The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter (Riyria Chronicles #4)(92)

Cats don’t sleep on monsters, do they?

Noises turned Griswold’s head and woke Seton. They all listened: voices coming from outside. The sound soaked through the walls of the overhead shack and dripped down through the gaps in the floorboards, conversations impossible to clearly hear. Identities were equally vague. Men and women were all Hadrian could reliably discern. Not many, two or three perhaps, but they were coming closer.

The dwarf climbed to his feet. “Either your friend’s back or time’s up. If he’s betrayed us . . .” He pointed the dagger at Hadrian, an old, dull blade. Is it the same one he uses to carve figurines? After seeing him with his family, after looking at the beauty he created out of wood, Hadrian found it hard to believe Griswold could kill. But Hadrian had been wrong before.

Maybe in a society of stoneworkers, wood carving is an indication of insanity. Griswold might be the sort of crazed killer that no one suspects. Hadrian had met a few of those. Young soldiers, usually the quiet ones that he worried might not be up to the task, revealed a different side on the battlefield. Normally constrained by social pressure, they felt a sense of freedom in combat that they never encountered in daily life. Killing, the ultimate taboo, became a necessary relief to the building pressure to conform. After the fight, they went back to their shadow life, but the taste of blood worked like an infection. They were the ones who volunteered for missions but fell into trouble after the war. Killers hiding in plain sight; pots boiling with sealed lids. Griswold might be like that.

Hadrian felt Seton stiffen as if she’d had the same thought, and then the mir got to her feet as well, her eyes on the dagger.

“That was the deal he made,” Griswold told her.

The noise grew louder. Then footfalls hit the floor of the shack, thumping on the ceiling above.

“Hadrian?” Royce yelled.

Griswold shuffled away from the stairs and toward Hadrian.

“No!” Seton moved with surprising speed, thrusting herself between them and raising her hands, putting up the defense Hadrian couldn’t.

Griswold’s expression was grim, not gleeful. And Hadrian was pleased to see it. At least he doesn’t want to kill me—or maybe it’s just her he regrets killing.

“Stop!” The order came from the stairs where Selie Nym descended. “Griswold Dinge, you put that dagger away! Right now, you hear?”

“Why? What’s happened? Where are Mercator and Villar?”

“Mercator Sikara is dead,” the Calian woman said.

This did nothing to improve the dwarf’s attitude, and his expression went from grim to angry.

“Was it the small one who did it?”

Royce joined her at the bottom of the stairs and Griswold took a tighter grip on the dagger. Hadrian got to his feet.

The dwarf let out a heated growl. “What happened to Mercator. I don’t see—”

“That’s right, Griswold, you don’t see anything!” The widow was furious. “Mercator Sikara was murdered. And it’s all your fault!”

“My fault? Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been here, with them, all night.”

“Mercator was torn apart by a golem!”

She could have hit the dwarf with a bucket of water and gotten the same response. He stopped not only his movement toward Hadrian but even his breathing. A fortunate turn for Griswold, as by then Royce was past the widow, and Alverstone was out and ready to say hello.

“Drop the dagger or lose the hand,” Royce ordered in the sort of voice that allowed no hesitation or argument.

Griswold let his blade fall and backed away, but his eyes were still trained on Erasmus’s widow, still aghast.

“Damn it,” Royce cursed, kicking the blade away and frowning at the dwarf. “They never pick the choice I want.”

The dwarf had backed up all the way to the wall, retreating from more than Royce. “I don’t understand. How could a golem kill Mercator?”

“You tell me, you little bearded excuse for a mole rat!” The widow was filled with fury. “Erasmus had always been against using those things, those evil, disgusting creatures, and now . . . now . . .” She took a deep breath to compose herself. “Who have you taught that evil sorcery? Do you see what price has been paid? Mercator is dead and so is my Erasmus!”

“He killed your husband!” Griswold pointed at Hadrian.

“He didn’t.” Seton looked at Selie in desperation.

The widow patted Seton’s cheek. “Honey, do you think I would believe anything coming out of his mouth? Erasmus’s face was damn near chewed away. What happened to my . . . to my . . . that wasn’t done by any man.”

“I—” Seton began.

The widow was done with her but not with Griswold. “You’re the only one who knows . . . the only one who . . .” The widow put her hands to her hips, her eyes narrowing to the sort of slits archers used when targeting small prey. “Hundreds of people saw a golem in the plaza last night! That stony monster climbed down the side of the cathedral, smashed into the gallery, and tore that poor woman apart. First my Erasmus, now Mercator. All because—”

“It wasn’t me. I was here with them.” He gestured toward Hadrian and Seton.

“But you showed others. You’re the only one who knows how. Who else did you teach that vile black magic to? Who else can raise a golem?”