The Eternal Autumn by Cassandra Duffy

Author:Cassandra Duffy [Duffy, Cassandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Day Moon Press
Published: 2013-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Unsavory

Sofea drank until her head swam. She ate until her stomach hurt. She watched River tell and retell the tale of their victory with hungry eyes and a sullen heart. River was small again and would remain so until the moon changed. There were things Sofea wanted to do with River, not all of them sexual, that she didn’t want to have to wait a month to do. On top of all that, her mug was empty. She lifted the empty mug for the third time to confirm this odious fact.

The interior of the Wooden Well Inn was abuzz with activity. Many of the merchants who’d holed up there were immediately making plans to escape north. Even merchants coming down from Griffon’s Rock planned to return to the city simply to escape Tangle Town. Sofea had already agreed on terms with several of them to seek out Sven and Willard upon arrival to tell them all that had transpired.

Wendy, Sofea, and River could take to the road again as soon as Sofea sobered up. The town would supply them out of sheer gratitude even though the road to the south was still blocked by bandits and the town still crawled with assassins. Sofea’s musings were cut short when Wendy sat beside her.

“Notice anything odd with the whole town out to celebrate us?” Wendy asked, sipping at a goblet of wine.

“Yep, this town is a fairly unattractive lot,” Sofea said.

“Notice something more important,” Wendy ordered.

“I’m too drunk to play games,” Sofea grumbled. “Tell me what I’m meant to notice or go away.”

“Change your tone with me,” Wendy said icily.

“Why? It’s the tone you use with me,” Sofea argued.

A gruesome smile slid across Wendy’s thin lips. “I like your spine.” To emphasize the statement, Wendy ran one of her cool, slender fingers up Sofea’s back, causing her to shiver.

“Every conversation we have ends with me feeling messed with by you,” Sofea said.

“Probably because I’m messing with you. Don’t worry—I don’t plan to stop,” Wendy said. “If you weren’t drunk and surly you would notice that there are no young men in the town.”

Sofea glanced around, certain Wendy was talking nonsense. She spotted young men, but they were all foreigners attached to quickly departing merchants. The townsmen were all older, berry stained, farmer folk with graying hair and slouched shoulders. The youngest she saw was fifty at best. There were a few young women, but not nearly enough for the town’s size.

“Tell me what that means now that I’ve noticed it,” Sofea said, lifting her empty tankard to her mouth. “Why in the blazes is this still empty?”

“We killed off their young men last night,” Wendy said. “About half of them, anyway.”

“That’s sounds like something we’d do.” Sofea grabbed one of the barmaids as she passed. The woman was heavyset and round in every possible way with curls of mousy brown hair popping out from beneath the floral, blue bonnet she wore. The woman tittered at being grabbed by Sofea.

“Need another drink, sweetheart?” the barmaid asked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.