Page 80 of Junk Magic

But of course, it wasn’t that easy. Weres banded together in times of trouble, and the ones here wanted reassurance. They wanted to be close to their bardric, to see him rant and rave, to hear him promise death and destruction to their enemies.

And they wanted it now.

Sebastian was mobbed as soon as we reached the nearest corridor, where his people had been holding back the crowd. I guessed the plan had been to find a room somewhere and talk, but that was clearly not happening right away. And even Ulmer’s furious cursing and shoving couldn’t do anything about it.

But despite the bodyguard’s concern, I didn’t think these people had assassination in mind. They looked freaked out, with their children clasped close and their eyes wide and fearful. And Sebastian noticed.

He stopped to reassure them, standing in the middle of the milling throng, letting them close, letting them touch him, like he hadn’t almost been killed three times in the last few months. Because whatever else you could say about the man, he wasn’t a coward. Of course, he wasn’t stupid, either. He also had Ulmer and a dozen of his men watching the crowd, ready to leap on a problem at a second’s notice.

He didn’t need me.

I took the opportunity to slip away and try to locate the guards who were supposed to have been at the entrance. It wasn’t hard. They were laid out in a nearby rock-cut room, on sheets that had been spread on the floor, while several women tried to make them presentable.

Since they were in pieces, that wasn’t going well.

“Sunseeker. They’re going to want blood,” one of the women said, when I asked their clan affiliation.

Since Sunseeker was among the larger and wealthier local clans, she was probably right. I was surprised that they weren’t here already, raising hell. But we likely didn’t have long.

“Did anyone see what happened?” I asked. Because that attack couldn’t have been quiet.

But to my surprise, she shook her head. She was probably still on the right side of forty, if only just, with caramel colored skin and hair that remained long and ebony dark. She was wearing a simple outfit of jeans and a lighter denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, but climbing her inner arm was a gorgeous tattoo of a single feather in oranges and reds, and in her right ear was an elaborate beaded earring that didn’t look like you could buy it in a shop.

Red Mountain, I thought, an all Native American clan of mostly Shoshone and Paiute people, and one of the groups currently in residence. Only this woman was looking like she wished she wasn’t. They had relocated to try to avoid the war, but it had followed them here.

“No,” she told me, dusting dried blood off her hands. “We were asked to avoid the arena. Guess the local clans didn’t want us hanging out our washing in their sacred space.” She made a face. “Sacred, when it’s just used for killing.”

“Your clan doesn’t handle things that way?” I asked, because the carefully arranged challenges in the arena were nothing like the slaughter outside.

Dark eyes flashed in my direction. “No, we have this crazy habit of talking things out, rather than gutting each other.”

“You know that doesn’t always work, Sienna,” the other woman said. She was still kneeling by one of the bodies, I had no idea why. Nothing was going to make that collection of clawed remains look human again.

“Which is why there are fines and jails, not to mention jury trials with actual evidence,” her counterpart said. “Anything else is barbarism, plain and simple. We should be past that by now!”

“It’s tradition—”

Sienna had some colorful ideas for what tradition could do to itself, which she expressed at length.

“Sebastian wants what you do, but it isn’t so easy,” I said, when she finally wound down. “For trials, you need judges, an extensive court system, investigators to gather evidence—and tribal leaders willing to accept rulings on their internal affairs. And so far, they’ve been resistant—”

“Of course, they’ve been resistant, the hidebound old bastards! The well-run clans don’t think they need supervision, and the sloppy, corrupt, or power mad ones don’t want it showing them up. But what they want doesn’t matter; we need change! If this hasn’t shown that, I don’t know what would!”

“I hear you,” I repeated, because Cyrus and I had talked about this many times. “But establishing so many courts would also require raising clan dues, and it’s like pulling teeth to get them to pay up as it is. Arbitrating disputes between different clans can be done by the Clan Council, who volunteer their time. But anything more extensive—”

“So, if it’s hard, it isn’t worth doing?” she demanded.

“I didn’t say that—”

“Not to mention that just the idea of decent oversight might prevent things like this! The very idea that we could be attacked here, at Wolf’s Head itself!” She looked outraged. “This must be investigated!”

“It will be—”

“By you?” She looked me up and down with sharp dark eyes. “Accalia de Croissets, I take it? Heard you’d been adopted by Arnou. Didn’t quite believe it though.

“Didn’t think Sebastian would be that smart.”

“Smart?”

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