wolf riders

by William King

  None of which mattered to Buttermere Warble. He was comfortably settled in his favourite corner of Esmeralda's Apron, a halfling dive on the edge of the Elven Quarter, working his way steadily through the menu. Right then his biggest problem in life was deciding between walnut souffle and cherries Bretonnaise for dessert; so when the door banged open, to leave trouble hovering diffidently on the threshold, it took him a moment to notice her.

  She didn't look like trouble then, of course, not to the casual eye, but Warble had a nose for it. So he glanced up as she pushed the door closed, snipping off a tendril of fog that had wandered in with her to see what all the noise was about.

  There wasn't anything obvious about her he could put his finger on to account for the sudden sense of foreboding he felt then. Elves were a common enough sight in the Apron; it was close to their own part of town, and the food was well worth the detour. There were several in the tavern already, their knees jammed awkwardly under the halfling-sized tables, and at first he thought she was there to meet friends; she stayed close to the door, sweeping her eyes across the room, as though looking for someone.

  But the pit of his stomach told him otherwise, so when their eyes met, and she started across the room towards him, he barely felt a flicker of surprise.

  The Apron was always crowded at that time of night, so Warble had time for a good, long look at her before she made it to the table. Her clothes were well made, but nondescript: a black leather tabard over a woollen tunic and trews, both green; strong but muddy boots; and a black, heavy cloak. She had pointy ears, green eyes, all the usual features; the only thing that surprised him was her hair, which curled thickly down to her shoulders, and was the colour of a freshly-minted penny. Redheads were almost unknown among elves; Warble had certainly never seen one before, and if something didn't exist in Marienburg, the saying went, it probably didn't exist anywhere.

  "Mr Warble?" Her voice was a warm contralto, like melting syrup. He nodded, and motioned for her to sit. She still towered over him, but at least he could talk to her now without breaking his neck.

  "Call me Sam," he said. Nobody called him Buttermere, except his mother, who's fault it was.

  "Sam." The way she said it was like drowning in chocolate. "I need help."

  "Everyone does," he said, deciding on the souffle. "It's that kind of world."

  "It is if you come from Feiss Mabdon," she said bitterly. Warble paused, his arm half raised to signal the waitress, and tilted his head back to look her straight in the eyes. He'd seen the handful of tattered refugees who'd made it to the Wasteland a few months before, picked up in mid ocean by trading vessels; what news they'd brought had been garbled in the telling as it raced from street to street, but he was sure he was about to hear something that would put him off his meal if he let it.

  "Go on," he said finally, curiosity outweighing his more physical appetites. She paused for a moment, marshalling her thoughts.

  Her name was Astra, and most of what she told him matched the story Warble had already pieced together for himself. It was common knowledge the Dark Elves had overrun the northern isles of the elven kingdom, and that most of the population of Feiss Mabdon had drowned after taking to the sea, fleeing from the armies marching on their city. What he hadn't been prepared for were her tales of the atrocities committed by the invaders, which had made the near certainty of death in mid ocean seem infinitely preferable to the wretched refugees. He'd been right, he did lose his appetite.

  "So where do you fit in to all this?" he asked eventually. "You seem to have survived, at least."

  "I wasn't there." Her eyes flashed, bright, cold emeralds boring into his own. "I was on a trading voyage to Lustria. When I returned..." She paused. "You can still see the smoke where the city was. All I can hope is that my family drowned cleanly. Instead of..."

  "I'm sorry." Warble nodded. "But I still don't see why you've come to me."

  "There's only one thing left, of all that my family once owned. A small statuette of a rat. It's almost worthless in itself, but it's very precious to me." Her voice dropped. "I took it with me, to Lustria. But just after we docked here, it was... it was stolen." Her voice wavered a little, and Warble found himself patting her hand.

  "That's tough," he said. She sniffed, and forced a smile.

  "I asked around. Everyone said go to Sam Warble. They said if anyone in Marienburg could find it, it was you."

  The halfling nodded slowly.

