Burn Me Deadly elm-2

by Alex Bledsoe

  Neceda waited at the bottom of the hill, although the morning mist risen from the Gusay hid it. The fog would disperse once the sun cleared the top of the forest, but for now it was easy to imagine there was no town at all, just an empty little clear space along the river. No burned-down stable, no former whorehouse filled with dragon worshippers. No lying girlfriends.

  I stepped off the road and went behind a tree to relieve myself. First, I had to retrieve Pansy, assuming no one had stolen the beast during the night. Then I’d have to feed and water her, hard to do with the stable gone. Then I should probably feed and water myself. I finished peeing, refastened my trousers and stepped back onto the road.

  I’ve had some serious luck in my life, from surviving the massacre that ended my days as a mercenary to having Prince Frederick stumble out just in time to save my ass the night before. But the universe has a way of balancing things, and it’s easy to forget that. Which is why I was surprised, even though I shouldn’t have been, when I came around the tree and almost walked smack into Gordon Marantz.

  His horse whinnied and backed up into the one behind it. At the same moment I recognized Marantz, the man behind him screamed, “ That’s him! That’s the guy! ”

  I held up my hands. “Whoa, guys, I was just on my way to Neceda and got lost in this fog. Am I anywhere close?”

  “That’s the guy who busted in and kicked me in the head!” the other guy insisted, pointing at me with a frantic waving finger. Well, that was even more luck.

  I kept up the innocent act. “Buddy, maybe it’s the fog, but you’re mista-”

  “Shut up,” Marantz said calmly, and I realized he had a small crossbow pointed casually in my direction. It wouldn’t be accurate for more than a short distance, but in this situation that was plenty. There seemed to be no other bodyguards with him, which was a small blessing at least. Guess Gordon wasn’t expecting a fight, although he certainly wasn’t thrown off by it. “Who are you?”

  I smiled. “Lance Thrower.”

  “Well, Mr. Thrower, you busted into an establishment owned by me and beat up an employee and one of my guests. Care to tell me why?”

  God, I was too tired for this. No useful lie came to mind, so I just shrugged.

  Marantz’s expression didn’t change. “Get his sword, Vinnie.”

  Vinnie dismounted and strode over to me. A bruise roughly the size of my foot colored one cheek and temple. “You are going to so regret this,” he hissed, pointing his finger right in my face.

  “I already do,” I assured him.

  He drew my sword, gave me a smug your-ass-is-mine look and turned to Marantz. “Let’s take this guy and-”

  When he turned the blade upright, the spikes shot from the hilt through his hand. They were two inches long, needle sharp and (because I’m devious that way) coated with dried lemon juice. Vinnie stared at the tips poking through the back of his hand for about five seconds before letting loose with a howl that was probably heard in Sevlow.

  I didn’t wait for his scream. As soon as I heard the mechanism click, I jumped past him and grabbed a handful of Marantz’s clothes. The crossbow bolt shot harmlessly into the trunk of a nearby tree. I yanked him from the saddle and threw him to the ground. Before he knew it I had my knee on his chest and the dragon knife from my boot at his throat.

  Vinnie reflexively opened his fingers, but the spikes held the sword in place. Without his grip to control it, though, the weight of the blade made it fall over suddenly, and I heard the crack of a wrist bone. Lockett had been right; the Shadow Slasher III was top-heavy, for just that reason. Vinnie howled again.

  I saw none of this, though, because I wasn’t dumb enough to take my eyes off Marantz. He was completely unruffled. “Now what?” he asked calmly as he looked up at me.

  “How about you tell me what you’re after here,” I said.

  He laughed. “You gotta work a lot harder to scare things out of me, bucko.”

  I put more weight on his sternum and he grunted. “Not that much harder,” I said, fighting to stay calm. Rage would do me no good.

  “Oh, God,” Vinnie sobbed behind us. “My arm…”

  “It’s a business investment,” Marantz said, his voice tight. “Tempcott controls Prince Frederick, and I control Tempcott.”

  “And what’re your people looking for in the Black River Hills?”

