Lamplighter

by D M Cornish

  With surprising and terrifying dexterity the beast ducked their fire and sprang forward, leaping nearly one hundred yards, as Rossamünd could tell it, in that single bound.

  “Run!” Sebastipole commanded. “Perhaps your chemistry will purchase us a little space!”

  Puttinger and the prentices were near Winstermill’s precipitate ramp; perhaps they would be safe after all? Rossamünd could only wish he were among them.

  The umbergog was closing. Only a single lantern-span and the clouds of leakvane repellent stood between. The young prentice was sure he could feel its powerful footfalls through the paving of the Pettiwiggin, yet when he dared a rearward look the creature had slowed. The smoke of the leakvane had been spread about by contrary breezes, and the reek boiled broadly over the road, going down either side of the dike and into the thick weeds. The Trought was obviously confounded and pulled short stupidly, turning its dripping nose up at the fume. So close and so tall was the creature that it eclipsed the rising sun.

  The leer, the prentice and the three lighters ran. They had not gone far when Rossamünd realized with horror that somehow Threnody was still behind them, making a stand before the hefty beast. Even now she took careful aim at the giant with her fusil while it sniffed bemusedly at the leakvane’s brume. Realizing what Threnody was doing, Sebastipole pulled up and turned, unshouldering, cocking and sighting his long-rifle in a single, easy action.

  Hiss-CRACK! went Threnody’s fusil, its gun-smoke acrid, the sound of Sebastipole’s own fire quickly following.

  One of the shots was true. It struck the umbergog just as the brute was daring to push through the broiling barrier of repellent. The monster gave a mighty yelp far out of proportion with the smallness of the hit and staggered back, cracking the paving with its footfall and sending up a spray of gravel and dust.

  Such was the sting of skold-shot.

  With gloved hands, the leer instantly took another skold-shot ball from a cartridge box hung over his shoulder and, quick and cool, reloaded his long-barreled firelock.

  Ahead of them Threnody did the same.

  “I would appreciate it if you would come away now, m’dear,” Sebastipole called to her, but she did not acknowledge.

  The nicker, its abdomen now splattered with new-flowing gore, bounded at them, head up, mouth gaping, its ponderously oversized antlers pointing wide along its back. Rossamünd could feel the pounding of its mighty strides shaking the road beneath his feet.

  Undaunted, both Threnody and Sebastipole coolly fired again.

  Hissss-C-CRACK! No more than a hundred yards from them, a gout of ichor came from the top of the umbergog’s head, and a piece of shattered antler spun off. A prodigious shot, whosever it was. The beast cried its agony again as it was sent headlong, sprawling upon its knees across the road and sliding down into the Harrowmath.

  Sebastipole, seeing Rossamünd, called, “If you have another of those leakvane boxes, I suggest you employ it now—we could do with the help, I think.”

  Rossamünd quickly produced the second leakvane from his salumanticum. He pulled its red velvet tab, gave it a brisk shake and tossed the little box a short way up the road.

  “Now, let us be off!” Sebastipole cried.

  The Herdebog Trought was getting to its feet again, pulling itself up by those powerful arms, coughing and snuffling and shaking its great, bloodied head.

  As they ran, Sebastipole put himself between the monster and the two prentices.

  Rossamünd fossicked about in his salt-bag for a dose of Frazzard’s powder. He did not know how it might work on a nicker so big, but some potive in hand, however inadequate, felt far better than none. He looked back over his shoulder.

  Half standing, the Herdebog Trought peered at Rossamünd, Threnody and the valiant leer as if seeing them for the first time, then at the fleeing lamplighters, almost to the Approach now, almost home. It seemed puzzled, sniffing once more at the air, stooping to smell the ground and casting about confusedly. Rossamünd did not get the same sense of pure malignancy from this creature as he did from the horn-ed nickers. The umbergog felt driven more by anger than malice.

  The second leakvane burst at last with a whoof! of toxic smoke. Giving a wild bovine shout, the startled monster leaped up and over them, passing close overhead. With a great shudder of the ground and cracking of flagstones it landed on the opposite side of their small group. By some cause of Providence, the Herdebog Trought had let them be. It lumbered away down the Pettiwiggin, covering a prodigious distance even as Rossamünd watched, its attention fixed on the tunnel-mouth into which the butcher’s van had fled.