  "I'll do my best," he said. "But I can't promise anything. It's a big city. And I don't come cheap."

  "I can pay." Her smile became genuine, dazzling, like sunshine bouncing from the harbour on a midwinter morning.

  "I charge thirty a day, plus expenses," he said, expecting her to argue. Astra just nodded, took out a purse that would have choked a troll, and started to count. Warble's thirty crowns barely made a dent in it.

  "Trade must be good," he said.

  "Good enough. When can you start?"

  "I already have." He pushed the empty plate aside. "Where can I find you?"

  "The Flying Swan. Do you know it?" Knowing every inn in Marienburg, Warble nodded. "Ask for me there."

  "Is that where you lost the statue?"

  "Yes. I'd spent the day in the market, trading. When I got back, the room had been ransacked."

  "Makes sense," Warble said. "Word gets around fast when someone's raking it in. Was anything else missing?"

  "No." Astra shook her head. "Just the statue. Luckily I'd had my money with me."

  "Can you describe it?" Warble asked. She thought for a moment.

  "It's a statuette of a rat, about eighteen inches high." She held her hand above the tabletop, the palm downwards, to demonstrate. "It's made of solid brass, so it weighs quite a bit. It's up on its hind legs, wearing armour, and carrying a sword. And it's standing on a piece of red quartz, with its talons clenched to hold it in place." Her eyes lost their focus, and her voice became dreamy. "My father bought it in Tilea, years ago, before I was born. I used to play with it as a child. I thought it looked silly."

  Warble nodded. He didn't rate his chances very highly, but he'd do his best.

  He started looking in earnest the next day, and, as he'd expected, he drew a blank. None of the regular fences had anything; he saw enough brass rodents to fill a sewer, but none of them were perched on a red quartz base. He came closest with Old Harald, a decrepit human of indeterminate age, who kept a curio shop down by the Fisherman's Steps. You had to know where it was; in that narrow tangle of streets it was easy to lose your way, and sometimes it seemed the place wasn't there at all when you set out to find it.

  "Looking for it too, are you?" he said, once Warble had finished describing the creature for what felt like the two-thousandth time. Harald's eyes flashed blue in the musty-smelling shop, reflecting the light from the candles he'd scattered at random among the tumbled profusion of his stock, and for a moment it was easy to believe the street stories of strange, magical artifacts that sometimes fell into his hands. It was nearly noon outside, but the fog was as thick as ever; the only difference daylight had made was that Warble moved through the streets in a tiny bubble of milk-coloured air, instead of the bruise-purple gloom of the previous night. He tilted his head back to look at the man.

  "Who else is asking?" he said. Harald shrugged, wiping a hank of greasy white hair from his eyes.

  "You know me, Sam. I'm getting forgetful in my old age." He sniffed, a droplet of moisture disappearing back up his nose just as Warble had expected it to make a bid for freedom. "Business is bad at the moment. Perhaps if I wasn't so worried about things..."

  "Yeah, right." The halfling took out a couple of crowns, spinning them idly on the lid of a nearby chest. Then he wandered over to look at a rust-pitted astrolabe that squeaked on its bearings, and showed constellations unmatched by any stars in the skies over Marienburg. Harald was standing in exactly the same place when he turned back, but the coins had disappeared.

  "Bit
of a gentleman, he was." Harald nodded to himself. "Well dressed, if you see what I mean." He meant ostentatiously expensive, which was the only benchmark of quality he recognized.

  "Can you describe him?" asked Warble. Harald nodded, stroking his chin, which rasped loudly under his fingertips.

  "Fairly short. About a head under average, I'd say." Short for a human was still tall for Warble; he corrected the picture mentally. "And corpulent. There's a man fond of the good things in life, I remember thinking at the time. Maybe a bit too fond, if you know what I mean. Decidedly corpulent, to tell you the truth."

  Warble thought about it. A little of the unease he'd felt listening to Astra started worming its way to the surface again. Something about her story didn't add up. At the time he'd dismissed it, happy to take her money, but it still didn't taste right. If she'd really been tagged by the Guild we don't talk about, why would they knock over her room while she was carrying all that gold around the streets? Besides which, the Swan paid good money to avoid that kind of inconvenience to its guests.

