Текст книги "The Broken Bell"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Rescued I was, and by a pair of vamps.

They found me ten blocks from the Timbers. The flames leaped so high they cast shadows all that way.

I’d searched high and low for Carris Lethway. I knew he was barefoot. Injured. Running a high fever. Probably dehydrated and weak from blood loss and sudden exertion. I figured he’d spent most of whatever energy he had left clobbering me, and I didn’t figure he’d get far from the Timbers after that.

But I hadn’t found him. I’d poked under trash heaps. Forced my way inside derelict buildings. Dared the thresholds of half a dozen weedhouses.

I’d found any number of disgusting sights and the kind of smells no sane man can describe. Even my mumbling skull fell silent when I threatened to bury it in a trash heap if it spoke again before sunrise.

But I found no trace of Carris Lethway. The hungry shadows had simply swallowed him whole.

I was hiding in these same hungry shadows when a shiny black carriage slowed and then stopped.

I heard the door open. I never heard footsteps. Suddenly, they were just there.

“Well, well,” said one.

“We meet again,” said the other.

They smiled toothy vampire smiles.

I recognized them as the pair who’d slain the fat man at the Docks.

“Good evening, gentlemen. Out for a stroll?”

“We saw the flames.”

“We came to see.”

“Fires send them fleeing.”

“It’s more sporting that way.”

My hand was already on the hilt of the weapon. I’d paused to reload it a few blocks ago. I wasn’t sure it would prove fatal to halfdead.

I was sure I had no interest in finding out.

“Ah, but I’m hardly fleeing.” I pulled the thing out. “I was just heading home, enjoying the fresh night air.”

They locked eyes with me.

One shrugged.

“Ride with us,” he said.

“We’re done hunting.”

“Quite done.”

“Evis will owe us a favor.”

“A very large favor.”

They turned and made for their carriage.

I let out my breath and followed.

I asked if they had seen a barefoot man. They responded in the negative, though they were quick to point out that their tastes were too refined to allow them to dine upon the sick or the injured. I hadn’t liked the way they looked at me, at that moment. I made it a point to force a sudden wet cough.

They took me home to Cambrit and even bade me a good night. I still don’t know their names or their House.

They regaled with tales of the hunt all the way home.

I hoped I would never see either of them again.

I stayed in my office long enough to change my shirt and coat. The vial that had broken inside my pocket stank of garlic. There was also blood splashed up my right arm. I had no idea to whom the blood last belonged.

The skull was still muttering in the bag. I wished Mama were around with a bit of handy eldritch lore about muttering skulls. I could just stomp the thing into splinters, of course, but for all I knew that would leave me with a pile of vengeful dust. I settled for dumping a bag of salt on it and locking it in a drawer.

Assuming Carris Lethway was alive, I decided he’d make a beeline for Tamar. And since he’d have no way of knowing Tamar was stashed in a hotel downtown, I had a hunch he’d find somewhere near the Fields house to hide, so he could watch for Tamar in safety.

Which wasn’t a bad plan, except that the kid was wounded, feverish and very possibly dying.

I shoved the letters I’d written in a drawer. Toadsticker’s hooks hung empty on my wall. I’d had no time to search for him when the fracas started. I hoped Evis would understand.

The sun was just creeping up when I hit the streets again. The weapon was in my right-hand coat pocket. I was down to a dozen of the explosive rounds it fired, which meant I’d already fired a dozen times. Try as I might, I could only recall firing the thing six times.

Six times or a dozen, I’d slain a wand-waver, and that’s something no mere sword could have done.

I hoofed it until the cabs starting moving. So I was a good five blocks from Cambrit before I caught a ride. From there, I made good time, and reached Fields’s well-trimmed neighborhood before the sky lost its traces of dawn.

I let the cabbie go. The sidewalks were getting crowded. Carris could hardly expect to mingle in his current state. That limited his hiding places.

I made the block, noting places that afforded cover and a good view of Tamar’s home. I picked out six places. All but one faced the front door.

I checked the long shot first. And found signs that someone had been sleeping there. But I didn’t figure it was Carris, since they left behind a couple empty bottles of cheap red wine and the wrapper from a pub sandwich.

Curious. Someone with an interest in the Fields and their servant’s entrance. Might be the butler from down the street, carrying on with a maid.

Or it might be something else.

But it wasn’t Carris, so I emerged from the hedge with as much dignity as I could muster and joined the passing crowd on the sidewalk.

Next, I checked the same clump of hedges that had recently concealed Mills and. I found blood on the leaves, blood so fresh it was still sticky. A bloody scrap of rag was lying on the grass, beside a pair of ragged shoes.