  Grindrod and the two lampsmen were close to the fortress now. They had caught up to the prentices, who were struggling to make the last few dozen yards.The nicker was gaining on them all. The musketry resumed on the walls. Puffs of dirt flicked up as balls missed or deflected from the monster’s shaggy hide.

  Rossamünd could just see Bellicos turn and stand his ground. He cried something over his shoulder and flourished a pistol. There was a tiny puff of thick white from his hand and a pathetic pop of pistol shot.

  The nicker hesitated. It must have been hit.

  But one shot from such a sidearm, skold-shot or otherwise, could never stop such a gargant—not even Sebastipole or Threnody’s fine aim had managed that—and the beast recovered in an instant.

  Sebastipole loaded and fired his long-rifle as quick as he might in support of the lampsman, scoring a glancing hit on the monster’s rump, a fine shot that did naught to stop it.

  Wailing “No!” Rossamünd watched helpless as the Trought galloped forward and caught up Bellicos in its gangling violence, crumpling and crushing the fellow as it ran on, flinging what remained to the eight winds. A cry of indignant dismay came from the watchers on the wall. Bravely the fellow had stood and bravely he had fallen, gaining a precious little space for his comrades.

  With Grindrod, the two remaining lighters and the prentices still on the road, the umbergog was upon them.Yet just as it had disregarded Sebastipole,Threnody and Rossamünd, the nicker ignored the prentice-watch too as they scattered either side of the conduit into the concealing weeds below. The beast stayed fixed on the Bowels and, ignoring all the firelocks firing, lumbered right up to the great gap in the foundations. The Trought was too big to fit within, and reached into the tunnel with its great arms, bellowing into the cavity in rage. There was a clamorous ring of metal as the ponderous grille was let to drop on the umbergog’s questing limb. Roaring, clearly wounded in head and body, the beast wrenched free of the pinning portcullis.

  The yowling of the dogs became louder as the heavy bronze portals of Winstermill were swung open to release a company of troubardiers, the manse’s entire complement. They were led by Josclin, the lighters’ only scourge. His entire head was wrapped with protective bandages of potive-treated fascins. The soldiers with him stepped high and stoutly, going out to defend their brothers, long spittendes—barbed, cross-pieced pikes—ready in their hands, their boots clattering boldly on the dressed stone of the Approach.

  Another was with them, wrapped in a cloak of orange, blue and white. It was the Lady Dolours, without her wings, her bald head wrapped in a soft cap. Standing on the edge of the ramp and looking down on the Trought, she raised a hand to her forehead. Rossamünd suddenly feared for the Trought’s life: regardless of poor Bellicos, he was sure the beast did not deserve such an end. Fully expecting the poor Trought to expire instantly, he was amazed when the hugeous thing stumbled away from the fortress, slipping down the side of the highroad dike.

  Why does she not kill it?

  Rossamünd could see Plod and Wheede huddled on the same side of the road, frozen in confusion, wailing their fright. Close by, the Trought, equally distressed, collapsed to its haunches in the grass of the Harrowmath, steam rising from its heaving back into the morning cold.

  The troubardiers pressed forward with a derisive yell. Spittendes lowered in bristling threat, they forme
d on the road with dangerous alacrity. The scourge stepped before them, standing on the verge, twirling a sling filled with some deadly potive. Ten yards from the panting beast he gave a shout and flung his chemistry. The nicker raised an arm to ward off the hissing projectile, and the potive struck it with a dirty splash. The Trought recoiled screaming as part of its forearm was dissolving to the bone. Even its ponderous mass was not enough to save it from the ancient script.

  The troubardiers charged down the side of the dike with a battle-yell, joined by the yammering dogs led by their handlers from the gate, and by the jeers of the lighters on the wall. Threnody shouted with them, thrilling to the hope of victory soon won, thrilling to the hope of revenge. Rossamünd just watched, not knowing who to feel most sad for: man or beast.

