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  They emerged from the warehouse into the empty Morton District, the autumn evening chill and damp. Couric did his best to endure Samwell’s excited recounting of how he had tracked down the error. The previous clerk had smarts enough to realize what he had found and demand payment to keep quiet. Couric wondered if perhaps paying him would have been wiser. Finding the right sort of clerk willing to work long hours in room barely better than a prison cell was increasingly difficult in good economic times. At the very least, the poor conditions ensured that very few prime candidates ever darkened his door.

  The Morton District contained much of Bellshire’s shipping and manufacturing industry and was full of squat offices huddled next to hulking buildings. Just after sundown most of the laborers had gone home, though officers and clerks often stayed until much later. Couric guided Samwell south toward the Crooks, a dilapidated, impoverished part of the city with winding lanes, confusing alleys, and plenty of cheap ale.

  “You sure it’s safe to go in there after dark?” Samwell asked worriedly once he realized where they were headed.

  Couric pulled a pecan from a bulging store in his coat pocket and cracked it with his teeth. “We’re just taking a bit of a shortcut to a place I know in Southgate. It’s got some tasty little serving wenches.”

  Couric was more interested in the river that separated the Crooks from Southgate. The dodgers and toughs in the Crooks knew Couric and wouldn’t pay him any mind; Couric was never careless enough to carry anything of value while walking in Morton or the Crooks. They had already tried to boost money from him and gotten nothing but lumps on their skulls in return.

  Samwell’s eyes and shoulders twitched and tensed with every raucous call and shuffling stranger as they ventured farther into the Crooks. Got no iron at all, Couric judged. Guess he gets by on his smarts. Gradually, the uneven cobblestone through the Crooks gave way to a gravel path winding through a small wooded area that acted like a fence so the well-to-do of Southgate wouldn’t have to suffer the sights of their uncouth neighbors across the river. Tall, bare oaks stretched their arms out above them, the bridge nearing.

  Samwell continued to crow about his discovery. “So the more I think about it, the Caravan Master probably knew about the problems. In fact, I think he may actually be taking advantage of you, Sir,” Samwell opined. “Of course, I couldn’t prove that just with the books.”

  “Really,” Couric said noncommittally. “I wouldn’t say that anywhere near Dales if I were you.”

  The Caravan Master was a mighty brute of a man with arms the size of hog shanks. Everyone at the Boot and Wheel Caravan Company feared him, Couric included. Dales worked for the money and the adventure and cared little who was the boss or what he was ordered to do. Couric needed him, though, for the man had no scruples, either.

  Time to get this ruse underway.

  “Did you hear that?” Couric said, angling off the road and stopping for a moment.

  “Hear what?” Samwell asked, following like a faithful dog. The night was full of sounds from in front and behind them.

  “I thought I heard someone yelling for help through there, near the river,” Couric explained, trying to act concerned. “Come on!” He jogged into the woods toward the water. “Hello there!” he yelled as Samwell followed, face perplexed. As they neared the wide river, Couric slowed, darkness difficult for his worsening vision. He didn’t want to end up in the river himself.

  “I don’t see anyone,” Samwell said, arms wrapped around his chest. Couric reached into his coat and grasped the handle of the thin bladed knife he always carried.

  “Look by the bridge,” Couric instructed coming up from behind his clerk. “I think I see someone moving over there.”

  Samwell turned and exhaled a plume of warm breath as he gazed toward the bridge. “I don’t—”

  Couric rammed the knife into Samwell’s back and the clerk arched backwards, face fixed in a silent scream. A few more thrusts of the knife finished the job and Samwell collapsed, eyes wide and face even paler than usual in the moonlight. After wiping the knife on his victim’s pants to clean it, Couric resheathed it and went in search of rocks to stuff in the corpse’s pockets; it wouldn’t do to have him resurfacing before the water ate away enough of his face and features to make him unrecognizable.

