RAYMOND E. FEIST & JOEL ROSENBERG
Murder in LaMut
Book Two of Legends of the Riftwar
HarperVoyager
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
First published in Great Britain by Voyager 2002
Copyright © Raymond E. Feist & Joel Rosenberg 2002
Raymond E. Feist & Joel Rosenberg assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006483892
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780007383207
Version: 2014–07–15
For Fritz Lieber & Donald E. Westlake
Table of Contents
Chapter Thirteen: Investigation
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT.
That was fine with Durine.
Not that the goddess Killian, whose province was the weather, was asking his opinion. Nor were any of the other gods – or any mortals – for that matter.
In more than twenty years of a soldier’s life, both fealty-bound and mercenary – as well as during the dimly-remembered time before he took blade and bow in hand – few of those in charge of anything had asked Durine’s opinions before making their decisions.
And that was fine with him, too. The good thing about a soldier’s life was that you could concentrate on the small but important decisions, like where to put the point of your sword next, and leave the big decisions to others.
Anyway, there was no point in objecting: complaining didn’t make it any warmer, griping didn’t stop the sleet from pelting down, bitching didn’t stop the ice from clinging to his increasingly heavy sailcloth overcoat as he made his way, half-blinded, down the muddy street.
Mud.
Mud seemed to go with LaMut the way salt seemed to go with fish.
But that was just fine with Durine, too. Wading through this half-frozen mud was just part of the trade, and at least here and now it was just this vile slush, not the hideous sort of mud made from soil mixing with dying men’s blood and shit. Now, the sight and particularly the smell of that kind of mud could make even Durine gag, and he had seen more than enough of it in his time.
What wasn’t fine with him was the