Glen Cook - Dread Brass Shadows

Come on, Garrett! This is it. They've handed it to you. All you have to do is fall through a door and roll down a hill. Or the other way around. You have the necessary skills.

My body told me, all right, I'll let you open one eye.

I did. I couldn't see squat because I wasn't facing the door.

The driver observed, "Something's up. He's slowing down "Like maybe the philosopher had bad eyes.

The philosopher called, "What is it, Winsome?"

I wished I had the energy to laugh. Winsome? Was that a nickname?

Did I have a death wish? The philosopher was talking from near the head of the team. They were handing me it on a platter and all I could do was turn my head enough to look outside and see that we were exactly where I'd guessed

Come on, Garrett!

I reached back for the old reserves and found I had enough to lever myself up enough to see that they hadn't dressed me up in ropes or shackles. I could leap up and dash away after leaving my dreaded mark slashed into the property of the evildoers.

Winsome yelled something about a bad smell.

I heard a footstep. Cunning me, I lay down where I'd been and made like a guy who was going to snore for another week. The philosopher must not have watched many guys come back from a thumping. He bought it.

He pulled an illegal sword from beneath his seat, told the driver, "Don't move," and went stomping up the road.

The driver cussed the horses. The animals were getting restless.

My body began to yield to my will. I got onto my knees slowly so as not to rock the coach and alert the driver. I looked out the open door at the woods. I don't usually have much use for the country, but from where I knelt at that moment ticks and chiggers and poison ivy didn't sound bad at all. I eased forward, poked my head out far enough to look uphill.

One guy was almost to the top. He seemed uncomfortable. Only his brags were keeping him up there. The other was striding toward him, sword in hand.

One quick dive over the edge, Garrett. Your best chance.

Ha! said my body. No you don't.

I was recovering. And they were giving me time I could use to recover some more, talking up there. I wondered what was going on. I wondered even more about that reference to a shoemaker.

Maybe if I lived, I'd figure it out.

If I didn't get off my ass soon, I was going to lose a lot of respect for me. Not to mention aforesaid ass. I'd regret it the rest of my life. So I did something, on the old Corps theory that doing anything is better than doing nothing at all.

I swung my feet over the side and settled them on the road. That took most of my energy. Unfortunately, it also wakened the driver. I'd hoped to have another minute before I went down the hill. But the guy up top yelled.

Winsome spotted me. He roared. The philosopher yelled. You'd have thought we'd won the war. They started running downhill.

The driver hollered again, but he wasn't worried about me now.

I heaved myself upright and tottered forward. I didn't look where I was going. I was too busy gawking at the scaly green barrel of a head, sleepy-eyed, that had risen above the ridge line. The monster made a puzzled whuffing noise, then grinned a grin filled with about ten thousand gigantic teeth, got up from where it had been napping. And got up and got up and got up.

The bottom went out from under me as the horses began a brief debate about the quickest way to get the hell out of there.

The slope was steeper than I'd remembered it. I couldn't control my descent. I went down ass over appetite, sliding, rolling, ricocheting off trees, bouncing through underbrush. Every stick and stone autographed my body. I ended up spread-eagle in a patch of last year's thistles. I wondered if it was worth it.

Up top, the horses had found a way to turn around and were headed south. The driver cracked his whip like maybe they needed encouragement. The philosopher and Winsome were fifty feet behind hollering for the driver to wait up. Big Ugly had gotten all of himself upright and over the ridge and was fixing to put on a burst of speed.

The whole thing would have been amusing had I not been part of it, down there in the ravine trying to blend into the landscape so I wouldn't look killable or edible either one.

No team and no men are going to outrun a critter that makes its living chasing things and has legs fifteen feet long. On the other hand, no critter thirty feet tall will have a lot of luck sprinting down a twisty road less than eight feet wide in the turns. The thunder-lizard over hauled Winsome as the man headed into a sharp turn with a cut on one side and a forty-foot drop on the other. The critter smacked into the hillside, rebounded, and off the road he went. He cussed in thunder-lizard all the way to the bottom.

The big greenie had stick-to-it-ivity, I'll give him that. He got up, shook himself off, tore up some timber just to express himself, then got rolling again. He wanted to catch something for all his trouble. He limped a little. Maybe he'd twisted an ankle, or whatever thunder-lizards have.

I barely breathed till the excitement took itself out of hearing. Then I moved carefully. I've heard that those things sometimes run in packs. And maybe he'd spotted me going over the side. Maybe he was waiting for a Garrett snack to come to him. Probably what he was doing up there on the ridge—just letting breakfast, lunch, and dinner come trotting up from town.

I glanced up the slope I'd descended "I got to find another line of work." I started limping. "People don't want to be saved anyway." Weider's standing offer at the brewery looked better all the time. Nobody to beat on me, no hills to fall down, nobody wanting to take me for a ride, all the beer I could drink. Just lean back and pour it down until I was as fat as the Dead Man. What a life.

The job would look good till the hurting stopped.

My myriad aches and bruises wakened the anger that had grown feeble since I'd learned that Tinnie was going to make it. I remembered her lying in the street with a knife sticking out of her, and that reminded me that complain as I might, I did have an interest in all this confusion and insanity. A very personal interest.

There will be Serpents with us always. With the best will it can muster, the race wouldn't be able to exterminate them all. And the race, of course, has no universal will to see them become extinct. We all have a bit of the Serpent in us, just waiting for the right moment to bloom.

Witness all these characters who wanted the Book of Dreams. Not all of them had been bad to begin.

I'd even begun to doubt Carla Lindo's honorable intentions.

We can't get shut of the Serpents but we can sure as hell lower the price in pain by snipping one off the social bush now and then. My attitude underwent adjustment as I limped along. My get-even list rearranged itself. Sometime during my trek homeward, my resistance toward participating in Crask and Sadler's adventure evaporated I donned my pain like a badge, let it flow through me, refused to be daunted by anything.

It's only six miles from Hornet Nest Hill to my place. A couple hours, loafing along. I didn't loaf but I didn't make that good a time. Too many injuries slowing me down

I never saw the nest for which the hill is named. I never saw a hornet. I didn't see friend Winsome or the philosopher again, either. I did, at a distance, spy some busted black wood that might have been fancy coachwork. I didn't go look for survivors.

By the time I got home I was mad at myself for letting the Dead Man get my goat and run me out to see the head dwarf. I'd known it was a pointless exercise when I left.

Dean let me in. He saw I was in no mood or shape for any discussion. He did a fade. I went into my office, shut the door, wouldn't even let Dean bring my beer. I communed with Eleanor. We made a pact. Despite the pain and discouragement, I'd keep plugging. I'd get that book, one way or another. I'd thin the ranks of the villains. Eleanor gave me one of her rare smiles.