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Allowing himself to veer off course had cost him far too much in the past.
A mistake he didn’t intend to repeat.
{ Chapter 4 }
“Where is she?”
Rune set himself at the edge of the glow from the campfire, leaning on a tree in the shadows. “Don’t be an idiot, Neemus.”
His old acquaintance looked at him, his bottom lip jutting upward. “Ye just shot two of my men. I’ll be whatever I damn well please.”
“The lady is far away from you at the moment. That’s all you need to know.”
“Why’d ye come back here?”
“I came back to check on her driver and footman.”
“Did ye, now?” Neemus crossed his arms over his chest, rocking back on his heels. “Not to check on little ole me?”
Rune looked around the camp. Just the two men that had been shot, both of them bandaged and so deep into their drinks the snoring almost drowned out the conversation.
He knew Neemus had been lying about other men coming. But that was the thing about Neemus. He was lying until he wasn’t. And you never knew where he was on that line—about once a year he’d tell the truth.
“The driver and that footboy headed in the direction of Taunton.”
Rune’s right eyebrow lifted. “Scathed or unscathed?”
“Unscathed.” Neemus shook his head, rubbing his jaw. “I’ve got no squabble with a nervous young whelp like that. Probably just trying to feed his mama and sisters, dressing up in that foppery.”
Rune let out a chuckle, then tilted his head forward, his stare piercing Neemus. “So why did you shoot the driver?”
“The man was reaching into his pocket for a pistol, I imagine. I kept my shot wide.”
“Not wide enough.”
“Hoppler’s not gonna like this, Rune—two of his men with holes in them to nurse.”
“Well, you can tell Hoppler that if he interferes again, the holes are about to get much larger and more succinctly placed.”
Neemus shook his head, his mouth pulling back on the right side. “He wants that magic box and ye ain’t delivering like ye promised.”
“I’ll deliver. Hoppler needs to be patient, he knows that.”
“Hoppler don’t need to do anything, Rune. Ye know it as well as I. He wants the box, so we came to get the box. He says ye ain’t no more than fifty feet from that thing at all times.”
Rune scoffed, rolling his eyes. “He’s wrong. If I had the Box of Draupnir it would already be in his hands. Lord Troubant sent the box out of Seahorn before I left with the lady. Did you not see the two guards leave the grounds before we left?”
Neemus bristled. “Of course we seen ‘em.”
Rune leaned forward, his words low into Neemus’s dirty ear. “You should have been following them, instead of me, you imbecile.”
Neemus’s head jerked back. “Imbecile? Yer the imbecile not delivering the box like ye promised, Rune. Gallivanting about the countryside with a fine lady like that.”
Rune’s hand flipped in front of him. “Don’t worry on it, Neemus. I’m following the box. It’ll be mine, and then it’ll be Hoppler’s, just as promised.”
“We’ll see on that.”
Rune tilted his head to Neemus. “We will.”
