The Fifth Ward--First Watch

by Dale Lucas

  “Age before beauty,” Rem countered with a crooked smile.

  Torval frowned.

  Sheba, to Rem’s delight, smiled at his jest. “All right,” she finally said. “Let’s get to work.”

  A long, pregnant silence fell. Sheba closed her eyes, stretched out her hands over the bowl, and began to make strange and intricate hand signs above the water in the bowl. After a few moments, the hand signs were coupled with strange words in a language that Rem had never heard, and couldn’t imagine being spoken by a human mouth. Nonetheless, Sheba seemed to know what she was doing. It was as if her hand signs and the strange words that tumbled out of her mouth were meant to coax the latent information in the pendant into the open air—pleas and beseeching to an inanimate object.

  Suddenly, her chanting stopped. She reached for one of the phials beside the bowl, uncorked it, and poured a strange, oily red liquid onto the surface of the water. The liquid floated there in bubbles and whorls, resisting dissolution. Next she took up a second phial and poured out more oil onto the water’s surface—blue this time. The last phial’s liquid was amber yellow.

  Sheba then bent down and gently blew on the surface of the water. The whorls of colored oil began to skate around on the surface of the water under the weight of her breath, and as they did so, she watched them. For a long time, as they swirled and turned, she watched them carefully, eyes narrowing, seemingly doing her best to read the signs she saw therein.

  “I see girls and boys,” she said. “Young, beautiful, unsuspecting girls and boys.”

  Torval threw a glance at Rem. Rem was probably thinking just what the dwarf was: Telura Dall … and more like her.

  But Rem saw another face in his mind, too, wholly unbidden: Indilen.

  Young, beautiful, unsuspecting …

  Could it be?

  “I see satins and silks. I see billows of witchweed smoke and the dulled, dreamy vision that comes from inhaling it. I see darkened lamps and men with sharp swords and bare flesh sheened in sweat.”

  There was a hypnotic quality to Sheba’s voice that made all the hairs on Rem’s arms and the nape of his neck stand on end. It was strange, how low and breathy and inviting her voice sounded. He thought that he could listen to her read genealogy tables for hours on end and count himself a lucky man, if only he could hear more of that strange, low voice that she used to recount what she saw in the whirling daubs of oil on the water’s surface …

  “I see a tavern or an inn,” Sheba said suddenly. “Maybe a sporting house. Ask me a question.”

  “Where?” Torval demanded.

  “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t see any signs that mark its place in the city. But I can see the shingle out in front. There’s a crescent moon under a shimmering sea.”

  “You mean above the sea?” Torval asked.

  “Shhh!” Sheba hissed. “I didn’t give leave to ask a question. And no, I didn’t mean above. I meant below, as I said. That’s the name of the place, I think, though I can’t read the words on the sign—”

  “The moon under water?” Torval asked.

  “Shhh!” Sheba hissed again. “Stop that! That’s twice. You’re going to dispel the visions.” She sighed. “But you’re right. That’s it. The Moon Under Water. That’s the name of the place that the bauble came from.”

  Torval looked to Rem and nodded. At last, a lead!

  “That’s where the bauble will gain you entry,” she said. “I see newcomers. They show their medallions at the door and the doors are opened.”

  Torval opened his mouth to ask another question, then thought better of it. He shut his mouth.

  Sheba lowered her head, no longer looking at the water. She took a deep breath, as though to gather herself after a trying undertaking or tiring conversation. She gave the surface of the water one more glance, then shook her head.

  “That’s it,” she said. “That’s all I see.”

  “That’s what a dozen andies bought us?” Torval asked.

  “It’s more than you had,” Sheba shot back, looking more than a little perturbed. She reached into the grease-strewn water and pulled out the pendant. She handed it back to Rem, who immediately pocketed it.

  “Could we buy another?” Torval asked. “Another reading? A deeper reading?”

  “I doubt I could get more out of that little thing,” Sheba said.

  The back door suddenly buckled on its hinges. With a terrible rending and cracking, it was torn from those hinges in a shower of splinters and sawdust.

  Hulking there, broad shoulders filling the doorway, was a familiar albino orc, beady red eyes burning in their sockets like malicious stars.

  CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO

  Rem’s first reaction was not one of fear, or even shock, but a strange sort of impatience at the sudden intrusion. Sheba screamed and leapt toward the inner wall of the shop. Torval, meanwhile, fell back a few steps and blinked in disbelief.

  But there was no arguing the fact. There stood the big, hulking shape, the same albino orc that had eyed them after their deadly exchange in the street that morning and that had been haunting them just an hour or so later, right on Torval’s doorstep. This time, the beast didn’t seem inclined to simply tuck tail and run. Its red eyes flashed, it roared savagely, then it strode into the room, making tracks toward its nearest target: Torval.

  Rem heard himself call out in fear, a warning, as though Torval did not see the beast, or was not equal to meeting it. But a moment later, Rem realized just how wrong he was. Torval raised his maul, gritted his teeth like a bear in a fighting pit, and beckoned the orc nearer with an open hand.

  “Come on, you knuckle-dragging son of a whore!” Torval shouted. “Have at it!”

  Then the dwarf stepped forward to meet the beast, even though it was twice his size and apparently quite upset with him.

  Rem—suddenly realizing that Sheba had retreated right into his arms—tried to call out to his partner and warn him. “Get out of there!” he cried dumbly, even though he could see clearly that there was nowhere for Torval to go, and that Torval himself was already determined to take the fight to the enemy.

  Then Torval charged, closing the space between him and the enraged orc. Rem saw the dwarf plunge headlong into the orc’s midsection, trying to use his head as a battering ram, the same way he had with the Creeper’s bouncers. His head impacted with the orc’s abdominals, and the monster bent double, but it seemed more annoyed than injured or winded. Before it could lay hands on him, Torval landed two hard strikes with his maul, one to each of the orc’s legs. Roaring, the beast snatched up Torval in both hands, lifted him as high as it could in the cramped, low-ceilinged little back room, and tossed the dwarf into one of the chamber’s walls. Torval hit the wall—and the shelves it supported, and the bric-a-brac littering the shelves—then thumped to the floor in a mess of broken jars and bottles, old dried herbs, and magical implements.

  Rem saw a chance to get Sheba to safety, since the orc—for that single instant—was occupied with Torval. He shoved the conjuress toward the door to the front room and urged her to make a run for it. A moment later, the orc closed in on Torval, shoving aside the butcher’s block that supported the silver bowl full of water that Sheba had used for her reading. The monolith of wood hit the wall just inches from Rem with a thunderous crash and fell to pieces. Rem snatched up one of the broken legs of the butcher’s block to use as a bludgeon and charged the orc.

  He got in three good whacks with the broken table leg, but none of them seemed to slow the creature down. As Rem drew back for a fourth whack, the orc turned toward him and shoved him roughly aside. The gesture was one of complete, annoyed dismissal, but it carried with it enough force to send Rem tumbling across the little room, where he slammed into the opposite wall and fell into a heap on the floor.

  Rem lay there dazed, trying to blink away the fireflies that filled his vision and get back on his feet. As his vision started to clear, he saw Torval scampering away
from the orc’s great, snatching hands, scurrying toward the broken butcher’s block near where Rem lay. As the orc pivoted to give chase, Torval snatched something out of the wreckage of the butcher’s block: the meat cleaver that Rem had noted earlier, probably used by Sheba to take heads off chickens for spell offerings and the like. Before the orc was even turned full around, Torval had laid into the beast with the cleaver, hacking and slashing with the square little blade as he might with a hand ax.

  And if Rem wasn’t mistaken, Torval seemed to be reveling in every minute of it. The dwarf, though clearly gripped by bloodlust and fit for war, was laughing and taunting the orc with every strike and every swipe. His blue eyes were alight with an unholy fire and his gritted teeth seemed one moment a grimace, one moment a grin.

  “Come on, you bumbling blackguard, you!” he growled. “You milky monkey! You mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging piece of sun-bleached cack! Come on!”

