A Fistful of Elven Gold

by Alex Stewart

  “We hope,” Drago said. This was going more easily than he’d anticipated. Wethers wasn’t normally disposed to do favors unless there was something in it for him, or at least the Tradesman’s Association.

  “So what’s in it for us?” Wethers asked, right on cue.

  “For one thing,” Drago said, in his most reasonable tone, “it’ll make anyone with the idea of picking up where Fallowfield left off think twice about it.”

  “That it would.” Wethers nodded approvingly. “Like it. And?”

  “There’d be the commission,” Raegan added. Wethers began to look puzzled again.

  “What commission?”

  “Drago’s not going to stick his neck out for nothing, is he? But how’s it going to look if I have to tell the city council the watch is hiring a bounty hunter to chase down a lead my lads can’t?”

  “See your point, yeah,” Wethers said, nodding judiciously.

  “So Jak slips you the money instead,” Drago explained, “the Tradesman’s Association pays me for another iffy-sounding job, which we make sure the right people hear about, and you get ten percent.”

  “Fifteen,” Wethers replied automatically, and Drago and Raegan exchanged glances of mutual relief—they’d been expecting him to hold out for twenty.

  “Fifteen, then,” Raegan said.

  “And all we’d have to do is put it about we’d paid Drago to top that little troll shagger instead of running him out of town?”

  “That’s the idea,” Drago said. “But don’t make it obvious. Just drop a few hints and let people work it out for themselves.”

  “I’m sure that won’t be a problem for a professional negotiator of your calibre,” Raegan said, as aware as Drago was of the chairman’s susceptibility to flattery.

  “Nah.” Wethers grinned. “Piece of proverbial. I’ll just get a bit ratted at the Guild Masters’ Conclave tomorrow night, and pretend to let something slip in front of the right people. Prebbin from Cordwainers’ll do. Tell him anything in confidence and it’ll be halfway up the Geltwash by nightfall.”

  Drago and Raegan exchanged glances.

  “That sounds about right,” Raegan said. “Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.”

  “Anything to oblige the watch,” Wethers said, as if both of them didn’t know he spent half his working life obstructing or misdirecting routine enquiries into the failure of items from the docks to find their way to their intended destination. Drago strongly suspected that the desk itself had been en route to the study of a mage or philosopher at the university before being unexpectedly diverted to its present abode.

  “Your civic-mindedness does you credit,” Raegan said, with carefully studied neutrality. “I’ll send Waggoner round with the money after dark.” The best possible choice, Drago silently agreed: the sergeant wouldn’t be at all happy about the situation, which was another plus so far as he was concerned, but he could be relied on to follow orders and keep his mouth shut about them afterwards—not something which could be said about many of his colleagues. Not to mention that bringing him in on the deception would avoid any awkward complications, like taking it upon himself to re-open the case of Fallowfield’s death in the light of the “new evidence” Drago and Raegan were concocting.

  Wethers grinned. “Any idea yet what it’s supposed to be for?”

  “Still working on that,” Raegan told him. “We’ll let you know.”

  “I don’t like it,” Waggoner said, just as Drago had predicted, with a venomous glance at the gnome. “You can’t trust either of them.”

  “When Drago says he’ll do a job, he’ll do it,” Raegan countered. “Or die trying.”

  “There is that, I suppose,” Waggoner said, looking a little more cheerful at the prospect. The three of them were lurking in an alleyway not far from the watch house, narrow enough to be deeply shadowed even at mid-afternoon, and the onshore breeze was developing an edge. “And if somebody has to be bait . . .” He looked down at Drago with narrowed eyes.

  “I never said it was a good plan,” Drago said, “just the only one we’ve got.”

  “At last we agree on something,” Waggoner said, taking the purse Raegan handed him, and tucking it away inside his jerkin. “Any idea yet what this is supposed to be for?”

  Raegan nodded. “Tosker Barrower. Ring any bells?”

  “Thieving little scrote,” Waggoner said. “Haven’t felt his collar for a while, though. What about him?”

