Frank Tuttle - The Broken Bell

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.