Where Madness Roosts by Darrell Drake

Author:Darrell Drake
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Fantasy Romance, Sword and sorcery
Publisher: Darrell Drake
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

The Bitterest Resin

Somewhere, some god of morbid satisfaction watched favorably over her. She had worked diligently to further his influence. Vertebrae gave way; the Cafatias folded in half and were crammed into the nook. Almi followed them in by way of momentum, tumbling in head over heels. She laid there in that uncomfortable landing—head crooked between her shoulder and the floor, boots hanging at the bottom of her vision, a breath snatched in her throat, and waited.

“You just like to see me squirm,” said Danica.

“There’s that, yes.”

The woman chuckled and let out a long sigh. “What happened to us? We used to be such chums.”

“Time,” answered Rigald after a pause that illustrated very clearly his trouble with the topic. “Time happened.”

“Time,” Danica agreed at length. “What I wouldn’t give for a return to the days of our youth.”

They passed her then. And when Danica looked her way with those bulbous black spider eyes, Almi’s heart lurched into her throat. It pumped with all the adrenaline of fear and excitement. Hand on fork, she prepared to defend herself. But the spider-headed woman continued on as though she’d seen nothing.

“She had eyes for you,” said Merill. “She had them so square on you.”

“She had them for me,” agreed Almi. She found herself equally perplexed. It could have been explained away by blindness or inebriation, but even the twins knew that was unlikely. Danica had clearly spotted her. “A trickster, that one. I’ll bet she wants us in her web.”

That made sense to them. Danica had ignored her as part of some elaborate plan. They reckoned her scheme did not involve dying, though; everything was not going to go according to plan for the many-eyed woman.

Almi did not move from her position until she heard the do-gooders part. Cautiously, she righted herself and, fork ready, inspected both exits. There were no lurkers lying in wait. Only Rigald remained, and he was heading her way once more. Almi chewed her bottom lip: to kill now or later.

When the portly man—whose head resembled a bloated crawdad’s with more antennae than she’d ever seen on the creatures—stopped one door shy of Julianos’s, she had her answer. Almi moved in a flash.

Unlike the ursine encounter, this one went swift and precise. She covered the ground between her and her target like a trained assassin, which is exactly what she was. In the time it took Rigald to reach into the pocket of his voluminous coat, she was behind him. Then, with muscles fine-tuned by experience, she snatched the collar of his robe and skewered it to the base of his skull. All at once, Rigald collapsed. There was no death cry, no final plea, no last swipe. He just fell.

Almi had the wherewithal to shuffle back and avoid being caught in his descent. Generally, she would have pulled her weapon out immediately, but the robe would help prevent blood from spreading for a short time. And he looked heavy. Almi scowled at his repulsively crawdad head.

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