Dread Brass Shadows (27 page)

“Yeah. Better stay behind this ridge, too. Never know who might spot us if we don’t.” We were in a vineyard. There were grape-growers’ houses nearby.

“You said that already.”

“You said that about heading north three times, too.”

“You nervous, Garrett?”

“Yeah. You?”

She seemed cool. “Scared shitless.”

“It doesn’t show.”

“You learn.”

The sky went berserk toward Chodo’s place. I said, “Sounds like the morCartha brought their show to the country.” We couldn’t see them, light or no, with the ridge in the way. We decided not to go over and look. Everybody at the kingpin’s place would be out gawking.

We found us a comfortable jump-off place fifty yards north of Chodo’s property line. The morCartha were still at it, off and on. “Those flying rats could wake the dead,” I grumbled.

“We got time to kill. We’re ahead of schedule.” The plan was to wait for Crask and Sadler to draw the thunder-lizards around front once they gave up on me and decided to take their best shot. Then we’d move, hoping my amulet still worked.

“Yeah.” I tried making sense of the racket. “I don’t like that.” I stood up. Standing, I could see the occasional dot swoop through the light over the kingpin’s house. A deadly battle over there, near as I could tell. “Why did they bring it out here?”

“Oh, sit down and sweat blood like I am.”

If there was no attack by Crask and Sadler, or none we could detect, we would move about three o’clock, the coolest hour of the night, when the thunder-lizards would be sluggish. With them slow and maybe ignoring us on account of my amulet, we’d only need to worry about dogs, armed guards, booby traps, and whatever I didn’t know about.

Winger laid back and stared at the stars. “Be enough light, anyway. I can handle the dogs. Better hope those morCartha clear off, though.”

I grunted. Dogs make me nervous. Not afraid, just nervous.

“You got a special woman, Garrett? That little Sparky, hanging around your place?”

“Sparky?”

“The carrot top. I put the name Sparky on her in my own head.”

“Oh. Yeah. I have one or two.”

“One or two?”

“Tinnie Tate. The one who got stabbed. And one named Maya I kind of like. I haven’t seen her lately.”

“I heard some about her. People talk. Besides them two. Anything going? You got kind of a rep that way, you know.”

“Highly exaggerated, I’m sure. Those things have a way of getting blown out of proportion. Nah. Nobody else special. Except maybe Eleanor.”

“That Sparky?”

“No. The blonde on my office wall. She’s a good listener.”

“Nothing going with Sparky, eh?”

“Just wishful thinking. Why?”

“No reason. Just wondering. We got time to kill.”

What? “Oh.” Sometimes I’m real slow. I started fumbling for excuses that wouldn’t leave any hurt feelings. “I don’t know. Condition I’m in . . .”

Boy, howdy! Who’d a thunk it . . .?

Winger started grabbing stuff. “Somebody coming. And we’re running late.”

No lie. Me, the mission-oriented old Marine, forgot why I was out in the middle of a grape orchard freezing my aching body in the wee hours. You betcha. My weakness again. When that Winger decided to be a woman, she popped and sizzled Sparky . . . Carla Lindo had nothing on her then.

Amazing. Utterly amazing.

“Easy, Garrett.” Dark shapes drifted closer. “Crask and Sadler.”

Winger and I finished our scrambling around. Those two settled on the hillside. Crask said, “Sneaky, sneaky Garrett. You was supposed to meet us around front. We’d’ve never found you, wasn’t for all the puffing and snorting.”

“Easy, lady,” Sadler said “Easy. Ain’t gonna be no trouble. I don’t blame you for not showing, Garrett. Not after this afternoon.”

“You heard, eh?”

“Yeah. Some. We was too late to save your ass. We did try. We figured you was gone and counted you out when we heard about the coach and the thunder-lizard.”

Crask said, “Bunch of farmers took it down right after sundown, you care about that. They was still skinning it when we come out.”

Sadler continued, “Along about sundown we heard from a friend what seen you talking to the sheela here. We counted you out anyhow.”

Crask said, “You got to be the luckiest bastard that ever lived. We changed the whole plan when we heard about the coach. Then we changed it again when we heard you was alive.”

Sadler said, “We figured we wouldn’t show where you was supposed to meet us, just in case you did. But we’d watch, and then we’d follow you in when you went.”