  At last the monster half turned and staggered to its feet for several heavy steps, then made off into the long grass of the Harrowmath.With pestilential steam streaming from the bubbling stump of its left arm it fled north, faster than the heavy pediteers could follow. The dogs were let go at last, great black tykehounds dashing out from the fortress and down the Approach, past the ranks of the troubardiers, to chase the wounded creature down and hold it at bay. Cheers grew louder, great hoots of victory from the men on the walls, many shouting the lead dogs’ names.

  “Fly, Drüker!”

  “At ’em, Griffstutzig!”

  “Get the masher, boys!”

  The troubardiers halted at the base of the dike and gave voice to another derisive cry as the Herdebog Trought quit the scene.

  In the awful silence that followed, Rossamünd retrieved his hat from the southern slope of the highroad. Torn between his grief for Bellicos and for the Trought, he joined Threnody and Sebastipole as they returned hastily to the manse. For much of the way no one said anything, the prentice hugging himself as his awareness of the cold returned.

  “Will they kill it, sir?” he asked in a small voice.

  “Most certainly,” Sebastipole returned. “The brute has killed one of our own and must be slain in turn.”

  Kill or be killed, went Rossamünd’s thoughts. “Oh,” he said aloud. “That was some frank shooting, sir,” he ventured after a lengthy silence. He said this with sad yet genuine admiration, trying hard to ignore the red stains of Bellicos’ pointless ruin on the road. “And you too, miss,” he said to Threnody.

  Flushed, staring out toward the far-off, fleeing umbergog, Threnody had said nothing since her valiant stand. She now gave a zealous, self-satisfied smile. “I just wish it had been doglocks in my hands and not a fusil,” she said warmly.

  In his turn the leer bowed his head in thanks for Rossamünd’s compliment. “Improved aim is one of the genuine boons of this vile biologue,” Sebastipole said mildly as he removed his sthenicon with a sucking intake of breath. For several beats the leer seemed as if he had been struck a heavy blow, slowing his pace, dazed and blinking rapidly. “But you, young woman, have clearly got a fine eye,” he finally continued, still giving his head small, violent shakes.The sthenicon was returned to its ordinary-looking box, and a kerchief produced into which Sebastipole blew his nose over and over. “And I thank you both for standing stoutly with me through it.” He acknowledged them both with an admiring nod and Threnody smiled again, clearly thinking she could now take her place among the men.

  Rossamünd did not feel so confident. “I am so sorry for the leakvane bursting too quick, sir. It was—”

  “Not another thought, young sir!” Sebastipole insisted. “It was well intended and did its trick in the end.Tarbinaires like those leakvanes of yours are contrary contraptions even in the wisest hands.”

  Dolours came down to them as they walked up the Approach, full of concern for her mistress’s daughter. She went to wrap an arm about Threnody, but the girl bristled and with an angry sound refused the bane’s comfort. Dolours looked to the heavens for a moment and followed.

  Within the manse’s fortified bosom, they found Grindrod and the prentice-watch gathered safe at last, formed up on Evolution Square as if they had just returned from a typical lantern-dousing. Every boy looked exhausted, harrowed; most bore tear stains on their cheeks. Crofton Wheede still wept even as he tried to hide it.

  The lamplighter-sergeant was doing his best to console the traumatized boys. “Well, ye lads have surely had a violent passage through yer prenticing . . .” It was with almost obvious relief that he turned his attention to Rossamünd. “As for ye, Master Come-lately, ye’re a fool of fools, boy! I’ll have yer gizzards for gaiter straps for putting yer vile puffings in our way! I thought it was the end of me! Of all the sponge-headed bedizened . . . Were you trying to kill us all?”

  “That will be enough, sergeant-lighter,” Sebastipole warned, becoming very grave. “You know very well the placing of the leakvane was intended only to deter the nicker and give us a screen to retreat behind.”

  “I’ll remind ye, Sebastipole,” Grindrod said, leaning into the leer’s face, “that the prentices are my charge—”

  “And I’ll remind you, Grindrod, that both you and they are mine,” returned the lamplighter’s agent, stepping to a grateful Rossamünd’s side.

  Grindrod stared at Sebastipole and then changed his tack. “Fine bit of marksmanship, leer,” he said. “Almost as good as the girl.”

