1 Thraxas & 2 Thraxas and the Warrior Monks by Martin Scott

Author:Martin Scott
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

After I finish my venison pie, I load up with a few of Tanrose’s pastries and buy another beer to take upstairs.

“You’re drinking too much,” says Tanrose.

“Needed a hobby after my wife left.”

“You took it up as a hobby long before that.”

I can’t deny it.

I have two rooms at the Avenging Axe, one for sleeping and one for working. The workroom has an outside door with steps down to the street outside so clients can visit without coming up through the tavern. I’m planning to sleep the afternoon away but before I can settle down a frantic banging comes at the door. I open it and a young man rushes in, bouncing off me and ending up in the middle of the room looking scared and confused.

“They’re going to hang me!” he cries. “Don’t let them do it!”

“What? Who?”

“I didn’t kill him! It’s a lie! Help me!”

I glare at him. My rooms are in their usual mess and he’s not helping any. He’s in a real state and for a long time I can’t make head nor tail of what he’s saying. Eventually I have to fling him in a chair and tell him to start talking sense or get the hell out of my office. He quietens down, but keeps glancing anxiously at the door, as if he’s expecting his pursuers to burst in any second.

I walk over to the door and mutter the few short sentences that make up the standard locking spell. It’s a common minor spell and you don’t have to be particularly skilled in magic to perform it, but the young man seems reassured.

“Now, tell me what’s going on. I’m too hot to stand around guessing. Who are you, who’s after you, and why?”

“The Guards! They say I killed Drantaax!”

“Drantaax? The sculptor?”

He nods.

Drantaax is a well-known man in Turai. Best sculptor in town. One of the best anywhere. Well respected for his work, even by the aristocracy, who generally look down on artisans. His statues decorate many of Turai’s temples, and even the Royal Palace.

“Drantaax was murdered last night. But I didn’t do it!”

“Why would anybody think you did? And who are you anyway?”

“I’m Grosex, Drantaax’s apprentice. I was working with him last night. We’re busy finishing off the new statue of Saint Quatinius for the Shrine. We’ve been working on it for days … but now he’s dead. He was stabbed in the back.”

“Where were you at the time?”

He was next door. He came through to the workroom and found Drantaax lying dead with a knife in his back. Then Drantaax’s wife Calia arrived and starting screaming.

“Calia called the Guard. All the time she was shouting at me, saying I’d stabbed him. But I didn’t.”

He hangs his head. He’s running on nervous energy and it’s making him ill. I offer him a thazis stick. Thazis, a mild narcotic, is still illegal but everyone uses it—well, everyone in Twelve Seas anyway. As he inhales the smoke his features relax.

I demand more details. I frown when I learn that instead of waiting for the Guards he fled the scene.

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