The Luck Uglies

by Paul Durham

  He pulled his sleeves up to his elbows. Both of his forearms were completely covered in green-black ink. He held them out for her to see. Rye could distinguish a skull, a mermaid, a woman’s face, a crude map, a sword and shield, maybe a bouquet of shamrocks. There was more, but it was difficult to tell where one tattoo ended and the next began.

  “They help me remember where I’ve been and how to get back there,” Harmless said. “They hurt, but no worse than a bite of a serpent or the pinch of a sea urchin’s spine. These, on the other hand, were different.”

  Harmless opened the palms of his hands. Each was covered with a circular pattern of symbols and markings. They were runes.

  “These,” he said, “felt like flaming arrows through the chest.”

  Rye leaned forward and studied them closely.

  “What do they—” she began to ask, but he held up a finger to interrupt her.

  “You have more questions than your mother has moods,” Harmless said. “I have certain affairs I must attend to now that cannot wait. But I’ll be here in Drowning for a bit longer and will make you a bargain, Riley. I shall meet you here each morning and answer each and every question you ask of me. But this knowledge will not come free. I ask two things in return.”

  “Yes?” Rye said.

  “First, you will bring me something for breakfast each day. It need not be anything special. A scrap of bread or an egg will do just fine, as long as you make it yourself.”

  Rye nodded. Easy enough.

  “Second, these are dangerous times. There are things afoot you do not yet understand. You must promise not to go out at night again by yourself. If you do, trust me: I will know about it. And I will never return to this cemetery again.”

  That one was going to be harder, but Rye nodded. “Agreed,” she said. “I promise.”

  “Splendid,” Harmless said. He stood and stretched.

  “How long?” Rye asked.

  “Come again?”

  “You said you’ll be here a bit longer. How long?”

  Harmless adjusted his cloak and kicked some mud from his heels.

  “No longer than it takes. I find my boots gather moss if I stay in one place too long.”

  Rye wanted to ask how long what takes, but Harmless cut her off.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Riley,” he said, and gave a little bow. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Harmless,” Rye said, and returned a wobbly curtsy.

  With that, Harmless turned and marched off into the weeds and thickets surrounding Miser’s End Ceme-tery. As he left, Rye again noticed the two short but nasty-looking blades strapped to his back, neither of which looked particularly harmless at all.

  11

  Things That Go Bump in the Night

  Rye couldn’t recall ever seeing soldiers on Mud Puddle Lane, never mind six or seven times in one day. But that afternoon the Earl’s soldiers made no secret of their presence. A patrol of two fully armored soldiers marched down Mud Puddle Lane and back every hour. By their third or fourth pass they seemed to be thoroughly bored by the whole process, and by the fifth trip they were downright rude. They threw stones at the foraging rooks, and one peed in the weeds outside of Quinn’s house.

  Rye, Folly, and Quinn watched the soldiers as they stopped and picked an apple from the tree in Old Lady Crabtree’s yard. Old Lady Crabtree was sitting on her stoop, studying them with a wicked look from behind her stringy white hair. Crabtree was cranky and demanding, and most people found her entirely unpleasant to be around. For some reason, she and Lottie got along famously.

  The soldier bit into the oddly shaped little apple and made a face.

  “These apples are sour,” he said.

  “And poisonous,” Old Lady Crabtree croaked with a little grin.

  The soldier frowned and spit out the bite.

  “Longchance needs to invoke the Treaty,” she said. “Instead he sends your useless lot to prance through the streets and plunder our orchards.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself with the workings of the Earl, old woman,” one soldier said. “There is no more Treaty.”

  “The Luck Uglies are the only ones who will save us,” Old Lady Crabtree said.

  “The Luck Uglies are criminals,” the other soldier grunted. “We’ll protect you—not that you much deserve it.”

  “The Earl’s soldiers couldn’t protect this village from a house mouse with bad intentions,” Old Lady Crabtree said.

  “Mind your business, crone,” the soldier said, and threw the sour apple at her. “Tend to your skunk apples and be thankful we’re even on this wretched street.”

  “We’re doomed, you stubborn louts,” Old Lady Crabtree said, pointing a crooked finger at them. “You’ll see.”

