Red Iron Nights

by Glen Cook

  I gulped air.

  Damn me if my luck didn’t hold. Somebody came outside and headed straight for the coach house. I heard muttering, then realized that there were two of them. The guy with the candle was leading.

  Closer. It was my old buddy with the bad stomach. He didn’t look like much now, a sawed-off runt in clothes that had been out of style since my dad was a pup. He wore the kind of hat they call a deerstalker. I’d never seen one outside a painting before. He was bent and slow and shaky and a damned near perfect match for my notion of what a pederast ought to look like.

  Hunking along behind, having trouble navigating, was Scarface, the guy Saucerhead had bounced around so thoroughly. He moved slower than the old guy, like he’d aged a hundred years overnight. Saucerhead hadn’t broken much but he’d left both of them with plenty of pain.

  Now what? Jump in and make a citizen’s arrest? Accuse somebody of something and maybe get my own bones rearranged? Maybe cause the geezer another attack of dyspepsia and have him belch carnivorous butterflies all over me? Maybe just end up in court for assault? My mind wanders at such times, examining the dark side. I wish I had Saucerhead’s capacity for lack of doubt.

  There are advantages to being simple.

  While I tried to decide and wondered where the hell Morley was with the light, those two dragged their bruise collections inside the coach house. Light flowed through cracks as they lit lamps or lanterns. Talk continued, but I could distinguish no words.

  I crept to the doorway, still could make out nothing. I heard a horse snort, jumped. Boy, was I glad I hadn’t gone in there before. They would’ve ambushed me for sure.

  It sounded like they were fixing to harness a team. The cussing level suggested that was difficult when you were all bruised up. Sounded like some impressive descriptive work being done in there. I wanted to hear more. I need to expand my vocabulary.

  I slipped my fingers into the gap between the door and its frame, pulled outward slowly till I had a crack through which to peek. So I could spy on a whole lot of horse stalls and tack racks doing a whole lot of nothing. Pretty dull stuff. I had the wrong angle.

  Someone had the right angle to see the door move inward. I heard one voice say something soft but startled. Heavy footsteps lumbered my way, like a stomping troll wearing stone boots. I thought about doing a fast fade but thought too long. I barely had time to duck aside before the door flew open.

  I couldn’t run, so I did the next best thing. I bopped Scarface over the head with my listen stick. His conk thunked like a thumped watermelon. He sagged, looked at me like I wasn’t playing fair. Well, why should I? That’s dumb with his kind. I’d get hurt if I tried. I thumped him again to make my point.

  I bounced over Scarface, popped inside, charged the little character with the sour stomach and antique clothes. Don’t ask me why. Seems plenty dumb in retrospect. Just say it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  He was trying to get the street doors open. I can’t imagine why. His team were still in their stalls. He wasn’t going to drive away. And he wasn’t going to outrun anybody on foot either. But there he went, heaving away and spitting green moths.

  He heard me coming and spun around. For him a spin was a slow turn. His one hand dropped to a kind of frayed rope that served him as a belt, hitched his pants. His eyes started glowing green. I got there with my stick.

  One of his moths bit me. Stung like hell. And distracted me so the old boy could slide aside enough for me to whap his shoulder instead of the top of his gourd. He howled. I bellowed and flailed at bugs. His eyes flared and his mouth opened wide. I avoided his gaze and the one big green butterfly that flew from his maw. I flailed crosswise, catching him alongside the jaw.

  I put too much on it. Bone cracked. He folded like a dropped suit of clothes.

  My juices were flowing. I bounced around looking for more trouble, so cranked the horses just backed up in their stalls and waited for me to go away. I checked Scarface. He was snoring, getting soggier by the second. I darted back to the old man . . .

  Who wasn’t snoring. He was making funny noises that said he wouldn’t be breathing at all pretty soon. I’d broken more than his jaw.

  A green giant butterfly crept halfway out from between his lips, got stuck. He held on to his crude rope belt with both hands, like he didn’t want to lose his pants, and started shaking.

