Blood and Bone Read Free Page B

fancied he was avoiding her. At other times she cursed the man for running away from his responsibilities. It was damned hard work struggling to build a unified nation from the ground up. Roads had to be surveyed, bridges built, settlements planned. Things couldn’t be allowed to fall out haphazardly. And the man had walked away from the dull dreariness of it all – leaving others to clean up the mess. That irresponsibility had lowered her estimation of him a fair bit. She shook herself, frowning at the dark. In any case, he had to be contacted. She summoned the Brethren to her.
    Shortly, a ghostly shape coalesced within the room, lean, bandy-legged, right arm gone at the elbow: Stoop, their old siegemaster, recently lost to them. The shade offered a slight inclination of his head. ‘
Shimmer
,’ he breathed, and she was surprised to actually hear the word pronounced.
    ‘Stoop. I have a message for K’azz.’
    ‘
I can deliver it
,’ the shade of the old man drawled. ‘
But I can’t say as whether he’ll respond
.’
    ‘I understand. The message is that visitors have arrived from Jacuruku. Skinner has returned there and they appear to be implying that he is our responsibility.’
    ‘
We sensed those two
,’ Stoop murmured. ‘
Hardly human, them
.’
    Shimmer frowned at the observation. ‘You will pass on the message?’
    ‘
Course. Get right on it. Good to see you again, Shimmer
.’ The shade headed to the door as if it would open it to exit but passed right through the adzed planks instead. His presence left behind a cloud of dust that wafted to the stone floor.
    Puzzled, Shimmer knelt to run a hand through the dust, then straightened, studying her fingers. The man had acted almost as if he were still alive. And never before had she seen one of them gather dust to their form. But then, Stoop quite often appeared as spokesman for the fallen Avowed. She wiped the powder from her hands and returned to the desk.
    Shimmer frankly expected no response. K’azz had disavowed Skinner and those who chose to follow him. Thrown them from the ranks more than a year ago. The man’s actions were now his own. The company was in no way answerable for them … no matter what others might insist. These visitors could linger as long as they liked. They would get no satisfaction. Over the next few days she ignored them while approving requests from the local merchants regarding expenses for repairs to their vessel.
    Four days later she was therefore quite surprised when Ogilvy, one of the regulars, a recruit of their Third Investment, knocked and entered, pressing a scarred and battered knuckle to an equally scarred, hairless brow. ‘K’azz, ma’am,’ he announced in his hoarse gravelly voice, bowing as if she were some sort of nobility. Countless times she had told him a salute would do, but it seemed the man’s manners were ingrained as he bowed and ma’amed even as she told him not to. Now she just endured it.
    Nodding, she dismissed him. She set down her quill and rose to come down. She took a moment to pause before a mirror of polished bronze next to the door and examine herself. Short and dark, her long black hair braided. She happened to be wearing a full-length gown of brocade, slit and laced at the sides, tight across her chest and narrow at the arms all the way down past her wrists where the cloth flared. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but she seemed to have taken the role of acting-governor rather seriously in setting aside her usual plain leathers and quilted aketon.
But that face! Always so severe, lass. Nose flattened like some brawling barroom wench, and lips too damned thin
.
    She scowled at her reflection.
Still, not exactly something to run from howling into the night
.
    And anyway, who gave a damn? She threw open the door, yanked the sheathed dirk hanging there from its peg, and shoved it through the back of her belt as she descended the circular stone staircase.
    She found him at the stables