Frank Tuttle - The Broken Bell

Weedheads make poor couriers. I imagined the kidnappers lost a missive or two themselves when their messengers fell into sewers or climbed to the nearest rooftop, thinking they could fly.

It was plausible enough to be believed.

And unlikely enough to get me killed.

The door opened again, this time, all the way.

“You do anything but poke at the kid, and we’ll gut you where you stand. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“Take his sword.”

I let them wrench Toadsticker from his scabbard. They didn’t look any further.

They didn’t need to.

When the street door closed, a grim-looking worthy decked out in pre-war chain mail lifted a rag off a magelamp. The room was suddenly bright as dusk and full of armed, hard-faced men.

I’d figured a dozen. I counted nineteen. And I heard voices coming from somewhere in the shadows beyond the room.

Angels, I’d walked into a villain’s nest.

“He don’t look like no doctor to me,” offered a stranger.

“I have served the Colonel for four years now,” I snapped. “And owned my own practice for ten before that.”

“Well, you’re gonna be retiring tonight,” muttered another. Laughter sounded from all nearby.

I half-turned to face the man who’d let me in, guessing he was, if not in charge, at least more than halfway up the ladder. If he was at the top, his name was Japeth Stricken. But somehow, I doubted Stricken would be the one opening any streetside doors in the dark.

“Where is Carris Lethway?”

“Check his bag, then take him down. Kill him if he blinks funny.”

My bag was snatched away. The contents were dumped onto a table, rifled through and finally dumped back in the back, except for a pair of the larger scalpels.

Victor’s deadly gift was among the implements they handled. It received no more scrutiny than did the vials of mugwort or the rolls of bandages.

The bag was thrown at my chest. I caught it and glared.

Ungentle hands pushed me from behind. The ring of men parted, but did not look away. I was led out of the circle of light, shoved down a dirty hallway that smelled of piss and pushed through a door that was solid and new.

Hands shoved. I went flying ass-over-chin down a short flight of stairs. I lost my bag and my hat went flying and when I finally stopped rolling I lay face down on a cold stone floor with something warm and wet oozing slowly across my chest.

The cellar was lit by a table filled with candles. Two men stood by it, smirking. One wore the robes of a wand-waver. The other was dressed in an outlandish leather suit.

Tied to chair on the other side of the table was a slumped man with a bag over his head.

I picked myself up, felt at the wetness on my chest. My hand came away smelling of garlic, and I remembered the vials I had stowed in my pocket.

“I could have been killed,” I said. I found my hat, which was a bit flattened, and pushed it back into shape before affixing it once again to my head.

“Don’t worry,” said the man in the garish leather. “You will be soon enough.”

I picked up my bag and stood. “Is that Carris Lethway?”

“What’s left of him.” He eyed me warily. “Your name is Summers?”

“I am Doctor Hammonds.” I all but spit in his eye. “You have been informed of the reason for my visit?”

The sorcerer laughed. He was a small man. A hood hid most of his face. He kept his hands hidden as well.

“Tend to your patient, Doctor,” he said softly. “We wouldn’t him to expire before the appointed hour.”

I could either walk by them to reach Carris, or choose the other side of the table. I decided Doctor Hammonds feared neither man nor sorcerer and brushed past them both, muttering to myself as I walked.

I knelt beside Carris, put my hand beneath his right wrist and felt for a pulse.

His skin was warm. His heart was beating. His left hand was wrapped in a bloody, filthy rag. I pulled a corner of the rag away and found the stump of a recently removed forefinger.

I grunted, moved my hand across his chest, feeling for broken ribs the same way I’d seen our field surgeons do.

“This hood,” I snapped. “I’m going to remove it.”

I gritted my teeth, grabbed the bottom of it, and yanked.

Carris screamed. Fresh blood poured from the wound where his right ear had been.

I turned and glared at leather pants and his sorcerer companion.

“This is infected.”

Neither responded with so much as a shrug. I didn’t like the way leather pants, who I was sure was Japeth Stricken, was staring at me. His expression was that of a man who has just seen a face he knows and is trying to match it with a name he cannot quite remember.

I opened the bag. The sorcerer’s hands never moved.

I reached inside it, grabbed a vial at random, and gave its label a cursory glance. Extract of o.ander , it said. Good as any, I thought.

I opened it, poured some on a clean white cloth, and held it close to Lethway’s missing ear.

“This is going to hurt,” I said.

He met my eyes. I wasn’t sure how much he was hearing or if he understood any of it. Blood was trickling from both corners of his mouth and his nose was obviously broken and his face was one solid bruise.

I dabbed the cloth on the wound.

He spat blood but didn’t cry out.

“Surprised,” he managed to croak out, after a few tries. “Surprised. The old man. Paid for a doctor.”

“Your mother is footing the bill.” I was only playing the role of a doctor, but the more I saw of the kid, the less I liked. His color was bad. I could feel the heat of a fever rising off his skin.

“Your fiancee sends her regards,” I added as I dabbed.

Damned if he didn’t try to smile.

“That will suffice,” said the sorcerer. “As you can see, Doctor, the young man is both alive and largely intact. Time for you to go.”

“He is barely alive and missing an ear and at least one finger.” I turned and gave the sorcerer a good hard doctor’s glare. “And he has a fever, which could easily kill him within the hour unless I am allowed to continue my treatment.”

I’d seen one thing I recognized in my borrowed doctor’s bag. Cincee. A good-sized jar of it, in white powder form. Introduced just two years into the War, I’d seen it stop infections and fevers dead in their tracks. Two spoonfuls dissolved in a cupful of water, that’s all it took to make the difference between life and death.

But I never got the chance to mix it. Leather pants had been gone from Rannit for a good long time, and as far as I know we’d never met. But something in his dark mind clicked.

“You’re no damned doctor,” he said. His sword made a quiet hissing sound as he drew it from its scabbard. “You’re the finder.”

“Ridiculous.”

Upstairs, shouts rang out. I heard the pop-pop-pop of crossbow bolts embedding themselves in timbers, and more shouts, and I wondered whether Lethway or Pratt had decided to start the party a few minutes ahead of midnight.

Stricken cussed and pointed his sword at me. “Keep him alive until I’m done,” he said to the wand-waver.

Then he whirled and charged up the stairs.

The sorcerer lifted his arms and let his sleeves fall down to reveal his hands. Neither was empty. His right held a short plain wand, and in his left was a jawless skull. The skull was human, but too small to be from an adult. A dim green light shone from its childish eye sockets, and I caught a snatch of a high, airy whisper issuing from it.

The wand-waved glared. He didn’t threaten. He didn’t feel that he needed to.

Above, thunder sounded, accompanied by lights so bright they shone through the joining of the floor boards. Bolts continued to strike. I heard steel on steel, as men-dozens of them, from the sound of it-hacked at each other with swords and axes.