NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 2: One Cold Trail)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: KESLA

It's been a while, certainly. I take a moment to readjust the lie of my shirt and jack, rolling my shoulders as I do so in the hope that it might temper the acute, warm sting of the pressure on my tender back, but it doesn't make any discernible difference at all. Frowning, I take another moment to fiddle with my rolled-up sleeves, tightening what I can here and there. I think about the fact that my bracers feel a little strange laced tight around my naked wrists now instead of gently-worn linen, since it's been a while since I've worn them like this, but it doesn't work as intended to get my mind off the discomfort. It has been a while, then, since I've clearly forgotten how much of an irritation wearing clothes got after my last ink.

Shay's finding it an interesting learning experience, I see. She keeps rolling her own shoulder, even though she's just got her shirt to concern herself with and it's only one arm so she can just keep adjusting it until she possibly finds something that works ... although probably not. I've noticed her casting complicated looks my way more than once since we left the shop, I think they might be well-hidden recrimination, but so far she's kept her tongue about it, at least. In my current mood I'm not really sure how tolerant I'm actually feeling myself.

Once we'd dealt with the business of our new communications from Darwyn, I suggested to Gael that it might be smart that, after he'd come up with a good spot for us to spring our trap, Art should maybe talk to Big Man, see if he'd spotted any more surveillance. Gods know there was no way anybody'd manage to pull the wool over his eyes without him knowing, he probably already knew everything that was going on inside the shop too. A few minutes later Gael came back to inform me that so far as any of 'em could tell we'd been lucky, but that if that were to suddenly change he'd do the same thing I'd suggested for any other problems. Since the place didn't suddenly shake from three or four great, rapid resounding impacts in our remaining time I wasn't at all surprised to hear that nothing had changed when we finally emerged again.

After that, of course, I picked the conversation back up with Kurnev, trying a different track now we know he knows our elusive orcish "friend". Like if on those few occasions he'd seen him in the Late Bone, he'd maybe seen him with anyone else of note. Turns out that had been the right train of thought, because while most of the descriptions we got didn't sound like anything particularly special, it turned out that the last time he'd seen young Granzun was in the company of a particularly pale young redheaded woman. She creeped the holy hell out of him, apparently ...

Vandryss. Sounds about right. Since she was the one hired the thugs it makes sense she'd be the go-between for whatever else. Now the question remains whether that means that Granzun's simply another stooge-for-hire like the rest or if he's actually genuinely involved. I'm hoping, if we can somehow get our hands on him, maybe we can get to the bottom of this through him, but if we could somehow find her through him too, well, that's far too good an opportunity to pass up.

There wasn't much else Kurnev could tell us beyond that. Apparently he'd been going to the Late Bone for several years now, and it changed ownership a few times in that time, lately to an old former ship captain called Jammund. He actually said that he used to be a wily old merchantman, but the way he talked about him convinced me the man definitely can't have been much on the up-and-up, so he's either a smuggler or worse. Given pirates rarely live long enough or rich enough to retire to this kind of lifestyle I'm willing to bet it's the former.

From what I was able to learn about him, this Jammund's a pretty easy-going bloke all round, pretty relaxed with the rules in his bar and doesn't tend to be too heavy-handed with punishments if anyone ever does actively transgress. Mostly if there are fights or damages culprits tend to get turned out on their ear, and I'm told he has an impressive staff of muscle to enforce that, so most of the time problems are warded off largely before they've even arisen. Transgressors invariably get barred, although the length of that particular sentence depends on how bad they fucked up, and there've only been two occasions when something so bad happened the culprits were barred for life. The big rule is no naked blades in the establishment – you can go in armed, but anyone draws it's an automatic booting. Altogether I imagine this actually makes for one o' the safest taverns in the whole Untermer dockside, which is one hell of an impressive feat all round, you ask me. I can see why Kurnev's so happy to keep it as his local.