  Rye, Folly, and Quinn kept quiet until the soldiers had stalked past them.

  “Folks in the Shambles are buzzing about Luck Uglies,” Folly whispered as soon as they were out of earshot, but Rye interrupted with an emphatic shake of her head.

  “Not here,” Rye said, and nodded toward her house instead.

  The three friends slipped inside the O’Chanters’ cottage and reconvened by lantern light around the table in the secret workshop. Rye brought Shady with them. Rye knew his keen ears would let them know as soon as Abby and Lottie, or anyone else, came within ten yards of the front door. For the moment, he busied himself by swatting at a pheasant feather he’d pilfered from Abby’s supplies.

  “I heard,” Folly resumed, “that the village sent a runner to Longchance Keep. They’re going to ask the Earl to invoke the Treaty of Stormwell—and call for the Luck Uglies.”

  “The Luck Uglies don’t exist anymore,” Quinn said under his breath.

  “Do you know that for sure?” Folly said, pursing her lips.

  “No, not for sure,” Quinn said. “But my father says we don’t need that kind of trouble. The village is arming itself. He can’t keep up with the demand at the shop. He actually let me use the forge.”

  Quinn displayed his blackened hands proudly.

  “What’s the Treaty of Stormwell?” Rye asked, pulling a spool of red ribbon from Shady’s teeth before he could devour it.

  “It was an agreement between the House of Longchance and the Luck Uglies,” Quinn said. “A deal to save Drowning from the Bog Noblins.”

  Tam’s Tome lay open in front of them. Quinn flipped through its pages.

  “Look,” Quinn said, “it’s all in here.” He began to read.

  “Twenty years ago, the Luck Uglies struck up a loose alliance with the House of Longchance. They signed the Treaty of Stormwell and agreed to rid the Shale of the Bog Noblins, who were terrorizing the countryside and threatening to destroy merchant society. It took nearly ten years, but the Luck Uglies fulfilled their end of the agreement. Shortly thereafter, the newest heir to the Longchance line, Earl Morningwig Longchance, branded the Luck Uglies outlaws, and they were forced to disband and scatter throughout the Shale and beyond.”

  “What good’s a treaty with Longchance?” Rye said. “He makes his own laws anyway.”

  “I heard,” Folly began, and Rye and Quinn exchanged skeptical looks, “that the Treaty of Stormwell was signed in blood under a Black Moon.”

  “It would be pretty hard to read something signed in blood,” Quinn said.

  “And,” Folly continued, ignoring the interruption, “there were only two copies. One’s supposed to be in possession of the last High Chieftain of the Luck Uglies. The other is locked away in the treasure hole of Longchance Keep.”

  “My father says that’s where our things go when I lose them,” Quinn noted, then dropped into a perfect imitation of his father’s booming voice. “Where’s the wheelbarrow, Quinn? Let me guess—the Earl took it for his treasure hole?”

  “But why did the Earl declare them outlaws?” Rye asked, impatiently.

  Quinn looked up from the pages grimly. “It says in here they kidnapped Lo
ngchance’s bride.”

  “Which one?” Folly said, rolling her eyes.

  “The fourth,” Quinn said. “The mother of his daughter. They snatched her from her bed in the middle of the night.”

  “That is pretty bad,” Rye said.

  “It gets worse,” Quinn said. “When the House of Longchance couldn’t provide them with their ransom, the Luck Uglies chained her to a swamp oak in the bogs on a winter night. Nobody ever saw Lady Longchance again.”

  “That’s awful,” Rye said, shaking her head.

  “It says that Longchance almost shed a tear in front of the entire village when he announced what had happened. He said that no villager was ever to speak of Lady Longchance again and then promptly declared the Luck Uglies to be criminals. He gathered an army and marched, driving every last Luck Ugly from Drowning. They called it the Purge.”

  Rye tried to process the information.

  “But why, Quinn?” she asked. “Why would they do something so awful? Why would the Luck Uglies break their truce after going through all that trouble?”

  “I don’t know, Rye,” Quinn said flatly. “As far as I can tell, they were not very nice.”

  “It just doesn’t make any sense,” Rye said.

