Brown River Queen (29 page)

“Not the time for games, honey,” I said. “Come back here.”

Buttercup giggled and scampered off.

Dutson appeared, a tray laden with beer bottles in his hand. I’d caught a glimpse of him in the fray with the construct dancers. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead and his dinner jacket was torn, but his bearing suggested we were all merely enjoying another fine meal on another fine evening.

He nodded at me and gave me his customary ghost of a smile.

And then he stepped over Buttercup’s rope.

It wasn’t much. Just a shimmer, if you will. The barest flickering, the hint of a blur, as though Dutson stepped in front of hot air rising over a road. His features distorted—for a fraction of a heartbeat—showing as something with the basic shape and features of a man in late middle age that wasn’t a man at all.

Buttercup appeared at my side, slipped her tiny hand in mine, and began to howl.

Dutson dropped his tray. I brought my gun to bear. Buttercup’s howl rose up and filled the
Queen
, and before Dutson could move, Buttercup raised her free hand, pointing at him.

I fired. I didn’t miss. He turned and fled. I stuck Buttercup’s hand in Darla’s and charged after the Elf.

I caught a glimpse of Mama leaping to her feet, cleaver in hand. Rifles cracked, though who or what they were shooting at I couldn’t tell.

Buttercup’s banshee howl redoubled in volume. Glass began to shatter—here and there, beside and above. A tinkling rain of shards fell.

I caught a glimpse of Dutson’s white collar and made for him, yelling for help as I went. I didn’t look back to see if any of Evis’s people were on my heels.

The swinging doors to the kitchens still swung, as though someone just pushed through them. I put my back to the wall and pushed the right door open with Toadsticker.

Something struck the door hard enough to send it flying from its hinges. I stuck my gun inside and fired blind—twice—and entered the kitchen in a crouch.

Iron
 
skillets swayed on their hooks. A forgotten pot boiled over on a stove. I heard the crackle and hiss of a cook-stove fire.

“There’s not another door,” I said. I held my gun steady. I was out of rounds, but I doubted ancient Elves were versed enough in gun craft to know that.

“By now two dozen halfdead are out there waiting,” I said. “It’s over. You’re not walking out of here. Maybe we can make you a better deal than Hag Mary.”

And there he was, appearing out of thin air, just like Buttercup.

“You are not worthy to speak her name,” he said. Gone was Dutson’s calm visage. His face was twisted with rage, twisted so far beyond human it was a caricature—eyes huge and bugged, brows pulsing, jaw protruding, and teeth growing as I watched. “The Wise One alone is fit to rule! Soon all will bow to her, and acknowledge her power and beauty! “

“Sure, but can she cook?”

Teeth became tusks. Hands became claws. It screamed and leaped, teeth dripping something thick and yellow.

I sidestepped, hurled the boiling pot of chicken stock into its face.

It didn’t blink. It didn’t scream. It wiped its face and grinned and began shifting its weight from foot to foot.

“You said I’d not walk out. But I will. As Markhat.”

“You won’t fool anyone. I’m told I am unique.”

“And your friends—where are they, hmmm? Why haven’t they come in to join us?”

“I told them to stay back,” I lied. “I don’t need any help putting down a wood sprite like you.”

“They can’t get inside,” it said. “I have magic. Magic more powerful than anything you know. I’ll put on your skin and bathe myself in glamour and I’ll go out there and I’ll kill her first, you know. Right before I lean close, and whisper in her ear, and tell her I don’t love her anymore.”

I laid down my empty gun and put both hands on Toadsticker’s hilt.
 

“You don’t have to be her tool,” I said. “Hag Mary. Wise One. Whatever you want to call her. You think she won’t throw you away when she’s done? That’s how those people work. You know it.”

“I’ll gut your Darla like a fish. Show Darla her liver before she dies. Take a bite out of it before her eyes close.”

“Going to be hard to do without a head.”

