Arrow on the String: Solomon Sorrows Book 1 by Dan Fish (no david read aloud TXT) 📕

“Get out,” Oray said.

He didn’t yell, didn’t slam his hands on the table, didn’t glare. He didn’t do anything. Just said the words, soft, patient, while his face turned red.

“Go to hells,” Sorrows said. “I want to talk about what we saw and what’s going on in Beggar’s Hollow. You studied the bodies. First the daughters with their wrists severed. Now Utuur and the other victims missing their hands. This is no coincidence.”

Oray said nothing, lifted his gaze to Sorrows, stared hard.

“He could be right, La’Jen,” Ga’Shel said.

Oray kept staring at Sorrows. “I don’t care if he’s right. I want him out of the tower.”

“No, you don’t,” Sorrows said. “Not now. Not until you’ve caught Jace. But I think this might be her first mistake. Which makes it our first opportunity.”

“She was there,” Davrosh said. “In the first home. The orchole saw her, then she disappeared.”

The hunter can see a strike before the arrow reaches the target. The flight of the shaft, the movement of the prey, the hidden heartbeat of time passing. It comes together in a moment of clarity and revelation within the hunter’s mind. Sorrows watched Oray straighten, stand. His face relaxed, the war paint faded. But his brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed. Curious. The arrow struck. He turned to Davrosh.

“Ivra Jace was in Beggar’s Hollow?”

“The first house,” Davrosh said. “The wretch in the corner.”

Oray glanced at Ga’Shel, raised an eyebrow, shook his head.

“I only saw the corpse,” he said. “No one else. Did she say anything?”

“No,” Davrosh said. “But she—”

“She pushed past me and fled,” Sorrows said. “Davrosh didn’t see her, and she’d slipped by the time I turned around.”

He glanced at Davrosh, held her gaze long enough to say, That’s as much as they need to know. Oray tapped his chin, considered Sorrows for a moment. Might have considered him for a moment longer, but a knock pulled his attention away. Sudden, loud, obtrusive. It echoed off the stone walls, ceiling, and floor. Davrosh and Ga’Shel turned. Sorrows leaned back, watched the faces of the other three.

“Sir,” said a voice. Female. Sharp, bright. Urgent.

“What is it?” Oray asked.

“It’s Captain Bravigan, sir. He just arrived and asked to speak with you immediately. He says it’s urgent.”

“Send him in.”

The door closed. Davrosh leaned forward.

“Bravigan?” she asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s Beggar’s Hollow. They must’ve found the rest of the bodies.”

“This is worse,” Sorrows said. “The nineteen brought them to the tower the first time. To come again already means—”

“They found more,” Oray said.

Sorrows nodded. “Enough to warrant a captain making the trip. Could be a lot more.”

“Probably more than we can handle,” Oray said. “We’re stretched thin enough covering the dances.”

Footsteps sounded outside the door. Distant, heavy, growing louder. Oray sighed, watched, and waited.

Captain Bravigan wore black leathers adorned with the golden bear of the City Guard emblazoned on the right breast of his jerkin. His hair was streaked with gray, his eyes were emerald set among deep lines. He wore an axe on one hip and two feet of slender steel on the other. He stepped into the room ahead of the Mage Guard elf and stopped at the end of the table.

“Twenty more dead,” he said. “But we’ve caught the killer. Have her at the armory. Best you come quickly. She’s a strong one.”

Oray had started walkingand was out the door with Bravigan by his side when the captain finished. Sorrows followed with Davrosh and Ga’Shel close behind. They turned right, heading down the spiral corridor to the entrance hall. Sorrows continued past, opening doors until he found his room. He grabbed his bow and eventually found himself standing alone outside the tower with the other four nowhere in sight. But a dwarf in the black-and-gold stood beside a sled, and Sorrows grinned when he saw him.

“Heard you were still in town,” Pesh said. “Figured you’d have stopped by for whiskeys by now. You still mad I beat you at knives that one time?”

“Livid,” Sorrows said. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way back to the Hollow.”

“Would be my hide if I left my captain.”

“He’s long gone. Slipped with the elf. If we hurry, we shouldn’t arrive too far behind.”

Pesh nodded, and they left. The morning was gray with clouds and the promise of an evening storm. The dogs ran hard, and the sled moved quickly over packed snow. But the delay cost them an explanation. They arrived to the sounds of fighting mingled with the smell of mint and piss.

✽✽✽

ORAY, DAVROSH, AND Ga’Shel were nowhere to be seen. Bravigan had his axe in hand, along with half a dozen other city guards. They surrounded a slight figure with raven hair, mossy skin, and large black eyes. She’d been beautiful once, but her face bore the signs of addiction. Mage dust, by the look of it. Teeth missing, cheeks sunken, dark rims beneath her eyes. Her hair was dirty and wild. Her fingernails yellowed, cracked. She was naked and disfigured, her body riddled with wounds as the half-born had been. Finger’s width gashes, deep and dark and oozing blood. A dagger’s work.

Bravigan rushed forward with a quick thrust of his blade, but the goblin sidestepped and pushed the sword away with a strike of her palm against the flat. She lunged, but he scrambled backward. A dwarf at her back rushed in. The goblin spun, set her feet. Goblins were fast, but not that fast. She didn’t behave as goblins were supposed to behave. An anomaly. She should have been dead from the wounds on her chest and abdomen. Another anomaly. But she paid them little heed as she rushed forward, grabbed hold of one of the dwarf’s hands with both of her own. He screamed and she pulled, twisted. Bone cracked. Another guard rushed in from the side, sending his sword deep into her chest. She ignored it, kept pulling. The dwarf kept screaming. Sorrows loosed an arrow.

The point struck behind her eyes. The goblin