  “Stabbed last night in the back room of The Laughing Gnome,” Raegan said, “in an argument over a card game. Captain Nellis’s lads cleaned up the mess.” Drago nodded. Nellis ran the watch house in the Tanneries, a district considered a bit dodgy even by Fairhaven standards, and wasn’t above bending the rules a bit where she saw the need. More to the point, she had a soft spot for Raegan, and was happy enough to bend them in his direction if asked nicely, preferably over a meal somewhere upmarket enough to offer a reasonable chance of escaping food poisoning.

  “Which helps us how?” Waggoner asked.

  “Nell’s got everyone from the game tucked away in the cells, pending further enquiries, which she assures me could take several days. So no one else knows about Tosker’s unfortunate demise.”

  “With you so far,” Waggoner said. “You want me to ask Clement to get Drago here to do something about him, right?”

  “Right,” Raegan said. “Put it about that Tosker’s been nicking too much from his members, and that’s going to stop. Make sure everyone knows he’s hired Drago to sort it.”

  “And in a couple of days we’ll dump the scrote’s body on the mudflats,” Drago finished. “Someone’ll find it, and with any luck the people we’re looking for will jump to the conclusion I topped him. And with Clement’s version of how Fallowfield died in circulation, they might just decide to approach me with a job offer. Especially as they seem to be running out of potential candidates.”

  “Right,” Waggoner said, with more than a trace of skepticism. “Sticking your hand up for a job that’s got everyone else showing an interest in it killed. What could possibly go wrong?”

  He strolled away, without waiting for a reply.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “What’s the point of going hunting

  if the bear won’t eat the goat?”

  The next week or so passed in a mingled blur of boredom and paranoia. Wethers sent word that he’d started the rumor mill grinding as promised, and the night after that Tosker’s body, now somewhat the worse for wear despite the preserving charm one of Nellis’s SWaT mages had cast on it at the scene of his murder, was dumped somewhere it was certain to be found.

  Drago had spent the time since then oscillating between a few favorite hostelries and his own lodgings, keeping an even more wary eye than usual on the streets connecting them. The longer no one tried to kill him, the more unsettled he became.

  “I don’t think it’s going to work,” he said, his back to the door of The Dancing Footpad, trying to ignore the psychosomatic itch between his shoulder blades. No one would be foolish enough to attack him in here, he knew, especially with Raegan looking past him toward the entrance from the other side of the table (human sized, with a high stool to bring Drago up to the same level as his dining companion), but he still couldn’t relax enough to enjoy his rat kebab. Raegan was munching his way steadily through a plate of herring sausage, apparently unmoved by his friend’s choice of sustenance; no doubt he’d seen far more unsettling sights in the course of his career, possibly even on the shift he’d just concluded.

  “Just got to give it time,” Raegan advised, taking another bite. His gaze shifted a little as the door banged to, and Drago stiffened reflexively, but Raegan merely nodded a greeting. “George.” Drago relaxed.

  “Guvnor.” Waggoner patted Drago on the back, right in the center of the target the bounty hunter’s imagination kept picturing between his shoulder blades. “Not dead yet, then,” he added by way of greeting.

  “Imagine my
disappointment,” Drago responded sarcastically, taking a large bite of the rat on his platter. The mouthful was bigger than he wanted, but the necessity of chewing it gave him an excuse not to engage the watchman in conversation—that seldom ended well for either of them.

  “Imagine mine,” Waggoner riposted, his inflection only half joking. “What’s the point of going hunting if the bear won’t eat the goat?”

  “Still time for them to take a bite,” Raegan said. “It’s only been a few days since we started.” More than enough time, they all knew, for a really juicy rumor to sweep the city from end to end, sprout several conflicting versions, and maybe spark a riot or two if there were sides to be taken. The story they’d planted was, to be fair, nowhere near as exciting as last year’s alchemist who’d finally learned how to make gold before getting an abrupt and fatal lesson in the value of scarcity, the sighting of a Leviathan a few miles offshore the year before that, which had taken several warships and a reluctant team of seasick mages to drive off before it ate enough trading vessels to dent the city’s economy, or the perennially popular and invariably untrue reports from far upstream that the Lost Queen had been found alive and well, but even so, Drago had been hoping for some kind of response by now.