  He had drawn blood. Rem could clearly see a number of deep lacerations now on the orc’s right flank, shoulder, and arm, all made by Torval with Sheba’s meat cleaver. The orc, for its part, roared and spat in answer, and reached out with its long arms and grasping claws to try to block each new strike of the blade, but it was clearly starting to shrink from Torval’s onslaught, starting to feel the sting of those cleaver strikes and know fear for its own life.

  “Rem!”

  Rem turned. Sheba stood at the door to the front room. She had a broom in her hand and she threw it toward Rem. Instinctively, he caught the broom, but only stared at it.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.

  “Use it!” Sheba snapped. “It’s all I’ve got!”

  Well, it was long and hard, wasn’t it? In the absence of a spear or a stave, it would have to do. So, Rem leapt to his feet, vision clear at last, and charged the orc from behind. He shoved the broom’s straw-tipped end toward the orc’s legs and tried to sweep them out from under the beast, to get it on its back. It was no good—the broom gave him no leverage and the orc was well planted. It only turned toward him and roared, spewing spittle and foul breath into Rem’s face. He tried a new tack and swept the business end of the broom up into the orc’s bone-white face. It shrank a little from the dried tips of the reeds bundled there. That gave Torval a moment to charge again and hack into the orc’s left flank with his meat cleaver.

  Double-teamed and crowded, the orc bellowed and snarled, then summarily swept them both aside. It slammed its left fist into Torval’s face and sent him sprawling, then reached for Rem. Rem shoved the broom handle forward, trying to block the orc’s grip. The beast plucked the broom right out of his fingers and tossed it aside. For a moment, it seemed to be reaching for Rem as well—then a dim sort of realization flashed in its little ruby eyes, and the orc seemed to decide otherwise. Without another attempt at grappling, the beast shoved Rem back into the wall and went running for the door to the front of the shop. As it disappeared through the doorway, Rem heard Sheba scream.

  Rem hurried to Torval. The dwarf was rolling right back up onto his feet again, completely unfazed by the orc’s having swept him aside. His broad little face was ruddy and flushed, and he had murder in his eyes. Orc blood covered his face and arms and the edge of his makeshift blade, and Rem thought for that moment that he had never seen Torval look so fearsome and intent.

  “You okay, partner?” Rem asked.

  Torval shoved him aside with a strength almost equal to the orc’s. “Out of my way!” Torval shouted, then regained his feet and went tearing out of the room on the orc’s trail.

  Rem, drawing a deep, exasperated breath, followed.

  Just as Rem reached the doorway, he heard an enormous crash. The orc had skipped Sheba’s front door and thrown itself right through her shop window into the street. Torval followed without hesitation, scratching himself on the jagged, toothlike shards of glass that remained around the frame of the window and not caring. As the orc rolled to a stop in the mud outside, Torval charged toward it and raised the cleaver with both hands, ready to bring it down on the orc’s head for a killing blow.

  But then the orc was up on its feet again. In one smooth movement it snatched up the charging Torval, spun around to gain some momentum, then hammer-threw the dwarf toward a shop window on the far side of the street. Torval cursed all the way, even when the window shattered and he went sprawling into a mess of broken glass and shop-window junk on display.

  Rem needed a weapon. Seeing the wealth of broken glass, he knew that was his only option. Hastily, he tore a long swath of fabric from the edge of his tunic, snatched up a long, jagged shard of glass, then wound the fabric around one end of the shard to give him some protection from its edges. He leapt through Sheba’s window into the street and charged the orc, shoving the glass shard deep into its lower back. The orc shrieked as the glass bit through its white flesh and penetrated its body. Before Rem could retreat or get clear, the orc swept around and backhanded him with an outstretched fist. Rem fell into the mud.

  The orc towered over him, a milk-white beast draped in old rags, slashed and torn from head to foot but still murderous and malign. It had Rem, dead to rights. All it needed to do now was reach down and crush his head between its two great, shovel-like hands or simply stomp his skull flat beneath one square, heavy foot. Rem braced himself for what came next, assuming there would be no time to scurry to safety or concoct another plan of attack.

  Then the orc howled and fell to one knee. Unsure of what was happening or why, Rem scampered backward in the mud, eager to be out of the brute’s grasp. From his new position, he saw that Torval had beset their attacker, hacking right through the orc’s heel tendon with Sheba’s meat cleaver. That crippling blow had brought the beast literally to its knees.