So he’d grabbed clothes and shoes along the way, and left these when they didn’t fit.

And then, presumably, he’d gone looking for the one person in the world Carris Lethway felt he could trust.

I recalled the hint of murder I’d seen in Fields’s chubby little cheeks. I wasn’t convinced he would murder the kid in cold blood, but there was only one way to find out.

I didn’t even have to knock.

The door opened as soon as my shadow fell across it. Both Mr. Fields and his wife stood within, bleary-eyed and anxious.

“Yes, he’s been here,” said Fields, before I uttered a word. “Been and gone.”

“He was hurt,” said Mrs. Fields. “Badly.”

“I know.” They stepped aside and motioned me in. “I found him last night, but he jumped me before I could explain who I was.”

“He’s looking for Tamar.” Mr. Fields gritted his teeth. “And whoever is looking for him may be looking for her too.”

“Which is why I kept her whereabouts a secret. Relax. Tamar is fine. Do you have any idea where Carris might be headed?”

“Yes, dear, why don’t you tell Mr. Markhat where that poor young man is heading? And why he might be heading there?”

She crossed arms over bosom in the universal sign for wifely disapproval.

Mr. Fields went crimson.

“You sent the kid on a wild goose chase to protect your daughter,” I said before he could reply. “Wonderful. Brilliant. That’s what any father would do, medals and parades all around. But I’m not Carris Lethway, Mr. Fields. So when I ask where you sent the kid, I expect an honest answer.”

“He sent him to Wall Downs,” snapped Mrs. Fields. “You’ve heard of it? Tiny little town fifteen miles south of here? They grow wheat. We buy most of our flour from there.”

I knew of the place. What I knew of it told me it might have a pair of roads, a couple of inns, a canal or two that connected the town to the Brown. Two hundred souls, a couple of big plantation houses and a lot of home-brewed corn whiskey.

Not a bad place to hide someone. Not a good place to send an injured kid.

“Did you give him any specific destination, or just point him south and slam the door?”

“I cleaned him up and treated his wounds and gave him twenty crowns, Mr. Markhat.” He shot a sideways glance at his glowering wife. “I am not as heartless as people seem to think.”

Mrs. Fields suppressed a snort of derision.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I told him she was staying at the Two-Headed Lamb. It’s an inn. North end of town.”

“And then you just let him go.”

“Damned right I did. And I’m not sorry. He showed up here half dead and bloody, raving about kidnappers and fires, and demanding to see Tamar.” He glared at me. “He’s nothing but trouble, I tell you. Just like his devil of a father.”

“He ran, Mr. Fields. Ran all the way across Rannit, after Curfew, wounded and sick. All to see Tamar. I don’t know the kid. But I do know this-his devil of a father would never have do that. For anyone.”

Fields turned away.

“He’s gone. Follow him or not, I don’t care which. His father, though. Dead?”

“I hear he left town.”

“Left? For where?”

“Place called Wall Downs. Something about two-headed lambs.”

He said something less than complimentary. His wife turned and marched away, leaving him alone with me.

“The wedding is tomorrow,” I said. “You should think about getting a new suit.”

He cussed and slammed his door.

There are two ways to travel south out of Rannit-the old forest roads that creep through the forest via the South Gate or down the Brown itself.

A man in a hurry would opt for the Brown. The forest roads are overgrown and prone to disgorge bandits, bears and bobcats from every tallish shrub. Half the bridges are out and the other half were never built to begin with.

River travel, on the other hand, is fast and cheap. Especially to places like Wall Downs, where one could readily book passage on the same barges that deliver cargos of grain, coal or lumber.

So that’s where I headed, cursing the traffic and gritting my teeth. If Carris Lethway wound up aboard a southbound boat before I made the docks, I’d be forced to follow. Even a trip to Wall Downs would wind up taking a couple days, and that was time I didn’t have.

My cab rolled to a halt blocks from the Docks. I leaned out to see why, and found the street clogged with wagons and cabs and carriages, all jostling and scraping, unable to move in anything other than fits and starts.

Even the sidewalks were choked, as mobs abandoned their vehicles and made for the Docks on foot.

I did the same. The cabbie cursed at me despite a hefty tip. I ignored him and joined the masses as half of Rannit headed for a boat out of town.

It wasn’t quite pandemonium yet, but it was a half-dozen pushes and a few thrown punches from turning that way. Men were hauling bundles and chests. Women were carrying babies and bags. Kids were clinging to their parent’s sleeves and bawling with every step.

