The Tides of Avarice Read Online Free

discussing matters of little consequence, just getting to know each other better?”
    Growgarth did not know very many things, but one of them was that he was sure that under no circumstances did he want to get to know his visitor any better.
    â€œDuh,” he said expressively.
    â€œGood, then that’s settled.” The visitor moved as if to join him on the rock, then paused, pointing.
    â€œOh, look, you’ve dropped a couple.”
    â€œWha?”
    â€œA couple of the coins.”
    Growgarth’s eyes searched. There was a definite shortage of hiding places left on the hillock. “Can’t see ’em.”
    â€œBut I can. Just there.”
    Still Growgarth could see no glint of gold. On the other hand, as one of the few wise sages of worg mythology so prophetically remarked, gold is gold. Growgarth got down on his knees again and started beating the ground with the flats of his hands, hoping to find the errant coins by touch if he couldn’t do so by sight.
    There was a click behind him. Then another.
    Suddenly Growgarth felt like you do when the fuse has burned the whole way down but your firecracker hasn’t gone off. You know it’s idiotic to pick the firecracker up, because it’ll probably, with your lousy luck, explode in your hand, but you go ahead and do it anyway because there’s nothing more frustrating than a dud firecracker. His movements becoming slower and less certain, he kept patting the ground in front of him.
    There’s a counting song that’s popular among worg children. It’s a very short song, for obvious reasons. It started running through Growgarth’s head.
    One’s for my gulp as I bite off your head …
    But there had been two clicks, not one.
    Two’s for barrels on shotgun – it shoots you, you’re …
    He couldn’t remember the end of the line. But there’s a lot o truth in dem ol’ countin’ songs, he thought.
    Then the word came to him.
    Ah.
    Before the echoes of the two loud bangs had fully died down, the visitor in the long black cloak, his gun safely stowed away once more among its folds, was leaning over the lifeless worg to retrieve his coinage.
    â€œSorry about this, old chap, but you’ll understand I have a business to run. Bottom line and all that.”
    Unlike Growgarth, the visitor was extremely good at counting. Once he’d satisfied himself that all the coins were present and accounted for, he carefully retied the drawstring on the leather purse. It too vanished into the folds of his cloak, where it sat alongside the scrap of brown paper he’d so desperately needed to possess.
    Standing on top of the huge corpse, the killer looked sharply all around him. There was no sign of life anywhere in the blasted meadow.
    He whistled quietly to himself as he trotted down the side of the hillock and began making his way with deceptive speed toward the distant, dark line of trees.
    â€œAs for the last piece,” the stranger murmured to himself. “I think it’s time I visited an old friend …”

1 Unsuitable Questions
    Knock, knock. Sylvester Lemmington didn’t bother answering. He recognized the knock and knew who the visitor was: his boss, Celadon, the Chief Archivist and Librarian. When Celadon knocked on a door, he entered. There was no point telling him to do so because he was going to anyway. At least, that was what Sylvester had decided not long after he’d got the job as Junior Archivist and Translator of Ancient Tongues, and he’d never seen any reason to change his attitude since.
    He welcomed the interruption. He’d been working long and hard on his translation of The Great Exodus: The Third Attempt, and his eyes were tired and beginning to show a tendency to cross – a tendency which is very disturbing if you’re a lemming. He could do with the break. He set down his goose-quill pen in its holder, being careful not to drip any