Chuggie and the Desecration of Stagwater (26 page)

"Look inside and see!" Chuggie barked back. He couldn't help being a little curious himself, but he didn't dare look. Without removing the purse, he held it up for Fitch to examine.

Fitch snatched at the purse, keeping his eyes fixed on Chuggie's. "Feels light, but I think there's something in here. Maybe it's something you don't want us to see, eh?"

Chuggie ground his teeth as blood filled his mouth. He readied himself. If Fitch tried to tear the purse off him, he'd take his chances and commence slashing with the Bleeding Jaws of Glughu.

Fitch didn't try to tear the goat-face purse away. Instead, he lifted the latch.

"Before you do that, tell me something." Chuggie huffed and puffed. "Did you sons of whores know you sent me to a desecrated graveyard? Did you know that when you drew me my little map?"

A guard poked a humming shockspear in his direction. Another brandished his gut-ripping hooksword. The weapons didn't scare Chuggie. These guardsmen were just doing their jobs. He hoped to avoid killing them.

Fitch gave a cruel smile. "If we knew or we didn't, I'd say it hardly matters now. You're here, and you're being arrested."

"And why's that?" Chuggie asked.

"For threatening the lives of citizens of Stagwater, obviously," Fitch sneered. "Now, let's see what secrets you're keeping in this purse, shall we?"

Chuggie's expression became an odd mix of fury and curiosity.
Furiosity
, he would have said. He watched with great interest.

As Fitch peered inside the goat-face purse, the smirk melted from his face. His mouth opened wide. The purse slipped from his fingers. His hand moved automatically to the gold senfen hanging around his neck. His wide, frozen eyes stared straight forward, and that wounded, thousand-yard stare caused a wave of panicked shuffling among the guardsmen.

They backed away from Chuggie and shook their weapons at him. One snapped his fingers in front of Fitch's eyes, then grabbed the magistrate by the shoulders and shook him. "What's he done to you, sir? What's he done?" The guard turned back to Chuggie. "What'd you do, fiend?"

Chuggie ignored the guardsman and studied Fitch with great interest.

Fitch parted his lips into a drooling, toothy smile. Slowly, he pushed his tongue out between his teeth. His neck muscles strained as he pushed his tongue out as far as he could. His jaw muscles flexed as he bit down. Fitch's bottom jaw worked back and forth, as he sawed through the meat.

The guardsmen stared as if dumbfounded as Fitch's tongue fell from his mouth. It bounced off his foot and onto the cobbles. There it sat, purple and bloody and covered in dirt.

Fitch took slow, toddler-like steps in the direction of the bridge.

The guardsmen froze, too shocked to stop him as he broke into a run.

With arms flailing, Ronymous Fitch bounded through the square. His maniacal shrieks of laughter echoed through the air.

Rorid, Priole, and two other guardsmen raced into the square on their wargoats. Six guardsmen surrounded the five-horned drifter. He was covered in blood.

Rorid couldn't believe his eyes as Fitch dashed away, stripping his clothes off as he went. The garments left a dotted trail in the street. Soon all Fitch wore was a pair of dainty shoes and the gold senfen around his neck.

"Get to the magistrate," Rorid ordered the other men on goatback.

"Where are the Steel Jacks?" Priole asked.

Where indeed were the Steel Jacks? Something wasn't right. The Steel Jacks were always present when there was trouble in Stagwater. Why not today?

Fitch bolted toward the bridge with the speed of a lunatic fleeing an asylum.

Rorid and Priole drove their animals hard as they pursued the cackling magistrate, but his lead was too great.

"What the hell is he doing?" Priole called out.

"Hell if I know," Rorid barked. "But we better damn well stop him." Rorid hoped when the time came he'd do the right thing. Would he save Fitch if Fitch needed saving? He didn't know.

Fitch clattered onto the bridge, then jolted to a stop. His shrill laughter drowned all other sounds as he stared down at the rocky, river's edge below.

Still laughing, Fitch clutched his senfen. With the pointed bottom of the medallion, he gouged into his eye. His entire body strained as he forced his eye from its socket. He yanked it free, leaving the torn optic nerve hanging down his face.

"Fuck!" Priole yelled.

Rorid spurred his goat.

Side by side, they raced onto the bridge and stormed toward Fitch.

Inches away from the naked man, they reined their animals to a stop.

