Four and Twenty Blackbirds

A MAGICAL MANIAC IS LOOSE IN ALANDA!

A magical murderer is loose in Alanda. The victims are always women, always lower-class, and the weapon is always a three-sided stiletto, most often found among Church regalia. But the killers are never churchmen, and they always commit suicide immediately after the bloody deed.

Tal Rufen is just a simple constable. But he really cares about his job, and when one of these murder/suicides happens on his beat he becomes obsessed. His superiors don't care—the victims will never be missed, and their murderers are already justly dead. But every instinct Tal Rufen has cries out that he has seen only one small piece of a bigger and much nastier puzzle....

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mercedes Lackey has a degree in biology from Purdue University. Like many writers, she has worked at a variety of jobs including short stints as a waitress, security guard, telephone surveyor and artist's model. A longer period of time was spent as a computer programmer for American Airlines. What she is most known for, however, and what has inspired a national fan club of over one thousand members, are her inventive fantasy novels. She lives outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her husband and collaborator, artist Larry Dixon, and their ever growing menagerie. Larry and Misty are both members of SOAR (Support Our American Raptors), sponsors of the Sutton Avian Research Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and continue to work rehabilitating birds to live in the wild.

Also in this series:

Bardic Voices: The Lark & the Wren
Bardic Voices: The Robin & the Kestrel
Bardic Voices: The Eagle & the Nightingale
Bardic Choices: A Cast of Corbies
(with Josepha Sherman)

Illustration by Darrell K. Sweet
Cover design by Carol Russo

Hardcover
Paperback

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

First printing, December 1997

Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lackey, Mercedes.

Four & twenty blackbirds / by Mercedes Lackey.
p. cm. — (Bardic voices ; bk. 4)
"A Baen books original"—T.p. verso
ISBN 0-671-87853-0
I. Title. II. Series: Lackey, Mercedes. Bardic voices ; bk. 4.

PS3562.A246F68 1997 97-29672
813'.54—dc21 CIP

ISBN: 0-671-87853-0

A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com

Production by Windhaven Press
Auburn, NH

Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webwrights.com