Excerpt from Last of the Line

My editor and I are revising the final draft of the second Rahendo & Ryhunzo Mystery, Last of the Line.
The release is set for either late September or October of this year.
 
Tomar, the steward of the prince-warlord, has commissioned Rahendo and Ryhunzo to investigate the murder of a young nobleman.
Their first port of call is The Cranky Goat. The infamous tavern is the meeting place of a group of orphans living on the fringes of society.
The Stray Boys, as they call themselves, helped our sleuths solve a previous case, related in Dagger of Deception.
 

The two leaders of the Stray Boys remained silent when the pages had finished their account.

“Quite a mess,” Olno said after a while. “What do you want us to do?”

“It would be helpful if any of you had noticed something out of the ordinary today.”

Agneth looked at the other table where more Stray Boys had arrived.

“Let’s just ask,” he said, rising. He walked over to the group of orphans who had just finished cleaning the two platters of chicken wings.

From their vantage point, the pages saw a lot of gesticulating, nodding, and shaking of heads, and they heard a lot of protestations without being able to make out the exact words.

Finally, Agneth returned with a diminutive boy in tow.

“This is Demery,” Agneth introduced the boy. “Say hi to Ry and his friend, Demery.”

“Hi Ry,” Demery stammered, his face becoming beet red. “And friend of Ry,” he added even more subdued.

“By all the Gods and Goddesses,” Rahendo said, exasperated. “Another one.”

Demery blinked. He was wearing a baggy overcoat with large pockets and a leather cap with flaps that covered his ears, but that didn’t hide some strands of greasy black hair, under which shone his equally black eyes.

“Don’t just stand there, Demery,” Agneth prodded the boy. “Tell them and Olno what you saw.”

Demery’s eyes darted nervously around as if he was looking for a way to escape.

“Take a chicken wing, Demery,” Ryhunzo said, smiling encouragingly at the boy. “To calm your nerves.”

“Don’t mind if I do, m’lordship, by your leave,” the orphan replied, putting a chicken wing in his mouth. While he tried to suck off the meat, he took another one and carefully put it in his right pocket. Then a second one, which went the same way.

“I gets hungry, m’lordships,” he explained, putting the clean bones of the wing he had been sucking on delicately on the table and wiping his hands on his coat. “That’s why I keeps me meats in my, uh…”

“Right pocket?” Ryhunzo helped.

“Why yes, m’lordship. I keeps me breads in… in the right pocket on the other side. Don’t care too much for veggies.”

“Tell them already,” Agneth said.

“Ah, yes… I had just eaten a few light nibbles, and I wanted to take a nap. I swear, just a nap. Not as if I was there for any other reason. No other reason at all. You know how good grub makes you want to nap, don’t you? The trees and the bushes next to the training grounds are some of the nicest spots around for a quick shut-eye.”

“I hear it’s a very popular place,” Ryhunzo said, smiling radiantly at the boy.

“Tell them, tell them,” Lanio said, his mouth full of chicken meat. “They don’t bite.”

“Eh… Well, two guys coming into the bushes woke me, didn’t they? I was careful to lie low and not make any noise. There’s some mighty weird people in the world, you know. They didn’t notice me and they started to undress. At first, I thought… never mind what I thought. I don’t want to put your lordships off their foods, I don’t. But they only exchanged clothes and then one of them took the road to Lorseth. The other one tied their horses to a tree and sat down against another one next to the road. I was just saying to myself, ‘Demery,’ I said to mine own self, ‘you’d better find a way to leave without the one who has stayed behind noticing you,’ when three mens came riding down the road. Right ugly buggers they were too. And dangerous looking. I know dangerous, I does. They stopped right next to where I was hiding and started looking around. I nearly shat my pants, I did, beg your pardon, m’lordships, by your leave, but I really almost did, and I started praying to Murandana, Goddess of Hopeless Cases and Lost Causes. If ever there was a hopeless case, it is me. I will admit as much, for sure, and my cause seemed as lost as any cause can be. But as luck would have it, they didn’t see me, because, with the Goddess’s help, I can be so secretive as to become one with the dirt on the ground, like you wouldn’t believe.”

Oh, I do believe you, Rahendo thought. You would be invisible, lying down in the dirt.

Demery had paused to try to grab another chicken wing, but Lanio pulled the platter out of his reach.

“Finish your story,” Olno’s little brother said.

“Turned out they were looking for the guy with the horses, weren’t they? Unlike me myself, he had taken no precautions to hide himself, more the pitiful fool him. One of them recognized him and yelled to the other two, ‘There he is, get him,’ or something like that. They got off their horses and dragged the guy from the bushes. It had gone all so rapidly that he had barely had the chance to draw his sword. Pfft. It didn’t help, did it? They just knocked the thing out of his hand. It was over quickly. While one held him fast, the other two pulled his tunic over his head. A beautiful piece with bright colors. Then, before my very own innocent eyes, they cut him down, most cruelly. Most cruelly.”

Demery frowned.

“Strange thing is, they then proceeded to rob him of everything, though his shirt or boots weren’t worth shit. They took everything. Even his breeches and socks with holes in them. They rode off as if Shardoch himself was hunting them, and for all I knows he was. They left the poor guy in the middle of the road. Naked as the day he was born, but deader.”

“Did you check from nearby?” Rahendo asked.

“The Gods and Goddesses forbid, no,” Demery exclaimed, and he spat upon the floor. “Excuse me, m’lordship, but it’s very unwise to go too near the recently dead. And dead he was, for sure. That much I knows. There was nobody around, so I hauled off as fast as I could. Poor innocent Demery near a dead body would make people come to the wrong conclusions, wouldn’t it? Couldn’t risk it, now could I?”

“Do you remember the arms on the tunic?” Rahendo asked.

Demery blinked.

“Was there a picture on his tunic?” Ryhunzo clarified.

“Yes, there was, and a nice picture it was, too. It really was. Like a red peak or mountain and the upper part was green. Jolly bright colors too they was.”

“Parted per chevron, vert and gules,” Rahendo mused. “Yes, that’s the shield of the House of Durnsley, all right.”

“And the men?” Agneth asked. “Did you recognize them, or can you tell us what they looked like?”

“Never saw them ever before. I swear, I didn’t. I was too scared and busy hiding me poor little self to notice anything…” Demery frowned. “Wait… now I remember. One of them was smaller than the others, though he shouted the loudest.”

“He was giving the orders, you mean?”

“Yeah, Agneth, that’s exactly it. The little guy was giving the orders. He had a hump that made one of his shoulders higher than the other.”

“The right one or the other right one?” Rahendo inquired.

“Pardon me, m’lordship?”

“Never mind,” Rahendo said, feeling mean. “He was a hunchback, wasn’t he?”

“A hunchback he was, m’lordship.”

“Thank you, Demery,” Ryhunzo said, and he smiled generously. “That was excellent. You’ve helped us a lot.”

“Pleased to be of service, m’lordship, I’m sure I is.”

“Go sit back with the others, Demery,” Agneth said. “You’ve done well. We’re proud of you.”

Even under all the grime, it was clear Demery flushed.

“Aw, Agneth…” he mumbled, and suddenly leaned over the table. This time Lanio was too slow to prevent Demery from snatching another chicken wing.

Demery returned to his table, his bounty in his hand, and the sweet smile of triumph on his greasy lips.

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