  Of course that would explain who the fat man was; if someone was knocking over protected premises, the Guild would want to administer a firm rebuke. But he couldn't have looked like a dagger, or Harald would have said, or, more likely, been too scared even to mention him, and anyhow they had better ways of tracking people down than trying to trace them back through their loot.

  Stranger and stranger. He decided to let it simmer for a while, and see what boiled away.

  "That's all you can tell me?" he asked. Harald nodded.

  "He was the only one I spoke to. The little one never said a thing."

  "What little one?" For a moment the old shopkeeper hesitated, visibly debating with himself whether or not to hold out for more money, then he got a good long look at Warble's eyes and decided against it.

  "I hardly even saw him, and that's the truth. They came in together, but the fat one did all the talking. The little one just stayed back among the shadows." His voice took on overtones of desperate sincerity. "You know my eyes aren't what they were."

  "I know." Warble nodded sympathetically. "But you said he was small. Like a halfling, maybe?"

  "Could be. Or a child."

  "Or a dwarf?"

  Harald shook his head.

  "No. I'd have noticed a beard."

  "Fine." Warble flicked him another coin anyway; it was all on expenses, and Astra could afford it. "If they come back, you know where to find me."

  The rest of his regular contacts came up clean, although a couple of them had also had a visit from the fat man. No one had anything to add to Harald's description of him, except that he paid well for his information. No one else had seen his diminutive sidekick, but that didn't mean much; they could have split up to cover more ground, or he might have stayed outside to cover the door. With the fog still thick enough to burn, he would have been invisible a yard up the street.

  Warble started glancing back over his shoulder, and keeping to the centre of the thoroughfares. By this time it was a more than even bet they'd have heard Sam Warble was after the rat too. That gave them an edge; he was a known face around town, while they were strangers. They wouldn't take long to find him, if they wanted to, while Warble didn't even have a name to go on.

  No point worrying about it, then. He'd just have to wait for them to make the first move, and in the meantime he could check a couple of sources they didn't have access to.

  Gil Roland was his favourite Captain of the city watch. Unusually honest for a man in his position, but not enough to compromise his efficiency, he liked to hang around with lowlifes like Warble who owed him favours and get his goodwill back in liquid form. The Blind Eye was almost opposite the watch headquarters, and attracted a large and faithful clientele of off-duty watchmen and petty hustlers in more or less equal proportions.

  The taproom was dark and smoky, the way the customers liked it, and Warble began to relax in the convivial atmosphere. He wove his way through a forest of legs to Gil's usual table, and hoisted a couple of tankards onto it. The watchman took the nearest one, and drank deeply, while Warble clambered laboriously onto the bench opposite.

  "Thanks Sam." He belched. "Long time no see. What have you been up to?"

  "Nothing I want you to know about, Captain."

  He laughed.

  "Nothing changes. What are you after, then?"

  "I just thought it was time to see my old friend, and express a bit of gratitude for the fine job you and your lads are doing in making the city safe for honest folk."

  "Yeah, right." He drank again. "Seriously, Sam, if you're in trouble..."

  "Nothing I can't handle," Warble said, remembering the fat man and his friend. "At least I think so." His hand went reflexively to the hilt of his dagger. Gil noticed the movement, but said nothing, faint lines appearing between his eyebrows. His florid face moved smoothly forward, his body, clad in the well worn leather jerkin of his trade, tilting with it across the tabletop. The hilt of his sword clanked quietly against the battered wood, and his voice dropped.

  "What is it, then?"

  "I just want a little information," Warble said. "Something's going on..."

  "Something I should know about?"

  "I don't know. Maybe you can tell me." Gil began to relax. He knew he wasn't going to get the whole story, but he wasn't stupid. He'd work it out for himself, given the time and a reason to.

