“You will tell me the truth,” Lucien said. He dropped the insect onto the wounded man’s chest, and used the tip of his sword to slash a finger-long entry hole in Vance’s neck. The creature scuttled across blood-soaked clothing and the man’s broken fingers. It smelled the copious blood, but the leakage from the fresh wound was different. Here the creature found what it desired most: thick, rich arterial blood whose flow would soon cease.

It burrowed inside. Skin and flesh parted, tearing around the cut Lucien had already made, and soon the lump that marked the creature’s presence disappeared as it drove deeper, attaching itself to the man’s spine with barbed claws, spreading its wing stumps so that other, finer limbs could extrude from its body. They delved through flesh and found what they sought.

Vance’s throat began to rattle, his voice box agitated by the creature. “I’m going to die,” he whispered hoarsely.

Lucien smiled, and nodded. “How true,” he said. “Now . . . where is Rafe?”

“Don’t know.” The hiss was strange, inhuman, a caress of chitin on bone.

“Has he been here?”

“Yes.”

“When did he leave?”

“Yesterday.”

“Has he come back?”

“No.”

“Where is he in the town?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does he know anyone else in the town?”

“I . . .” The hiss blurred, as if confusion had set in.

“Does anyone else here know him?”

“A thief.”

“What’s his name?”

“Don’t know.”

“How do you know he’s a thief?” Lucien smiled at the man below him, because Vance’s eyes were open again now. He was fighting, that was obvious, doing his utmost to keep silent. His eyes were filled with untempered hate. It did not frighten the Monk.

“Saw his hands, he has a thief’s marks, he brought the boy to me, he . . . he . . .”

“So Rafe fled when he knew you wouldn’t help him. He must have realized you were useless. I’m going to find the boy and kill him.”

“No!”

Lucien stood and turned away from the dying man. The blood was running slower now, pooling on the floor and dripping down between boards, finding its way to the earth. With no sign of Rafe—not really any nearer at all—still he had someone else to look for. A thief. In a place like this, there would be hundreds.

“Kill you,” Vance hissed. “Going to . . .”

Lucien turned around, but the man was already on his knees, knife in his unbroken hand, arm swinging around. He buried the blade in Lucien’s stomach, slicing through, twisting it as the Red Monk stepped back, gasping. The men parted, Vance’s eyes already drooping shut from blood loss.

“Untrue,” Lucien said. And then he let his rage burst out.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12