Bitter Gold Hearts by Glen Cook

relations stuck with. But he persisted.
    Karenta is a kingdom at war. You’d expect some sort of watch to be kept on the entrepots to one of its most important cities, in case some enterprising Venageti com­mander decided to try something imaginative. But the war has been going on since my generation were kids, seldom spilling out of the Cantard and the adjoining seas. Any guards who were awake when I left were too busy playing cards to step out and check my bona fides. But our lords from the Hill want the ordinary folk to seethe with fervor against the enemy.
    It’s a lot easier to seethe against Raver Styx and her ilk. They profit no matter how the fighting goes. I used the route Saucer head and Amiranda had fol­lowed. The moon was now full. The team didn’t mind night travel, even with me at the traces. And the nation of horses has been out to get me ever since I can remember. It was a smooth, quiet ride with very little to see. The only traffic I encountered was the night coach from Derry, half an hour ahead of schedule and just lumping along with its two or three somnolent passengers and load of mail. Guard and driver tossed me friendly greetings, which showed how worried they were about the night. I suppose, theoretically, that I should have had one hand on a silver blade at all times. There was a full moon. But there hadn’t been a confirmed wolfman inci­dent this close to the city since before I went into the Marines.
    Once I did unravel a murder that had been dressed up to look like a wolfman’s work. It’s a hell of a way to make sure your old man doesn’t get the chance to write you out of the will. I reached the dire crossroad about the same time Saucer head had. I gave it a look around as it stood, considering the fact that there was more moon than there had been that night. I didn’t see or get a feel for any­thing, so I loosened the horses’ harnesses, made sure they couldn’t run off, climbed onto the buggy’s seat, and napped. I did a good job of snoozing, too. I thought first light would waken me, but the honor went to a ten-year-old who shook my shoulder and asked, “Are you all right, mister?”
    I counted my hands and feet and purse and discovered that I hadn’t been murdered, mutilated, or robbed. “I am indeed, son. Except maybe for a case of premature senility.”
    He looked at me funny and asked a few kidlike ques­tions. I tried giving reasonable answers and asked him a few in turn. He was on his way somewhere to help somebody with farm chores, but he let me buy him breakfast. Which goes to show how tame it really is around TunFaire these days, for all we city people put down the country. No city boy would have risked hang­ing around with a stranger. The real monsters of today live in the city’s shadows and cellars and drawing rooms.
    He didn’t tell me one thing even remotely useful. Acting on the premise that it is never wise to put temptation into the path of an honest man, I led my team into the woods opposite the area I intended to explore. I made sure the beasts wouldn’t have the pleasure of de­serting me, returned to the diamond, and checked to make sure they and the rig were invisible, then went across and started looking through the bushes. It wasn’t hard to find where the dead and wounded had been thrown into hurried concealment. The brush was torn and trampled. The corpses had been cleared away but their drippings had been ignored, at least by the cleanup crew. The flies and ants had come and gone. The bloodstains were now the province of a gray-black, whisk­ery mold that described perfectly every spot and spill. Which didn’t tell me anything except that a lot of people had done a lot of bleeding.
    My woodcraft was no longer what it had been in my Marine days, but it took no forest genius to follow either of the trails leading deeper into the woods. The first I tried split after about a third of a mile, heavy traffic having turned eastward suddenly. It looked