  “Let’s hope so,” Waggoner said, in tones which made it clear he had few if any expectations, and turned his attention to the menu chalked up behind the bar. “What’s good tonight?”

  “Rat’s pretty fresh,” Drago said, swallowing his mouthful, and watching the watchman for a reaction.

  Waggoner just shrugged. “See enough vermin at work,” he said. He waved, to catch Hob’s eye. “Pie and a pint.”

  “Coming right up.” The landlord trotted over, depositing the order on the table almost at once. “Any friend of Drago’s don’t need to wait.”

  “Thanks.” Waggoner looked faintly uncomfortable, but said nothing to contradict Hob’s misapprehension.

  The rest of the meal passed in awkward silence, punctuated by a few desultory remarks which never quite flickered into sociability, and once his rat was gone, leaving only a few bones to mark its passing, Drago hopped down from his stool.

  “Going so soon?” Raegan asked, and Drago nodded.

  “Could do with an early night,” he lied. In fact what he could really do with was too much to drink and some dice to roll, but right now the distraction would be too big a risk. The last thing he needed was a knife between the ribs because his attention was fixed on losing money. He’d been prepared for the physical risks of setting himself up as bait, but hadn’t counted on it putting quite such a crimp in his social life.

  “Where’s the real Drago, and what did you do with him?” Raegan asked, not fooled for a moment. He grinned. “All right then, bugger off. I’ll pick up the tab.” As if he hadn’t been going to anyway. Under the circumstances the least he could do was buy Drago a meal; it gave them a plausible reason to be together if anyone was watching.

  “And if you can’t be good, be careful,” Waggoner added.

  Drago was careful to follow the sergeant’s advice as he made his way back toward his lodgings, keeping an eye out for anyone showing signs of interest in his progress, but the crowds in the main thoroughfares were just too dense—a constantly changing kaleidoscope of bodies, most of them more than twice his own stature, effectively blocking his line of sight any farther than the next elbow. At least his size was working to his advantage; any humans on his trail would be unable to slip through the minuscule gaps between people and shopping baskets that still allowed him to make reasonable progress. Dusk was falling, and with it came a tidal outwash of the respectable heading for home, theatre or temple, their places being taken by the kind of people who preferred their business to be cloaked by the gathering dark—people not entirely unlike Drago, if he was honest.

  As he neared home the crowds began to thin out, and his sense of unease began to grow. Mrs. Cravatt’s lodging house was halfway down one of the narrowest streets in the district, not quite cramped enough to be considered an alleyway by Fairhaven standards (streets being defined by local custom and ordinance as being wide enough for two people to pass one another without bumping shoulders and starting a fight), but still claustrophobic enough. Nightfall here was always accelerated by the tendency of upper stories to lean out over the cobbles toward their neighbors, sometimes to the point where raindrops had to turn sideways to slip between them, and the illumination afforded by the chinks between shuttered windows would have struggled to merit the description of barely adequate.

  For anyone other than a gnome, at any rate; Drago’s night vision was well up to the challenge. Only the deepest patches of shadow could have concealed something, and he knew the street well enough to be able to guess what that might be—piles of rubbish and ordure, in most cases.

  Nearing the familiar battered door of the lodging house, he began to relax a little, anticipating the security of his own attic. The few people he could see were all local residents, intent on their own business, their faces familiar enough not to register as potential threats. Not that some of them couldn’t be dangerous, if they put their minds to it, but he was well enough known in the neighborhood to be sure of attracting little attention from the locals beyond wary respect.