  Quinn’s face had darkened. Even with all of his worrying, Rye had never known Quinn to be overly sensitive. Then it occurred to her. Quinn knew what it was like to lose a mother.

  Quinn riffled the thick stack of pages with his thumb. “Maybe there’s more in here.”

  “What about the things we found in the Bog Noblin’s bag?” Rye asked quickly, changing the subject in hopes it might brighten Quinn’s mood.

  The little bag sat next to Tam’s Tome, each of the four items spread out neatly on the table. They smelled of stagnant water and decay.

  “Nothing really,” Quinn said, crinkling his brow. “I can’t find anything on tiny skulls or anklets. There’s something about cures for toothaches but nothing about teeth on strings. And nothing at all about little wooden stickmen. It does say that Bog Noblins are extremely superstitious and believe in magic. They have a fascination with trinkets, charms, and anything shiny.”

  Quinn looked up from the book. “Not much to go on.”

  “No,” said Rye.

  “But it’s a big book. I’ll keep looking.”

  Rye had another source she would try tomorrow. She hadn’t said anything about Harmless to her friends yet. She wasn’t sure why, but he was something she wanted to keep to herself. For now anyway.

  Shady abruptly stopped shredding a roll of parchment. His ears twitched and he cocked his head. Rye, Folly, and Quinn took his cue and went silent.

  A moment later came the commotion on the street—a ringing of the bell they recognized as belonging to the Village Crier. Important news seldom reached Rye’s neighborhood. When it did, it was almost always bad.

  “News,” Quinn breathed.

  “Let’s go,” Rye said, packing the four items back into the leather pouch. “Hurry up before we miss the announcement.”

  The residents of Mud Puddle Lane poured from their homes and gathered near the broken village wall. The street sweeper must have given up on the scrubbing because the wall was covered with a patch of fresh white paint, the black four-leaf clover now peeking through as muted gray. Rye, Folly, and Quinn slipped their way to the front of the crowd. Neither Abby O’Chanter nor Angus Quartermast was there. Still at their shops, they would have already heard the news from the Market Street Crier.

  The Village Crier had arrived accompanied by Constable Boil and two of the Earl’s soldiers. At the sight of Boil, Rye took a step behind a large villager, shielding herself from his view. Boil scanned the gathered residents from under his dust-ball eyebrows with a look that conveyed both suspicion and disdain.

  The Crier unrolled a long scroll and cleared his throat. He was a tiny man with a voice as loud as a trumpet.

  “Puddlers,” the Crier began; this was how the Earl always referred to the residents of Mud Puddle Lane. “This proclamation is delivered upon the order of the Lord of this county, the ward of this village, the wise and honorable, the fashionable and handsome”—the Crier rolled his eyes at that last part—“Earl Morningwig Longchance.”

  A disgruntled murmur came from the crowd.

  “Denizens of Drowning,” the Crier continued, “it is hereby confirmed that a semi-aquatic lowland Nobificus—more commonly known as a Bog Noblin—has been sighted by credible sources in or about the village proper.”

  The crowd groaned and shrieked. An old woman next to Rye looked like she might faint. The Constable held up his hands to silence the crowd. The Village Crier began again.

  “A village-wide curfew is now in effect. Henceforth, any man, woman, or child found roaming the streets after dark and not acting on official village business shall be subject to immediate arrest and imprisonment. Even during daylight hours, villagers should remain vigilant at all times. Any suspicious behavior is to be reported to the constable of your local ward.”

  Boil puffed out his bony chest at the mention of his status. The Crier continued.

  “Typical Bog Noblin activities include clawing, biting, growling, consumption of humans and livestock, vandalism, and recreational dismemberment.”

  There were more yells from the crowd. Folly and Quinn just looked at each other. Rye raised a well-picked fingernail to her mouth and began to chew.

  “What about the Treaty?” someone yelled.

  “We need the Luck Uglies!” cried someone else over the crowd.

  “The Luck Uglies don’t care about us any more than Longchance does,” a third person objected.

  “We don’t need their brand of help,” croaked a fourth.

  A few other residents quietly cursed the Luck Uglies under their breath, but such contrarians were quickly shouted down.