“Follow me? What made you think I’d do it on my own?”

“You got to. Chodo’s after your ass. You got to get his first or kiss yours good-bye. You’re mush on the inside, but you ain’t stupid. You do what you got to.”

Crask chuckled. What a pair of bastards. And not the least bit ashamed of themselves. Crask said, “We changed the plan again. Now we figure we ought to hit in a bunch. Something weird’s going on over there.”

Sadler asked, “You guys got any idea what the hell all that racket’s about?”

“MorCartha wars.”

“At Chodo’s place?”

I shrugged. “They hold them wherever they can get enough of them together.”

“Sounded like more than that to me. You miss it?” He kept a straight face Crask did, too. Those guys were inhuman

Winger said, “Ready when you are, Garrett.”

No kidding. I dreaded having the Dead Man find out about tonight. I’d never hear the end. Probably deserved it, too. “You guys want to rest up first?” I wasn’t going to tell them they couldn’t horn in. Not here. Not now.

“We’re ready,” Sadler replied. “You bring the stone?”

“I’m slow but I’m not stupid. Winger says she can handle the dogs.”

“They shouldn’t be no problem. We came prepared.” I could see him well enough to tell he thought I hadn’t.

He and Crask carried military spears and Venageti two handed sabers. They were loaded down with enough other hardware to start their own war. “Whenever you want,” he added.

“Let’s do it. Winger,” We started walking.

43

Chodo’s north wall wasn’t much. Was that intentional?

“Yeah,” Crask told me. “Farther to the house here. Most of them that try come this way. Sets them up so the dogs and lizards got more time to work.”

Wonderful. Being a genius, I’d selected exactly the course Chodo wanted me to choose.

Sadler said, “It’s sure turned quiet “ He was right. The morCartha had moved on.

“Gone dark, too,” Crask said.

It took me a moment to understand. The lights round the house had been extinguished “What about armed patrols?” We’d have trouble spotting them in the dark.

“Maybe.” That was Sadler. “But they’ll stay near the house. The lizards get unpredictable when they’re excited.”

“Glad you warned me.” Like I’d really counted on the amulet stone to turn the beasts blind.

We moved ahead a quarter mile, those two leading. They knew their way. Then Crask stopped. Sadler stopped. Crask said, “Something’s up. We should’ve run into a dog or lizard by now.”

I told him, “I’m not going to complain.”

“Watch out.”

We moved again. Seconds later I tripped, fell on my face. Just what I needed. Bruises on my bruises. I did manage to go down without hollering. “Hey!” I hissed. “Check this.”

This was a dead thunder-lizard. Healthy, it would have been my size. Cause of its poor health seemed to be a bunch of crossbow bolts. Hard to tell how long it had been unhealthy because those things are cold to begin with.

Crask and Sadler were not pleased. Sadler speculated, “Somebody got here before us.”

Crask muttered, “That explains the quiet.”

I asked, “You think somebody did our job for us?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. One lizard is down. That ain’t the whole pack. Maybe the rest are curled up with full bellies.”

Real helpful, those guys.

We found two more thunder-lizards turned into pin-cushions. Then a dead dog. “Something strange here,” I said. “I was a scout in the Marines. One guy couldn’t do this. It would take a gang. But they didn’t leave any sign. The only grass down was put that way by the animals.”

Crask and Sadler grunted. Winger observed, “The arrows are all in the back.”

They were. “So?”

She jerked a thumb skyward. The morCartha?

We were halfway to the house. Despite the absence of light, I could sense a hulking darkness where it stood.

The silence ended. So did the darkness.

An uproar broke out around the house, suddenly. Heavy fighting. The light developed more slowly. Sadler suggested, “Let’s don’t get in a hurry just yet, Garrett.”

I’d started moving. He was right. No sense galloping into something. We advanced slowly. The crash and clang declined.

The animals came out of nowhere. Crask and Sadler each skewered a thunder-lizard. Winger moved like a bullfighter, slashed a dog’s throat on the fly. Blood flew everywhere. It was over before I could decide who to help. I gurgled, “Don’t look like the stone is much good.”

Sadler snapped, “They didn’t come after you.”

Crask muttered, “Now we know they ain’t all dead.” We reached a barn. Crask said, “Let’s scope it out from the loft.”

