Blood of Mystery by Mark Anthony Page B

laughed again, louder this time. The one with the sparse red beard—the handsomest of the lot—blushed and dropped his head. However, the mustachioed one stared at Lirith, a salacious look on his sharp face, and the clean-shaven one just grinned, a cold light in his blue eyes.
    “May the starving spirits of the
morndari
consume their manhood,” Sareth hissed.
    Travis winced. He had a feeling that was another of those Mournish oaths that was better without translation. Sareth took a step toward the men, but Travis grabbed his arm.
    “Forget it, Sareth. They have guns.”
    But the Mournish man wouldn’t know what guns were. He started forward again. However, Durge moved in front of him. The knight’s visage was stern.
    “Travis is right. We are strangers here—we must not make trouble. And I know something of these guns he speaks of. They allow a man to kill another without even drawing close.”
    Sareth’s eyes blazed. “But those bastards—”
    “Mean nothing to me,” Lirith said, stepping between Durge and Sareth. “They are foolish boys, nothing more. And we still must find a place to stay. Please.
Beshala
.”
    Some of the anger left Sareth’s eyes, replaced by a softness as he gazed at Lirith. He nodded.
    Together, the four continued down the boardwalk at a steady but not too-swift pace. Travis and Durge kept Lirith and Sareth between them. Catcalls rang out as they passed the three men, but they kept their gazes fixed ahead, and soon the whistles and whoops fell behind and were gone.
    After walking two blocks, they stopped. Travis risked a glance over his shoulder, but the three men were nowhere in view. They had passed the Mine Shaft a block or so back, but he wasn’t about to retrace their steps. He turned toward the others—then frowned.
    “Where’s Lirith?”
    “She was right here,” Durge rumbled.
    Sareth pointed. “There.”
    They hurried after Lirith, who had moved a dozen paces down the boardwalk. They reached her just as she approached a wooden table covered with small blue bottles. Beside the table stood a man with frizzy gray hair, clad in a shabby suit. A painted canvas sign hung on the wall behind him:
    DR. WETTERLY’S MEDICINAL BITTERS $1
CURES MANY AND SUNDRY ACHES AND AILMENTS,
INCLUDING BUT NOT IN ANY WAY LIMITED TO
BRUISES, CORNS, CROSSED EYES,
NEURALGIA, HALITOSIS, BOILS,
DROPSY, A LAZY TEMPERAMENT,
RHEUMATISM, GOUT, MELANCHOLIA,
AND HICCOUGHS.
     
    The man in the suit spoke in a ringing voice, addressing the half dozen or so people who stood around the table as if they were a great throng, extolling the virtues of his patent medicine. Lirith picked up one of the bottles, unstopped it, and took a sniff. Her brow creased in a frown.
    The medicine seller turned to her. “If you want to do more than smell, miss, lay down your dollar and take yourself a drink. It’ll cure anything that ails you.”
    Lirith restopped the bottle and set it down. “You’re lying,” she said in a calm voice, and a murmur ran through the gathering of people.
    The man spread his arms, chuckling. “Now, miss, I can understand why you’re a skeptic. But rest assured that in this little blue bottle—”
    “Is nothing but crude grain spirits flavored with pepper and colored with burnt honey,” Lirith said, her voice sharper now. “I can sense no herbs, no oils, no tinctures—nothing that might cure even the simplest ailment. In fact, this
medicine
as you call it is little better than poison, and anyone would be a fool to drink it, let alone pay for it. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
    The people at the table snatched their silver dollars back, disgust on their faces, and hurried away. Befuddlement gave way to anger in the medicine seller’s eyes.
    “Why, you little trollop,” he growled, all traces of good humor gone. “Look what your words have done. You’ve cost me a morning’s income. And you’re going to make up for it.”
    Lirith started to step back, but before she could the man