  Sebastipole simply blew his nose and turned his attention to Rossamünd. He gave the prentice an owlish look. “It has been a pleasure to serve with you, young master Rossamünd.” He smiled politely. “I go to join the inevitable coursing party. We will trap it and so bring its end. Thank you again for your assistance, sir.” He looked over at Threnody, who stood silent on the edge of the group, unsure how to join in. “And you, young woman. I would happily have either of you at my side on any future outing.”

  Rossamünd was even more confounded. This was high praise, but it left him terribly troubled. What part had he played in what was to be the Trought’s ineluctable end? The killing of the horn-ed nickers had seemed right, necessary, but the Trought’s destruction brought only baffled dismay. Indeed, Rossamünd felt most angry at the butchers, for baiting the beast. Was it really swine’s lard I smelled?

  Threnody did not answer either, but stood with arms folded and chin raised.

  Mister Sebastipole was quickly away, clearly intent on joining the group that was forming by the gate, eager to hunt the nicker that had just slain one of their own. The clamor of the tykehounds could still be heard coming distantly from the Harrowmath.

  Grindrod bent right down into Rossamünd’s face. “Ye, sir, will never make it to lampsman if ye get in the way of yer fellow lighters and near cause their deaths.”

  Rossamünd fumed silently. He had done all he could to protect and defend his fellows. Mister Sebastipole had said he had done rightly; he would not back down. Nevertheless, he was wise enough to not speak. He knew what little good it would do him.

  “Ye can forget yer Domesday vigil tomorrow, lantern-stick!” the lamplighter-sergeant hissed. “Pots-and-pans for ye all day.Think yerself well off, for I would cheerfully make it worse!”

  8

  POTS-AND-PANS

  evolutions training in the correct movements in marching and the right handling of weapons and other equipment. Evolutions are taken very seriously in military organs, especially in armies, where pediteers are drilled over and over and over in all the marches and skills required until they become a habit. Failure to perform evolutions successfully is punished, sometimes severely, and this is usually enough to scare people into excellence.

  THE coursing party that finally left by the middle of that very same day was constituted of the scourge Josclin and another skold Rossamünd had never met before, Clement, Sebastipole, a quarto of lurksmen, a platoon of ambuscadiers and musketeers, the tractors of the dogs, and two mules with their muleteers to bear comestibles. No one thought the coursers would be gone long, and everyone expected them to return victorious.

  Dolours had not joined in the course, w
hich Rossamünd thought strange given her venturing out to help fight the Trought. “Not well enough to travel,” he overheard the bane say in a brief word with Threnody.

  Bellicos’ death was a heavy blow to everyone at Winstermill. He might have been a world-weary veteran pensioned off, so to speak, along the safest stretch of the way, but he was one of their own. Reports of lighters from other parts of the highroad coming to their end were common enough, but this was the first lighter from the manse to be killed in a long while. Ol’ Barny was flown at half-mast, and the lighters, pediteers, servants and even the clerks wore long faces and did their duty perfunctorily.

  At limes, and more so at middens, the other prentices—those who had been safely in Winstermill washing and breakfasting and marching while their fellows were fleeing the umbergog—nagged those of Q Hesiod Gaeta to recount every particular of their flight. Their own deaths so nearly realized that morning, those of Rossamünd’s quarto were unwilling to endlessly repeat their small parts in the rampaging of the Trought. Deeply shocked, they had no heart for the usual showing away and idle brags, but sat together in the mess hall in a melancholy huddle.Threnody would not sit with them, but stayed very near, cleaning her fusil ostentatiously. Unsatisfied, their fellows diverted themselves, wondering what the coursing party might do to the creature, wandering off to ignorant conjectures about whether Clement or Sebastipole or Laudibus Pile was the best leer.

  “Did you see how the basket tried to get into the Bowels?” Crofton Wheede wondered quietly, his haunted gaze looking at nothing. “I thought he was after us, but he was set fast on that meat cart.”

  “Maybe they were baiting it,” Smellgrove offered in a whisper.

  “They looked too a-frighted for that,” countered Pillow.

  “Exactly,” said Threnody from outside the circle. “Besides, who’d be simple-headed enough to bait an umbergog?”

  “Me dead dad,” Wrangle muttered, flashing a look of suppressed fury at the girl.