  He laughed again. “You do get around. My people are looking for a long shot. If they find it, then I’ll have something any king in the world would give his trea sury and firstborn daughter to obtain. If not… no harm done.”

  “Boss…,” Vinnie pleaded.

  “I’m occupied!” Marantz snarled.

  “No harm except for Laura Lesperitt,” I said. “What is it?” I knew, but I wanted to hear him say it, to have his words give it a tangible reality.

  Instead he smiled. “The fire dreams are made of.”

  “Are you suddenly a poet?” Now I grinned. “You think there’s no harm telling me about your setup because I’ll be dead before I can pass it on, don’t you?”

  “Pretty sure,” he agreed.

  I pulled my knife away, slipped it back in my boot and stood. Marantz stared at me, puzzled, but didn’t move. I went to Vinnie, took his limp hand and pressed the catch on my sword. The spikes retracted, and he moaned in both relief and fresh pain. He fell flat on his face as I put the sword back in its sheath.

  Marantz slowly sat up. “What are you doing?”

  “Walking away,” I said. “I have no real quarrel with you. You can send your boys after me if you want, and eventually I’m sure they’ll get me. But I’ll take a few of them down first, and word would get around that you’re wasting time and manpower trying to get revenge on someone who had a knife to your throat and didn’t slice it.”

  Amused and bewildered, he said, “You’re counting on my sense of honor?”

  “No, your vanity. You have a lot of pies on your fingers because you don’t make silly decisions. No one knows about this little run-in except you, me and Vinnie. I won’t tell anyone, and I don’t have any illusions about how you’ll deal with Vinnie. So unless you start talking, no one will ever know.”

  He stood and brushed dirt from his clothes. “Who are you, soldier?”

  I shook my head. “The less you know, the safer I am.”

  He laughed again. He laughed a lot, for a guy with so much blood on his hands. “I can find out any time I want, you know. And every shadow you pass might have a knife with your name on it.”

  I shrugged. “I could say the same thing to you. Except I already know who you are.” With that I turned and walked away into the mist; I couldn’t ask for a much more dramatic exit. Marantz’s chuckling followed me down the hill.

  TWENTY-ONE

  It’s hard to be nonchalant when you’re expecting a crossbow bolt in your back at any moment, but I managed it. Only time would tell if Marantz called my bluff, because bluff it surely was.

  I’d gone quite a ways down the hill when wheels rattled in the mist behind me. I stopped and waited as a single-horse wagon came into view. It carried a farmer and his wife on the seat, and four children in the back. They were dressed up and looked very grim. The farmer reined up beside me and looked me over. “You hurt?” he asked with no urgency.

  “No, just heading into town. Is this the right way? Hard to tell with this fog.”

  “We’re going into Neceda for the hanging. We could give you a ride.”

  Hanging? Who the hell was Gary hanging? “Thanks. I’d appreciate it.”

  “Well, hop in. We don’t want to miss it.”

  I climbed into the back. The four kids, three boys and a girl all under age ten, looked at me with the barest minimum of curiosity. “Who’s getting hanged?” I asked as I sat.

  “Fella who killed one of the moon priestesses,” the farmer said as he snapped the reins on the horse’s rump. The wagon jumped forward. “Mother Bennings. She helped out Myrtle here when little Helene was breech.
Can’t believe someone would just cut her up like that.”

  “That’s why we don’t live in the city,” Myrtle said. “Too much violence.”

  I said nothing, but my mind was racing. I couldn’t believe that weasely Gary Bunson had actually apprehended Mother Bennings’ murderer overnight. “Do you know who it is?”

  The farmer shook his head. “Nope. But whoever it is, we want to see his face when the rope snaps tight. She didn’t deserve that; she was a good woman.”

  The sunlight finally rose over the treetops and burned off the mist. Despite his ostensible urgency, the farmer seemed content with his horse’s idle walk. Other wagons, lone riders and even three unsupervised children on foot passed us on their way into town. “Break his neck, pay his check!” the kids gleefully called out, a gallows chant children everywhere seemed to know.

  I settled into the back corner of the wagon bed, aware that the four children never took their eyes off me. They didn’t join in the chant, and all had the same dead eyes as their parents. Whatever they farmed to eke out a living apparently left no room for childhood joy.

