Frank Tuttle - The Broken Bell

Nothing stirred. Nothing sounded.

I pulled up something sticky and malodorous and slowly, slowly, laid it beside my face. Couldn’t show the outline of a head if a sudden light should shine behind me. Rats scampered at the movement. Two fled across the back of my legs, heavy as cats, and probably as large.

I waited. Counted my breaths. I flexed my muscles, toe to head and back again, to keep my limbs from going stiff.

A bell clanged out Curfew.

The sounds of traffic and reveling stopped. Some streets in Rannit treat Curfew as a tired old joke.

This wasn’t one of them.

I hadn’t stuck my Avalante pin to my lapel. I didn’t move to do so. No halfdead I’d ever met would stoop to feed on anyone who stank as I did. But from the silence and the tightly shuttered windows and the streets that didn’t serve even a single absent-minded drunk, I suspected the halfdead had fed in this neighborhood, and recently.

I waited, and waited, and waited some more. I fought off sleep by reminding myself what the rats were likely to do if they thought I was unconscious.

No more bells rang. The Square was so far away the Big Bell could be struck all night and I’d never hear it.

I’d decided it was nearly midnight when a tiny brief light flared in a gap in the Timber’s second floor wall.

It flared and hung there for a single heartbeat. Then it died in a sudden brief wave.

A match. Someone had lit a fancy newfangled match.

And that tiny red pinprick of light that flared and dimmed and flared again was a smokestick, being sucked and puffed to life.

I let out my breath. The tiny red glow persisted.

Smokesticks are an affectation of the rich and the near rich. So are matches.

Both are likely beyond the means of any poor derelict reduced to hiding in the dubious shelter of the Timbers after Curfew.

I could have danced.

Long shots do pay out, every now and then.

And if my tobacco-fancying friend in the Timbers was who I thought he was, then Carris Lethway was there too.

Almost in sight. But well beyond my reach.

They’d be doubly vigilant, after Curfew. Not necessarily against Lethway or the Watch, but against the halfdead. Which meant men and adequate weapons and all the means to repel creatures far more dangerous than any band of do-gooder humans.

It probably also meant the kidnappers had a day crew and a night crew. I wondered how many men the Timbers might conceal. Twenty-five? Thirty?

Easily, if the basement was intact. And I was betting it was.

I weighed my options. There weren’t many. I could lie here until dawn, and then sneak away while the teams changed shifts.

I could grab a rat in either hand and storm the place alone, as would the heroes of old.

Neither plan resulted in a freed Carris.

I cussed silently and settled in for the evening. Fleas invaded my britches and began to feast. I cussed more, but didn’t dare scratch.

The huldra had lain silent, just as the Corpsemaster had promised. But amid the stench and the biting fleas, a third idea presented itself.

Why not simply call upon the huldra, it asked. Why lie here in filth?

Why not rise up and simply crush them?

Why not take what you want?

If it is true the huldra slept, then what I heard next came from within myself.

All you have to do, said a voice, is tell the huldra your name, once more.

Just speak it. And then you may call upon the same magics you knew just last night. Who are these puny men, that would deter you?

Who are they?

They are nothing.

“I won’t do that.” I spoke aloud, in a ghost’s whisper, but it seemed vital that I give the words my voice. “I am my own. The price is too great. Leave me be.”

Someone tapped on my shoulder.

A face drew up close to mine.

“Well spoken,” it whispered.

It was Mills. Blood still oozed from his dark blue lips.

“You may speak and move about. They will neither see nor hear.”

I gobbled for air, wordless.

“Forgive me. I have startled you.”

“I just pissed myself, sir. That’s a few hundred yards past startled.”

The Corpsemaster shrugged. “Did you know there is a sorcerer among their number?”

Damn damn damn. I hadn’t even considered that.

“I took measures to conceal you. They are unaware of your presence.” Mills turned his dead eyes toward the Timbers. “I assume these are persons of interest to you?”

“Kidnappers.” I fought to keep my breathing steady. “It’s a case.”

Mills nodded, made a tiny motion with his finger. Every flea on me either vanished or died.

“Shall I kill them for you?”

“Tempting. But no thanks.” I made myself look away from Mills. Someone had pulled the arrow from his neck, but the wound glistened and oozed. “May I ask what brings you here, sir?”

“I was in need of a small amusement. And I wanted to convey my thanks to you personally, for delivering the Creeper’s remains, and his maps. They have both proven informative.”

I nodded. The Corpsemaster seemed to be not just talkative but oddly cheerful. I didn’t think she’d need any prodding to get to her point.

“You were correct. This Creeper fled Prince in disgrace. For a while, he earned a living selling sham charms to rustics. Which is why he sent people after you and Miss Gertriss, Markhat. The man she killed once bought a death-curse from the Creeper. There was no actual curse, of course, but the Creeper had to make it seem so, thus the hexed assassins.”

“I figured it was something like that.”

The Creeper was resigned to eking out a meager living fleecing the country folk until information concerning Rannit and her defenses suddenly became highly prized by certain parties in his former home. He was only too happy to augment his income by paying for reports of activities on our walls.”

“He lied?”

“Continually. And with what I must admit was considerable flair. If they believe him, finder, they are coming prepared to face an arcane defense built upon spells developed secretly during the last days of the War.”

“Spells. Not cannon.”

Mills tried to giggle, but could only make a bubbling noise deep in his throat.

“They may have spent months developing measures to defend themselves from magics that don’t exist.”

“Hurrah for our side.”

“Oh, don’t be such a cynic, Markhat. If we can maintain this mistaken belief for a few more days, we will have a considerable tactical advantage, come the first exchange of pleasantries.”

“No way to avoid that, sir?”

Mills sighed.

“I fear not, finder. But see here. Our enemies are deeply suspicious of each other. Their initial attack may result in disaster for them. All that shall be required is for one of them-just one-to turn on another.”

“Think that’s likely?”

“I know my kind, finder.”

“Now who’s the cynic?”

“What’s this?”

Mills pointed.

There was a man on the street.

Not walking, strictly speaking. He did manage a sort of forward motion, but he did so only with considerable effort and after numerous falls, turns and halts for loud shouting matches with persons who didn’t actually seem to be present. Sometimes these conversations turned to fisticuffs, and those turned into falls as the sudden flurry of wild punches was apparently too much to coordinate with the act of walking upright.

“He shall soon be one of mine I suspect.”

I didn’t need to agree. Weedheads so far gone they make that much racket in this neighborhood were unlikely to see many sunrises.

But this was no ordinary weedhead. In one hand he clutched a scrap of paper. He studied it periodically, holding it up to the moonlight, and then turning about as if trying to match something on the paper to something in the street.