  Couric took Samwell’s boots and gloves to sell in the Crooks on the way back and searched the young man’s pockets to make sure there was nothing in them that would help identify him. Now the tricky part. Getting the body into the river without falling in himself wouldn’t be easy in the weak light. Tomorrow he would put an advertisement in the paper for a new clerk and this time he would hire the right sort of fellow. There were enough clerks in Bellshire that they should be hunted to keep the numbers down, but if any more of them vanished from the Boot and Wheel Caravan Company, someone was bound to notice.

  Chapter 6

  The herd of longhorned bison blanketed the distant hills. From where Davon surveyed them from astride Ceril, the massive beasts appeared peaceful and unthreatening, but he knew that the slightest provocation, such as the thunderous clouds rumbling behind them, could send the destructive herd into a chaotic, ground churning stampede. Deaths at the hooves of the migrating herds of bison and mammoth were reported every spring and autumn in the papers, and when poor weather threatened, the swelling obituaries doubled the pages of the weekly news. Traveling during migration was an idiotic business, another reason he disdained the Tahbor’s seasonal invitations.

  Davon eyed the sky and the herd again, wondering where to set up his ruse. Under no circumstances did he wish to suffer the shame of actually dying during his attempt to appear to have done so. While he doubted anyone would be the wiser, for the few terrifying seconds it would take for the bison to grind his bones to powder, he would suffer under the onus of his own stupidity.

  As luck would have it, the storm was driving directly south towards his position, and when the booming thunder and flickering lighting got close enough, the herd would at least move in his direction, if not bolt in a panicked frenzy.

  Tonight his plan would require him to sacrifice one final beloved item: his horse. After a wistful pat on Ceril’s withers, he hopped down, undid the saddlebags and tack, and created the scene of his fake demise next to a broad oak directly in the predicted path of the herd.

  He did everything as he normally would when in the wild. He created a fire ring, lit a fire, set up his canvas tent, and hung his equipment over a branch. The next part, however, was a little more ridiculous and unsavory. His plan depended on someone believing that a man had been killed but to the point of being unrecognizable. To this end he had killed a deer and slung it over his horse. Removing the freshly skinned carcass and pulling an extra pair of traveling clothes from his bags, he set about gutting the beast and scattering copious amounts of its blood and entrails on the clothes. He placed the befouled clothing and the carcass in the tent, knocked the tent down so the bison wouldn’t avoid it, and led Ceril away toward the dim forest nearby to wait.

  His rifle he kept for the moment. The nearby woods were an excellent place for predators to lie in wait to attack the herd, and he didn’t want another repeat of his hunting disaster. The wounds, though much improved, still ached and itched, and he had to catch himself to keep from scratching at them.

  Once safely into the dark of the forest, he tied Ceril to a branch and slumped down to wait. He hoped the whole business would be over before dark so he could further groom the scene. Nothing out of place could remain. He would have to remove all the recognizable animal bits and place a few props to ensure that his identity as the supposed victim was unmistakable.

  “Hi’yah!”

  The voice of a wagon driver echoed into the woods a few moments before the pounding of hoofbeats and the creak of wagon wheels. Davon edged toward the road until he had a good view, wondering who was risking the weather and the herds besides himself. In a few more moments, a single, empty wagon whirled by i
n a rush, driver hunched over and flogging the horses for everything they were worth. A faded sign was painted on the wooden slats: Boot and Wheel Caravan Company.

  So they did come as far north as Tahbor. Idly Davon wondered if the wagon would turn north and actually head toward Frostbourne, though the lack of cargo made him doubt it. Clearly, this driver had finished his task and knew he had to get as far from the herd as possible before disaster struck. Sure enough, at the fork in the road, the wagon turned southeast and was gone.

  After plucking some long grass from the edge of the wood, Davon headed back to where Ceril stood by the tree and fed him the tender plants. If the Boot and Wheel Caravan would come as far north as Tahbor, why wouldn’t they take the extra day or two to come to Frostbourne? Though, Davon noted with some self-satisfaction, Frostbourne took care of its own poor and needy. No charity from the Aid Society was necessary.

