Wicked Bronze Ambition by Glen Cook
I felt useless, even so.
Barate tapped me on the spot that Belinda had pounded into bruise pudding. “What’s on your mind?” I kept my scream to a girlish bark.
“I’m trying to throw a saddle on all this chaos.”
How clever was that, bundling horses and bedlam?
It went right on by him. “You should plant yourself in a safe place and mastermind things from there.”
Probably the sensible course, but I found it emotionally barren. “I don’t know how to sit. I have to do stuff.”
“Running in circles, flapping your arms and shouting. Then getting killed. That’s sure to help.”
I could argue honestly, “It’s pretty much always worked. Except for the getting killed part. You bang on things long enough and loud enough, the bad guys will try to do something about you. Then you nail them.”
“Unless they’re smart enough to nail you before you know they’re there. How long do you suppose that’ll take this time?”
“Huh?” I puffed up like a big old toady frog, ready to argue: Look at me, still standing after all these years! But I had had tons of unreasonably good luck, as recently as this morning.
Even Brownie had a comment, a small doggie whimper. She leaned against the outside of my right thigh. Yeah. I started scratching ears.
Those beasts have selectively bred us for thousands of years.
Realization: I almost totally depend on friends to manage parts of my life. I cannot make it on my lonesome.
Old Bones might claim that, while not hive insects, humans are social animals who have to belong in order to function properly.
“He was kind of a loner.”
“Nobody knew him very well. He stayed pretty much to himself.”
“He always seemed like a nice guy, quiet, but he never had no friends that I ever seen.”
The neighbors, as the red tops start dragging the bodies out.
Crueler, though, is when they’re winkling the tortured girls out of their shallow graves and the guy showing them where his playthings are stashed is a good family man, five kids, a deacon in the church.
Pain exploded down my right arm. For half a second I thought it was the Big One, swooping in a couple of decades early, out to reunite me with my beloved. Then I realized, wrong arm, and noticed Penny Dreadful backing off, anxious and smug at the same time.
She had delivered the strike with military precision.
“What the hell? Why did you do that?”
“You were spacing out again. Singe says we don’t want to lose you. She told me not to let you go drifty. Do whatever it takes, she said.”
Everybody had a fierce grin on, including Mashego but excepting the rat men, who lacked grins only because they weren’t made for grinning. They expressed their grand amusement by wiggling their whiskers, the sort of laughter that, in a human, would have looked like somebody choking on a chicken bone.
Part of me wanted to drag the kid across my lap and get to paddling, but I’m supposed to be too mature to yield to impulse. Besides which, that was sure to be misinterpreted, and beyond which, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Penny had won a lot of hearts with one slick move.
She’s also a nasty infighter.
The hidden story of my life. Always a plaything of women.
Even Brownie’s sympathy was entirely pro forma.
46
So there we were, outside the place where Vicious Min had gone to ground. Supposedly.
“What a dump.” Dr. Ted had invited himself along after a final check on Shadowslinger. And a dump it was. And I was wondering if I shouldn’t have visited Moonblight first.
I joined Penny, Barate, Mashego, Dollar Dan, and his troops in agreeing with Ted. Only henchrat Firé wasn’t there to opine. He had gone back to John Stretch headquarters to gather the murder of rat men that would lifeguard Kevans once her whereabouts was determined.
I grumbled, “Yeah. I’ve never seen worse.”
It was a brickwork shell with half a roof, most of the wood stripped out to burn and the metal stolen to sell for scrap. I was surprised the bricks themselves hadn’t been carted off.
Barate suggested, “Something must have been done to keep looters away.”
I saw no bleached bones scattered around. The protection must be moderately subtle. “If Min actually lives here, that might be enough. I wouldn’t mess with her if I didn’t have to.”
“Perhaps,” Barate conceded. But that meant Min would have been there awhile, in turn meaning that she could not be a recent immigrant from a demon realm.
The dogs did not want to get any closer.
I said, “We’ve seen a place like this before.”
Barate nodded. “Where the kids did their bug experiments.”
That had happened in a bespelled ruin with secret cellars underneath. Kip, Kevans, and gang had indulged in such socially useful tasks as the creation of giant bugs. As if the roaches we have already, big enough to toss small children across their backs and abscond, aren’t magnificent enough.
I explained for the others. Dan suggested, “I smell exaggeration.”
“Maybe some. But ask somebody who was there. Those bugs were bigger than these mutts.”
“Nor will I argue with you, Garrett. I have heard such claims from others. Sadly, I missed out.” He eyed Penny.
She nodded. “They were big. It was scary. I’m so glad those kids didn’t make any giant spiders.”
Barate chuckled. “A sentiment often heard. Can you imagine a camel spider or banana spider jumped up as much as those other bugs were?”
We all took a moment to be grateful.
Giant spiders have to be some kind of universal human nightmare.
Dan said, “I hear there was some good eating on some of those bugs.”
Half the people in the world, even when they aren’t really people, are the glass-half-full kind.