  So it was with some surprise that he found himself stepping to one side and drawing his sword without conscious thought, his rational mind only catching up with the warning hiss of air displaced by a descending blade as the weapon clashed against his own. He’d lifted his sword above his head, angled downward to deflect the blow like rain running off a roof, and kept on moving beneath its shelter, grabbing his assailant’s arm with his free hand and yanking sharply downward. The attacker was taller than he was, though not for much longer, riding the momentum of the downward swing to the filthy cobbles, landing with an audible smack. Drago swung his sword around his head, brought his second hand to the hilt, and cut downward, meeting the would-be assassin’s rising neck as he tried instinctively to get back to his feet. Vertebrae sheared, blood fountained, and Drago swore. His laundry bill this month was going to be extortionate.

  No time to worry about that now, though. He glanced round for any other signs of immediate threat. The locals were either running for cover or settling in to enjoy the entertainment, so he could discount the possibility of any of them intervening, which was something of a comfort. None of them had any grudges they might want to settle, at least so far as he was aware, but they wouldn’t be rushing to his defense either. Fair enough. It wouldn’t exactly enhance his reputation to seem to need the help of a few off-duty stevedores or dolly-mops anyway.

  Mind you, if an assailant could get that close without him realizing, perhaps it was about time his reputation did take a dent. He glanced down at the cadaver on the cobbles. Unmistakably a goblin, he would have been about four feet tall with his head attached, making him on the low end of average height for one of his species. The big surprise was that he’d been able to get so close without Drago spotting him. Goblins could certainly move quietly if they wanted to, but he should have been easy to see—especially for a gnome. The hairs on the back of Drago’s neck began to prickle. Something was badly wrong . . .

  A clump of shadow detached itself from a nearby doorway and charged toward him. Drago turned to meet it instinctively, cutting at the mottled air, and feeling his sword jar against something yielding. With a scream the darkness evaporated, revealing a second goblin clutching at a belly wound with blood-slick hands, his own sword clanging to the cobbles. He fell to his knees, already bleeding out, and Drago turned again, seeing another patch of darkness solidify in front of him, a good four or five paces away. This goblin was female, dressed like the others in tunic and trews in muted colors, but instead of a blade she held a crossbow aimed squarely at his chest.

  Even as he started to run, Drago knew he couldn’t hope to reach her before she pulled the trigger. His only hope was to throw off her aim, pray she missed, and close to stabbing distance
before she had a chance to reload. Once the bolt was shot, a crossbow was nothing more than an elaborate club.

  The assassin grinned, anticipating an easy shot, and Drago abruptly changed direction. He kicked out, feeling the jar of impact shiver through every bone in his foot, and swore again. If he got out of this alive, he was definitely buying the new boots he’d been considering. With reinforced toe caps. The decapitated head of the first assassin sailed through the air, impacting on the goblin’s chest, and she staggered back, her finger tightening on the trigger. The bow twanged, the bolt vanished into the night, embedding itself in the overhanging second story of a celebrated local bawdy house, and the assassin howled with frustration and revulsion. Flinging the crossbow at Drago, who evaded it easily, she began to draw a sword of her own.

  “Drop it!” a voice shouted, echoing off the surrounding walls.

  “Shag off!” the goblin yelled back, charging at Drago, cutting down at him as though trying to split a log. But logs don’t move. Drago was long gone by the time her blade hit the cobbles, deflecting the cut as easily as the first assassin’s. He pivoted, kicking out at the back of the goblin woman’s knee, and bringing his own sword round in a neat, flat arc, which bit into the side of her neck. Arterial blood sprayed, and Drago flinched, stepping back as the corpse hit the ground, spasming.

  “You took your time,” he said, as Raegan and Waggoner strolled into the street, their swords drawn.

  “I was finishing my pie,” Waggoner said. He crouched down beside the goblin Drago had disemboweled, felt briefly for a pulse, and shook his head. Then he stood, putting his sword away, and glared down at Drago. “Remind me again. This is the part where we take whoever jumps you in for questioning?”

  “Good luck with that,” Drago said, trying and failing to sound unconcerned. “They don’t seem all that chatty.” Which, now he came to think about it, struck him as odd. The only one who’d spoken at all was the woman with the crossbow, and then only in response to Raegan’s command to surrender.