Kaddie listened as the conversation swept back and forth, while attempting to remember what she knew of the Shale, along with things her grandmother had told her.

  She knew, for example, there were opposing factions within the Shale. Nothing obvious. To an outsider they presented a united front that was hard to circumvent. But there were troubles nonetheless. Rivalries, family squabbles. “How could there not be?” her grandmother had said. “They’re still human. There’s nothing magical about the Shale.”

  However, it was one thing to pay objective heed to the nuances, and another to sit among them while carrying a piece of a dead man’s skin. They were close. Too close. And yet her grandfather was now engaging them in conversation as if they were out for a picnic.

  “With all your money, I thought you’d be immune to what goes on down here.” His charming smile had reappeared.

  “Wealth has become a game for some,” Arcantha said. “It wasn’t always so.”

  Melaris grunted. “And the game becomes a sickness.”

  “If that’s so, then Mercantiler Harrow is as sick as they come.”

  Kaddie raised an eyebrow. Mercantiler Harrow was the man who had visited the dispensary after the fire. The burned-out building had belonged to him, and Robles seemed convinced he was behind the murder, not to mention the poisoning of Nianne Lassing’s wedding dress. She had seen nothing of Harrow since that day. A horrible, dismissive man, with a grotesque mustache, she remembered.

  “You think he’s responsible?” Arcantha drew up her hood. The sun was now rising proper, its light shining directly into the carriage.

  “If he is, I would suggest this latest coup by the Theeds is part of a larger game. Harrow is from the capital. His holdings out here are relatively small. Not so, in Enthas.”

  “But why kill a rare supplier? We don’t deal directly with the city, and we rarely venture within its walls.”

  Robles laughed. “I know. We usually have to come all the way out here and beg.” His face fell on seeing Arcantha’s expression.

  The conversation dwindled, and for a long while Kaddie had to be content with the view of the passing fields as a distraction. She saw evidence of recent planting since her first journey to the city. The planting cycle was beginning anew, a different crop in order to enrich the ground and welcome a different, much colder season.

  Mid-morning, the carriage took a right turn. From the opposite window she could just make out the road they had left, veering off toward the hills and its somewhat treacherous climb toward Shadow Valley. They were now heading in a new direction, along a road she had never traveled before.

  Trees appeared at the side of the road, small copses that gradually expanded into woodland that blocked out all view of the plain.

  “I saw—” Melaris began. He flicked open the carriage door latch.

  Arcantha’s clenched fist appeared inches before Kaddie’s face. It gripped an arrow that had flown in through the window, its metal tip pointing directly toward her grandfather.

  “Crone’s teeth,” Robles hissed.

  There was a shout from the driver up front. The carriage began to slow.

  Robles grabbed Kaddie’s shoulder and threw her to the floor. “Stay down!”

  Sprawling, she saw the door on her grandfather’s side was now wide open and Melaris was nowhere in sight. For a moment she was too frightened to move, until she turned her head and saw the other carriage door was now yawning wide. Arcantha and her grandfather were nowhere to be seen. She was completely alone.

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  She heard a yell from outside and saw Jim receiving a vicious blow from an unseen assailant. Baring her teeth, she pulled herself upright and leapt out of the carriage.

  The drop was greater than she thought. It knocked the breath out of her and she fell to her knees. But there was no time to think, no time to get the measure of Jim’s attacker as she stumbled upright. Her hand was already inside her coat, withdrawing her sickle. She gripped the handle and pulled hard on the scabbard. It was a move she had practiced over and over, but on this occasion it felt clumsy and awkward. Nonetheless, she brought her blade to bear and snarled like a beast.

  Melaris arrived and jammed a long, thin blade upwardly into the attacking stranger’s torso. Only then did she get a good look at him. Broad shouldered, clean shaven; he let out a sharp cry of pain. The metal club he’d been holding in his right hand dropped to the ground and he followed it a moment later. Blood flowered gaudily across his shirt and she watched his eyes close.

  Melaris was already dashing toward another commotion at the front of the carriage, one she couldn’t see. She caught a glimpse of her grandfather, his stick raised. Voices, and the sound of a scuffle abruptly came to a halt.