Mashego asked, “Is it your intent to stall and reminisce indefinitely, or will we actually do something?” Her accent had thickened. “I do have work waiting at home.”
I did not remind her that she was with me at her own insistence.
“Same goes for me,” Penny said.
I restrained a petty remark about never having seen her do much. I really had no idea what she contributed. On reflection, though, I doubted that Singe or Dean would let her freeload.
I asked, “Barate? Thoughts?”
“We’re here. And she can only get healthier.”
“Um.” On the other hand, I could just relay news of her whereabouts to the Civil Guard.
I had questions I wanted to ask myself, though.
Dollar Dan suggested, “We should probably do it while we still have some light and the rain hasn’t started.”
An excellent point. The gloom kept getting thicker though the rain continued to hold off.
Penny stated my feelings for both of us. “It’s been a long, long day.”
It was unlikely to be over soon, either.
47
The anxiety all proved needless. Vicious Min was in there, yes. But she was unconscious, exhausted. Ted couldn’t get a flinch out of her.
Penny hit me with the obvious. “We should ship her over to Himself while we can manage her.”
And while she was still available. I feared that she might have stressed herself to a point where she could die on us.
“Oh. Oh! Yes! We’ll need to transport her somehow.”
“Big as she is, we’ll need a wagon,” Barate said.
Ted added, “Preferably with springs.”
“So. People. Spread out. See what you can find.” This was not a neighborhood I knew. “Ted, stay with Min. Keep her breathing. Keep her asleep. Damn, she’s ugly. Penny, you stay, too.”
Naturally, she argued.
“Dig through her stuff. You’re the only one who knows how to investigate. You’ll know good stuff if you see it. I’ll help find a wagon.”
She accepted my contention bu
Then I began to wonder if I should leave her at Ted’s mercy.
Hell. I had to trust her. She was a big girl. She could make choices. And other whistling-past-the-graveyard thoughts.
I had to get out there. How likely were Dollar Dan or Mashego to come up with a wagon? They lacked a trustworthy look. And Barate was from too far up the Hill to have a clue how to connect with real people.
Only . . . How likely indeed?
Both Dan and Mashego scored before I got my first lead—which led me straight to the wagon Dan already had on offer from a rat person with soft connections to John Stretch.
Mashego found a carter from the old country who was willing to do night work.
It is truly all about who you know. I knew no one around there, in the shadow of the Bustee slum.
We chose the rat man’s wagon because it had the longer bed. Only a yard of Min would hang out the back.
The dogs were anxious to go. They could not stop prowling nervously and eyeing me like they wondered why I insisted on wasting time hanging out where members of the tribe might get eaten.
Once we had Min in the wagon—an all-hands adventure shifting her, it was—I asked Ted, “Is she likely to wake up during the ride?” It was two miles to Macunado Street. Farther if we stuck to smooth pavement.
Ted was helping Penny load stuff to be looked at later. Min had a lot, mostly junk, some of which suggested that she liked to play at being a girly girl when nobody was looking.
“Couldn’t say for sure. Why?”
“I was hoping I could get you to stick with me and Barate for our visit to Moonblight while Penny and Dan take Min where she needs to go.”
Dollar Dan announced, “Dollar Dan will not go anywhere that Garrett does not go. Dollar Dan Justice’s task is to keep stubborn, uncooperative, and ungrateful Garrett alive, not to transport prisoners.”
Ouch.
Penny snickered. “You notice he didn’t mention anything about making sure that you stay healthy?”
Ted hadn’t brought a full doctor’s rig, but he did have a small emergency kit. He tried to tell Penny how to use some chemicals and a wad of wool to put Min to sleep if she started to come around. She suddenly got dumb as a stump. He finally decided to go with her instead of me. “I’ll head for Shadowslinger’s place once I’m done with this.”
Grumble, grumble. “You do that.”
Meanwhile, Dollar Dan had a heart-to-heart with the wagon’s owner, who did not trust rat men enough to let his only means of making a living out of his sight, despite his own connection to John Stretch’s organization.
“All set here,” Dan announced.
I sighed, wondering why everything always has to get complicated.
I know why some guys become loners. It simplifies things.
48
It would be full dark soon. The dogs were nervous and hung closer than during brighter times. They were far from familiar ground when the time of greatest danger was approaching.
As a stray you had only what protection you could invent for yourself. Darkness could harbor dangers day walkers never noticed.
Undead mutts? Vampire pups? Doubtful, that. But maybe nocturnal predatory thunder lizards. Thunder lizards have become uncommon in the city, but we still sometimes hear of incidents outside the busier districts, especially at night. Mutilated carcasses turn up, savaged by something bigger than rats.
Singe intercepted us as we neared the Hill, in company with the balance of Dollar Dan’s crew. She was worn out but not yet complaining. She fell in beside me, brought me up to date on all the successful arrests. Elona Muriat alone remained sullenly unimpressed by Deal Relway and refused all cooperation. Preston Womble, on the other hand, could not shut up despite having almost nothing to say. He had had an epiphany. He had become born again. He was trying to bring his partner into alignment with the new law-and-order facts of life.
