Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [169]
“I wanted to make you suffer, so you would know how I felt … I deserved that promotion.”
Both men remained silent for a while as a banshee screamed somewhere in Caveside. Jeryd again looked down at Tryst and could see the fear in the young man’s eyes, as if that sound was a premonition.
Tryst said, “What’re you going to do with me?”
What could Jeryd do? He wasn’t a murderer. But nor did he want Marysa to find out the truth.
“Here’s what I think,” he said. “I could knife you here and now, blame it on the usual suspects. There are plenty to choose from. But I won’t do that because I, at least, have morals.” He put the knife away. “But I don’t want Marysa finding out any of this either. If she does, you’ll either be a wanted man, or a dead man.” He leaned forward to look straight into Tryst’s bloodied face. “That, I swear by.”
“Please, I beg you, just let this go, Jeryd. We can put this behind us.”
The rumel grunted a dry laugh.
Tryst continued, “What about Tuya? We know she’s the killer. We can get her locked up and we’ll be rewarded for solving the murders.”
Except there’s more to this, isn’t there, something to do with a few thousand refugees being cynically exterminated by their own rulers. And exactly how much do you know about that?
Jeryd sighed. “All right, don’t come anywhere near the Inquisition chambers for the next couple of days. When you do come back, you’ll not be working with me. If you reveal any of this mess, your dismembered body will be found in some alleyway. Are we clear on that?”
Tryst nodded eagerly, dabbing his bleeding nose with his fingers.
Jeryd turned away, headed off down the snow-plagued street.
Jeryd stood looking over the city walls to the refugee settlement, the hundreds of campfires looking hopeless and suffocated by the encroaching night. Streams of smoke wafted from between tents. The barking dogs echoed endlessly across the tundra. There were said to be nearly ten thousand refugees huddled down there, in that expanse between the city walls and the beach. The very spirit of the hell they lived in seemed to rise above like a depressive cloud.
He wondered for a moment if the stories he’d heard were true: that the refugees had taken to eating their dogs and cats, and in some taverns a rumor broke out that they had taken to cannibalism, consuming those already dead from disease or starvation. Jeryd knew the Council were the ones manufacturing such talk, being the only ones allowed to distribute the news pamphlets. The gates of Villjamur now separated those who struggled to get on with death from those who struggled to get on with life. The only thing they had in common was struggle.
Jeryd was going to leave Villjamur as soon as he could. Of that he was certain. Life was too short to waste it in a city whose government would stoop to slaughtering its own. He had enough money to risk uprooting to another city of the Empire, somewhere much quieter. Perhaps on Southfjords, or maybe he could even strike a deal with the cultists and build a cottage on Ysla with its milder climate. Whichever way, his disgust with this city, and himself, meant he had to get out of here. With Marysa, of course. Because he loved her, and that was all that mattered. You went through life working so hard and acquiring all the things that you were meant to. Now some way down that journey, perhaps even too late, Jeryd realized he should have gone in some other direction.
He regarded the clustered refugees once again. How exactly did Urtica intend to kill them all? More importantly, could Jeryd stop it from happening?
Footsteps approached along the top of the stone wall—the figure of Investigator Fulcrom. The wind picked up, racing across the tundra and blasting directly into his face, and it brought him to some new state of alertness. Despite his thick rumel skin, he shivered, drew his cloak tighter around him.
“Jeryd, you’ve not looked yourself these past few days, and I’m getting worried about you.” It was unusual these days for anyone in Villjamur, let alone another rumel, to show such concern, but he