Hunter Predd walked its streets cautiously, staying back from the light, keeping clear of the knots of people crowded about the doorways and porches of the public houses. Because he was a Wing Rider, he preferred open spaces. Because he was a sensible man who had been to Grimpen Ward and places like it before, he knew what to expect.
He slowed and then stopped at the entrance of an alley where three men were beating another with clubs, already pulling at his clothes, searching for his purse. The man was pleading with them not to kill him. There was blood on his face and hands. One of his attackers looked over at Hunter Predd, feral eyes bright and hard, assessing his potential as an adversary. The Wing Rider did as he had been instructed. He held the other’s gaze for a moment to demonstrate he was not afraid, then turned aside and walked on.
Grimpen Ward was not a place for the faint of heart or those seeking to redress the wrongs of the world. Neither could survive in the claustrophobic atmosphere of this breeding ground of cruelty and rage. Here, everyone was either prey to or hunter of someone else, and there was no middle ground. Hunter Predd felt the pall of hopelessness and despondency that shrouded the village, and he was sickened by it.
He moved out of the central section of the village, away from the brighter lights and louder noises, and entered a cluster of hovels and shacks occupied by those who had fallen into a twilight existence of druginduced escape. The beings who lived here never emerged from their private, self-indulgent worlds, from the places they had created for themselves. He could smell the chemicals burning on the air as he passed through. He could smell the sweat and excrement. Everything they needed to escape life was free, once they forfeited everything they had.
He turned up a pathway that disappeared back into the trees, glanced about cautiously to be certain he had not been followed, and proceeded into the shadows. The trail wound back a short distance to a cabin set within a small grove of ash and cherry. The cabin was neat and well tended with flower boxes hung from the windows and a garden out back. It was quiet, an oasis of calm amid the tumult. A light burned in the front window. The Wing Rider walked to the door, stood quietly for a moment listening, and then knocked.
The woman who opened the door was heavy and flatfaced, her hair cropped short and graying, her body shapeless. She was of indeterminate age, as if she had passed out of childhood sometime back and would not change her look again until she was very old. She regarded Hunter Predd without interest, as if he were just another of the lost souls she encountered every day.
“I’ve got no more rooms to let. Try somewhere else.”
He shook his head. “I’m not looking for a room. I’m looking for a woman called the Addershag.”
She snorted. “You’ve come too late for that. She’s been dead these past five years. News travels slowly where you come from, I guess.”
“You know this to be so? Is she really dead?”
‘As dead as yesterday. I buried her out back, six feet down, standing upright so she could greet those who tried to dig her up.”
She smirked. “Want to give it a try?”
He ignored the challenge. “You were her apprentice?”
The woman laughed, her face twisting. “Not hardly. I was her servant woman and the caretaker of her house. I hadn’t the stomach for what she did. But I served her well and she rewarded me in kind. You knew her, did you?”
“Only by reputation. A powerful seer. A worker of magic. Few would dare to challenge her. None, I think, even now that she is dead and buried.”
“Only fools and desperate men.” The woman glanced out at the village lights and shook her head. “They come here still, now and then. I’ve buried a few, when they didn’t listen to me about letting her be. But I haven’t her power or abilities. I just do what I was brought here to do, looking after things, taking care. The house and what’s in it are mine now. But I keep them for her.”