  I’m not in the habit of croaking people. I’ve done it, sure, but never really by choice and never because I wanted to.

  Now I was wound up. This was the Hill. Up here the guardians of the peace were no half-blind, unambitious Watchmen interested only in collecting their pay. If I was caught anywhere near a dead man . . .

  “What the hell is this?”

  I didn’t quite leap into the hayloft. Just maybe ten feet. Not even a record for the standing broad jump. But I was out the door the old man had wanted to use, thirty feet into the wet, before I recognized Morley’s voice.

  Still shaking, I went back and told him what had happened. The presence of a dying man didn’t rattle him at all. He observed, “You’re learning.”

  “Huh?”

  “Case solved and wrapped in a day. You dig up your buddy Block, tell him where to find his villain, end up with your pockets stuffed with gold. You still have the luck.”

  “Yeah.” But I didn’t feel lucky. I didn’t know that that little old man had gotten his thrills carving on pretty girls.

  Morley closed the yard door, eased toward the street door. I said, “Hold it. I have to take a look around in the house.”

  “Why?” He said that sharply, like he didn’t want me going that way.

  “In case there’s any evidence. I need to know.”

  He gave me the fish eye, shook his head, shrugged. The notion of a conscience was alien to him. “If you have to, you have to.”

  “I have to.”

  19

  I tripped over the old man’s sidekick as I stepped into the garden. Well! Another mystery. Some wicked soul had come along and stabbed him in his sleep.

  I scowled at Morley. Morley wasn’t abashed. “Didn’t need him, Garrett. And now you won’t need to keep looking back.” Just because the guy had caused a scene at the Joy House.

  I didn’t argue. We’d had the argument more times than I liked to recall. Morley knew neither pity nor remorse, only practicality. Which, he had a habit of reminding me, was why I turned to him so often.

  Maybe. But I think I go to him because I trust him to cover my back.

  I’d grabbed the old man’s lantern. It was out now, after my spill. I pushed it aside, dragged the body into the coach house, closed the door, and headed for the big house by the light of the lantern Morley carried. I snagged the extinguished lantern as I went.

  The house wasn’t locked. It took us only moments to get inside and find something.

  We entered through a dusty kitchen. We needed go on no farther. Seconds after we entered, Morley said, “Check this, Garrett.”

  “This” was a three-gallon wooden bucket. A tribe of flies had made it a place of worship. Their startled buzz and the smell told me that it was no water pail. Rusty cakes of dried blood adorned it.

  “They had to use something to carry the blood away.” I shone my light around, spotted a set of knives on a drainboard. They were not ordinary kitchen knives. They were decorated with fancy symbols. They were decorated with dried blood too.

  Morley observed, “They didn’t take good care of their tools.”

  “You didn’t see the way they moved. After they’d danced with Saucerhead they probably didn’t feel much like doing housework.”

  “You satisfied now?”

  I had to be. “Yeah.” No point lollygagging around, maybe getting ourselves hanged with all that evidence.

  Morley grinned. “You really are learning, Garrett. I figure maybe another hundred years and you can get by without a baby-sitter.”

  I wondered if maybe he wasn’t a little too optimistic.<
br />
  Being no fool, Morley went his own way. I found Captain Block the last place I expected, at the bachelor officers’ quarters at the barracks the Watch shares with the local army garrison. Those troops are less use than the Watch, coming out for nothing but ceremonies and to stand guard at various royal edifices.

  I got the usual runaround trying to reach Block, but it had no heart in it. Maybe he’d left word a certain battered old Marine might want to get hold of him sometime.

  He was dressing when I walked in and started dripping on his carpet. “I take it you’ve got something, Garrett.” For the life of me I couldn’t figure why he wasn’t thrilled to see me, just because it was after midnight.

  “I found your man.”

  “Huh?” Dumbstruck is really amazing on a naturally dumbfounded face.

  “That villain you wanted found? The fellow who entertained himself by whittling on pretty girls? If you want him, I’ve got him.”

  “Uh . . . yeah?” He didn’t believe me yet.

