The messy crowd’s attention bores into me.
There’s thewispof loosening blades, too soft to be heard by the average ears. If I were to scope the crowd now, they’d all be wielding weapons black and curved at the tips.
Talons.
“And who the fuck areyou?”
I wipe my hands on my cloak, warming them by the flames as I look up through the wet, stringy hair hanging over my eyes. “I’m looking for a woman. Likely dressed in Rouste garb.”
“The ‘igh Mistress?”
The question comes from a stocky, weathered brute standing on the opposite side of the spit—red hair wild, hand lost beneath a thick, gray pelt broadening his shoulders.
I note the dark pall of his eyes. The vast collection of Vruk teeth hanging around his neck.
Hoarth.
I’ve heard of him—a Moal legend. No female or children to send coin home to. From what I hear, he does this shit forfun.
“That who ya lookin’ for?” Bushy brows bunched, he grates out, “That’s the only female in this shit ‘ole.”
Something inside me settles, releasing the line of tension that’s been strung across my shoulders since I left the camp days ago.
“That’s the one.” I reach for a mug on a table beside the spit, collecting sharp stares as I turn the barrel tap and help myself to a pour of frothy ale. “Where is she?”
I hear the sound of Hoarthresheathing his weapon, and turn to see him looking down his nose at me. “Outthere.”
My movements still, mug halfway to quelling this deep, rooted thirst I’ve been cradling for days. “On the fuckingStretch?”
Hoarth gives a terse nod. “Tried telling ‘er the first night she came, we don’t stay out fixing the traps after sundown. She told me to mind me own business or else she’d lob off me cock with that pretty blade of ‘ers.”
I clear my throat, throw my drink back in three deep gulps that extinguish fucking nothing, then thud the empty mug on the ale-stained table. “Where is she? Exactly?”
“Skewers,” a man behind me bellows, and I look over my shoulder, marking his bleak, ruddy eyes and the scar slashed from ear to mouth.
Upper lip peeling back, I whip my head around. “The main thoroughfare?”
Hoarth shrugs. “She had that look in ‘er eye, lad.” He toasts the air with a hollowed-out Vruk tooth large enough to be used as a mug. “Bloodlust.”
I spin on my heel, heading back the way I came, snatching my lantern off the ground.
“Oi!”
Snagged to a halt, I turn in time to catch an airborne vial before it pegs me in the face.
I tip it from side to side, watching the thin, black brine slosh around.
Liquid bane.
I catch Hoarth’s eye.
“Just in case,” he says with a wink.
“Thanks,” I mutter, then continue on my way—that tension restringing across my shoulders, but so much fucking worse.
Skewersafter dark…
She should know better.