The Watch appeared, here and there, red-faced from whistle-blowing and bellicose shouting. I saw a Watch nightstick rise and fall just once, when a drunk wouldn’t listen to the sweet voice of reason, but other than that, violence never quite erupted.

It took two hours to make the Docks. There I was confronted with a wall of panicked travelers, each trying to push the other aside in a mad, hopeless bid for a place on anything mildly buoyant that claimed to be heading south.

They say the Watch managed to keep people from being pushed right off the wharfs and into the river by charging the crowd dozens of times with Watchmen mounted on the same enormous Percheron horses bred for use against Trolls.

I never saw the horses. I did hear the screams.

I couldn’t have found Carris Lethway had he been juggling flaming torches and blowing out a tune on a trumpet.

I tried. Oh yes, I did. I waded into that mob, shoved my way ahead with elbows and knees, punched strangers in the kidneys, shoved kindly old dowagers aside with my shoulders. I did exactly the things I imagined Carris Lethway would do, but in the end all I got for my troubles was a fresh set of bruises and a guilty conscience.

By the time I reached the wharf, the boats were gone. I could still see the rear of the makeshift flotilla, which was composed of everything from barges to barrels. Each and every craft was packed to the rails with as many souls as they could bear.

Only the front ranks of the mob could see this, and they were trapped there by the mass of shoving humanity.

The mob showed no signs of thinning. I remembered all the traffic I’d passed, heading for the Docks, and I knew things were only going to get worse.

I switched the hand cannon from my jacket pocket to my belt.

I folded my jacket before I hung it neatly across the rail. My shoes went beneath it. With deep regret, I placed my new hat there as well.

If anyone shouted when I went over the rail, I didn’t hear. Then the muddy waters of the Brown closed over me, and I fought for the surface and began my long swim south.

I was in the water for most of an hour before I found a place to come ashore.

The crowds had given up on finding a boat and settled instead on the time-honored pastimes of fighting, arson and looting. Smoke hung low in the still, chilly air. Men ran back and forth, seemingly aimlessly, until you realized they were looking for undamaged businesses to loot.

I climbed shivering out of the Brown at an empty barge mooring. I was dripping wet and shoeless and no one gave me a second look.

Finding a cab was out of the question. Honest folk fled the looting. I resolved to do the same, as quickly as my sock feet could take me.

The streets, never paragons of cleanliness, were filled with broken glass. I was forced to skip and hop from bare patch to bare patch, dodging mean-eyed bands of youths all the while.

I made a single block before I caught sight of a shoemaker’s shop. The plate glass windows were shattered. The shelves were bare or broken.

I went inside anyway. I found a left shoe that fit and a right shoe that fit. They didn’t match. I didn’t care.

Then I put my looted shoes to good use by heel and toeing it out of there as fast as I could huff and puff my way east.

Trouble dogged my steps. What I’d thought was an incident on the Docks was spreading south and east as fast I was. Watch whistles sounded on all sides, as did the breaking of glass and shouting and the hoof beats of panicked horses.

I kept to alleys and back streets. I pulled back into doorways when bands of men approached. I hurried away from shouts and taunts and dodged hurled bricks as best I could.

I’d heard of the Bread Riots, of course. Everyone had. I’d been dodging Troll arrows far from Rannit, but tales of the Riots were the first things I heard upon coming home. I’d wondered if the tales had been embellished. I had trouble believing law and order would break down so completely and so quickly.

I wasn’t having trouble believing anymore. The Watch had given up going after looters. As far as I could tell, they were instead intent on putting out fires and giving the odd murderous blow to anyone openly conducting robbery in the street.

But even so, the smoke from a hundred fires began to rise and trail across Rannit’s sky.

I made for Darla’s. I’d tried to find Carris. I’d done my best and nearly drowned in the process. If he was on a boat heading south that might be the best place for him. At least he had a pocketful of coins and shoes that matched.

But if anyone felt compelled to loot Darla’s place, they were going to have to loot my damp ass first.

I didn’t fire the hand cannon again. I wasn’t sure it would fire, after taking a swim. I’d have gleefully chopped off a finger to have Toadsticker back in my hand, but I had to make do with a stout length of oak I found in the street. That, and my pungent aroma, kept would-be hooligans at bay all the way to Destride.

I rounded the corner and nearly broke into song. Someone in the Watch retained partial use of his senses. They’d barricaded the streets with commandeered cabs and placed archers at prominent points along the barricade. Scores of regular Army were joining them, running about and waving plain lethal Army swords in a manner that sent looters and arsonists shuffling back the way they’d come.

I drew a dozen hard looks as I threw down my knocking stick and put my hands above my head and slowly approached the barricade.