  “Put your slicker on, Cap. I’ve had me a long, hard day and I want to get on home.”

  “You found him?”

  Ta-da! First thing you knew, he’d figure it out. “Yep. But you’d better get rolling if you want to cash in.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He was in a daze. He couldn’t believe this. For a moment I entertained suspicions. They didn’t get too rowdy. “But how? I had a thousand men looking. They never caught a whiff.”

  “Didn’t know where to sniff. You get the nose when you have to make your living at it.”

  “Sounds like you plain got lucky.”

  “Luck helps.”

  “Should I bring some men?”

  “You won’t need them. They won’t give you any trouble.”

  Must have been an edge to my voice. He looked me askance but was too shocked still to pursue it. He shrugged into an army overcloak, jammed a waterproof hat onto his head. “You don’t know how much we appreciate this, Garrett.”

  “I have my suspicions. Just show me by making sure you don’t forget to drop my fee off at my place.”

  “What?” He managed to look affronted. Somebody had the audacity to question the integrity of the Watch? “You think we’d screw you?”

  “The gods forfend. Me? Think a thing like that about our brave Watchmen? Surely you jest, Captain.”

  He heard the sarcasm and didn’t like it, but had become too excited to take offense. Hell, he took off like the proverbial bat, dashing boldly into the night and rain—till he realized he didn’t know where the hell he was headed.

  “I’m moving as fast as I can, Captain,” I told him. And I was. I did want to get home. I had big ambitions in the night lumber trade. “I put in about two thousand miles of legwork today, tracking these monsters down.”

  “Monsters? There’s more than one?”

  The man didn’t listen. I shook my head. He fell into step beside me, as bouncy as a five-year-old.

  “One more than one, Captain. The big villain was a guy about a thousand years old who was some kind of wizard. The other was your basic street bruno, middle thirties.”

  “Was?” Now he sounded nervous, even wary. “You keep saying ‘was.’ ”

  “You’ll see.”

  20

  He saw. He was less than thrilled. “Did you have to kill them?” He stared at the old man like he hoped the crazy bastard would rise from the dead.

  “No. I could’ve let them kill me. But then you’d still be looking, wouldn’t you?” I stared at the old man, rattled. Block didn’t notice.

  First, the old boy had crawled to the garden door before he’d checked out. Then he’d gotten naked. What there was of him was so dried up it looked like something had sucked out everything inside his skin. That skin was dead white. I wondered if maybe he wouldn’t rise from the dead. If he hadn’t already, a time or two. Then I shook off the fit of superstition and concentrated on a problem that was real and immediate.

  Someone had been into the coach house in my absence. Somebody who had stripped the dead man and had ripped off a crazy miscellany from the tack and tool racks. That smelled of a crime of opportunity committed by some down-and-out amateur. By someone who had seen a door open, had darted in for a nervous peek, had taken what he could use, and had grabbed everything else he could carry that looked like it might sell for enough to make a down payment on a bottle of cheap red wine. Was I to go a-hunting this thief, I’d keep an eye peeled for a short, skinny wino all cocked up in a new suit of old clothes, complete with one of those absurd deerstalker hats.

  Block complained, “Would’ve had a lot more impact if I’d been able to bring them to trial.”

  “I don’t doubt it a bit. It would’ve been a circus. The show of the year. I would’ve loved to have seen it. But he was belching butterflies and staring green fire and getting ready to lay some serious sorcery on me. I couldn’t talk him out of it. Come on. Let me show you some evidence.”

  I led him to the kitchen, showed him the bucket. I wanted to show him the knives but they weren’t where I’d seen them last. That damned Morley, collecting souvenirs. I felt more comfortable in the house now that I had an officer of the law along to explain to the local custodians. I took time to look around more carefully. I didn’t see anything new. “You satisfied?”

  “I expect.” He held up a big glass jar Morley and I had overlooked. It contained a human heart in a clear fluid. “I’ll have my people come take the place apart.”

  “You know who owns it?”

