Warautumn by Tom Deitz Read Free Book Online Page B

about anyone else, but I’m exhausted.” He looked around expectantly. “What do we have for bedding?”
    “My camp bed didn’t make it,” Lykkon sighed, “but we all have our cloaks. There’s the rug itself, and a couple of cushions I had scattered around.”
    “More than enough to keep us warm,” Avall said through another yawn. “Now then, who’s taking first watch?”
    “I will,” Riff volunteered. “Seeing how I was most sober before all this began, and seem to be least … affected now.”
    “Very well,” Avall agreed. “Now, what say the rest of us take inventory, and when anyone gets too tired to work, thatperson can go to sleep. The fire won’t last all night anyway, unless we work at it. Fortunately, we won’t need it for warmth.”
    “No,” Myx said softly. “But what will we do when winter really does arrive?”

CHAPTER IV:
D EAD OF N IGHT
(ERON: TIR-ERON–HIGH SUMMER: DAY LXXIV–MIDNIGHT)

    Tyrill san Argen-yr took a deep breath and shuffled toward the bridge. It was one of two bridges that stretched from the Isle of The Eight to the banks of the Ri-Eron, in which the Isle was centered. This was the southern bridge, however: the one Tyrill had rarely used for most of her eighty-odd years, simply because she’d had no reason to use it. South Bank—by convention, not Law—was largely the province of what passed in Eron as a middle-class (there was effectively no lower), and was therefore the haunt of assorted businesses and small holdings belonging, in most cases, to Common Clan or clanless. A few High Clans had holds there as well, notably Lore, and some of what were known as the Earth Clans—like Beast, Grain, and Tanning—but they were the exceptions.
    Some of those holds were in ruins, too, courtesy of rebellion run rampant on Mask Night, thirteen nights before. Fortunately for their owners, most were sufficiently extensive that even fire could not claim all of them. And fortunately for Tyrill, ruins made excellent shelter.
    The Eight knew she had sheltered long enough in the lee of what had been the kitchen of one of Beast-Hold’s septs: shelteredthere and waited, clad in the darkest, most nondescript hooded cloak her squire, Lynee, could find, while she watched the night progress and traffic on the South River Walk grow thin. And if anyone had chanced to note her there—why, they would have seen nothing more than a thin, white-haired crone sleeping off too much drink—as evidenced by the empty beer pot beside her, and the smell of the stuff lavishly splashed across her tattered clothing.
    She was, however, as sober as the neatly laid flagstones beneath her, when she steered her way into the moonlight. Two moons shone bright on the Ri-Eron to her right, as she angled toward the waist-high wall that marked the edge of the River Walk. She made a point of wobbling and occasionally flailing for balance, too—this in spite of the cane that was far too necessary, and joints that hurt far too much. Once, she even let herself stagger into the wall itself. She would have to be careful about that, though; too much motion would draw unwanted attention to what needed as few witnesses as possible. Still, she made it a point to stop and cough loudly several times, each time raising her hand to her lips.
    She wondered if it was wise to attempt what she was planning. A quarter ago she would have said no, but a quarter ago her Kingdom had not been in chaos, her loved ones lured away, imprisoned, or dead, and she herself unhomed. Why, if not for the bravery and largesse of her Common Clan squire, Lynee, she might well be dead herself.
    But if things went as they ought tonight, someone else would die instead.
    She had never killed anyone outright. But she now possessed a tool with which she could kill at some distance while remaining relatively undetected, and it would be a shame not to use it for the greater good of Eron.
    She wondered about that, too: who that half-seen figure had been, that