Frank Tuttle - The Banshee's walk

Mama snorted. “Boy,” she said, “don’t think I don’t know what goes on in that thick head of yours. I know you pretends you don’t believe a word I say-but I also know he listens,” she added, with a nod at Gertriss. “’Cause he knows my cards can see what others can’t, sometimes.”

I rose and stretched and yawned. “So spill it, Mama. We need to get moving. Wardmoor is a long way, and part of it on foot.”

“I seen a sword, boy,” snapped Mama. “Ain’t no ordinary sword, neither. Got magic all around it.”

“Have you ever seen me carry a sword, Mama?” I asked.

“I ain’t,” said Mama. “But I reckon you’re carryin’ one now. It’s in your rucksack, ain’t it? I can see it clear from here.”

I frowned. I hadn’t mentioned Toadsticker, wasn’t going to. Sometimes the best weapon is the hidden one.

Maybe Mama saw me with it coming home the night before. Or maybe not. “Keep going,” I said. Mama saw my look and shrugged and dropped it.

“I seen secrets,” she said. “Secrets, and men screaming. Army men. I seen the sky fill with smoke. Fire and death, boy. Lots of it. All around.”

Gertriss looked at me, questioning. I lifted my hand for quiet.

“The Army is nowhere near Wardmoor,” I said. “You know that.”

“I’m tellin’ you what I seen, boy, not what I know,” snapped Mama. “And I seen Army men and fire and death. Might be what’s done happened. Might be what’s to come. Ain’t for me to say.”

Gertriss was getting pale. “All right, Mama,” I said. “Fires and mayhem. How original. Anything else?”

Mama stabbed a stubby finger at me. “I heard wailing, boy,” she said. “Wailing. Like I ain’t never heard before. It was long and loud and, boy, it meant somebody was goin’ to die.” She lowered her hand and sighed. “Just make sure it ain’t goin’ to be you, boy. And make sure it ain’t goin’ to be my niece, neither. You got that?”

“I got it,” I said. “No dying by me or Gertriss, at least not without your permission.”

Mama rose and snatched up her empty basket. “You remember who you are, young Miss,” Mama said to Gertriss, with a glare that would have withered ironwood. Gertriss met it evenly and even managed a smile in return.

“I will, Mama,” she said. “Please don’t worry.”

Mama grunted and caught me in her famous Hog hex-stare.

“You mind you keep that there sword close to hand, boy,” she said.

My yawn wasn’t intentional. But Mama took it as such and whirled and stomped out, cussing and wheezing.

Gertriss wiped crumbs off my desk and stood up. “Is it true?” she asked. “Do you have a sword in there?” She pointed with a nod toward my rucksack in the corner.

“Got a horse and a trebuchet too,” I replied. “I’d bring the catapult, but I like to travel light.”

Gertriss grinned. “So anytime you answer a question with a joke, that’s probably a yes,” she said.

“Sure it is,” I agreed. I stood and heaved my old Army rucksack over my shoulder. “Where’s the rest of your luggage?” I asked. “We should get going.”

“Just inside the door at Mama’s. I’ll fetch it and meet you outside.” She was honest to angels excited about going to work. I shook my head at such a marvel, wondered how long it would last.

She darted away, and I walked out into the light.

It took us two cabs to get to the south end, through neighborhoods that changed quickly from moderately inhabitable row houses to buck-roofed slums and finally to the stink and noise and even worse stink of the cattle yards and slaughterhouses that buttressed the remaining Old Wall on the south.

Even Gertriss, who’d spent her life doing whatever it is country folk do with swine in their swine-yards, held one of my handkerchiefs tight over her nose and mouth and pulled herself as far away from the windows as the cab allowed.

“Not much further,” I said, over the din of frightened cattle and furious drovers. “Then it’s sweet country air and wholesome country sunshine all the way to Wardmoor.”

She nodded, her eyes dubious.

“There are more than six hundred thousand people in Rannit,” I said. “All of them hungry, all of them demanding leather shoes and leather belts and leather coats. This is the only way to keep them fed and hold their pants up.”

She may have grinned behind the handkerchief. I shrugged and leaned back until we rounded the last row of stinking slaughter-barns, and I caught first sight of the Old Wall’s gap-toothed bulk over the rooftops.

“Nearly there,” I said. I shuffled in my seat, ready to get out, even if it meant a long hike. I hoped Gertriss’s new leather boots were a good fit, because blisters or no we were heading to Wardmoor. She was too heavy to carry and it was too far to turn back.

She must have seen me regarding her boots. “I brought my old ones just in case,” she said, her words muffled by the handkerchief. “You won’t have to carry me, Mr. Markhat.”

I lifted an eyebrow. I hadn’t said a word aloud.

Maybe the Hog women do share the gift. That thought sent shivers down my spine.

If Gertriss saw, she had the good grace not to show it.

I hadn’t been south of the city since I was kid. All I remembered from that trip was the cool shade cast by the Old Wall, the lush mosses and huge ferns that covered the shaded parts of it, and the way the noise and stink from the city stopped right as the scent of wet stones and moist soil and green growing things began.

Back then, the cattle roads were well east of where Gertriss and I stood after leaving the cab. Back then, the road I’d taken had been a well maintained if narrow affair made of smooth, carefully set flagstones that wound between arching old pines. Tidy little stone bridges spanned clean, burbling creeks. I’d spent the whole trip fully expecting to see Elves cavorting in the sun-dappled wood at any moment.

My, how things had changed.

The cabbie had laughed when I’d asked him how far he was willing to go. Now I saw why.

The road, or more precisely the wide, flat old pavers that made up the road, was gone. Hauled away by industrious country folk during the War, I surmised, when the Watch was gone fighting and the locals decided their houses and barns needed a new stone or two.

Gone also were the quaint moss-covered stone bridges. Ramshackle post and beam affairs stood in their places, showing profound signs of neglect and weathering.

The clear burbling creeks were foul, muddy rushes, polluted and defiled by the cattle roads, which were now in plain sight and raising a stink even though the wind was blowing toward them.

I regretted not hiring a pair of horses for a week. Gertriss might have brought old boots, but I hadn’t, and we both stood a good chance of turning an ankle on the treacherous, muddy trail ahead.

“Lady Werewilk came through this?” asked Gertriss, incredulous.

“She had a horse and a butler, I imagine,” I said. “Anyway, we don’t have to walk the whole way. She said she’d have a wagon waiting for us up where the road hasn’t been quarried.”

“How far is that?”

“Not sure,” I replied. “Only one way to find out.”

But Gertriss wasn’t listening to me or looking at me anymore. “What’s that?” she asked, taking a step off the trail toward a big swaying pine tree.

I followed her eyes.

The pine had sprouted feathers. Black feathers, crow’s feathers, three of them arranged in a neat triangle right about eye level.

Gertriss touched the ends of them just as something streaked past her shoulder, close enough to ruffle a few strands of her hair.

I was maybe three long strides away. She saw me coming and put up her hands and that’s all she had time to do before I hit her midways and took her down. We rolled, and she snarled and clawed. Despite my weight and experience the only way I got her to be still was by pinning her shoulders and head with my rucksack.