  “I know. Ironic coincidence. There won’t be any problems, though. The Prince is determined. He’ll just be doubly pissed because somebody dared. He’ll breathe fire.”

  I chuckled. “You’re welcome to collect the kudos, Captain. I don’t want his kind noticing me. Just see that I get paid. Then you’re happy, I’m happy, and TunFaire is happy soon as word gets out. Now, unless you insist on my help, I’m dragging my weary ass home and putting it to bed.”

  “Go ahead,” he said distractedly. “And, Garrett?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks. You’ll get your money. And I’ll still owe you for this miracle.”

  “There you go.” I got me out of there while the getting was good.

  The Dead Man was still doing interviews when I got home. There were people in with him and people waiting in the small front room. Dean was doing a shift on the door. I gave him my most malicious smile and sneered. “Now you know what it feels like to be up at an absurd hour.” I made a quick sally into the small front room in search of feline game but did not find my prey. Dean eyed me nervously and kept his mouth shut.

  Excellent, I thought as I trudged upstairs. First thing in the morning we’d have a talk about that cat.

  21

  First thing in the morning, I didn’t talk to Dean at all. About cats, anyway. He rolled me out at some absurd hour before noon, told me, “His Nibs wants you in his room. I’ll bring your breakfast there.”

  I groaned and rolled over.

  Dean didn’t bother with the usual roust. That should have warned me. But it was morning. Who thinks in the morning? I just grumped some ill-placed gratitude in the general direction of heaven and burrowed into my pillow.

  Bugs started chewing on me.

  Felt like bugs biting, anyway. When I started flopping and swatting and cussing and digging around, I couldn’t find a thing. But the nibbling kept on keeping on.

  It was morning. It took me a while to figure it. Old Dean hadn’t salted my bed with insects. The Dead Man was prodding me.

  Still cussing and dancing and swatting, I pried myself out of bed. That part of my mind that was working duly noted the discovery of a hitherto unsuspected aspect of my partner. He would persecute his allies as readily as his enemies.

  Though my eyes only pretended to be open and my legs rebelled at every step, I made it downstairs without suffering any disaster. I stumbled into the Dead Man’s room and dropped into my chair, weakly looking around for
something I could use to start a fire as soon as I got the ambition.

  Good morning, Garrett. You wouldn’t think you’d get much expression out of his style of communication, but he sure managed to sound as happy as a clam that didn’t know it was being fattened up for a chowder. I am so pleased you could join me.

  The sentiments I expressed were less sociable. “What the hell you bubbling about? What the hell did you drag me down here for? The sun ain’t even up yet.” Which wasn’t strictly true. Somewhere out there, above the rain clouds, there was a sun that had been up for hours. It just hadn’t been up for enough hours.

  I could contain my curiosity no longer. The gentlemen of the City Watch came round to pay their respects and debts this morning. They were generous beyond belief.

  “Don’t mean much. Them showing up with one sceat makes them generous beyond belief. How much?”

  The full one thousand marks. Moreover—

  “Only a thousand?” I grumped. Naturally, I grumped. A thousand was a major score, but I’d have grumped if they’d brought money around by the wagonload. “You could’ve waited till a decent hour.”

  Moreover, he continued, ignoring me completely, they brought the latest news from the Cantard. My theories have been vindicated at last. The expected collapse of Glory Mooncalled’s revolution, indicated by all those defections and desertions, has proved chimerical. He was just biding his time against the ripe moment.

  “Aw, hell.” Now I understood why he’d dragged me out. Didn’t have a thing to do with money. He’d gotten his big chance to crow—with me in no condition to fight back.

  I’d figured Mooncalled was on his last legs. The evidence was there. Defections and desertions had been strong indicators that the rebellion was about to fold. Hell, there were refugees from the Cantard scattered all over Karenta now. I’d seen plenty right here in TunFaire.

  I didn’t bother asking how Mooncalled had conjured another miracle. The man did these things. I went to work on the breakfast Dean brought and waited on the Dead Man. He would want to rub it in. He loves it when I lose an argument completely.