Read The Eyes of a Doll (The World of Shijuren Book 2) for Free Online

wayposts and inns that squatters have claimed. They pretty much let anyone who travels go through, so we let them be. The bodies were both dressed too well to be squatters.”
    “Neither of them wore nice clothes, even before the blood.”
    “But they weren’t wearing rags,” pointed out Zvono. “Those people are desperately poor.”
    I nodded. “How far to the nearest town that way?”
    “Kalajavaros is four or five days or so down the road.”
    “What else is along the way?”
    “Not much,” said Piri. “It’s too rocky to grow crops or raise sheep or do aught else but fish, and the shoreline is often too steep to land boats. Achrida is in one of the prime spots in this part of the world.”
    “Any other roads?”
    “Before Kalajavaros?” Piri shook her head. “There are some paths leading up the mountain, but nothing like a road.”
    “That means the murderers are most likely from around here. I mean, how well-known is that copse above the springs? Few people travel that way, meaning that most of the people who visit the springs are from Achrida, right? I mean, it’s not obvious from the road. If they were looking for a quick place to stash a body while on the Kopayalitsa, they would only use the copse if they knew about it ahead of time.”
    “Probably.” Kapric shrugged.
    “Unless they thought it would be a really good place to hide a body,” added Zvono.
    “But that would mean they would have to know about it already, suggesting they are familiar with the springs.”
    They nodded, and I turned to Piri. “What can you tell me about Kalajavaros?”
    “It’s a small town now, but once it was much larger. You can still see the remnants of aqueducts built to mine tin. But the veins ran out, oh, a thousand years ago at least and there’s nothing else there, just crumbling stone.”
    “What is it good for now?”
    “It’s a stopping point on the caravan routes from the east. Since the lake trade expanded because of Achrida, though, it’s almost done with that, too. There are only a few small, vermin-filled inns that charge too much and even fewer maniacs who somehow think they can find a new vein of gold or tin that will make them rich. It hasn’t happened in centuries, but that doesn’t stop them.”
    Piri shook her head in amazement and sighed.
    “Every once in a while one of our zupans thinks it’s useful that we train in the taller mountains and we spend a month or so in Kalajavaros. We curse him for that month and then spend the following month cleaning limestone dust and bedbugs from our gear and healing broken bones from falls. Fortunately, Vukasin hasn’t yet been so stupid.”
    I chuckled and turned back to Zvono. “Did your magicians find out anything?”
    She flipped out her wax tablet.
    “Not much that you wouldn’t expect. They said both the body in the copse and the one you killed showed the emotions and lives of criminals. They probably came from the same place, maybe even grew up together. Your point about the people burying the body coming from around here is likely correct. They certainly didn’t sense anything too odd, and if the people burying the corpse had been from far away, that would have left traces they would have noticed.”
    She made a check in her tablet and continued.
    “Also, neither of the bodies carried anything of interest. You saw, I presume, some money on the one you killed. A solid amount, but certainly not the going rate to help bury a body. Before you ask, all of the coins were Imperial, minted either in Achrida or Basilopolis. They tell us nothing.”
    I nodded.
    She shut her tablet. “Unless Ludmilja can tell us which accent the men had, then we don’t have much to work with.”
    “Maybe not even then,” grunted Kapric.
    “In that case,” I said, “we will need to make some assumptions.”
    “Assumptions?”
    “My first assumption would be these men were involved in something you’re supposed to frown on.”
    “And the sun rises in the