Grunts by Mary Gentle Read Free Book Online Page B

fingering the sky. Other vultures flock in from the wilderness’s wide skies.
    Below, the orc marine garrison trains.
    Midnight chimed from Sarderis’s city bells. Will Brandiman froze until the harsh clangs ceased. He strained his ears to hear movement from the closed doors that presumably—he and Ned had not been able to case more than the lower floor of the clothier’s shop in daylight—led to bedrooms.
    His night-vision adjusted. He watched Ned pad along the upper-floor corridor, stop at the first door on the left-hand side, and listen for some moments. Ned signalled:
    —
No movement
.
    Ned reached up, tried the latch, and silently opened the door.
    —
Child’s room. Girl asleep
.
    Will passed him, treading barefoot and silent to the door on the right. Faint sounds came through the wood. He hesitated, signalled Ned to remain still, and padded down to the end of the corridor. Probably the master bedroom…
    The latch of its door clicked, horrifically loud.
    Will froze, not even daring to look back at his brother. The beamed and low-ceilinged corridor seemed suddenly airless in the summer night’s heat. A scuffling sound came from the room on the right, behind him—someone turning over in bed. But nothing from the room at whose door he stood.
    He opened the door and signalled back, exaggerating the finger-movements in the poor light:
    —
One man. One woman. Both asleep
.
    Ned nodded, fading back into the little girl’s bedroom. During the day the clothes shop had seemed to have two girls—one seven or eight, the other sixteen or so, almost grown—and a much older male and female Man: the family living over the shop. In a shop doing reasonably well, but not well enough to afford protective spells.
    Will’s nostrils flared. No scent of guard dog. Nothing but the wool-and-herb smell of the clothier’s shop, and the warm odour of sleeping Men. He waited no longer. Eyeing the wooden locker at the foot of the bed, he drew his eight-inchknife and approached the side of the mattress on which the middle-aged Man was sleeping. The man had yellow-tinged grey hair and liver-spotted hands.
    Will clamped his hand over the Man’s mouth, pinching the nostrils shut; sliced the razor-edged hunting knife through the Man’s throat, and then stabbed it up under the ribs into the heart. The body heaved and twitched once, going instantly into shock and then death.
    The female Man stirred, rolled a little, and reached out her hand towards the man.
    Will Brandiman got one knee up onto the mattress, heaved his body up onto the Man-sized bed, and lurched over the bleeding body. His left hand flailed down, striking the woman above the eyes. She grunted. He slid his hand down over her mouth, hooked the knife across her windpipe and pulled it sharply towards him, and still with the same grip lifted the knife and slammed it down between her ribs. The woman’s throat gurgled. Her body relaxed.
    Weak and shaking, he slid down off the bed. Blood soaked the sheets and mattress, dripping down to the floor. It would soak through the plaster and drip through the ceiling to the shop, he guessed; but that would only be discovered later. Tonight there would be no nosy neighbours—not unless something disturbed the silence.
    Will trod stickily across the bedroom floor and looked down the corridor. Ned stepped out of the small girl’s bedroom. He held his knife, and the front of his doublet and trunk-hose were stained red. He pointed across to the remaining closed bedroom door and cupped his hand to his ears.
    —
Eldest daughter
, Will signalled.
    He walked down the corridor. A plank gave under his heel. Caught unprepared, he had shifted his weight before he realised, and the wood groaned. He froze.
    Ned pressed his back to the corridor wall, a foot to the side of the right-hand door. Will crossed swiftly to the far side. Inside the room, flint scraped and a lantern sputtered. He heard footsteps move—cross the room—a chair-leg scraped.