Covenant's End - Ari Marmell Page 0,5

her ankles on the table's edge.

“What? Oh, I am not showing off!” she protested. “I just…want to make it clear to everyone here that I can take care of myself. Can't be too careful, yes?

“No, it is not the same as showing off! The idea isn't to impress people, it's to…differently…impress people. For different…Oh, shut up.”

For the next several minutes, Shins occupied herself by spinning her rapier and scabbard, balanced with one finger on the pommel, tip on the floor, just daring Olgun to say something about it. He didn't, but as she'd told him in the past, she could feel him laughing at her.

“If you don't stop that, I'm tying you to the post outside, with the horses.”

The serving girl, or owner's daughter, or whatever she was, finally appeared beside the table with flagon and plate in hand. Here, in the open, her resemblance to Robin was rather lessened. She might have shared a slender build with Shins's friend, but the ruffled skirts and braided hair were about as un-Robin as one could get.

That didn't make the prodigal thief feel any less homesick, though.

“So,” she asked just as the server made to leave, “what's with the crowd? I hardly passed anyone on the way here, and yet…”

“Oh! That is, um…” The girl earnestly studied the floor as she answered, perhaps expecting the flowers of spring to start blooming inside in an effort to escape the weather. “I really don't know if I should be spreading rumors on shift.”

“Well, I'm not on shift,” Shins explained patiently. “And it takes at least two people to spread a rumor, yes? So even though you're on shift, the rumor's not spreading on shift—or only half on shift, at most—and nobody can accuse you of anything inappropriate.”

Olgun dizzily retreated to a far corner of Shins's mind and quietly threw a fit.

As for the barkeep, after a moment of slack-jawed gawping during which she couldn't find a single word—as they were, most probably, hiding in the corner with Olgun—she finally decided either that Shins's argument was convincing, or (more likely) that it was easier just to go along than try to unknot it.

“It's the monsters,” she admitted in something of a stage whisper.

Shins's rapier stopped spinning. “Sorry, what? Say again slowly, in small words.”

“I know how it sounds,” Not-Robin said, her head bobbing like a cork in boiling water. “But that's what we've heard. The road between here and Davillon—all the roads around Davillon—are cursed or haunted with monsters!”

“Look, there's apparently been a lot of banditry lately, yes? I'm sure that's—”

For the first time, the other's face lost all uncertainty, becoming a stiff, confident mask. “We know all about the bandits,” she insisted. “Highway's lousy with them. But some travelers, some merchants, they'll chance it, you know? Robbers can't be everywhere, and some of the caravans are pretty well guarded. Many of them get through, come this far. But almost nobody's come back who tried to continue on to Davillon in the last few weeks, and those who did? Wasn't bandits who had them scared.

“So these days, travelers get this far and then start hearing the stories. Some try to keep on, and we mostly don't see them again. The others? They wait around here for a while, doing what business they can with us and with the other merchants, before risking the long road back to wherever they came from.”

“If there are monsters on the roads,” Widdershins said carefully, “why hasn't anyone dispatched any soldiers to deal with them?”

Not-Robin shrugged and headed back to her counter. “Rumor has it most of Galice's standing army's gathered at the Rannanti border,” she said over her shoulder. “As far as soldiers from Davillon?” A second shrug. “Gods know what's going on in that city. Enjoy your meal.”

Shins watched her go, then idly poked at the slabs of roast on her plate with a fork, as though trying to prod them into moving. “You don't even have a face,” she groused, “so stop looking at me with that expression.”

The tiny deity wafted a question across her mind.

“How the figs would I know? Doesn't really seem likely, though, does it? I mean, monsters haunting the highways of Galice? Come on.”

Keeping his lack-of expression utterly neutral, Olgun dragged a pair of images through his young worshipper's vision. One demonic, one fae; both truly, deeply horrible.

Any appetite Widdershins had remaining dried up and blew away like a desiccated earthworm. “I didn't say impossible, Olgun. Just not likely.”

The surge of feeling she