Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [22]
"A… a man… I think, riding a dark horse." "Did you see him?" asked Tobald. "No… I mean, I don't even know if it was a man. It could have been anyone. The person was all bundled up." "And what time was this?" asked Doctor Braum. "Between midnight and one."
"How long has Dovo been dead, doctor?" said Benelaius.
"Your best estimate."
Doctor Braum knelt by the corpse, muttering. "Easier to say when the head's attached…" He pressed the dead flesh, then rolled the body over. All of us gasped-even Flim and his Dragons gave a quick breath-when we saw Dovo's mutilated hand. "There's where those fingers came from, Benelaius," said Braum, "as if we couldn't have guessed." Braum poked and prodded a little more, then said, "Roughly, between ten and twelve hours."
"That fits," I said. "That rider could have been the killer." I felt suddenly faint as I realized how close I might have come to death. What had there been to prevent the killer from hewing me in two as well, except, of course, that he had left the axe with his victim? I would have sat down had there been any place where my buttocks wouldn't have sunk into muck.
"Think, Jasper," Tobald urged. "Wasn't there anything about this person you can recall? Was it a skilled or an unskilled rider? Did they sit as if they were dwarven or elven or human? Male or female? Can't you recall even that? Man or woman?"
As if destined, a hail came from up on the road. We turned to look and saw the womanly vision that had entered the Bold Bard the previous night. Kendra was straddling a dark gray horse. A heavy hooded cloak enveloped her completely, so that, had I not seen her face, I could not have told whether she was a male or a female rider.
That thought at that time gave me pause. But I did see her face, framed by that halo of red hair, and it looked down with cold eyes on the scene of slaughter. She dismounted with the grace of one born in the saddle, adjusted her cloak so that the hilts of her weapons preceded her, and walked toward our merry band.
When she was close enough to see the features on the face of the severed head, she examined it appraisingly, looked at the axe and the torso in armor, and then nodded. "I see that fool at the tavern last night has been even more foolish. So this is the ghost that's been haunting the Vast Swamp, eh? It seems someone wasn't amused by the joke."
She had put it together quickly, too quickly for Captain Flim's taste. "How did you know he was posing as the ghost?"
She gave a half-laugh. "It's obvious, isn't it? Even to a Purple Dragon captain."
The comment did not endear her to Flim. "You're Kendra, aren't you? I've heard about you. You're the adventuress who held a dagger to this lad's throat last night!"
"Aye," she answered, "and would have used it, too, and gladly." She glared back down at both parts of the corpse. "He was a pig and a fool, and I for one am not sorry to see such men die."
"Nor would you be sorry to kill them?" Captain Flim said.
"A knife's my weapon, Captain, not an axe."
"So where were you last night after you left the tavern?"
She looked at Flim indignantly. "Are you accusing me, Captain? Do you wish to arrest me?"
"I'm just asking, madam!"
"Very well then, I'll tell you. I left the tavern after only a few drinks, rode my horse to a place south of town, and there, among a copse of trees, I slept through the night."
"And then?" pursued the captain.
"I got up."
"To what purpose?"
"To the purpose of adventuring. That's what I do. You're a soldier, you soldier. I'm an adventuress, I adventure. Whee."
I glanced at Benelaius to see if he might try to direct the conversation more efficiently, but he was merely smiling and seeming to enjoy the exchange. That's what comes of not getting out more.
"Then where are you bound now?" said Captain Flim.
"To the Vast Swamp. If you must know, I'm looking