Fireborn Law

Pandeena found a cottage exactly where Samuel had said, but, looking at it, she was certain it could not possibly be Caimbeul's. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. The place was little more than a rundown shack built out of cast off slatboards. One of the posts on the porch had rotted away, causing the roof to droop. The sight of it gave her stomach an odd flutter, remembering how Caimbeul had once disparaged wolves who lived like this. The boards creaked as she mounted the steps and crossed the porch. She knocked on the door.

"Caimbeul?"

"Go away." The voice from inside the shack carried an edge of irritation marred further by slurring. "I don't talk to anyone."

Pandeena frowned. This did not sound like the Caimbeul she remembered. "I need you."

"Go away!"

She turned the knob and stepped inside. The interior shocked her worse than the exterior had. The Caimbeul she had known years ago had been clean and tidy, everything had a place, and he wanted everything kept in its place. A king's ransom in empty beer and whiskey bottles lay scattered over the dirt floor of the one room shack. The acrid scent of rotted food drew Pandeena's attention to the square table shoved in a corner, stacked high with filthy plates and pans whose odorous contents would not bear close inspection. A dozen empty mead kegs with their sides busted in stood silent witness to a recent fit of drunken rage.

"What do you want, Pandeena?"

Caimbeul's surly voice drew her gaze to a corner. The huge, grizzled wolf, nearly completely gray, lay on the floor with a bottle in his hand, and whiskey dribbling down his unshaven chin. He had developed a paunch. The tremendous biceps and muscular chest she had so admired had turned to flab. Caimbeul had finally gotten old; and he had not aged gracefully. Only the craggy features, now lined and weathered, remained to suggest he had ever been handsome.

"I need a lawgiver." Pandeena kicked bottles out of her path and stepped further into the messy cottage.

"I'm retired."

"Are you, old lecher? I say you're sulking." Pandeena scanned the room again, trying not to stare at him. He had changed so much that she wondered if this had turned into a fool's errand.

"Go away, Pandeena. I've had enough aggravation." Caimbeul pushed into a sitting position and leaned his back against the wall. He took another swig from his bottle of whiskey and glared at her.

A faint frown drew lines across Pandeena's forehead. "Seems to me the only aggravation you've got comes out of a bottle."

"Oh for gods' sake, Pandeena. Let me be."

"I need a lawgiver and the best."

Caimbeul threw the bottle at her, sending a spray of whiskey across the room. "Get out."

Pandeena caught the bottle, looked at it, and saw there was some left. She wiped it off and drank it. "You're the best, Caimbeul."

"I'm old. I don't do it anymore." Caimbeul snatched up two empty bottles and threw them in a determined effort to hit her.

Pandeena side-stepped the missiles and the sound of shattering glass told her they had struck the wall behind her. "The Butchering Serpent is in Wolffgard."

"The hell you say." He stopped short with another two empties in his grasp. "Look at you… a fresh face girl of eighteen for the rest of your life." Caimbeul smashed the bottle he was holding against the wall. "Where were you when I needed you?"

"You knew what I was when you married me."

"And you knew what I was when you divorced me."

"A lecherous old sot with no concern for my feelings."

Caimbeul flinched. "I loved you."

"Is that why I was always hauling your ass out of whorehouses when you went to Waejontor?" Her lips compressed into a tight line of annoyance.

Caimbeul averted his eyes from her cool, blue gaze, and changed the subject. "What's this about the Serpent?"

Pandeena folded her arms and stared at him for a moment before answering. "Are you really interested? Or just trying to avoid an argument?"

"Cut the crap. What's this about the Serpent?"

"Do you even know who he is? For all I know you've been too drunk to notice anything for the past twenty years. Or longer."

"I heard about it. Okay? Sixteen years ago, the Assassins' Guild tipped off a Battle-Clan that someone was kidnapping city wolves and murdering them wholesale. It was a lurid tale. Vivisections. Toxin testing. Mass graves."

"Would Fireborn Law like to take a shot at bringing him down?"

Caimbeul winced. "Don't call me that. Fireborn Law died in Skeleton Creek… when they killed my son."

"Our son."

"You wouldn't know he was yours… way you were never home."

"I loved him."

"You barely knew him." Caimbeul snorted. "I raised him alone."

"Not totally." Pandeena glanced away. "Look, I'll stop bringing up the past, if you will."

"So, back to the Serpent."

"Someone murdered the lawgiver… well, tried to. Nikko Softpaws is with my mother. We don't know if he's going to live or not. He's in bad shape. His people think he's dead and it's best left that way."

"He tell you the Serpent attacked him?"

"No. Trauma wiped his memory. The only thing he knows is his name."

"Then how do you know it's the Serpent?"

Pandeena almost smiled. She could hear the quickening of interest in Caimbeul's voice. "It's a long story. Can I sit down?"

"The floor don't mind."

She cleared a space on the floor and settled cross-legged. "Nikko was shot with a special blend of Devil's Silver that only the Serpent is known to use. I decided to look into it. When I got to Hell's Widow, Amos Raggat told me that Wolffgard's priest had died."

Caimbeul's eyes got that old familiar steel in them, and Pandeena knew that this was not a fool's errand after all. "Priest and lawgiver both?" He scratched at the stubble on his chin. "Sa'necari always send someone in to kill the priest and the lawgiver as a prelude to invasion."

"You taught me that."

"You learned something. Go on."

"Claw Redhand sent his best courier to fetch a priest from Shaurone. Cullen Blackwood."

"How is Cullen? I haven't seen him in years."

"Dead. Sa'necari butchered him. I suspect it happened in Hell's Widow."

"Damn." Caimbeul's hands clenched into fists, his mouth tightened, and his gaze roved the roof beams. "I used to win… a lot betting on him. He could ride like Death over a battlefield. Cullen was a prick… and a slut… but he had a good heart."

Pandeena flicked a strand of golden hair out of her face. "I know. I didn't like him at first. He got on my nerves. I'm the one found his body. Kynyr Maguire asked me to scry for it… so we could bring his remains home. They'd dumped him into a shallow grave outside Hell's Widow. That's why I think he died there. Cullen was given a proper burial and lies behind my shrine in Wolffgard."

"You think the Serpent did it?"

"I'm certain he did. According to Kynyr, one of the sluts from the Crimson Lady witnessed the murder. A mon in a serpent mask killed Cullen."

"Anyone can wear a mask, Pandeena."

"Put it together, lawgiver. Mask, signature poisons, signature arrows. It's him."

Caimbeul sucked in a deep breath, a calculating look came in his eyes, his manner focused and steadied. "I don't own a horse. Only clothes I got is what I'm wearing. I'm not presentable."

Pandeena eyed him for a second, trying to decide whether his statement was the beginnings of an excuse or a true suggestion of need. "Clothes and a horse… I can provide them. Does this mean you'll come?"

"Count me in."

GODWAR CENTRAL

Fireborn Law