  The orc, unable to stand again, tried to pivot on its single good leg while still balancing on its knee. It failed miserably, toppled sideward into the mud, then flopped and rolled in a vain attempt to reach its little adversary and end him. Torval kept his distance, circling just out of reach of the now-crippled orc. As Rem struggled to his feet and wiped what mud he could from himself, he thought he heard something strange in the orc’s huffs and grunts—evidence of worry, panic, fear. Circling opposite his partner, struggling to get a good look at the hobbled orc in the dim lamplight of Mage’s Alley at midnight, Rem thought he even saw true worry and mounting fright on the orc’s flat, pale face.

  It still fought, still wished ill upon its adversaries … but it was also scared.

  Torval seemed to relish the beast’s mounting panic. He made a sound in his throat—halfway between a laugh and a barbaric grunt—and kept circling, brandishing the meat cleaver whenever the orc’s haphazard attempts to grab him threatened success.

  Sheba was at Rem’s elbow now. He looked to her, asked after her safety with a silent look that she clearly understood. She held up her arms and stood, as if for inspection—All safe, Watchwarden. Many thanks.

  Then Rem realized they were no longer alone.

  The locals had been rousted out of their beds. They drifted into the muddy street carrying little lamps or stubs of candle. They were all mages, Rem assumed, though to look at them, one would not mark them so without seeing them here, in their natural habitat. Most seemed pitifully ordinary—middle-aged men and women, some thin, some fat, some just comfortably expanded by time and success. There were a few that were very old and a half dozen or so that seemed very young. Among them were pale-skinned people of the west, as well as foreigners from Shimzaris or Magrabar, to the south—easily distinguished by their olive or copper skin, their almond eyes, their finely oiled or thickly braided hair, and their elegant silk night robes in a rainbow of vivid colors. All of these sleeping mages had heard the commotion, drifted out into the street to see what sort of chaos unfolded below their windows, on their very doorsteps.

  They did not seem happy to have found Rem and Torval and their orcish sparring partner among them.

  Torval saw them,
too. As the dwarf studied the slow-gathering crowd, the orc saw a fleeting chance to put him on his back. It lunged for him.

  To Rem’s surprise, Torval knew what was coming. As the orc reached for him, the dwarf brought Sheba’s meat cleaver down in a swift, hard arc and lopped off half the brute’s grasping hand. The cut went through right below its knuckles. In an instant, all four of its pale, thick fingers were limp on the mud and the orc drew its newly shortened hand—just a palm and a thumb now—close to its big, muscled body. It made a sound like a terrified infant, and Rem felt something like pity for the beast.

  “I think we’re done here,” Sheba said, having retreated toward the shattered window of her shop.

  “Like hell,” Torval snapped in answer. “I want another reading! We can pay for it. We’re on the right track now!”

  “No, no, and no,” Sheba said. “We’re done, and that’s all there is to it. I don’t think you need to come back here for a long, long time, Torval.”

  “What are you talking about, you blithering hedge witch?” Torval asked, moving nearer to her. “We just saved your life.”

  The orc moaned, as if in agreement.

  “I suppose you could see it that way,” Sheba countered. “I prefer to see it this way, though: that orc never would have come here and torn my shop to pieces if you hadn’t led it here. It clearly wasn’t after me. It was after you.”

  Torval quaked with rage. “Why, you ungrateful little—”

  Sheba held out her hands. “My cleaver?” she asked.

  Torval looked to the cleaver in his hands and seemed almost surprised to find it there. He handed it back to her with a frown and a harrumph.

  Sheba kept one hand outstretched. “Coin?” she asked.

  “Coin?” Torval grumbled. “What for?”

  Sheba suggested the shattered front window. “A new window, for starters. Then to replace everything I lost in the shop.”

  Torval shook his head. “You’ve got to be—”

  “Joking?” Sheba asked. “I don’t think so. And if you try to walk away and stiff me, I have a street full of witnesses. Not only can we raise holy hell with the magistrate, we can also see to our own justice. This is a street of mages, after all. You don’t want to be on the ill side of a mage and her neighbors, do you, Torval?”