The Wild Dead (The Bannerless Saga 2)

“If you think of anything else that might help, please let me know,” Enid said. Neeve took the implicit command and, giving the body one last look, folded the canvas back over the face. Then she crawled out from under the house and began the long walk home.

Chapter Nine • the estuary

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An Impossible Search

Teeg watched Neeve go, shading his eyes from the sun. “Outsider folk will never talk to us—if we could even find them. And assuming we did, and they agreed to talk to us, and we found who did this . . . they don’t follow our rules. They don’t care.” He said this offhand, matter of fact. Like he presumed he knew exactly what the wild folk thought.

“You ever talk to an outsider?” Enid asked casually.

He huffed. “No.”

“I have. Until we talk to them, we don’t know.”

Ella had been a healthy, cared-for woman. Someone somewhere—some form of family—loved her and would want to know what happened. Might even now be searching for her.

Teeg paused. “What—that one of them did the deed or that they even care that she was killed?”

Enid glared. Of course they cared. Someone among her people cared. And if not them, then Neeve cared. “We don’t know that they won’t talk to us. They might want to know what happened just as much as we do. Maybe we just need to walk a couple of days upriver and tell them.”

He shook his head. “We’ll never get that far.”

She refrained from telling him what a terrible attitude that was for an investigator. You couldn’t give up before you’d even started. You couldn’t assume you would never find out the truth. Instead, she offered a wry smile. “You might be surprised how far we can get. How far you ever traveled? How much of the Coast Road have you seen?”

They moved up the steps into the work house, into the shade of the roof’s overhang. Enid offered Teeg a canteen of water, and after he drank, she finished it off.

“A lot of it, I think,” he said conversationally. “Down south to the ocean. This is as far north as I’ve been. I know a lot of investigators say they want to travel the whole road, north to south, but I don’t know of anyone who’s done it. Do you?”

“Tomas did it,” she said, smiling at the memory of her mentor. “He did a lot of it before he was an investigator. He just liked traveling.” She was always telling stories about Tomas, passing along what he’d taught her. Seemed like everything useful she knew, she’d gotten from him.

“I wish I could have met him,” Teeg said. “What about you—how far have you traveled?”

“Been all the way south to Desolata,” she said. It was a brag, and she was secretly pleased that Teeg went open-mouthed with surprise. Desolata was the southernmost household listed in Coast Road records, salt harvesters living at the edge of the desert. It never rained there, and they’d never earned a banner. But somehow people stayed.

“Really?” Teeg breathed. “What was that like?”

She considered. It had been a dozen years since she’d seen the place, but she’d read up on occasional reports from travelers and traders. “It was interesting. Interesting people. Worth visiting. But I wouldn’t want to live there. It’s flat, far as the eye can see. No trees. No anything. I like being in the middle of things too much. As far as north goes, I haven’t been to Sierra yet, but I’d like to someday.” That was the northernmost household, nested in the mountains to the northeast. A handful of days’ travel from Morada, but on a different branch of the crossroads than the one they’d taken to the Estuary. Enid assumed she’d get there someday.

“That’s a lot of miles to cover.”

“Yes, but that’s part of the adventure.” The day was already half over, and she didn’t feel she had much to show for it. A name, Ella. At least it was something. “I think we should do some sparring. Maybe this evening when it’s not so hot out.”

“You really think we’ll need it?” He glanced at his staff, where he’d propped it on the stairs when they sat down.

“I think someone, somewhere nearby, violently killed a woman with a weapon. Don’t know that things will get any more dangerous than that, but we should be ready.”

“This turned grim. I didn’t expect this to turn so grim,” he said.

“No one ever does.” Enid leaned back against the work-house wall and closed her eyes. Just for a moment. If she could just not think about it all for a moment, maybe a revelation would come to her. The sooner they solved this, the sooner she could go home.

And if they never solved it?

“Hey, look,” Teeg said, touching her shoulder.

Juni was coming over from the main cottage. She had a pitcher and basket. A pretense of bringing food. Trading for gossip, more like.

“Hola,” she said, smiling. “Wondered if you might like a bite to eat. They’re just sandwich rolls.”