  A flash of lightning and a pounding boom ripped through the sky as large drops of rain pattered against the leaves around him, slowly at first. Enough of the thick canopy of the forest had resisted the call of autumn that Davon figured he would have a few minutes of dryness left once the heady, swollen clouds burst. With another crack and rumble, the rain pelted down and thunder shook the ground; the herd was on the move.

  Davon stood up and kept his eyes sharp. While most of the bison would avoid his sylvan refuge, some few of the beasts might turn inside the forest. The shaking of the ground and the deafening noise amplified, Ceril snorting nervously. Davon’s heart quickened, the reverberation and racket of the stampeding animals louder than anything he had ever heard.

  Through the slits in the trees he saw the first of the runners bolting by, urged onward by the vociferous sky. In moments a solid wall of brown slashed across his vision, rattling the forest. Ceril reared back and screamed, snapping the branch Davon had tied him to. Davon reached out to grab him, but Ceril bolted away, galloping south with the herd. Goodbye, old friend. An ache within him swelled with the noise. With Ceril’s departure, all ties to his former life seemed severed.

  The rain finally defeated the protection of the foliage and dripped down on him as the bison continued their frenzied run. The herd rumbled by for nearly a half an hour before they thinned enough for Davon to risk approaching the campsite to see how his little experiment had fared. Pocked and uneven, the road he had followed to get there and the field where he had set up his camp were a sloppy, soupy mess sucking at his boots. Bison droppings and spoor littered the ground. Several of the weaker bison had fallen on the field while others milled about in the slackening rain.

  As he had hoped, the stampede had obliterated his campsite. A single stake had kept the tent near to where he had set it, but everything else had moved southward. The carcass in the tent was pounded and broken, bone and flesh mushy and pulped. Still, he had work to do. Quickly, he stripped away the bits and pieces that were most obviously not human, a dirty, disgusting task. These he hauled away into the forest for the scavengers to pick at. Next, he took his ring from his finger and placed it conspicuously in the wreck. He would place the rifle in the mix after he had survived the night.

  Once done, he moved a mile away to distance himself from the scavengers that would no doubt be attracted to his bloody mess and the dying bison. If a few dire wolves or sabercats picked at his fictitious remains, the ruse would be complete. He would walk to Chopsworth the next day. Few recognized him there, and if he arrived after nightfall, he could leave word of the scene with the undersheriff, buy a horse and a gun, and make his way east with little fear of being marked.

  After an hour, the storm moved off for good, grumbling in the southern sky. In the daylight which remained, Davon constructed a crude lean-to and searched for wood dry enough to burn so he could warm himself. A lingering sadness hung over him, but something else was dawning: hope in the prospect of a new life.

  Baron Davon Carver was dead.

  Nothing could fetter him, now. It was just like when his parents had died. He was alone with nothing but his wits and abilities to make the best of a dismal situation. He wouldn’t survive in the wild during the winter and he would need to earn money when what he had ran out. There was no place better to find anonymity and work than in Bellshire, the biggest city in Bittermarch.

  By the time he arrived in Bellshire a week later, nature’s first weak attempts at winter had turned the outer streets into a dingy, viscous mixture of slush and mud. The air had not turned cold enough for the snow to persist much beyond noonday, save where it clung in shadowy recesses and on north-facing roofs. The allotment of money he had allowed himself was nearly gone. He would, for the first time in his life, have to take active employment. This thought cost him no pride. In his younger years he had worked as hard and in as much filth as any common laborer while he scrimped and saved to rescue his family estate from his father’s foolishness.

  Of course, if he could avoid mucking out stables or scouring chimneys, he would. Ideally, he wanted to work as a caravan guard as it would have him out-of-doors and traveling, but the demand for guards died in the winter season along with people’s desire to travel. After checking the job postings on windows and in the papers, he realized he had a more serious problem: no real experience or references. Any comfortable job with decent pay demanded references, and he hadn’t even decided what to call himself yet.

