Paul Kidd: White Plume Mountain

The Justicar’s current employer, the Countess of Urnst, was awise woman. She knew that her counselors were security risks and that her border patrols had been infiltrated. Obliterating this problem would require a certain silent, savage touch. Hence came the Justicar. He had a simple commission: Get the wagon trains safely moving. To accomplish this, he would have to eliminate the cause of the raids.

Because the caravans left from secret locations and took secret trails, someone was obviously seeding agents among the caravans to lead them into ambush. This meant that the enemy must have a spy that somehow discovered the caravan routes.

To find that spy, the ranger had accompanied the teamsters on their journey back to their usual home base. Somewhere here, there was a spy, the next step up a ladder that would lead the Justicar to the head of the conspiracy. He had followed the trail back to where the caravans began, and now once again he hunted for unworthy souls.

Along the Franz River, on the border of the County of Urnst and its eastern neighbor Nyrond, there lay an area of careful neutrality. Both kingdoms watched each other in mutual hostility and therefore had opened a niche for exploitation.

The river had become a haven for showboats and pleasure barges. As long as gambling, prostitution, and alcohol were peddled on the river, the boats were technically under no one’s tax and no one’s law. Thebarges were careful never to touch upon the shore, plying rowboats back and forth to pick up passengers and supplies. Huge, lordly, and teeming with revelers, each barge existed as a tiny kingdom with its own power struggles, its own politics, and its own maze of petty crime. They were floating worlds the size of villas, crewed by dozens of sailors, waiters, cooks, prostitutes, card sharks, and armed guards.

A typical barge of its kind, the Saucy Gannet measured two hundred feet in length, soared three stories tall, and had been decked out in painted wooden feathers from gilded stem to crested stern. Onboard gambling halls, bars, and brothels catered to a bizarre array of tastes. Cheap tavern housing could be found below decks while the upper levels were as opulent as a palace. The whole contraption plodded through the water, propelled by a huge stern wheel. Guests who had tried to skip their gambling debts now walked along a treadmill that turned the wheel.

Festooned with banners and with its idiotic figurehead grinning at the world, the Saucy Gannet was a universe all of her own.

The Justicar did not approve.

In a world where so many suffered and where so much work still needed to be done, he objected to seeing such effort being wasted upon sheer banality. Watching a pair of leggy women wiggle past, the Justicar leaned on a rail and distastefully wondered if merely touching the ship would somehow taint his soul.

Two tourists seemed to be enjoying their little dip into debauchery. They were dressed largely in ostrich feathers, most of which were placed to the rear. They looked the shaven-headed man slyly up and down, leaning back upon the rails in invitation. All of a sudden, one girl saw the hell hound skin grinning wickedly at them from the Justicar’s backpack, bugged her eyesout, and dragged her companion into a hasty retreat to the farthest possible corner of the ship.

From his nest inside his friend’s backpack, Cinders gave ahappy sniff of the air.

Girlie girl smells nice!

The Justicar pulled an apple from a passing tray. He bit into it, chewed for a while, and carefully examined the barge with its waving bunting and its dens of sin. Every person aboard was being fleeced by the captain, robbed by crooked games and thieving waitresses, yet more and more visitors came aboard at every stop. With the end of the war, people seemed in a frenzy to spend their time upon frivolity.

It was a monument to wastefulness, illusion, and greed. Cursing in disgust, the Justicar pitched his apple core down into the river. “Ihate this place.”

Burn! Cinders seemed to jiggle with glee. Burn! Burn!

“Look, just have a snack, will you? And no burning!” Aftershoving a piece of coal into the hell hound’s mouth, the Justicar angrilysnatched another apple from a passing dish. “You do realize they’retrying to make us pay for all that damned fish oil?”

Just to make the day perfect, a bystander decided to invade the Justicar’s private retreat beside the rail. The intruder had the physique ofa piece of knotted string, a huge axe-beak nose, and had decked himself out in an archer’s cap adorned with pheasant plumes.

“So there you are! Thought I saw you there. Said to myself,‘Polk,’ I said, ‘now there’s a fellow in need of company!’”

“Oh, lovely .” The Justicar seethed with raw hatred forthe entire universe. Polk the teamster was exactly the right thing to worsen an already irritating day. “You’ve woken up.”

“Had to, son. I’m your host! Brought you here, should lookafter you. No telling what trouble a young ’un like you might blunder into in aplace like this. You need an old hand to watch out for you, someone who knows the ropes, has an investigative mind.” Polk helped himself to a bite from theJusticar’s apple. He decided to keep it and finished the entire fruit as hetalked.

“This is the life. This is the payoff. Here’s where we comeat the end of every trip.” The man managed to shower droplets of apple juice allover the front of the Justicar. “Wagoning! That’s the life. You take my word forit, son. Give up this ne’er-do-well trapping you do and take up a proper job!”

“Yeah, right.” The Justicar had worked long and hard to makehimself into a fearsome figure. He had eliminated bandits and preyers-upon-the-weak from Celadon forest to the borders of Iuz. In stark, unyielding efficiency he had no equals. Wrenching his eyes away from the sight of the riverbanks, the Justicar turned himself to the job at hand.

As annoying as it seemed, Polk was his first, best, and only source of information. The big ranger turned to glower down at his companion.

“Talk to me, Polk. So, this is where you were just before youwent out on your job? All of you?” The man tried to leave Polk no openings forfuzzy logic. “This exact barge at this exact town?”

“Right here! The Gannet’s the best punt on the river,and every teamster knows it. Best spread of crowds, too.”

“So I’d heard.” The Justicar rested one hand on the pommel ofhis sword. “Who do you talk to when you get here? Is there one barmaid whoalways listens, one gambler you always see, one woman you always request?”

“You mean do we blab about where we’re going? Pfffft!” The teamster mimed his own mouth being stitched tight. “Our lips are sealed!That’s for us to know and the world to find out! You know me,son-professionalism first! Never interfere with the job!”

Apparently, someone was interfering with the job. Someone knew the days and dates that the northbound supply caravans were leaving. Since the teamsters and wagon crews had all been slaughtered to a man, it seemed unlikely that the spy was one of their own.

Clearly, a spy had made a business out of eavesdropping on the wagoners. All in all, it would be easiest to let the spy seek out the wagoners. Much as it pained him, the Justicar decided to attach himself to Polk and his friends.

A gaggle of teamsters had gathered to spend their wages on booze and women before heading out on yet another supply train. Walking slowly after the wagoners, the Justicar followed them down through the gambling dens and into the barge’s painted halls.

A big tavern overlooked the broad, curved stern. It was a noisy place filled with the sounds of dice, clanging beer steins, and revelry.