  I arranged my sword at my side so the hilt didn’t dig into me. The three boys watched, fascinated by the weapon. I stretched out my legs, forcing them to scoot over.

  The little girl, Helene, just sat staring at me. I smiled at her and winked. The corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly.

  I closed my eyes in what I thought was a simple blink, and when I opened them again we were rattling into Neceda. Man, the way I kept nodding off it was a miracle I survived the last two days. I sat up, momentarily disoriented, and startled Helene, who’d curled up beside me under my arm. The three boys sat in a huddle at the front of the wagon bed.

  We passed the remains of the stable, where a few wisps of smoke still rose from the rubble. People gathered at the far end of town, and a fresh rope hung from the gallows oak. Apparently everyone from the countryside had come to town for the event; word of a hanging typically spread fast. More kids ran loose, and hawkers sold ale, food and little souvenir hangman’s ropes. A good execution rivaled the excitement and economic boom of the annual harvest festival, and Neceda responded with new levels of spontaneous greed.

  The cart that would bear the prisoner up the street to his demise was parked outside the jail, so we hadn’t missed the show. A smaller, rowdier and more inebriated group waited to pelt the condemned man with vegetables and eggs when he emerged. I climbed stiffly out of the wagon, thanked the family and looked around for someone I knew.

  Angelina and Callie stood at the back of the more subdued crowd at the gallows. Both were dressed for work at the tavern, which by law would remain closed until after the execution. Callie bounced in place with excitement, and I spotted two teenage boys discreetly enraptured by the parts that bounced the most. “Ooh, do you think he’ll come when his neck breaks?” Callie asked Angelina. “I hear men do that. I wonder if women do?”

  “One easy way to find out,” Angelina said, as usual looking vaguely bored. Like me, she’d seen enough hangings to be neither impressed nor curious about them. Her eyebrows went up as I approached.

  Callie also did a double take. “ Wow, Mr. LaCrosse. You look worse every time I see you lately.” She leaned close and whispered, “Or are you in disguise?”

  Angelina ignored Callie, plucked some hay off my tunic and said, “If you came into my tavern like this, I’d throw you out.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. So who are they hanging?”

  “Some weird guy who lives out in the woods,” Callie said before Angelina could respond. “He cut up one of those nice moon priestesses. They say he might have burned down Mr. Pinster’s barn, too. That’s his wife over there.”

  Bella Lou, dressed in an old shawl, huddled protectively over her children. Even at this distance I saw their wide, terrified eyes as they clung to her. She had her back to the wall beneath the high, tiny cell window where, I assumed, Buddy was being held. Two men screamed drunkenly at Bella Lou, and one of them scooped up a handful of dirt from the ground and threw it at her. The others laughed.

  “Makes you proud to be a Muscodian,” Angelina said flatly.

  “She deserves it, I bet,” Callie said. “Maybe she even helped.”

  “That’s probably it,” Angelina agreed. “Should hang those little babies, too.”

  As always, Callie missed Angelina’s sarcasm. To me she said, “She’s been outside the jail all night, screaming that it’s all a conspiracy. If it was a conspiracy, they’d have killed him somewhere else and just told us about it. You taught me to think like that, Mr. LaCrosse.”

  I shook my head, gave Callie a quick peck on the cheek and pushed my way to the jail door. Gary’s man Russell was on duty outside to make sure the taunting crowd didn’t become a lynch mob. They had splattered the wall around the small cell window with tomatoes, eggs and anything else that would stick and stain, and detritus also covered Bella Lou. She did not look my way.

  Russell held his shield in front of his face. “No one’s allowed inside, sir,” he said in a voice that almost cracked from stress.

  “Russell, I know the guy you’ve got locked up in there. I need to talk to Gary about him.”

  Russell lowered the shield in surprise. “Oh! Sorry, Eddie, I didn’t recognize you with the haircut. Did you lose a bet?”

  “Funny. Now let me in.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got strict orders.”

  “Strict orders from Gary?”

  “No, from the guy from the capital, Argoset. Only his assistant, that big guy, can go in.”

