There were few in Greenharbour who would lament the death of Ronan Dell.

In Elezaar's opinion, his master and the High Prince shared a passion for perversion and for other people's pain rather than any great affection for each other. Elezaar's master, Ronan Dell, was one of the High Prince's closest friends-assuming you could call their bizarre, often volatile relationship 'friendship'. Not that the attack was entirely unexpected. This was no subtle assassination, the dwarf decided in a conscious effort to block the memories. He'd listened to their screams, night after night, playing his lyre with desperate determination he provided the background music to their torment, shutting out their cries for mercy. Elezaar had lost count of the number of girls like her he had seen led into this opulently decorated chamber of horrors. The master liked them like that-young, nubile and terrified. She was only twelve or thirteen her slender, broken body in the first bloom of womanhood. She was so new to the household Elezaar hadn't even had time to learn her name. On the floor at his feet lay another body. His master's corpse lay across the blood-soaked silken sheets, his head almost severed by the savage blow which had ended his life. Still trembling at the narrowness of his escape, Elezaar moved the curtain a fraction and looked into the room. Maybe the swords of his master's killers had opened a vein somewhere and the stench came from the moral decay that seeped from the very walls of this house and permeated everything it touched. Or perhaps it wasn't the nearby bay Elezaar could smell. The faint, fishy smell of the harbour lingered on the wind, rank and uninviting. He'd just witnessed a murder.Ī slight, humid breeze ruffled the curtain in the alcove where the dwarf was hiding, the tiled floors of the mansion echoing to the sound of booted feet. There were all those awkward loose ends to be taken care of-alibis to be established, traitors to be paid off, witnesses to be silenced. There was more than just blood to be washed off the tiles. It was always messy, cleaning up after a murder.

Wolfblade jennifer fallon