The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard Page B

young woman with brittle good looks, dark brown hair and an olive complexion – she relaxed from this attitude. She and Brianne were not friends; in fact, they had once been rivals for the same man. However, that had been a year and more in the past, and Catherine was relieved to see her. More than relieved. The presence of another woman allowed her to surrender to weakness, believing that in Brianne she would find a fund of natural sympathy because of their common sex.
    ‘My God, what happened?’ Brianne kneeled and brushed Catherine’s hair back from her eyes. The tenderness of the gesture burst the dam of Catherine’s emotions, and punctuating the story with sobs, she told of the rape.
    ‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ she said. ‘I . . . I’d forgotten about the hook.’
    ‘Key was looking to get killed,’ Brianne said. ‘But it’s a damn shame you had to be the one to help him along.’ She sighed, her forehead creased by a worry line. ‘I suppose I should fetch someone to take care of the body. I know that’s not . . .’
    ‘No, I understand . . . it has to be done.’ Catherine felt stronger, more capable. She made as if to stand, but Brianne restrained her.
    ‘Maybe you should wait here. You know how people will be. They’ll see your face,’ – she touched Catherine’s swollen cheeks – ‘and they’ll be prying, whispering. It might be better to let the mayor come out and make his investigation. That way he can take the edge off the gossip before it gets started.’
    Catherine didn’t want to be alone with the body any longer, but she saw the wisdom in waiting and agreed.
    ‘Will you be all right?’ Brianne asked.
    ‘I’ll be fine . . . but hurry.’
    ‘I will.’ Brianne stood; the wind feathered her hair, lifted it to veil the lower half of her face. ‘You’re sure you’ll be all right?’ There was an odd undertone in her voice, as if it were really another question she was asking, or – and this, Catherine thought, was more likely – as if she were thinking ahead to dealing with the mayor.
    Catherine nodded, then caught at Brianne as she started to walk away. ‘Don’t tell my father. Let me tell him. If he hears it from you, he might go after the Willens.’
    ‘I won’t say a thing, I promise.’
    With a smile, a sympathetic pat on the arm, Brianne headed back toward Hangtown, vanishing into the thickets that sprang up beyond the frontal spike. For awhile after she had gone, Catherine felt wrapped in her consolation; but the seething of the wind, the chill that infused the air as clouds moved in to cover the sun, these things caused the solitude of the place and the grimness of the circumstance to close down around her, and she began to wish she had returned to Hangtown. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to steady herself, but even then she kept seeing Key’s face, his bloody eye, and remembering his hands on her. Finally, thinking that Brianne had had more than enough time to accomplish her task, she walked up past the frontal spike and stood looking out along the narrow trail that wound through the thickets on Griaule’s back. Several minutes elapsed, and then she spotted three figures – two men and a woman – coming at a brisk pace. She shaded her eyes against a ray of sun that had broken through the overcast, and peered at them. Neither man had the gray hair and portly shape of Hangtown’s mayor. They were lanky, pale, with black hair falling to their shoulders, and were carrying unsheathed knives. Catherine couldn’t make out their faces, but she realized that Brianne must not have set aside their old rivalry, that in the spirit of vengeance she had informed Key’s brothers of his death.
    Fear cut through the fog of shock, and she tried to think whatto do. There was only the one trail and no hope that she could hide in the thickets. She retreated toward the edge of the snout, stepping around the patch of drying blood. Her only chance for escape would be to lower