It gave up all pretense of being human and rushed me, snarling and flailing.

I buried Toadsticker deep in its chest, meeting no more resistance than if I’d pierced a bag of feathers. I twisted the blade and the Elf laughed and picked me up and threw me across the kitchen. Then it snatched Toadsticker free and tossed the sword aside.

“She’ll die in agony, betrayed,” it said, its words rendered nearly unintelligible as they passed through a throat and lips no longer human. The Elf’s skin split and hung in great ragged strips. Greens and browns—vines and shoots, I realized—moved beneath.

I found my Army knife, plunged it into its right eye as it grabbed me by the chest. Something like sap spurted out. The Elf laughed.

“Time to die, mortal man,” it said. “I won’t even need your ears for the rest of the spell. I can kill them all, one by one. They trust you. Killing them will be so easy.”

My hand closed over the false huldra. I brought it forth and shoved it in the Elf’s misshapen face.

It laughed again, a merry tinkle that sounded of chimes and crystal.
 

“It’s not even a terribly convincing fake,” said the Elf. “Your blind little sorceress has none of the skill my Blessed Mistress shows.”

I cussed. Dutson, ever present, always there and handy with a beer and a snack. Always lurking close, unfailingly attentive, always ignored—Elf ears wide open and listening, catching every unguarded whisper.

The Elf’s mouth opened and filled with black thorns as long as knives. “Eat it anyway,” I said, and when it roared I shoved the false huldra right down his damned throat.

The false huldra erupted in flames in my grasp. Fire shot between my fingers and rolled down my forearm and roared into the Elf, and while the flames didn’t burn me, they blazed through him like flaming oil dumped on kindling.

The Elf flapped and flopped and flailed, limbs thrashing against me, drumming on the walls, beating hard against the floor. The Elf pulled and strained and heaved, but some force beyond either of us kept us locked in place while the furious flames did their work.

It burned, did the Elf. Burned hot and bright. The smoke from it was sweet, as though from some rare and treasured tree.

Ashes fell from inside it. Its movements slowed. Vines began to unravel from within him, trailing embers and smoke.

In a moment, it was over, and the remains of the Elf—the last Elf, for all I knew—fell smoking to the
Queen’s
kitchen floor.

Instantly, Buttercup’s banshee howl sounded again. Shouts rose up, and a bevy of wary halfdead charged in, weapons drawn, eyeing me with an unhealthy amount of suspicion.

I lowered my hand. It was empty, save for a handful of ashes and a few steaming drops of black wax.

“It’s me, gents. Captain Markhat.” I said, adding a hint of emphasis to the word ‘Captain.’ “We had a spy aboard. Now we don’t. How are things outside?”

Their weapons didn’t waver. Mama Hog forced her way through them and without a word tossed a loop of Buttercup’s stringy rope around my neck.

Buttercup’s howl ceased and she was suddenly there with me, arms wrapped around my knees.

“Let her in,” bellowed Mama. “It’s him.”

They parted for Darla, and we all hugged while Mama kicked at the Elf’s remains with the toe of her boot.

“I knowed it all along,” she muttered. “Ain’t nothin’ to ‘em but a handful of weeds.”

Stitches made her way inside.
The rotary guns are too hot to fire,
she said to the Avalante soldiers.
Go. The constructs are massing.

The soldiers went.
 

I leaned against the cabinets. My side was beginning to ache where I’d struck the wall. I had bruised ribs, if not broken ones.

“Stitches.” Talking didn’t hurt, but pulling in the breath to speak above the din of gunfire did. “How long until you absolutely have to drop the shield?”

Two hours. At that point, if the shield remains, we will effectively be engulfed in the shadow realm.

“Is that two hours plus or minus, or precisely two hours?”

Precisely two hours.

Darla, always angelic, found an icebox and wrapped a good big scoop of ice in a burlap flour sack, which she pressed gently to my side.

“You think the Elf was communicating with the outside?”