Rorid leapt from his mount. "Mr. Fitch, you have to stop now."

At his side, Priole hissed, "Pile of shit.
Die
!"

Fitch dropped the first eye onto the planks of the bridge and went to work on the other.

Rorid lunged toward him, then stopped himself. He stared in disbelief.

Fitch tore his eye out, and laughed even harder. He popped it into his mouth like a gumdrop and chewed like it was his last meal. With nerves dangling from each socket, he turned to address the guardsmen. "Aaaah! Gaaah!" Yanking the senfen free of his neck, he added, "Guhug! Guhug
guguk
!"

Fitch dove over the rail, shrieking with maniacal mirth.

Rorid and Priole ran to the rail.

Abruptly the laughter stopped.

Fitch's naked corpse lay broken on the rocks far below. The gold senfen shone brightly next to his bloody hand. Nearby, the river rushed on as though nothing had happened.

"Holy shit," Priole said. "That right there, is my kind of justice."

Rorid turned away from the horrible sight.

"What are you going to put in your report?" the younger man asked as he too turned away.

Rorid shrugged.

Priole raised his boot.

"Oh, please don't." Rorid put out a pleading hand.

Priole stepped down on Fitch's uneaten eye. Eye jelly squirted onto the wood. "What did you say, sir?"

"Halt!" shouted a guard.

"Stop that man!" shouted another.

Chuggie, with a tight grip on the dagger, ran away from the town square.

The guardsmen gave chase, but none could match his dagger-enhanced speed. Some threw spears at him. Others fired arrows or darts.

The chain wrapped around Chuggie's torso protected him well. Projectiles lodged in the links and jutted from his back. Without his armor, he'd have had half a dozen mortal wounds.

Chuggie raced beyond the industrial buildings, nearing the Carnietown slums. Curious citizens came out to investigate the disturbance flying down the street. Sirens filled the air of Stagwater.

Chuggie ducked into an alley, and, realizing he'd found the rear entrance to The Gulping Goat, darted inside. Covered in blood and filth, he ran past the whores and up to the bar.

"Now, see here," said the barman, "you get your dirty hide out of my place!"

"Get me a bottle," said Chuggie. "An' you get it fast."

Chuggie dug in his satchel for some cash, and smacked it down on the bar.

The bartender's eyes lit up. He ran a hand over his well-greased hair and twiddled the ends of his mustache.

Chuggie stabbed the Bleeding Jaws of Glughu through the money and into the bar. "Get me," Chuggie growled as he lurched toward the man, "a bottle."

With trembling hands, the bartender reached for the closest bottle he could find. When Chuggie saw it was nearly empty, he slapped it out of the man's hand. Rage poured into him as if he were a pitcher under a tap. "I never did get your name, pimp." Chuggie growled.

"Mucklen," sputtered the barman.

"Well, Mucklen, you're the worst bartender in the history of useless bags o' shit." Chuggie yanked the dagger free of the bar as a compulsion took hold in his mind. As if guided by cosmic puppet strings, Chuggie buried the dagger in the bartender. He tried to tell himself he did it for Faben and for Haste and for justice that'd been denied, but that wasn't exactly right.

Mucklen's mouth fell open. A long keening wail spilled out of his mouth.

Chuggie grabbed the dagger and yanked it free. A spray of blood splattered the bar. Was this simply a release of built up hatred? Or maybe a symbolic killing of Stagwater's nearest avatar? He wanted Mucklen to explode in a ball of fire. He wanted Faben's ghost to come drag the man away.

The bartender, gasping like a fish, tried to cup the spilling blood in his hands and force it back into the gash.

Throughout the bar whores screamed like the damned, filling the place with sounds of terror.

Chuggie reached over and grabbed a bottle of rum, tucked it into his satchel, and dashed out the front door.

He looked up and down the street. It was empty.

Chuggie allowed himself one more admiring look up at The Gulping Goat's sign. Had he ever seen such a glorious work of art created by the hands of men? Certainly not. With no time to steal the masterpiece, Chuggie tried to memorize every line and color. Truly, the artist's murder was a blow to the arts. Maybe Shola could help him understand why he'd done it.