  Missing the powerful Ceril, he steered his rather average quarter horse toward less savory parts of town. Even convicts of the darkest hue could find employment amid the narrow streets and darkly streaked brick buildings. As poorly dressed as he was, his clothes were a cut or two above the average denizen of the Crooks, a place he had heard of but never beheld during his few previous visits to Bellshire. Whatever his clothing, he was sure he appeared down on his luck, though his somber demeanor and the rifle slung to his horse kept the riffraff at a distance.

  At last he found some postings attached to the glass window of one Iron Hand Tavern. Its relative lack of stains and filth suggested it was an establishment someone actually cared about. After skimming the usual round of advertisements for chambermaids, guttersweeps, and farmhands, he ran across one that that piqued his interest:

  Immediate need for a clerk. Boot and Wheel Caravan Company. Must be able to start immediately. Salary. Sixty hours a week. Contact Couric Masterson directly at the office.

  Davon smirked and rubbed his chin. The Boot and Wheel Caravan Company. That name kept popping up. Maybe he had dismissed the reports of their phantom shipments to Frostbourne a little too hastily. Who else might they be defrauding? The Queen herself? Had the Eternal Flame led him to this very spot, some place he might still do some good for Queen and country despite his self-imposed poor circumstances?

  While not formally trained as a clerk, he had learned the trade after his father had killed himself. He had kept his own books for nearly six years before he had the means to employ a steward to do it for him. He might not have the familiarity with all the legal and financial documents that a caravan company might use, but he doubted it would be too difficult to muddle his way through. Clerking was certainly preferable to anything else he had run across thus far.

  After warming his blood with an ale and then inquiring about the location of the Boot and Wheel Caravan Company, Davon mounted his horse and headed to the Morton District. Unlike the Crooks, the Morton district was composed of wide streets with large, utilitarian buildings. There were few windows and very little in the way of architecture or greenery to cheer anyone. Rough looking men milled about big warehouses or wandered the streets on unknown errands. No one spared Davon a glance.

  He found the offices of the company in question in short order, the sign a worn, simple affair with dark letters on a white board. The small brick building sat next to a much larger one made of wood and plaster. A single, thin window next to an unadorned door was all the decoration afforded the ascetic edifice. Davon roped his horse to the rail and made his way inside through the heavy, squeaking d
oor. Everything here seemed lifeless and downtrodden.

  Did he really want to spend sixty hours a week in such a gloomy place? Just until the summer, he reassured himself. Then I’ll apply for something else.

  The front room to the office was quiet and empty with a single desk littered with papers. Small stacks of books lay on the ground, and rectangles of less dingy hue than the rest of the walls indicated that pictures once hung there. It felt as is the place was being abandoned, save for a faint whiff of liquor on the air. He called out to no avail. Perhaps the job posting was old and the business had failed. Time to start over. He turned to go and noticed a paper stuck to the door with a crudely drawn portrait of a young man.

  Missing: Samwell Biggs, clerk for the Boot and Wheel Caravan Company. Last seen leaving work on September 15. If you have information, please contact Investigator Miles Purvis at 45 Parkhale Street.

  That explains the opening, Davon mused as he yanked the door open, finding himself face to face with a ponytailed man in a long, leather coat. He had hard eyes and an unpleasant demeanor and grimaced for a moment, staring at Davon as if trying to determine if this were a customer or a thief. The horse at the rail seemed to sway him to the former.

  “What did you come for? Need something hauled, do ya?” the man asked.

  “Well, no,” Davon replied. “I’ve come about—”

  “Then off with you.” The man shoved his way past Davon and into the office. “Got no time for freeloaders or solicitors.”

  “I’ve come about the job posting, Sir.”

  The man threw himself down in a beat up chair behind the desk and pulled a pecan from his coat, snapping it open with a practiced bite of his teeth. Several moments passed as the man regarded him, savoring his treat. “Don’t look like a clerk to me,” he finally said. “Look more like a caravan rider. What’s your name?”