Arrow on the String: Solomon Sorrows Book 1 Dan Fish (best book club books .TXT) 📖

Sorrows stepped around back, but Davrosh was already there. She pointed at the basket. He didn’t care enough to argue.

“Lot of blood this morning,” Davrosh said. “Probably upset him.”

“Has he always been like that? Squeamish?”

“As long as I’ve known him.”

“He ever vomit at a crime scene? Or pass out?”

“Not that I’ve seen. He just slips whenever it gets to him.”

She pushed, the dogs mushed, the sled slid. They’d arrive at Dennicutt Manor in half an hour. Not early, but not late enough to worry Silpa Dennicutt or her parents. Sorrows leaned back, rested his hands on his knees, stared at the space where his little finger had been.

“Gods, what a morning,” Davrosh said behind him.

“Rest of the day hasn’t been much better,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. He narrowed his eyes, blinked, shook his head, turned around. “You worried about tomorrow?”

“Not thinking about tomorrow until we get through tonight.”

“You’re a piss-poor liar, Davrosh.”

Davrosh said nothing. The streets bustled with dwarves and goblins, a handful of scattered half-born. Shops emptied and taverns filled. The sky overhead was dark and clear and filled with stars. The moon was bright and near full, but waning.

“I want to be with Nisha tomorrow night,” Sorrows said.

“She’s my sister,” Davrosh said.

“Half-sister.”

“That’s half more than you.”

“Makes sense for me to be there. I don’t think Jace would kill with me watching.”

The sled turned onto a side street. Sorrows spun in his seat, looked past Davrosh, squinted.

“You know I’m right.”

“I know you think you’re right,” Davrosh said. “We could both be with her.”

Sorrows shrugged. The tower had two mage guards assigned besides Sorrows and Davrosh: Caruvi Rahvel and Yindenna Shelawae. Both were elves of smaller stature. Both had brown hair and green eyes. Both were proficient blades, from what Sorrows had seen in the training hall. Two elves, two blades, two names Sorrows would have preferred not to know. Not that Caruvi or Yindenna were worse than any other elf. He simply felt the fewer elves he knew, the better. But he’d been at the tower too long. He’d met most of the guards. Knew most of their names. These things happened. People became familiar.

“That could work,” he said. “Caruvi outside the door, Yindenna in the main hallway. You’d be giving up a patrol, but you’d have both of us watching Nisha.”

“Might just mean both of us dead.”

Sorrows glanced over his shoulder. “Gods shun it.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Davrosh asked.

“More than I care to admit. I need to ask you something.”

“What?”

“How good are you with the dogs?”

“What do you mean?”

“The dogs. I need you to turn sharp left at the next cross street. The one with the stand of trees at the corner. Get as close as you can. Can you do that?”

“What? Wait, what? Why?”

Sorrows jutted his chin.

“We’re being followed.”

✽✽✽

IVRA JACE LEAPT from one rooftop to the next, sprinted its length, dropped near its edge, slid over the side. She fell fast, landed, and rolled. She stood, pressed her back against a nearby wall, sank into the shadows. Six dogs raced by, then a sled. In the sled sat Solomon Sorrows.

She watched him pass and waited. Watched Master Remma Davrosh turn, look past Jace without seeing. Watched Davrosh’s eyes widen, watched her spin around. Heard her shout at the dogs or Sorrows or both. Jace waited. One breath, two heartbeats; two breaths, four heartbeats. Three breaths and the monstrosity passed her. Half gallop, half lumbering shuffle. Too many limbs. Seven. Too big a body. Elephant-sized. Too many heads. Three.

The streets emptied. Goblins ran to hide; dwarves ran to seek a blade or an axe; half-born did a little of both. A stench filled the air like mold and rotten meat—the smell of catacombs and crypts and some things long dead, some things not as long dead. Jace followed the monstrosity, running a little faster than she had before; staying in the open a bit more than she had before. No one watched her. They didn’t have time or inclination to watch some elf in a patchwork cloak. Ahead, the dogs turned a corner, Davrosh ducked, the sled clipped a pine tree and disappeared onto a side street. The monstrosity followed shortly after, and Jace shortly after that.

She slowed as she approached the trees on the corner. The elephant-sized body crashed onto its side. Seven limbs scraped and clawed at snow and stone. Three heads turned. Sorrows stepped out of the pine, just in front of Jace. He was tall, bow in hand, arrow nocked. He didn’t see her. He took aim at the monstrosity, loosed an arrow. It wobbled, then righted, then snapped through the air and plunged into one of three heads. A man’s head, possibly. Its hair looked like the fur of a stray, matted, coarse. Its skin was pink with fine white hair. Pig’s skin. Its eyes were hollow, unseeing, and one of them had an arrow running through it.

The monstrosity shuddered. A ripple flowed over its body, turning patches of fur and skin to tendrils. The head with the arrow fell free and rolled to the ground. The fur and the skin and chunks of decaying flesh slipped off bone, leaving a grinning skull in a pile of gore. A limb fell free in similar fashion. A portion of the monstrosity’s torso broke away. The monstrosity shrank. Was less. Moved faster.

It ran, covering the ground in a steady, four-legged gait. Arms with too many elbows and hands with too few fingers pumped; two on the left, one on the right. The monstrosity lumbered forward, racing toward Sorrows. Sorrows had another arrow nocked, took aim.

Jace approached until she stood behind him. His hood had slipped from his head. His hair was tied back in a leather cord. It hung like shadow against his neck, disappeared into his raven cloak. He loosed a second arrow. It struck a second head. The monstrosity shuddered, more of it turned to piles of bones and rot. He reached for an arrow.

But she had taken