  The Village Crier cleared his throat loudly. “Your attention, please. As you know, the Luck Uglies have long since disavowed the Treaty—”

  “Rubbish!” another voice called. “Longchance is afraid of them!”

  “The Earl reminds all residents that the Luck Uglies are and remain wanted criminals.” The Crier looked at the scroll and read the prepared words carefully. “The Luck Uglies are outlaws, thieves, liars, scoundrels, ruffians, scalawags, turkeyholes, and all around bad apples.”

  Someone nudged Rye on the shoulder.

  “I guess the Earl won’t be inviting them to his Winter Feast anytime soon,” he whispered.

  Rye looked back. A hooded man stood behind her. Peeking from under the hood, he gave her a little wink. It was Harmless.

  “And furthermore,” bellowed the Crier. Rye turned back toward him. “For the avoidance of all further doubt, the illustrious House of Longchance confirms that it shall henceforth be the sole guardian of the health, wealth, and welfare of the great northern county of the Shale, and the not-so-bad Village Drowning. By the Laws of Longchance, any resident found harboring any Luck Ugly shall be subject to immediate imprisonment in the dungeons of Longchance Keep for a period of not less than one year.”

  The noise of the crowd was uncontrollable now. Folly gave Quinn a shove and mouthed, “I told you.”

  The Village Crier finished up quickly. “The Lord of this county, the ward of this village, the wise and honorable, the fashionable and handsome, Earl Morningwig Longchance”—the Crier took a breath after spitting all of that out—“hereby bids you all a good day.”

  Constable Boil watched the restless crowd with a smug grin, reveling in their discontent. But as he studied their hovel-like homes and overgrown garden plots, Rye saw his cheeks go white and his face fall.

  “What is that?” he yelled.

  The villagers on Mud Puddle Lane did not hear him amid their own commotion.

  “Whose house is that?” he shrieked, loud enough now that the din subsided and Rye’s neighbors took notice.

  The Constable grabbed a soldier and thrust him ahead, pushing through the masses,
stomping toward the far end of Mud Puddle Lane. They stopped at a ramshackle cottage at the farthest end of the street. Its windows were broken. Creepers grew in tangles over its collapsed roof.

  “Whose house is this?” Boil screamed again, with a ferocity that couldn’t be ignored.

  “Nobody’s,” someone volunteered, which was the truth. The cottage had been abandoned for as long as Rye could remember.

  But now, over its hollow doorframe, hung an ominous, tattered black flag and emblem—crossed swords behind a four-leaf clover.

  “Get it off of there,” Boil commanded. “Pull it down.”

  A soldier gave it a hard tug and pulled the flagpole from the door, splintering it in two over his knee.

  Rye turned around to ask Harmless what all this meant, but he was nowhere to be found.

  That night, Rye curled up in bed with her head on her mother’s shoulder. They both watched the fire crackle in the fireplace. Lottie snored between them, sleeping upside down so that her scratchy little toenails pressed against Rye’s chest. Shady snuggled in a warm, furry pile at Rye’s feet. The wind had kicked up outside, and the banging of loose shutters echoed in the night.

  “Mama,” Rye said. “Are we safe from the Bog Noblin?”

  Shady rustled around at the foot of the bed, licking a paw and cleaning himself. Abby smiled at him.

  “The doors are bolted and the windows shuttered. There’s no safer place in the village than where we are right now.”

  “Then why aren’t you sleeping?” Rye asked.

  Abby sighed. “There are others I worry about. But there’s nothing we can do at the moment. Let’s both close our eyes and get some sleep.”

  Rye wondered if she meant Harmless. Her eyes were still wide open when Abby spoke again.

  “Riley, tomorrow I’d like you to come with me to the Willow’s Wares in the morning. I’m bringing Lottie, too.”

  “Okay,” Rye said.

  “It’s been many years since there was a Bog Noblin scare in the village,” Abby said. “You were just an infant the last time. Toward the end it got bad. Truly awful. . . .” Abby’s voice drifted off. Rye felt her mother’s body shudder against her. “People can sometimes lose their heads. The shop, well, bad news tends to be good news for our business. Too good sometimes. I may need your help.”