Free Book 05 - Dread Brass Shadows by Glen Cook

from the high end. Sadler told me, "He got it here," about fifteen feet into the shadows. It would have been light there only briefly, around noon "You can't tell ‘cause of the light, but there's blood all over. He ended up down there about fifty feet. Probably tried to run after it was too late. Come on."
    The body lay ten feet from the bottom end of the alley. Somebody with a sharp blade and strong, probably using a downward stroke, had sliced him from his right ear down the side of his throat and chest all the way to his bellybutton bone deep. "Last time I saw a wound like that was when I was in the Corps."
    "Yeah," Crask said. "Two-handed dueling saber?"
    Sadler demurred. "Couldn't get away with lugging one around I say. Just sharpness and strength."
    Crask squatted. "Could be. But how do you get that close to hit that hard with a legal knife?"
    They meandered off into a technical discussion. Crafts men of murder talking shop. I squatted to give Squirrel a closer look.
    Some of us never get used to violent death. I saw plenty in the Marines and didn't get numb. I've seen more than enough since. I still don't have calluses where Crask and Sadler have them. Maybe it's hereditary. Squirrel probably earned what he'd gotten, but I mourned him all the same. I noted, "He wasn't robbed or anything."
    "He was plain hit," Crask said. "Somebody wanted rid of him."
    "And him such a sweetheart. It's a sacrilege."
    If those guys have a weakness, it's lacking a sense of humor. Their idea of a joke is promising a guy to turn him loose if he can walk on water wearing lead boots. My crack didn't go over.
    Sadler said, "Chodo doesn't like it, Squirrel getting offed. He wasn't much good but he was family. Chodo wants to know who and why."
    "You guys using carrier pigeons now?" Chodo lives way the hell and gone out in the sticks, north of town. There shouldn't have been time for all the back and forth implied here.
    They ignored me. They get that way about trade secrets—or anything they don't think I need to know. Crask said, "You get anything here we don't?"
    I shook my head. All I could tell was that Squirrel wouldn't be doing much dancing anymore.
    Sadler said, "Bet the iceman used both hands. You'd get more on it that way."
    Crask told me, "We're going to keep an eye on you, Garrett. Something don't add up here. Maybe you didn't tell us everything."
    Hell, no, I hadn't. Some things Chodo doesn't need to know. I shrugged. "I find out who did it, you'll be the first to know."
    "Take it to heart, Garrett. Take it to bed with you. Get up with it in the morning. Chodo is pissed. Somebody is going to pay." He turned to Sadler and started in on whether the killer had cut upward or downward. Ignoring me. I'd been dismissed. Warned and dismissed. Chodo owed me, but not the life of one of his men. Maybe I was nearer even with him than I'd thought.
    I checked Squirrel again, but he still wasn't sharing any secrets. So I got out of there.
    Heading home, I saw something I'd never seen in TunFaire before, a centaur family trotting down the street
    The fighting in the Cantard must have gone berserk if the natives were fleeing it, too. I'd never heard of centaurs ranging this far north.
    Things must be going real bad for Glory Mooncalled and his hatchling Cantard republic. He'd be gone soon and the world could get back to normal, with Karentine killing Venageti in the never-ending contest for control of the mines.
    I'd have to mention the centaurs to the Dead Man. Glory Mooncalled is his hobby. The mercenary turned self-crowned prince has lasted longer than even my career houseguest expected.

14
    While walking home, I noticed that, though it was still too early for morCartha high jinks, there were plenty of fliers aloft. Like every fairy and pixie in the known universe, with a random sample of other breeds. I nearly trampled a band of gnomes while gawking at the aerobatics. The gnomes yowled and cursed and threatened mayhem upon my shinbones. The