Free The King's Justice by Stephen R. Donaldson Page A

he hopes to repay.
    Kelvera returns a smile as disturbing as his. The more shethinks on him, the more she desires to understand the danger. It may spill onto her caravan. “Perhaps,” she suggests, “we will meet again.”
    She means to add, When we do, we can discuss who is in debt. But Black forestalls her. He is in haste. “We will not,” he says like a man who is already gone. Giving her no time to respond, he strides for the doors.
    Still he wants guidance. It will shorten his search. At the doors, he pauses to grip the arm of the most recent arrival, a burly chandler still wearing his leather apron mottled with dried wax. Black invokes his sigil of command as he demands the location of Haul Varder’s workshop.
    The chandler glowers, torn between umbrage, distorted rumors, and an inability to refuse. He tries to sound angry as he directs Black. To some extent, he succeeds.
    At once, Black releases the man. Through the swinging doors, he leaves the inn and enters the glare of the midafternoon sun.
    He is at his most certain when he is afraid.

    T wo streets and three alleys from the inn, he finds the wheelwright’s smithy and woodshop. The structure resembles an open-sided barn, providing abundant space for Haul Varder’s forge at one end and his lathes at the other. Near the forge stands an anvil. Between and above the ends, he has storage for his ironand hammers, for his supplies of wood, and for racks to hold his chisels, saws, and other tools.
    The place is near the edge of the town. But this stretch of Settle’s Crossways is not extensive. Black judges that he is two hundred paces from Jon Marker’s house, perhaps three hundred from the caravan’s road. Above the workshop’s roof to the east, he can see the tops of the nearest trees.
    He hopes to find his quarry there, but he is not surprised when he does not. If the ritual that required Tamlin Marker’s murder is near its culmination—and if the wheelwright is involved, as Black now believes—the final preparations are being made. And they are certainly not being made in the town. They are not being made anywhere that risks witnesses. Their perpetrators will seek seclusion against even the most obscure mischance.
    The ashes in the forge are cold. They have been cold for some time. The sawdust around the lathes has not been swept. The lathes themselves wear a fine fur of dust, as do their tools. If Black had spent more time questioning townsfolk, he would no doubt have learned how long the shop has been unattended. But he does not need that knowledge. The scent of evil is strong here, as acrid as acid, as bitter as kale, and fraught with intimations of bloodshed. To his shaped senses, it is as distinct as murder, overriding even the stink of cold ashes and the warm odor of drying resins. He will be able to follow it.
    A brief stroking of his thigh summons his horse. While hewaits, he searches for some sign of Haul Varder’s intent, some indication left by carelessness or haste. But the search does not have his full attention. Kelvera has answered his more practical questions. It is his need for understanding that troubles him. He cannot gauge the peril ahead of him. He is forced to consider that an impossible ritual may be the only possible explanation for the smell that haunts his nose.
    His mount greets him with a soft whicker as it trots forward. Despite the hard use he made of it earlier, it is strong and ready, as refreshed as a horse that has enjoyed days of rest and rich pasturage. The ways that it has been shaped are subtle, difficult to discern, but they are potent. The beast will not fail him until he fails himself.
    He checks his horse’s girth and tack, an old habit. Then he mounts. Though he is no longer patient and believes that he knows his way, he circles the workshop twice, testing the air in every direction. When he is done, he trots toward the eastern outskirts of the