diving overboard, they kept watch on the door, and on occasion a particularly startling sound inspired a few to drop their hands toward their waists.
Corvis, clad in the scruffiest traveling leathers he possessed-which was saying something-had seated himself a few tables away. He nursed a tankard of more foam than ale, and tried his best to make sure they noticed him watching them, all while appearing as though he was trying to be inconspicuous.
Harder, by far, than it sounds.
Eventually, however, one of the women met his gaze once too often. Scowling, she elbowed the fellow beside her and whispered, pointing Corvis's way with a chin so pronounced it was practically belligerent. Her companion, in turn, said something to the man beside him, and a moment later Corvis found his table surrounded by five tipsy soldiers.
This plan made a lot more sense before I actually put it in motion, he thought grimly.
'Don't most of them?'
'You got a problem?' the woman who'd first noticed him demanded, leaning across the table on her knuckles.
'I do,' Corvis told her, deliberately keeping his hands well away from Sunder. 'But not with you. Actually, it occurs to me you might be able to help me.' He offered up what he hoped was a friendly grin. 'Join me for a round?'
'You buyin'?' one of the others rasped.
'Wouldn't be a very polite invitation if I wasn't.'
Amazing what the promise of free drink did for their attitudes. As Corvis waved over the nearest barmaid, he found himself suddenly surrounded by his best friends in the world.
More of them, he realized with a quick head count, than had actually come to threaten him in the first place.
'So,' he said, once everyone was settled with tankard, mug, horn, or flagon in hand, 'it seems to me that you folk have the look of fighting men. And women,' he added, with what he hoped was a respectful-and perhaps just slightly appraising-glance at the sharp-featured soldier. She smirked and raised her mug. 'And I'm thinking, with you being here in the city, and rumor telling me that the various House and mercenary companies are assembling outside the cities, that at least some of you must be city guards. Right so far?'
Nods and assenting grunts proved adequate, if not eloquent, response.
Corvis took a deliberately messy swig of his own beverage, wiping foam from his mustache. 'So would I also be right in guessing, then, that some of you could tell me a bit about those murders that happened here recently?'
The table went dangerously silent, smiles flipping over and inside out into aggressive glowers. 'Some of us lost friends that night,' one man muttered darkly. 'What makes you think that we'd want to talk to you about it?'
'Look,' Corvis said, leaning inward, 'I think we've all heard who was responsible, right? Well, there's an awfully large price on his head because of it. I don't pretend my odds of finding him are all that good, but I'm looking to collect on it. A man could retire on what they're offering, and the gods haven't yet answered my prayers about getting younger.'
'You're a bounty hunter?' the women to his left asked.
'I am.' Then, after an almost imperceptible pause, 'Evislan Kade, at your service.'
'We don't need any help from your kind,' the first fellow grumbled.
'I don't doubt that,' Corvis said lightly. 'But you're stuck here. If You-Know-Who is still in Denathere, fine, you'll get him, and gods help him when you do. But you think he is still in Denathere? He's killed folk from here to Mecepheum, and if he's moved on, wouldn't you want to see him get what's coming to him? Even if you can't do it yourselves?'
The guards glanced and mumbled at one another, working through the logic in what 'Evislan' said. While they considered, Corvis took the opportunity to order them all a second round, wincing only slightly at the tab he was racking up.
It did the trick, though. 'All right,' the woman said to him, hostility once more gone from her voice. 'What is it you want to know?' THE CLOUDS HUNG LOW AND PREGNANT over Denathere, overripe fruit seemingly ready to burst. The scent of autumn rains perfumed the air, but the mischievous sky would only tease, withholding the cleansing showers it promised.
Corvis took it all in as he walked the streets: the shuffle and clatter of passersby, the looming faces of edifices nearly as old as Mecepheum's, the occasional flicker as beggars and urchins earned a few coppers by lighting the street lamps in advance of evening.
And he hated it, loathed every last inch of it with a burning passion that startled him after so many years. This damn city represented everything that had gone wrong in his life. Here, his first campaign had ground to a halt in bitter failure. Here, though he'd not recognized it at the time, he'd left behind sufficient clues to alert not one mortal foe, but two, to the nature of the wondrous prize he'd sought. And here, Audriss the Serpent had reignited the slow-burning embers of his own conquest into a roaring conflagration that had dragged Corvis from his family and ultimately cost him everything he'd loved.
There were places he'd want to be even less than the city of Denathere-but not many.
It had been Seilloah's idea to come here. 'Maybe it's from spending several days as a dog on my way to find you,' she'd said, 'but it seems to me that if you're looking to track someone, you start where the trail started.'
Corvis hadn't been able to argue with her, as much as he desperately wanted to. They had to examine the murder scenes, maybe find some clues there they'd not unearth anywhere else. He couldn't safely return to Mecepheum, and since the only other 'Rebaine murders' that they knew were more than idle rumor had occurred here, they'd had precious little choice.
So here they'd come. Corvis scoured the taverns of Denathere, leaving Irrial to ask questions of the more affluent and influential, and with every moment he seethed beneath the fury, the hatred, and the burning shame the city cast on him from all sides.
Wrapped in a smothering cocoon of self-pitying anger, Corvis didn't realize he'd stormed clear through the small bazaar of vendors' stalls and open carts where he and Irrial had agreed to rendezvous.
Only when he felt a hand on his shoulder and spun, fists rising, did he comprehend where he was. He recognized Irrial-in time, thankfully, to arrest his punch-and the scents of roast meats, smoked fish, and sweet fruits finally penetrated the thick fog blanketing his mind.
'Aw, you should've hit her. When else are you going to have the chance to pretend it was an accident?'
'Damn it!' As swiftly as he'd returned to his senses, he seemed to forget that it was he who'd left their meeting point behind, forcing her to chase him down. 'Don't sneak up on me like that. I-Irrial, what's wrong?'
'Come with me. Quickly.'
She launched into a barely restrained pace that threatened to break into a run at every step, and Corvis fell into lockstep behind. Again he was utterly oblivious to the hawking shouts and brightly fluttering pennants of the marketplace, though now his vision was obscured and his gut churned with worry rather than anger.
They cut across one corner of the bazaar, and the baroness finally led him to a halt directly in front of…
'Another alley?' Corvis complained. 'Isn't there anywhere-'
He staggered as Irrial bodily shoved him into the narrow walkway, caught himself just in time to avoid tripping over his feet, and found himself staring downward.
'Oh, gods. Seilloah…'
It had happened before, twice, on their way to Denathere. But then the witch had slunk away in secret, on her own, returning in a new form when it was all over. Never before had Corvis seen it.
The arm-length lizard that was her current shell lay on its side, body heaving as it struggled to breathe. Limbs spasmed; its jaw hung open and drooled a thin, blood-tinted soup. Even as they watched, scales sloughed from its hide, exposing open sores and necrotic skin beneath.
Corvis dropped to one knee with a dull splash, scattering the slimy refuse of the alley. A finger reached out, stroked the creature's squamous crest. 'What can I do?'
She twisted her head his way, and Corvis gagged as a faint ooze trickled from beneath one eye. The jaw twitched, just once. The lizard emitted the faintest squawk, a sound that might, just might, have been 'Cor…'
