Joel Rosenberg - Murder in Lamut

Book Two of Legends of the Riftwar

HarperVoyager

An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpervoyagerbooks.com

First published in Great Britain by Voyager 2002

Copyright © Raymond E. Feist & Joel Rosenberg 2002

Raymond E. Feist & Joel Rosenberg assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780006483892

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780007383207

Version: 2014–07–15

For Fritz Lieber & Donald E. Westlake

Cover

Title Page RAYMOND E. FEIST & JOEL ROSENBERG Murder in LaMut Book Two of Legends of the Riftwar

Copyright Copyright Copyright Dedication Map Chapter One: Night Chapter Two: Concerns Chapter Three: Mondegreen Chapter Four: Cold Chapter Five: Storm Chapter Six: Aftermath Chapter Seven: Promotions Chapter Eight: Confrontation Chapter Nine: Plotting Chapter Ten: Rumours Chapter Eleven: Suspicion Chapter Twelve: Morning Chapter Thirteen: Investigation Chapter Fourteen: Plans Chapter Fifteen: Answers Chapter Sixteen: Truth Keep Reading Continue The Adventure … Acknowledgments About the Author Also by the Author About the Publisher HarperVoyager An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpervoyagerbooks.com First published in Great Britain by Voyager 2002 Copyright © Raymond E. Feist & Joel Rosenberg 2002 Raymond E. Feist & Joel Rosenberg assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication. Source ISBN: 9780006483892 Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780007383207 Version: 2014–07–15

Dedication For Fritz Lieber & Donald E. Westlake

Map Map

Chapter One: Night

Chapter Two: Concerns

Chapter Three: Mondegreen

Chapter Four: Cold

Chapter Five: Storm

Chapter Six: Aftermath

Chapter Seven: Promotions

Chapter Eight: Confrontation

Chapter Nine: Plotting

Chapter Ten: Rumours

Chapter Eleven: Suspicion

Chapter Twelve: Morning

Chapter Thirteen: Investigation

Chapter Fourteen: Plans

Chapter Fifteen: Answers

Chapter Sixteen: Truth

Keep Reading

Continue The Adventure …

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

I T WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT.

That was fine with Durine.

Not that the goddess Killian, whose province was the weather, was asking his opinion. Nor were any of the other gods – or any mortals – for that matter.

In more than twenty years of a soldier’s life, both fealty-bound and mercenary – as well as during the dimly-remembered time before he took blade and bow in hand – few of those in charge of anything had asked Durine’s opinions before making their decisions.

And that was fine with him, too. The good thing about a soldier’s life was that you could concentrate on the small but important decisions, like where to put the point of your sword next, and leave the big decisions to others.

Anyway, there was no point in objecting: complaining didn’t make it any warmer, griping didn’t stop the sleet from pelting down, bitching didn’t stop the ice from clinging to his increasingly heavy sailcloth overcoat as he made his way, half-blinded, down the muddy street.

Mud.

Mud seemed to go with LaMut the way salt seemed to go with fish.

But that was just fine with Durine, too. Wading through this half-frozen mud was just part of the trade, and at least here and now it was just this vile slush, not the hideous sort of mud made from soil mixing with dying men’s blood and shit. Now, the sight and particularly the smell of that kind of mud could make even Durine gag, and he had seen more than enough of it in his time.

What wasn’t fine with him was the cold. It was still too damn cold. His toes had ceased to feel the cold and the pain, which wasn’t good.

Locals were talking about the ‘thaw’, something they apparently expected any day now that Midwinter was behind them. Durine glanced up at the sleet smacking him in the face, and decided that this was an odd sort of thaw. To his way of thinking, there was far too damn much of this half-frozen stuff falling from the sky for a reasonable thaw, or even an unreasonable one. Yes, before the current storm they had had three days of clear skies, but there was no change in the air; it was still too damn wet, and too damn cold.

Too cold to fight, perhaps?

Well, yes, maybe, in the view of the Bugs and the Tsurani, and that was a good thing. They had fought Tsurani and goblins and Bugs in the north, and now, it seemed, they had run out of Tsurani and goblins and Bugs to kill – at least around here – and as soon as things thawed out enough, it was time for him and the other two to be paid and to be going.

A few months of garrison duty until then was just fine. Actually, as long as they were stuck here, Durine preferred the idea of garrison duty to being paid off today and having to spend his own coin to eat and lodge. Durine’s perfect situation would have been to have the Earl pay for everything except drink and women until this hypothetical thaw – and he included that limitation only because he didn’t think that even Pirojil could conceive of a way to cadge ale and whores from the paymaster – then pay them their wages the day they rode south for Ylith and a ship heading somewhere warmer.