The Scout and the Scoundrel by Barbara Ann Wright

Author:Barbara Ann Wright [Wright, Barbara Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635559798
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2021-11-01T22:37:21+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Cortez stepped onto the slope and looked from Roni to the bodies. She followed his gaze to the corpses and spotted the similarity in three slashed throats. Devils take it, she was doomed.

But Cortez said, “Oh gods,” and sheathed his saber as he shuffled closer. “Are you all right?”

“I didn’t kill them.” Roni realized she was still holding Ernesto’s saber and dropped it, unable to stand the feel of it. She had to get her head together.

“I know that.” He gave her a long-suffering look. “You’ve got scratches on your cheeks and a big hole in one of your gloves. Are you hurt anywhere else? Where’s your cloak and pack?”

She pointed down the slope and reached for her cheeks. She hadn’t even noticed getting scratched, and the hole had to have been caused by the rock that started this whole mess. Her wrist and stomach still ached, too, and she stopped herself from touching her face when she saw that her arms were covered in Ernesto’s blood. She was shaking even harder than before, feeling colder and emptier than she’d ever felt. “No, I…I…”

Damn it. She couldn’t fall to pieces, not now. She had to think up a lie about how the Firellians and Ernesto had killed one another, especially now that Cortez had kneeled by Ernesto’s corpse.

Gods, poor Ernesto. His blood was literally and figuratively all over her hands, freezing but still tacky. She kneeled on the slope to try to wipe them clean with snow.

“Hacha killed them all, huh?”

Roni froze, her heart beating like a hammer and threatening to spring from her chest. Could she blame the Hatchet? Would that work?

But he hadn’t said the Hatchet. He’d admitted he knew the legends were based on a real person, but to know the name…

She looked up at him slowly, half expecting him to come for her, but he went from Ernesto to the Firellian bodies and started patting them down. Without a word, he clambered down the slope much easier than she ever could and came back with her pack and cloak. When he met her eyes, something in her face seemed to set him back on his heels.

He sighed and continued holding out her gear until she took it and put it on, having to tie the strings of the cloak as best she could after she’d torn them. The weight helped push back the cold a little.

“You’re a thief, not a killer,” Cortez said. “So why are you hiding Hacha’s presence from the rest of us?”

She was afraid to speak, afraid to move. One foot was already sliding a little. Maybe she should follow it, scramble down the hill and run like hell.

Straight into Hacha’s arms.

Cortez’s look wasn’t accusing, only calculating. “You don’t seem like someone who’d work willingly with a butcher. Is he threatening you? Bodily harm or blackmail? What’s he doing out here?”

Gods, was he reading her mind? No, he’d have those answers if he did. “Who are you?” she whispered. “Why were you in prison?”

He tilted his head.

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