He shouldn't have murdered that man, and he knew that. He had no excuse. The bartender simply had terrible luck. The sensation of hatred had been so clear and pure and irresistible it had been like Chuggie'd had no other choice. He had wished to stab Haste and Kale in
their
hearts. Maybe hatred was a living thing, like a mangy dog that wouldn't go away.

Chuggie saluted the sign and ran on.

Weaving through the junk-homes of Carnietown, the Bleeding Jaws of Glughu showed Chuggie the way to the gate.

The gate stood open as he raced toward it. For an instant, it seemed like he'd be able to pass through uncontested.

The tower guardsmen spotted him, however, and the ranking officer shouted orders to close it. The heavy iron lattice slammed to the ground, booming like a thunder.

The tower guards manned their weapons, letting loose their barrage of arrows and darts. Chuggie managed to avoid their projectiles by the seat of his filthy pants. A cable net sailed at him from the tower. He dove just out of its path, rolled, and hit his feet at a full run. Guardsmen zipped down to the street on a pole. Their goat-riding confederates charged ahead.

When he got to the southern gate, he treated it to the same remedy as he'd given the northern gate. Three fast hacks, and he'd cut his exit.

Chuggie dove through the hole.

His jacket snagged on a bit of jagged lattice. He couldn't get through.

One of the guardsmen grabbed Chuggie's leg, and the others jumped in to help. Together, they heaved. Chuggie kicked, but felt himself pulled, as if caught in an undertow, back inside the gate.

"Lemme go, you goat rammin' frog-dicks!"

As Chuggie bucked and swore, one of the guardsmen leaned in to get an arm around his waist. The goat-face purse flopped up onto Chuggie's back, and in the fray, the flap flipped open.

The guardsman looked inside, entirely by accident, and instantly released his hold.

The guard screamed, swung around on his fellows, and lunged for the nearest man's neck.

The others lost their grip on Chuggie.

Chuggie scooted through the gate. He got to his feet on the other side.

The poor bastard who'd looked into the purse busied himself by gnawing his fingers off, one by one. Between digits, he cackled the same shrill laughter as Fitch.

His comrades wrestled him down and shouted up to the men up in the tower.

"I didn't do that!" Chuggie yelled.

No one replied or even looked his way, so he sprinted out onto the plankway that crossed the southern swamp.

"Ready the puff!" The guardsman's voice carried out into the bog.

"Sir! Puff is ready!"

"Fire!"

Chuggie heard the "puff" mechanism snap. The puff was a gift to mankind from the Steel Jacks, who had no qualms about giving men better tools for killing each other.

From the city wall, a cloud of lead balls arced high into the air. Alien design made the lead balls wobble in their descent. A special texture worked with the wobble, allowing the balls to claw their way down faster than should have been possible — a bit of otherworldly sorcery, perhaps. Chuggie'd be shredded if the "puff" of lead rained down on him. Only slug-plate armor, of which he had none, would stand up to the weapon.

Chuggie dove off the plankway, landing among the reeds in murky, chest-deep water. He worried about Faben's book for a moment before deciding the former Woodsman would have protected the pages against water. Whatever the case, he was wet. The book would have to look after itself for the time being.

Chuggie dove under the bridge before the lead rain touched down, but even the bridge couldn't guarantee his safety. He jammed The Bleeding Jaws of Glughu into his belt so he could search beneath the water. He found a good-sized stone and held it over his head as projectiles thunked into the bridge above him. Just as he thought, scores of the lead balls hammered straight through the bridge. They hit the water with little splashes and chipped away at the rock protecting him.

In an instant, it was over. Chuggie dropped the rock into the water and drew the dagger. He sloshed back up onto the plankway and resumed his getaway. A little further, and the trees would hide him from the guardsmen. He'd still be in range of the puff cannon, but if he got lucky, they'd miss. If he got very lucky, they'd decide not to fire again.

A contingent of guardsmen crashed through the broken gate and onto the bridge. As they approached the damage done by the puff they slowed. One man stepped forward. The plank crumbled under him. His fellows caught him before he fell through the hole.

Chuggie bolted for the trees. Moving as quickly and quietly as possible, he made it deep into the woods before stopping to listen.

He didn't hear anything behind him. Putting the knife back into his belt, he sat against a tree and caught his breath. Wiping his face, he saw the whole world had been painted red. At first, he guessed the dagger-vision played a trick on his eyes, or maybe it was even the effects of being so close to the goat-face purse.