  She approached Jim and knelt alongside him. He was breathing rapidly. No sign of blood.

  “Jim.”

  “I’m fine,” he muttered, clutching his forearm. His eyes were screwed shut

  “Wait here. I’ll get my bag.” Quickly, she approached the carriage. She could hear Robles and the carriage driver talking, suggesting the threat was over, but where were Arcantha and Melaris?

  She found her knapsack, dragged it from the carriage floor, and took a moment to replace her sickle inside her coat pocket. Jim was now sitting up and staring at the man lying a few feet away.

  “Is he dead?”

  “I don’t know.” She pointed to his arm. “Is it broken?”

  “What? No, I don’t think so. Who stabbed him?”

  “Melaris.”

  He raised his hand to scrape hair from his forehead. She noticed his knuckles were badly swollen; one of them was cracked and bleeding.

  Robles and the carriage driver arrived. “You all right, lad?” The driver helped Jim to his feet.

  “Is it over?” Kaddie asked. “Where’s Arcantha?”

  “Up there.” Her grandfather pointed. “She went after the archer.”

  A short distance up the trail, Arcantha was crouched like a cat on the thick branch of a tree where a man was slumped, his arms dangling. Melaris was standing directly below, watching as she pushed and pulled, until the body fell with a soft crunch onto the leaves below.

  “You two,” the driver said. “Wait inside. This is grown up business.”

  “Do as he says,” Robles said when Kaddie opened her mouth to object.

  Reluctantly, she and Jim returned to the carriage, but instead of climbing inside, they perched on the steps and watched as Robles and the driver took one leg each and dragged Jim’s stabbed attacker some ways along the trail in the direction from whence they had traveled.

  Kaddie opened her bag. “Your coat, take it off.”

  “They’re hiding the bodies,” he said, wincing as he shrugged off the thick garment.

  “How many attackers?”

  “Five, I think, plus the one in the tree. Did Melaris kill most of them?”

  “Assuming they’re all dead. Looks like he killed the one who hit you, for sure.”

  “I tried to stop him.”

  “I know. Now, roll up your sleeve. I need see your arm, and your hands.”

  Jim did as he was told and splayed his fingers. His knuckles looked like the boles of old, murderous trees, but at least the bleeding had stopped.

  “This one is dislocated. We need to fix that. I can also compress your arm. Looks as if you were able to punch him, at least. I didn’t get the chance to do anything.”

  “With that knife? Where did you get that? Would you have used it?”

  “Shh,” she urged.

  The driver arrived. “Inside. I need to move the horses along.”

  Climbing aboard, Kaddie closed the doors, and Jim took up Arcantha’s seat while they traveled for maybe thirty paces before the driver brought the horses to a halt.

  “Jim! Out here, lad.”

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” he said.

  “And your hands?”

  “There’s an inn up the road. We’ll be stopping there to let you off. Maybe then?” He stepped down from the carriage and shut the door.

  Kaddie stuck her head out of the window. Some ways along the trail her grandfather was dragging a branch to and fro along the ground.

  Arcantha opened the door and swung into her seat. “Quickly,” she yelled. Moments later, everyone was aboard, the driver snapped the reins, and once more they were off. “Anyone wounded?”

  Kaddie shook her head. “Jim has a dislocated finger.”

  “You had a knife,” Arcantha said, “so Melaris tells me.”

  She frowned. “A sickle.”

  Melaris was grinning. “Her guard was good, but she needs a bigger blade.”

  “She most certainly does not.” Robles shook his head and turned his attention to his walking stick. In his hand was a linen handkerchief which he was using to clean the handle. As he withdrew it, Kaddie saw blood, along with something that might have been hair. “It’s on our hands, now,” he said to no one in particular. “Blood, on our hands.”

  “Were they bandits?” she asked.

  He ignored her question and continued. “I shouldn’t have brought you. Elspeth was right. It’s too dangerous. Far too dangerous.” He smiled helplessly. “Still, that was quite an adventure, wasn’t it?”