Strange New Words: Tales of Heroism, Hi-jinks, and Horror by Ari Marmell

Author:Ari Marmell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: urban fantasy, horror, fantasy, short stories, sword and sorcery, dark fantasy, cyberpunk, fae, fey

“Let me through, gods damn it! I said let me pass!”

Broad shoulders and sharp elbows allowed the sheriff to force his way through the early morning street, growing ever more packed by the instant, outside the home of Dellan the butcher. Moncel had once, in his younger years, visited a border town in the days immediately preceding one of Baronet Vouncier’s sporadic invasions. The tension he felt in the air now, in his own tiny Lincaster, felt very much the same: dark, fearful, expectant, growing ever angrier. Overheard mutters had the ring of threat, and every glance carried the weight of suspicion and even hate.

Ignoring those mutters, those gazes, and the occasional catcall or wild accusation, he finally squeezed through the human barrier and crossed the threshold of the house. Nodding once to the men within, who appeared on the verge of seeing their breakfasts for a second time, he tromped across the main room and into the bedchamber beyond.

Or at least into what had once been a bedchamber. Now it more closely resembled the butcher’s place of business rather than his home.

His nose wrinkled at the stench, and he blinked rapidly to clear the sudden watering from his eyes. Never in Moncel’s life had he seen so much blood. It streaked the walls, forming patterns that the mind couldn’t quite grasp. It pooled in tiny hollows and cracks along the floor, stained the sheets and the mattress, even dripped sporadically from the ceiling. What lay upon that mattress, all that remained of Dellan and Tabitha, could no longer be called “bodies.” It was meat, that was all; heaps of meat, waiting to be boned and packaged for sale. And lying in the midst of it, more blood caking not only the blade but clinging in gobbets to the handle as well, lay a Reaver broadsword.

Only the presence of the men in the next room, for whom he knew he must set a competent and professional example, kept Moncel from vomiting all over the gore-drenched floor.

He heard the scuff of a boot on wood and spun to see Jerral, pale and shaking, in the door behind him. “An ugly business,” Moncel said to him, struggling to maintain his own mask of implacability.

“Good gods...” Jerral advanced tentatively, as though afraid of getting blood on his feet. “Looks like Caerlan was right, Sheriff. We ought’ve burned that damned boat when it first showed up. Now—”

“Now,” Moncel interrupted, “we look for a murderer. Just like we would if this had happened on any other day.”

“But, Sheriff, look at the sword! And people are saying—”

“I couldn’t care less what people are saying, Jerral, and you shouldn’t either. And that sword,” he added, thinking back to the shapes he’d seen fleeing the vessel, “could have been stolen off that damned ship, couldn’t it?”

“Right. Luck convincing anyone of that, Sheriff. Hain’t you been listening out there? There’s not a soul on that street that don’t believe you and M’lady caused this by refusing to let Father Caerlan burn that ship.

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