It seems likely.

“So they’d know we have two hours before we make ourselves vulnerable. I assume we’re still heading south at what…twenty knots, figuring the current?”

I have no contact with the wheelhouse or the engine room. But yes, we are still underway, at speed.

“I’ve got two ideas. You’re going to hate both of them.”

The gunfire outside wasn’t slowing. Shouts for more ammunition and more rifles sounded. I couldn’t see out the kitchen door, but it seemed the bone-men were massing for a charge.

“First, we take the rotary guns and as much ammunition as we can carry, and we march right into the shadow. They’re not expecting that.”

Suicide. Sheer suicide. Even my limited exploration of that place revealed it to be populated by creatures against which the guns would have little or no effect.

“She’s right about that, boy. I got a glimpse myself. Ain’t got words for what I seen. We could each charge in with a handful of cannon and still end up stomped flat.”

“I told you you’d hate it.”

I do indeed.
 

“Then we’re left with an easy choice,” I said. “We hand everyone a gun and we line the outer decks and we drop the shield. That will close the door to the shadow realm, will it not?”

I believe so. It will also render us immediately vulnerable to Hag Mary and her allies, who we know to be waiting in ambush.

“If they’re planning an ambush, they’ll be massing their main forces right at the spot they think we’ll be when the
Queen’s
shields fail. If you say we could hold out another two hours, and if we’re doing twenty knots, that might put them forty miles away.”

You realize this will be an arcane assault, and forty miles may make little difference to its execution.

“I know that. We might buy a few minutes, no more. We might be able to make for the riverbank, and we might get some of these people to safety. You have a better idea? Anyone?”

I shall need a moment to coordinate with the Regent.

“I don’t.” I was about to add a treasonous comment upon the Regent’s lack of involvement in the saving of his own hash when a pair of halfdead floated into the room and whispered to Stitches.

She dismissed them with a wave.

I shall see to the containment of the constructs while you coordinate the evacuation to the outer decks,
she said.
 

“What about your word with the Regent?”

The Regent and his staff are gone. Vanished. Presumably via arcane means beyond detection by my skills or those of his adversaries.

Her voice maintained its careful neutrality, but the sutures in her lips beaded with tiny droplets of blood and she involuntarily clenched her jaw.

“Too bad. I was going to thank his girlfriend for adding her poison to the huldra. Or was that your magic that set him on fire?”

I have no such magic.
She lowered her hood to hide her face.
I wish you good fortune, Markhat.

“You should go with Darla and Mama,” I said. I showed her the key Evis had given me, to the false boiler and a hiding place. “You sure as hell don’t owe the Regent any loyalty. Not now.”

Stitches turned and walked away.

“I’m not hiding in any steel bowl,” said Darla.

“Me neither,” said Mama, loosing another savage kick at the smoldering remains of the Elf. “Might take me one of them fancy guns, though. I aims to do some harm.”

Buttercup looked up at me and grinned.

“Hell with it then,” I said. “Mama, I’ll get you a rifle. Buttercup too, maybe even a brace of cannon.”

Mama cussed and grabbed the little banshee and hauled her out of the kitchen. Darla and I kissed, checked our pistols, cleaned chicken broth off Toadsticker’s noble steel, and set about arming the survivors and warning them not to fire too soon or at each other.

Chapter Fifteen

The bone-men stood in clacking rows halfway to the stage.

Stitches fussed with the rotary guns, banging away at some brass mechanism with a hammer in a most unsorcerous fashion. A hundred halfdead ringed the advancing line of skeletons, rifles ready. Behind the riflemen stood more halfdead, each holding a fresh weapon and kneeling by a crate of ammunition.

The bone-men advanced another step, coming even with a chalk line inscribed on the floor.
 

The riflemen fired, working their bolts until their weapons were empty. Then they dropped them, grabbed the fresh ones handed to them by their reloaders, and started firing anew.