Read Online Future Indefinite by Dave Duncan - Free Book Online

like…What’s wrong?”
    He was so stupid that she wanted to grab his stringy neck and shake him. She tried to scream and her throat produced only a whisper. “Nothing’s wrong, Piol. Nothing’s wrong at all! I’d love to meet D’ward again!”
    And I will tear his lungs out and make him eat them and then there will be even less wrong than there is now. It’s all his fault that I work here as a harlot in a brothel.

III
    Rise up and get ye forth from among my people.
    The Pentateuch: Exodus XII 31

7
    All morning, Dosh Coachman had been enjoying a leisurely ride across Joalvale. He arrived at Jilvenby around noon. The moa could have made the journey faster, but he had not pushed her, for he was not worried about pursuit. Yesterday’s little episode would not have been discovered for hours, and who then could have known that the murderer had headed east? Kraanard had been a soldier, certainly, but even if he have been acting in an official capacity, his superiors would need time to organize a pursuit. His brethren in the Eltiana cult would be equally eager to peg out the culprit’s hide, but they might not hear the news for days, so Dosh had every reason to believe he was free and clear. His life to date had been a hard one. He deserved some good fortune, and now he had earned it with quick wits and the foresight to imprint a moa.
    Jilvenby was an unprepossessing hamlet, much what he had expected—a cluster of adobe hovels and waving palm trees set in the middle of farmland. Its inhabitants could be assumed to be honest, hardworking, impoverished, and dull as mud. The only good thing that might be said about the place was that it had a spectacular backdrop of jagged mountains already topped with the first snows of winter, but the same could be said of almost anywhere in the Vales.
    The problem would be to locate D’ward. That would not be difficult in a place so small, except that he must be living under a false name—obviously that was why Kraanard had needed a witness to identify him. A man who had the god of death as his sworn foe could not survive for long otherwise. He might have been hiding out in this pigpen for years, earning his bread with honest sweat—horrible thought! Rural yokels did not take kindly to strangers, but that difficulty cut both ways. If D’ward had won some sort of acceptance from the locals, they would be even more suspicious of another foreigner asking questions about him. Silver would usually loosen tongues.
    The village stood on the far side of a small river. As Swift waded across the ford, Dosh noted a peasant eating his lunch in the shade of some parasol trees. The evidence lying around this stalwart yeoman indicated he had been repairing a rail fence. Common prudence suggested that Dosh interrogate him before venturing into Jilvenby itself.
    He rode over and bade Swift crouch. He slid gratefully from the saddle and hobbled her by tying the reins around one of her hocks. Taking his lunch from the saddlebag, he strolled over to the native, affecting the aloof bearing of a man rich enough to own a moa.
    “Care for some company this fine day, my good man?”
    The good man in question was a grizzled, overweight specimen wearing a loincloth and a surly expression. He was hairy and none too clean. Taking another bite from a hunk of bread, he continued to chew in relative silence.
    Prepared to be patient with the bumpkin, Dosh chose a patch of shady moss on his upwind side and settled down with relief. A moa was a comfortable ride, but he was not accustomed to long journeys and had sprouted blisters. He unwrapped his bundle, selected a slice of sausage, and began to eat, admiring the fall sunshine much more now that he was not exposed to it. This part of Joalwall looked higher than he had expected, leaping from the narrow green foothills in shards of dark rock and sparkling snow. The frondy trees swayed in lazy dance. Swift hobbled around, crunching grass in its big teeth.
    “You’re