? Even I can see that the bite marks are too big to belong to a shifter-”

At Greddark’s raised eyebrow, he hastily amended his comment.

“-once you pointed it out to me, of course.”

“Of course. True, the bites are not those of a shifter. The marks are more consistent with some sort of large cat, bigger even than what I would expect to find in the forests around here. Certainly too big to be wandering around the streets of Aruldusk without attracting any notice.”

“A cat? I remember thinking Zodal’s killer might be a big cat, at first.”

Greddark shrugged.

“Possibly a bear, but that’s even more unlikely.”

Zoden snapped his fingers and smiled, a triumphant gleam in his eye.

“That’s it! I think you may have just cracked the case, Master Greddark! There is a House Vadalis compound not a half-day’s ride east of here, on the shores of Lake Arul. And I happen to know they’ve been training a magebred ghost tiger for King Boranel’s court. One of the handlers is a regular at the E’erful Well.”

His smile exploded into an ear-to-ear grin.

“I think we’ve just found Demi’s killer,” Zoden crowed, “and maybe Zodal’s, too!”

Greddark let the “we” pass without comment, instead making another note in his book before tucking it away.

“Well, I’ll agree that it’s likely the tiger attacked Demodir, but that’s not what killed him.”

Zoden’s smile faltered.

“It’s not?”

“No. Demodir was killed with a blade, most likely a sword. Possibly a long knife. So unless that tiger is exceptionally well-trained, it’s not our culprit.”

Zoden’s disappointment was palpable.

“Then who is?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’d say the next person we want to question is that handler. Which way to the Well?”

The handler, Kyrin d’Vadalis, was not at the E’erful Well, nor was the Well actually all that full this evening. Greddark did find himself a talkative scullery maid who was more than happy to part with all the Market District gossip for a mug and a coin.

“Shame about the Imaradis. Demi was their last son. Lost two others in the War, and a daughter to childbirth. The baby died, too.” She leaned close to Greddark, so that he could see the wrinkles around her pale blue eyes. “It’s on account of them turnin’ away from the Flame, it is. You know what they say. Trouble follows those who follow the Host.”

Greddark nodded noncommittally, though he had not, in fact, heard the saying before. It must be peculiar to Aruldusk, an observation that did not surprise him in the least.

“His lady friend must be taking it hard,” he commented, fishing. Neither his parents nor the files had said anything about a lady in Demodir’s life, but Greddark had seen from his corpse that the man must have been handsome and well-built in life. Surely he’d caught the eye of some attractive young girl.

“Gaida? She wasn’t really his lady, you know. Any more than she was Martel’s, Lucien’s, or Kyrin’s. And she wasn’t really much of a lady, either, if you know what I mean.” The maid’s leer was no doubt meant to be enticing, but the Well would have to be twice as deep and filled with Frostmantle Fire before he’d take that bait.

He steered her back to the conversation. “Kyrin d’Vadalis?”

“Yeah, that one. Bit of a temper. He and Demi almost came to blows over the little hussy, Flame knows why. It’s not as if she’s even that pretty.”

“Huh. I’m surprised he wasn’t a suspect.”

“Oh, they questioned him, all right, on account of the fight being only a few days before Demi turned up dead. But, what with the shifters and Demi having his throat torn out and all, well, they never really suspected Kyrin. I mean, what’s the point? Everybody already knows who’s doing the killing.”

What was the point, indeed? Especially when Kyrin’s innocence was such a given that they hadn’t even bothered to include him as a witness in the reports. Greddark wondered if the omission was due to his being from one of the dragonmarked Houses, or to the fact that he wasn’t a shifter.

“When was the last time you saw Kyrin?”

“Why? He ain’t all that pretty, either.”

Greddark smiled apologetically and whispered in the woman’s ear before sliding another coin her way and excusing himself from the table. He had to suppress a laugh as she gasped and put a horrified hand to her mouth, making the sign of the Flame against evil.

Once outside, Zoden, who’d been under strict orders to keep his mouth shut while in the Well, could contain his curiosity no longer.

“What did you say to her?”

Greddark shrugged.

“I just told her that dwarves don’t like loose women, and they like loose lips even less. And what exactly dwarves do when the lips attached to the women continue to flap after they’ve been warned not to.”