Frank Tuttle - The Banshee's walk

Somewhere a clock was striking off the third hour when they finally approached Lady Werewilk’s door and the moment I’d been dreading arrived.

“In the house,” called a man. He had a faint accent I couldn’t place. “You’ve got something we want.”

The Lady was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Marlo. I ignored the glares of the household staff and shoved my way close to the heap of furniture stacked in front of the door.

“We’re all out of turnips,” I shouted. “But if it’s onions you want, you can have all you can carry.”

“I’m not going to ask more than once.”

“Ask for what? You haven’t been very clear about what it is you’re after. We simple country folk simply don’t understand your subtle big-city ways.”

Something struck the door. I guessed it was an axe. Behind me, the gardeners and cooks and carpenters were beginning to hiss and mutter.

I turned to face them, whipped Toadsticker out of my belt, and grinned.

“Anybody else wants to take over, step right up. Otherwise shut it. What’ll it be?”

They inched back. I heard feet on the stairs, heading for the Lady’s room, but that was just fine by me.

“Give us the banshee.”

“The what?”

“The banshee. Give it to us, and you live. Make us come and get it, and everybody dies.”

“So you have no interest at all in onions?”

“You’re dead,” said the man outside. “How long do you think those walls will stand? My engineers tell me three throws from each ought to open you right up.” He raised his voice, making sure everyone around could hear. “Why die for the banshee? It’s not even human. Give it to us. Or die. Your choice.”

The muttering behind me got suddenly louder. Words emerged.

“Why not?” said someone.

“Ain’t ready to die,” said another.

“We can take him,” said a third.

I put my back to the nearest clear patch of wall.

They rushed me. Two carpenters. Two gardeners. A stable boy. A woodsman. Two had swords, the rest held makeshift clubs.

Had they been soldiers, I’d have died there, right by the Lady’s big red doors. But they came in a bunch, elbows touching, feet nearly tangled, eyes mad with more fear than fury.

I sidestepped, brought Toadsticker up horizontally, deflected a pair of clumsy overhand blows, landed a solid kick on one knee and a nice hard punch in a beer-reddened face. Bodies collided, one fell, another went down with him in a sudden tangle of limbs. I thumped the woodsman on his cheek with the flat of Toadsticker’s blade and gave a carpenter a long shallow cut across his forehead and the stable boy dropped his club and ran and it was over as suddenly as it had begun.

They scrambled away. The man outside shouted again.

“Give us the banshee.” He struck the door again. “Last chance.”

“Tell him to go to Hell.”

The Lady’s hirelings whirled to find her leaning wearily on the stair. Marlo was at her side, holding her upright.

“This House has stood for three hundred and seventy years,” she said. “Stood through Elves and Trolls and fires and storms. How dare any of you decide this is the day we turn into a House of cowards.”

The Lady’s eyes flashed. “Tell him,” she said, to me.

“Nothing doing,” I shouted, at the door. “No banshees for you today. I’m also told you can go to Hell. Furthermore, a suggestion was made that your mother was a donkey. I myself dispute that last part, because-”

Something struck the door. The timbers buckled visibly inward. The makeshift barricade shifted and groaned.

The Lady stiffened. Marlo opened his mouth to issue a protest, but too late. She raised her hands, made a gesture that blurred the air, and spoke a harsh strange word.

Outside, men screamed.

The Lady sagged. Marlo caught her. She smiled weakly back at him.

“Another of Grandmother’s old spells,” she said. “Not mine. I’m fine.”

There was a thud outside, as something large and heavy was dropped. The screaming continued, growing weaker. Men shouted.

I smelled burning flesh.

Evis came gliding down the stairs, halting a respectful distance from Marlo and the Lady.

“Finder,” he said. “Accompany me.”

I put Toadsticker back in my belt and shouldered my way through the mob. They didn’t like it, but no one got in my way.

The Lady pulled herself together and started exhorting her troops. I sidled past her and accompanied Evis upward.

“Developments?” I whispered. The Lady was talking about courage and honor. I remember the same pep talks from my Army days, and after reflecting on the contempt we’d harbored toward those same speeches I knew she was wasting her breath.

“I think so,” he said. “Good news for us, for a change. Looks like the Corpsemaster has decided to start his show.”

I let out a sigh of relief. Part of me had been wondering if Hisvin had just gotten bored with the whole affair and had simply gone home to have a drink and curl up with a good book.

“You sure it’s Hisvin?”

“It killed a couple of soldiers while you were engaged in diplomacy. It’s Hisvin, all right.”

We reached the third floor and left the stairs. Evis darted down a hall, took a right, stopped at the third door, knocked softly in a one-two one-two pattern.

Locks clicked. I could hear furniture scrape the floor as it was pulled away from the door.

Finally, Gertriss peeped out. “Boss,” she said. More scrapings, and then she opened the door wide enough for us to squeeze through.

Mama and Darla were on the floor, playing dolls with Buttercup. At sight of me the banshee leaped to her feet and sprang across the room to hug my knees.

The door shut behind us, and Gertriss threw the lock and then put a hastily improvised bar across the middle of the door.

“This the room Marlo gave you?”

“No, it isn’t. But everyone knew about that room. This is one smaller, but the walls are thicker and that door is a solid piece of blood oak. I thought we’d be safer here.”

I gave Gertriss a smile and disentangled Buttercup.

“Good thinking. You’re getting a promotion, first thing tomorrow.” I tousled the banshee’s hair and turned her around. “Go play, honey. The grownups need to talk.”

Darla held out a doll with corn-silk hair, and Buttercup squealed and leaped for it.

“Over here,” said Evis. He was standing by a window. The window itself was covered over with a burlap sack. Marlo lifted the corner of the sack and motioned me forward.

Someone had pulled away the window frame on the right side, and had managed to go through the inner wall and pull away a chunk of limestone the size of my fist, leaving a hole we could see through.

Mama cackled, suddenly beside me. “Have a look, boy. We ain’t the only ones with sorcery troubles now.”

I put an eye to the hole and prayed it hadn’t been noticed from the ground.

It hadn’t, mainly because the people on the ground had more pressing matters to attend to.

Something had broken through the scorched turf about twenty feet from the wall. From my vantage point, I could discern that it was a smooth, glassy cylinder of some dark material. The top was flat. Earth and burnt grass still rested on it.

It was maybe five feet in diameter. And it was still rising, albeit slowly.

About it were shouts and one long, agonized scream. I couldn’t see the source of the screams, but I could see soldiers keeping well beyond it shouting and loosing arrows and yelling for wand-wavers.

The arrows they loosed simply vanished. I never heard them strike the cylinder, never saw then ricochet off it. They just ceased to be.

As did the screaming, suddenly, and with a certain air of mortal finality.