  "I've been hired to find some stolen property," Warble told him. "But the story doesn't quite hang together. And someone else is after the... item." Gil nodded, without interruption, and Warble began to see why he was so good at his job. "I just need to know if there's been any trouble at the Flying Swan recently."

  "The Swan?" He shook his head. "You'd have to be crazy to steal from there."

  "I know. Every latcher in Marienburg knows." Warble paused. "But the other interested parties in this are from out of town. Perhaps our putative thief was too."

  "We haven't found anyone floating in the harbour recently." Gil looked reflective, having answered the obvious question without it needing to be asked.

  "And no one's left town since the fog started." That went without saying. The watch had closed the gates as a matter of course, and there wasn't a skipper alive willing to put to sea or set off upriver in those conditions. Warble nodded.

  "And you've heard nothing about any trouble at the Swan."

  "That's right. I've heard nothing." The emphasis on the penultimate word was so faint it was almost lost, and all the more eloquent because of it. He finished his drink in a single swallow.

  "What about a fat man? Well dressed, well off, might have a child or a halfling in tow."

  "Nothing springs to mind." Gil shrugged. "But it's a big city, Sam. We can't be everywhere." He hesitated. "Try to remember that."

  After talking to the official face of law and order, the obvious thing to do was spin the coin. So half an hour later Warble found himself standing in the back room of a leather merchant in the prosperous commercial district close to the southern docks. The smell of tanned hides was everywhere, permeating the brickwork, rising from piles of hides and the racks full of the finished products. He picked up a jacket, soft as the fog, black as a goblin's soul.

  "Try it on, Sam. It's your size."

  He put it down slowly, and turned.

  "Way too expensive," he said. Lisette smiled, her teeth a white crescent in the shadows, and slipped her stiletto back up her sleeve. She favoured black, matching her hair, and blending her into the corners of a room.

  "What brings you here?" she asked. Her eyes flashed orange in the dim light, hard and predatory. There were stories about her on the streets too, but no one ever repeated them.

  "Information," Warble said. She stepped forward, eyes narrowed, looking down at him.

  "Buying or selling?"

  "Maybe trade," he said. Lisette settled slowly onto a bale of cowhide, her right ankle resting on a leather-clad knee, and leaned forward, b
ringing her face level with his.

  "I'm listening," she said at last.

  "There's something going on I don't like."

  "That's your problem." Her voice was neutral, devoid of inflection. Talking to Lisette always gave Warble the shivers. He tried to match her tone, but halflings aren't really equipped for it.

  "Maybe not. You know some people with an... interest in the Flying Swan, don't you?"

  "I never discuss my business arrangements." He knew that already. He didn't even know for sure if she was a member of the Guild, let alone as high up in it as he suspected, but he did know from past experience that anything he told her would get back to them.

  "I hear one of their guests was turned over the other day." That scored a hit; her eyes narrowed, just a fraction.

  "Who told you that?"

  "The guest. I've been hired to recover the missing item."

  "I'll ask about it. What else?"

  "A fat man. Also after the item. Hangs out with a child or a halfling, I'm told. One of your... contacts?"

  "No." A faint shake of the head left highlights rippling in her hair. Warble hadn't been expecting a straight answer, and was left floundering for a moment; he'd never seen her so agitated before. That alone was enough to convince him she was telling the truth, and that none of this had anything to do with the Guild.

  That should have made him feel better, but it didn't. He just kept wondering who could be stupid enough, or powerful enough, not to care about antagonizing them.

  Warble had just turned the corner into Tanner's Alley when the fat man loomed up out of the fog, like a ship in full sail. The halfling spun on his heel, just in time to see a small figure with a big knife slip into the alley behind him. It wore a large floppy hat with a long feather, which effectively hid its face, and a velvet suit sprouting lace in strange directions. It took him a stunned moment to realize the hat was roughly level with his chest, before pulling his own weapon and backing against the nearest wall.

  "All right," he said. "Who's first? The monkey or the organ grinder?"

  To his astonishment the fat man laughed, in a loud, reverberating gurgle, like someone pouring a gallon of syrup into the harbour.