“My name is Markhat,” I shouted. “Captain Markhat.” The words stuck in my throat. “The Corpsemaster will vouch for me.”

“Yeah, and I’m the Regent’s wife.”

Nervous laughter sounded down the ranks.

“I heard she had a thicker beard.”

“Wait right there.” The speaker hesitated a moment. “Sir.”

I nodded and kept my hands raised. His tone told me he’d never heard of me, but he did know better than to randomly slaughter persons who, however slight the chance, might be officers in the service of the Corpsemaster.

I nearly dove for cover when I heard the sudden twang of a bow being loosed, but I saw an arrow wobble harmlessly into a trash-bin down the street and I realized some nervous kid had let his sweaty fingers slip off the bowstring.

“Relax, lads,” I said. “I’m only half Troll.”

Behind me, glass broke. Someone shouted a curse and someone else answered with another. The sound of many running feet drew closer, and a vagrant breeze brought the scent of new smoke wafting across my back.

More glass windows shattered. More feet pounded.

The mob was maybe half a block from the makeshift barricade.

I lowered my hands.

“You, you, and you,” I bellowed in my best imitation of a sergeant’s tone. “Pick out the ringleader. Take him out before he can take cover. You, on the left. Round up another twenty archers. Tell them to take out the ones with torches.”

Men froze.

“I am Captain Markhat, commissioned by the Corpsemaster himself. Disobeying my order is disobeying his.”

A brick hit the ground and shattered so close bits of it pelted my ass.

“Archers. Loose.”

I turned my back on two dozen anxious bowmen.

It could have gone half a dozen ways. But in the end, the ancient military maxim that stated the loudest voice is the one obeyed, held sway. Flights of arrows hissed over my head and full into the approaching mob.

The ringleader fell-torch in hand, two arrows in his chest and another in his gut. His lieutenants scattered, trying to dart back into the ranks, and half of them fell with shafts in their backs.

The mob raged. Smoke billowed up behind them, and a great gout of flame rose up as an aged wooden storefront exploded into a sudden inferno.

Caught between fire and the barricade, the mob panicked and surged ahead, heedless of the sleet of new black arrows.

Coming directly at me.

I dove beneath a cab, managed to wrestle the hand cannon out of my wet waistband, and emptied the thing with small barks of thunder in the space of two breaths.

Men fell. More charged ahead. Two dove beneath my cab, and I kicked them in their faces with my stolen shoes.

An old familiar chaos broke out, all along the barricade. Men lunged and fought and screamed and died. Swords rose and fell when there was no more room for arrows. Some generous soul stuck an Army shortblade in my hand and I flailed and stabbed with all the rest, a wordless cry on my lips, a fresh new horror in my heart.

The fire rose up and up, a hungry ancient god relishing its sacrifice of blood. Smoke filled the air, rendering our enemies mere shadows and our allies more of the same. Screams gave way to coughs, and coughs to wheezing, labored breaths, and when it was done, it was done because no one could see and no one could breathe.

I stumbled away with the rest. The man who clung gasping to my shoulder might have been a Watchmen or a looter. It no longer mattered.

The mob scattered, broken and beaten. The fire jumped the street when a building collapsed across it. We managed to extinguish the blaze it touched off by attaching chains to the porch of the burning building and hauling it into the street.

After that, we all just stood and coughed and watched whole neighborhoods burn.

But the smokes and the fires never crossed Destride.

I was laid out flat in the back of a wagon when a kid with a bloody nose and a familiar voice trotted up.

“Captain,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“So I checked out after all.”

“The Corpsemaster sends his personal thanks.” The kid eyed me as though I might spit flames any second. “Sir.”

“Get me a horse, kid.”

“Sir?”

“A horse. Four legs? Bad tempers? Craps in the street? A horse.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh. And a wet rag. Need to clean up a bit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Scoot.”

He scooted. I lay back and coughed.

I counted columns of smoke. Fourteen big ones. An hour ago, there’d been eighteen. Maybe the ruckus was winding down.

Or maybe the fires were just running out of fuel.

The kid returned. He led a big, black mare with a fancy black saddle. Her flanks weren’t sweaty and her eyes weren’t wild despite the smoke.

“Good choice. I’ll see she’s returned.”

A bowman came trotting up with a washbasin, a plain brown jacket, and a fresh pair of new leather boots.

“If those are for me I’m putting you in for a promotion, kid.”

He grinned. I washed, found the boots were a close enough fit for a trip across town, and left the barricade in charge of a lieutenant named Jeffrey who might be old enough to shave by spring.

On the whole, I think I prefer fighting Trolls.