  I leaned close. “You know what I know about your sister.”

  He went paler than he already was. “Now, come on, Eddie; that has nothing to do with this.”

  “I need in, Russ.”

  “I can’t.”

  I shrugged. “Then I can’t be responsible for who finds out about Elaine.”

  Russell sighed. “If I lose my job, I’m moving in with you and Liz.” He opened the door behind him, quickly shoved me through and then slammed it shut.

  Gary Bunson’s office was to the right, across from the two cells. Only one cell door was closed, and the other deputy, Pete, stood in front of it. He frowned when he saw me. I went into Gary’s office.

  Gary sat behind his desk, his feet propped up. He had his normal wide-eyed, vaguely panicked expression, the one that showed up any time he had to actually do his job. He wore his real uniform, too, down to the medals for longevity on his chest. They were the only ones he was ever likely to win.

  And he wasn’t alone. Daniel Argoset stood at the window looking out at the crowd. He was also in full gear, resplendent and yet somehow immature, like a very solemn boy dressed in an adult’s work clothes. Maybe that’s why he pushed so hard to be taken seriously. He looked surprised when he saw me. “Mr. LaCrosse.”

  I ignored him. I put my hands on the desk and leaned over it. “I need to talk to you,” I said to Gary, trying to impress him with my urgency and seriousness. “About this hanging.”

  He looked at me, then at Argoset, then back to me. “Uh… what about it?”

  “I don’t think you have the right guy.”

  “I’m pretty sure we do,” Argoset said.

  I kept my eyes on Gary. “Then let me talk to him.”

  “Why?” Argoset asked.

  “Yeah, why?” Gary repeated. Sweat beaded on his upper lip.

  It was clear who was in charge, so I turned to Argoset. “Because it may all be a frame.”

  Argoset smiled patiently, condescendingly. My fist ached for his teeth. He said, “Mr. LaCrosse, I handled this situation, not Magistrate Bunson. He approached us; we didn’t go after him. The man confessed.”

  “Then it won’t hurt to let me talk to him.”

  Argoset’s eyes narrowed. “I’m curious why you want to.”

  “Because he might have done it for reasons other than guilt. Maybe because someone threatened his family if he didn’t.”


  “And who would do that?”

  “Ever hear of Gordon Marantz?”

  Gary sat up so quickly he nearly fell from his chair, and exclaimed, “What?”

  Argoset looked dubious. “Why would Gordon Marantz even care?”

  God damn, I was tired of talking. “Gary, I really need you to grow a pair right now and let me talk to this guy.”

  Gary looked from me to Argoset. Argoset said, “It is your responsibility, Magistrate Bunson. You know my opinion.” He dramatically resumed looking out the window.

  Gary sighed, turned deliberately away from me and pointed to the key where it hung from the wall. I took it and went down the hall to the closed cell. Pete looked at me suspiciously and put his hand on his sword hilt. “How’d you get that?” he said, nodding at the key.

  Gary called wearily from his office, “It’s okay, Pete; he has my permission.”

  Pete stepped aside; I opened the door and went into the cell. Sure enough, Buddy sat on the straw piled in the corner, his ankle chained to the wall. He had his knees drawn to his chin, and looked up at me with blank, glassy eyes. The window, high on the wall, let the noise of the taunting crowd into the room. Occasionally some produce made it through the bars and splattered on the floor.

  “Buddy, you don’t have a lot of time left,” I said. I crouched beside him. “Tell me what happened, and I’ll see if I can’t get you out of this.”

  “I killed that lady healer,” he said simply, with no inflection.

  I shook him, hard. “Buddy, do you remember me? You helped me find the dragon people?”

  He nodded slowly, like his joints were gummed up, and idly pushed some straw with his hand. “Sure, I remember you.”

  “If someone threatened Bella Lou and the kids to get you to go along with this-”

  He shook his head. “Ain’t like that. After you left, Bella Lou threw me out ’cause I’d lied to her. I didn’t know what to do. I went to that moon goddess hospital outside of town to get a love potion to make her want me again, and instead that woman told me to clean up, get a job and apologize.”