Free No Quarter by Tanya Huff Page B

face. "I'm not even sure I know what it is I'm supposed to do."
    "Find the abom… Gyhard a body with no one dying to provide it."
    "Uh-huh. And how am I supposed to do that?"
    Liene scowled, drummed her fingers against the head of her cane, and finally stomped away.
    Magda shook her head and went back to her reading. It was a good thing both her mother and Stasya had warned her that the old woman's bark was worse than her bite. Although Stasya had pointed out that Liene still had all her teeth.
    They'd warned her about a number of other things as well, but she'd happily disregarded most of them.
    Sighing, Magda brushed a curl away from her face. "A body without a kigh is a dead body and I can't just shove his kigh into a dead body." She made a disgusted moue at the thought. From the mice the cats used to leave on the steps of the keep to those the healers had not been able to save, dead bodies were not among her favorite things.
    The pass between Shkoder and the Empire looked as though a giant had carved it out of the Smitts Mountains with a knife. Sheer rock walls rose up on either side of a broad passage years of use had made as easy to travel as any lowland road.
    Long before the current king's grandmother had convinced their due to join the kingdom, the miners of the mountain principality of Somes had traded iron ore with the First Province of the Empire through that pass, picks and shovels amending what nature began.
    As Jazep approached the guard tower on the Shkoder side, he could just barely make out through the early morning haze the Empire's sunburst flying next to the crowned ship at the midpoint of the pass.
    Two of the three guards came hurrying out to meet him.
    "Jazep? Is that you?"
    A huge smile split the bard's grizzled beard. "Nastka! I was wondering why I hadn't seen you in town!"
    "Now you know." Tossing her helm to her companion, she returned his hug with equal enthusiasm, leather armor creaking. "What brings you up here? Not crossing surely? We had two of those Imperial fledglings up here during my last shift. Who was with them? I know, Tesia. She took them to the halfway point and said she was letting them feel the difference you get in earth kigh when you're standing on your own soil. She wasn't kidding me, was she?"
    "No. The kigh can always tell when you've come home." He shifted his feet and his smile faded. "I backtracked a disturbance in the kigh to the pass."
    "Do tell." Nastka retrieved her helm. "Trouble?"
    Jazep shrugged. "I don't know. Troubling. It's almost as if they're afraid."
    "The kigh? Afraid? I don't like the sound of that."
    "No, neither do I." He turned and looked toward the Empire. "Can you remember what and who came through five days ago?"
    "I can do better than that. Mila—oh, this is Mila, by the way." The second guard nodded shyly. "It's her first shift at the pass. Jakub's up at the beacon. You remember him, skinny guy with too much red hair?"
    "I remember."
    "Of course you do. Mila, go get the lists." As the younger woman ran back to the tower, Nastka grinned proudly. "Due's seeing to it that everyone in the guard can read and write."
    Jazep had actually heard that from the Due of Somes herself, but the disturbance in the kigh had driven it right out of his mind. "Her Grace has a lot of good ideas."
    "Her Grace is going to put this place in a song."
    "I saw Jelena when I went through town."
    Nastka's grin softened and her dark eyes shone. "She's grown into a beautiful woman, hasn't she?"
    "She has." Jazep reached out and gripped the guard's shoulder. "Just like her mother."
    A few moments later, he frowned down at the rough sheet of paper and shook his head. "Two wagons and a single traveler. Not exactly a busy day. Do any of them stand out?"
    "Well, the old man…" Mila began, then lapsed into an embarrassed silence when both Jazep and Nastka turned to look at her.
    "Go on," Jazep urged, using just enough charm to put the girl at ease.
    "It's just he was so old. I couldn't