“Thank the gods!” the standing man said, hacking at a pair of cobbles with a hatchet. “We thought you lads were bandits!” Not much taller than Lars, his beard showed traces of white and his skin was weathered and leathery.
The man thrown from his mule struggled to pull himself from beneath his mount while cobbles scrambled over him. Lars saw little of him except his curly, black hair, also slightly grayed, and gloved hands flailing in the air.
Lars whacked the head off a cobble and said, “We’re not bandits! We’re from Faldorrah!” Swinging his sword with one hand, he reached down and grabbed a cobble by the hair with the other and yanked him away from the man on the ground. Beside him, snarling, Serian threw cobbles to the four winds, some missing arms, but most intact, to get to the fallen rider. Cobbles ran for the briars and brambles without looking back.
“Got a dead man over here,” Moergan said, standing in a cleared area near a dead mule. “Looks like he snapped his neck.” A cobble squealed as Moergan ran him through.
The last of the cobbles turned tail and ran, some dragging bloody hunks of mule-flesh with them.
Lars sheathed his sword and helped Serian pull the fallen rider from beneath his dying mule. The man howled, his face contorted in pain. “Think my leg’s broke,” he said, grimacing.
“Let’s get you out then worry about your leg,” Lars said, pulling, while Serian and the bearded man shoved at the wheezing and braying mule.
Otlee ran up, sheathing his sword, and helped pull the man free.
Lars helped carry the black-haired stranger to the side of the road while Moergan dispatched the injured mule. Lars looked at Serian and said, “Find some wood for a splint.”
Serian stood, disbelief written on his face. “What about diddy boy? Why can’t he...”
“Just get the damned wood,” Lars snapped. Serian walked off, muttering, his hands clenching and unclenching.
The bearded man extended his hand. “I’m Malvin. I’m guessing you’re in charge.”
“You could say that. I’m Lars,” he said, accepting the offered hand.
“And I’m Aghen,” the black-haired man said, grimacing as Moergan and Otlee straightened his leg. “Glad you lads came when you did.”
Lars nodded and introduced the others, even Trumble who stood with the horses and watched the sides of the road. “Sorry about your mules. We’d be glad to give you a ride to wherever you were headed,” Lars said.
“Thank you again,” Malvin said, standing. “But right now I’d best go see to my brother.”
“I never thought cobbles attacked groups of people,” Otlee said. “All the books say they steal from pastures and farms and only rarely swarm a lone rider.”
“Pah,” Aghen said. “Don’t you believe nothin in books, boy. Just tales fer entertaining the kiddies and poetry fer wooing the lassies. Nothing more. Cobbles attack when they’re hungry and with winter done, they’re mighty damn hungry. Every spring they’re nothing but trouble.”
Lars glanced back at Malvin. He knelt beside his brother and drew a mark on his chest with his finger, but it wasn’t the Goddess Malanna’s mark. “Where are you headed?” Lars asked Aghen.
“Home,” Aghen said, glancing up at Serian as the big lad came from the brush with two hunks of fairly-straight wood. “Tully’s boy got married this morning.”
“Who’s Tully?” Otlee asked and Serian grumbled and shook his head.
“Aw, jeebers, Otlee,” Trumble said. “Pull your head out of the clouds and pay attention.”
Otlee reddened and walked away, mumbling an apology.
“I’m sorry,” Lars said. “About your friend and all.”
“Nothing fer you to be sorry about, lad,” Aghen said, helping Serian and Moergan set the splint. “This weren’t none of yer doing. We knew there could be trouble, being cobble season and all, but Tully had to see his boy get hitched. Just the way things happen sometimes. Nothin can be done to change it, right?”
“I guess that’s true,” Lars said.
“I fer one am just glad you came when you did. Otherwise Malvin and I would be on a spit today and in cobble’s bellies tonight. Much rather lose the mule.” He looked at Moergan and said, “Tighter, boy. Don’t you worry none about it being too tight, you hear?”
Moergan shrugged and tugged hard enough on the loop of fabric to make Aghen’s brown face turn pale.
Glancing at Trumble and Otlee, Lars walked over to Malvin. “Sorry about your brother,” he said.
Malvin nodded, stood, and brushed off his pants. “He saw his boy hitched so he died happy. I still got a pair o’ daughters to marry off so I guess I got a few summers left in me.” He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “Gonna miss the son of a boar though.”
“We’d be happy to bring him along too,” Lars said. “So you could bury him with family.”
Malvin nodded his thanks. “Much appreciated,” he said. “You ain’t too bad fer a bandit.”
Lars smiled. You’re not either.
Castle Faldorrah
Dien stood before Jelke’s empty cell and scribbled notes in his notebook. Dubric still insisted Jelke’s death was not murder—which was total hog piss in Dien’s opinion, ghosts or no damned ghosts—but Dien could not stand for such a heinous event to go unpunished.
He had measured the blood stains himself and searched the entire cell. He noted the bag of brass disks in the corner, the flea-infested pile of straw, and lewd markings written on the dank walls with a soft, chalky rock. Once he had noted everything he could think to note, he stood in the hall and examined the area outside the cell. He rooted through the straw near the door but found so many strands of hair it was impossible to tell which may have belonged to the killer. The straw, like the gaol itself, stunk of piss and death. Frowning, Dien stood and closed the cell door.
A couple drops of dried blood had stained the wood between the third and fourth bar, where Jelke’s face had been moments before he died. The stab wound had been on Jelke’s right, below the jaw bone, angling upward, and Dien pantomimed the possible attacks. He stepped back and added his findings to the notebook, deciding the killer either stood directly in front of Jelke and was left handed, or stood beside the door and thrusted with his right hand.
Dien frowned. Or her, he noted. Women killed too. Sighing, he fished a sheet of parchment from his pocket, a list of every prisoner that had been locked up the night Jelke had died. Twenty seven delightful examples of the best of humanity. Grumbling, he headed toward the gaol office, wishing Otlee or Lars had stayed home.
Dien had always thought questioning prisoners in the gaol was a pain in the ass under the best of circumstances. But he found doing it alone to be a whole new exercise in aggravation.
Unlike the spacious warmth and convenience of Dubric’s office, the gaol office, or rather the gaol storage room, was cramped, cold, and reeked of piss. Dien had dragged in two chairs and paraded prisoners through the chair beside the door, shackling each one before beginning their interrogation.
He had tried to be reasonable about the whole mess, and had intended to be civil if not friendly. He wasn’t looking to place blame after all, merely discern the slightest glimmer of insight into the murderer’s identity, but so many of the prisoners had long and troublesome histories that he—and they—found it easy to revert to argumentative attacks and avoidance.