We did, but that didn’t help much. Most of the light had faded. We saw two armed men directly opposite us, beside the house. Six more were doing something along the side of the house, toward its front. Winger said, “I see bodies.”

There were a lot of them. The men toward the front were moving some inside. Chodo must have brought a small army in for the festivities. Not mentioning the men down, there were thunder-lizards and dogs and morCartha all over the place. It had been ferocious out.

“Whatever happened, it’s over now.” I said.

So naturally the gods had to make me out a liar before I even finished talking. One of Chodo’s men took an arrow in the chest. The rest charged the darkness. After some noise and screaming most of them came back. Apparently they decided not to do any more picking up.

“Dwarves,” Sadler decided.

“Huh?” My repartee was up to standard.

“Dwarves attacked the place. Some of those stiffs are dwarves.”

What the hell was going on?

Either the Serpent’s buddies had tried to rescue her or Gnorst had taken a shot at getting her away from the kingpin. I put my money on Gnorst But that didn’t explain the morCartha I didn’t think.

I said, “I hope Chodo is as confused as I am. And drunk, too.”

Sadler said, “They ought to all be sobered up by now.”

“Don’t count on it. You remember how ripped they got last year.”

“I don’t see any more animals,” Winger said.

“No patrols, either,” Crask observed. “That’d mean he’s used up all the men he can afford. He’s keeping the rest in close.”

I said, “He’ll have the entrances covered. How do we get inside?”

“From up top. We climb the stonework on the northwest corner, swing out onto those beams, get onto the roof. We move across there, drop onto that balcony in the middle. See it? It shouldn’t be covered if he’s short on bodies and is thinking dwarves. Dwarves couldn’t get up there.”

“One of my favorite hobbies, climbing unfamiliar buildings in the dark.”

Sadler told me, “You done it before. I was there. I brought a rope. I’ll go first.” He sounded like he had serious reservations about me.

Hell,
I
had serious reservations about me. I didn’t think I could get to the roof up a ladder, all the pains I had. I thought about calling everything off. Didn’t seem too bright, charging in when we didn’t know what the hell was going on.

We moved across to the house unchallenged. Sadler monkeyed up the northwest corner, dropped the rope. Winger went up like climbing was her calling. Crask told me, “After you, sir. Age before beauty.”

“Right. I’ll just tie it around my neck and let them hoist me up.” I grabbed the rope and went at it. I got to the top somehow, though I had my eyes closed half the time. Crask arrived right behind me.

Sadler told him, “I’m starting to get a good feeling about this, Bob.”

Crask had a first name? Amazing. I figured even his mommy called him Crask.

“Yeah, looking good. Let’s slide on over there.”

We were getting set to drop to the balcony when the morCartha returned. One, singular. It whispered down out of the night, zipped past, nearly panicked us all. We figured it was a scout and a herd would be right behind it. But nothing happened.

We were trying to get inside when the excitement brewed up again around front. We paused, listened. Winger said, “That’s weird.”

“What?” I think I squeaked.

“Chodo’s guys are all inside. So who’s fighting who?”

I didn’t know and at the moment I didn’t care. “Let them have fun. Let’s get on with it.”

To my complete astonishment we broke in without any trouble at all.

44

We were on the highest of three floors. Crask and Sadler insisted on checking every room there before we started down. They didn’t want to leave anybody behind us. Winger and I took one end of a long hail, those two the other half. We met again at the head of a stair in the center.

“Find anybody?” Sadler asked.

I told the truth. “A few drunks so far out of it they’re barely alive.” I’d recognized some and had been surprised by a couple supposedly honest men, big in business or society. Chodo’s reach seemed infinite.

“Same over there. Nobody who has the balls to do anything but squeal, anyway. Party must really have roared before the shit came down.”

“Head downstairs now?”

He nodded. “Stay low. Part of the stair can be seen from the ballroom.”

I’d never visited this wing before. I’d never been off the ground floor, up front, except to visit a guy locked up in what passed for Chodo’s dungeon.

We listened before we moved. There was a racket toward the front of the house. Men cursed down below, angry and scared. It had nothing to do with us.

Crask led off, still encumbered with his arsenal. It seemed impossible that he should move silently carrying all that clutter, but he managed. As did Sadler and even Winger. Me, carrying next to nothing and a trained Marine sneak, I felt like I was banging a drum.