Singe asked, “You do realize that you are being watched, tracked, and studied by the Specials, don’t you?”
“I haven’t paid much attention, but I don’t expect to operate in a full vacuum. Do we know who hired brother Tribune?”
A drop of moisture hit my cheek. The rain would not hold off much longer.
“No. But they have not yet threatened him with soap and water.” She made a rude noise after stumbling over a nervous dog who wanted to stay really close. “The Director means to let you work while counting every breath.”
“Doing his job for him.”
“More like he wants to see what you will stir off the bottom of the cesspool.”
“And Kevans? Any word on her?”
That was exactly what Barate and I had thought it would be. Kevans had gone looking for Kip Prose. She had hung around with him till Kyra’s scowls and boredom reminded her that she had an obligation at Grandma’s house. She remained unconcerned about her own safety.
The rat men now watching over her had not attracted any attention.
They also reported that she had had other watchers already, now chased away.
Their description was vague, because it came from rat men, but it was intriguing. An attractive pair of youngsters, the girl a young man’s fancy while the boy was a father’s nightmare.
I exchanged looks with Barate. He said what I was thinking. “A Champion and Mortal Companion.”
“Know anyone who fits the description?”
The rat men did smells better than visuals. Smells . . . We would have to have those two sniffed out.
How might I leverage those two into the Director’s embrace?
Other trackers had determined that the little blonde and her sidekick moved between several hiding places on scattered rooftops. They had a knack for disappearing not only visually but nasally, but not indefinitely. They could not long elude a determined team of rat men.
We also got a fix on Moonslight, though the severity of her durance seemed questionable. The rat men thought she was more a reluctant guest than a prisoner, and might not have been confused with her sister at all.
Singe opined, “They will exercise deference whichever sister they have. Any wickedness could come back a thousandfold should their employer lose courage or have a change of heart.”
That side of our system irks me. It might never even occur to a victim to savage the man who gave the orders, if he was of noble standing, but woe be unto his hirelings, who were only in it to make a living.
“Garrett?”
“Huh?” So. There I was, gone again, this time yearning toward Relway’s ideology.
Singe suggested, “There is another possibility.”
“Which is?”
“That they only want to keep her from interfering if they do think that they have Moonblight.”
“That would mean that somebody knows Moonblight wants to sabotage the tournament.” It occurred to me then that it didn’t matter which Machtkess the villains had, that being the case. Either would provide leverage and leave Richt Hauser as the last high-power enemy of the Operators.
Was Shadowslinger’s condition the result of hostile action?
I broached the possibility to Mashego, who seemed to grow slighter and less obtrusive as the day faded. “I will think about that,” she promised.
As would I. And I would try profiling the minds behind the tournament. I had a hope that I did not consider even slightly forlorn: The Operators, by nature, must be discounting, even disdaining, Mr. Furious Tide of Light.
The Garrett beast was, after all, a no-account, bottom-feeding, common-as-it-gets, blood-sucking nothing. A flea.
God, or Gods, Above and Below, let their minds be locked into that way of thinking.
It wouldn’t take long to gobble that kind down.
I tripped over Brownie. “Damn it, girls! Spread out!”
The dogs did so, with no enthusiasm, and only for a few minutes.
49
&nb
“Tara Chayne Machtkess the person is actually a little timid and lacking in confidence.”
The big green front door swung inward.
I asked, “And her sister lives here, too?”
“Mariska, yes. There are some younger sisters without much talent elsewhere. Mariska and Tara Chayne split the upper floor. They stay out of each other’s way. They don’t get along. It goes back to when they were girls, to a squabble over a man. I don’t know for sure, but that was either my father or Kyoga. Or maybe both. They were supposedly pretty loose.”
I said nothing but noted that here was another scandalous disclosure involving an Algarda. Any old affair had to have taken place after Barate’s dad married Constance. “There was mention of a grandchild’s birth.”
Dan and crew were doing a quick sniff round and posting sentries. The dogs crowded toward the light. Singe was indifferent to anything but her own exhaustion. I hoped I didn’t end up carrying her home. Mashego was no longer with us, having headed home to Shadowslinger’s place.
“The twins both married. Tara Chayne had a son, Harou, right away. Harou didn’t come back from the war. He wasn’t smart and he wasn’t talented. He let himself be talked into trying something beyond his skill level. There were two daughters, Haroei and Haroa, the younger. Haroa had the baby. She came along after Harou died. Tara Chayne likes to think that Harou’s soul lives on in Haroa.”
I grunted, impressed only by the fact that Moonblight had named all her kids with variants on a root meaning precious. Similar tragic histories you can collect by the score if you search.
“Mariska had no children, by choice, after seeing what Tara Chayne went through giving birth to Harou. Mariska is not known for being unselfish or for willingly suffering inconvenience or discomfort.”