The Darker Carnival (The Markhat Files)

by Frank Tuttle

  Chapter Eleven

  “That’s not the moon,” I whispered. “It’s the slilth.”

  Darla squinted through the trees. The slilth had assumed a stature and size that placed its silvery orb just behind the high, thin clouds.

  “What’s it doing?” whispered Darla. “And if that’s the slilth, which way is west?”

  I shrugged. “It’s the slilth. Who knows what it’s doing? But never mind that. West is that-a-way.”

  I pointed ahead.

  “You’re just making things up, aren’t you? We’re lost. Lost in a forest filled with monsters.”

  “I’m a seasoned military man,” I said. “My woodcraft is second to none. If I say that way is west, there’s a one in four chance I’m correct.”

  She let out a sigh. “I’m worried about Mama and Gertriss.”

  “Me too.” I paused, listened for the telltale crackling of leaves or snapping of twigs. The forest was quiet, though. Quiet as the proverbial tomb.

  We’d not heard the tramp and roar of the mastodons for hours. They’d raised merry hell for a long time, charging about, tearing up the forest, sending Darla and me fleeing ever deeper into the woods.

  We’d heard other things too. Things perhaps smaller but no less deadly than the mastodons. Twice I’d seen the witch sail past overhead, but she’d not swooped down upon us, not screeched or circled back or called her gruesome friends.

  I’d lost Toadsticker and my bag of grenades in the stampede. I had both my revolvers, forty-two rounds of ammunition, two grenades, my knife, and a slight limp. Darla reported she had three handguns, sixty-two rounds for the guns, two daggers, and the need for a serious talk with me as soon as we found ourselves a safe, well-lighted room.

  “We need to make for the river,” I said. “That’s what Mama will do. And Evis.”

  “Good idea,” said Darla. “We have a boat waiting.”

  “If the mastodons didn’t smash it with their delicate little feet,” I said. “But let’s hope for the best. The river is west, straight ahead. Let’s go.”

  I rose, and saw movement ahead. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the black sky was giving way to pink, and I could just make out the head and shoulders of something not human bobbing through the brush.

  We dropped to our knees. Darla chose her big black five-shooter, while I opted for my trusty four.

  Slim emerged from the shadows. In his arms, he bore Alfreda’s limp pale form.

  “Ho there, friend,” he said, louder than I would have liked. “I bring news.”

  “Let’s be a little quieter, Slim. Might still be things in the woods.” I nodded toward Darla. “This is Darla, my wife. You’ve met, though you may not remember it. Darla, that’s Alfreda he’s holding. Is she all right?”

  The Troll blinked. “She is no deader than she was,” he said. “Your people. They wait at the river. They have a house which floats.”

  We stood. Darla put her back to mine.

  I never disagree when people point out I married above my station.

  “Great. Let’s head that way.”

  Slim gently put Alfreda down on her feet. “Not yet,” he said. “One comes. For you. I followed it. I spoke to it. It names you, claims you. I stand with you.”

  “Slim, there’s a time to run and a time to fight. We’ve done enough fighting tonight. We need to get across the river and regroup.”

  “Is your cause just?” asked Slim. He pushed at Alfreda, who clung to his furry waist.

  “I suppose, but what does that matter”

  “I sang battle songs tonight,” said Slim. “Fought for a just cause. Rescued an innocent. Aided a friend.” He turned toward the dark forest behind him, head cocked, listening. “It comes,” he said. “I am by your side. If it takes you, friend, I shall strike you down, before your soul is tainted.”

  “Whoah, Slim, my soul is already pretty damned tainted—”

  I didn’t get to finish my sentence.

  A rush of cold air moved through the trees. Frost crackled in its wake. Slim’s breath began to steam, and then mine, and Darla’s.

  Poor Alfreda’s never showed.

  A light sailed through the close-packed trees. It was yellow, shot through with hints of green, about as wide and as tall as a person. It bobbed up and down, as though walking.

  “Die well, friend,” said Slim as he moved to my side. Alfreda took refuge behind him.

  “Stop saying that,” I muttered.

  Darla stuck a second gun in my free hand.

  The air went frigid, cold as winter’s coldest night. The light glimmered, reflecting off the suddenly icy leaves and boughs and filling the forest with sparkles and glitter.

  She stepped through the trees, half a dozen strides away.

  She floated, and her gauzy gown floated about her. She was tall and fair and raven-haired. Her eyes were cold, piercing blue, her face sharp and alert, her lips as red as new-spilled blood.

  “Where is it?” said Darla. Her gun moved back and forth, seeking a target.

  “It came for him,” rumbled Slim.

  I fired, aiming right between those lovely pale breasts.

  Her light didn’t flicker. Her skin showed no blemish. Instead, she smiled, and came closer.

  “I come for you, Markhat,” she said. Her voice trilled and rang, echoing like a chorus of silver bells. “You are mine.”

  The gun grew heavy in my hand. I knew, with all my heart, that I could empty it into her body over and over, and not so much as mark her.

  Darla raised my gun, which was pointed down at the earth, then slapped my face. The sting of it was brief and seemed far away.

  The lady laughed. The light of her warmed me, despite the cold. She was like the sun, warm and relaxing, and I grew sleepy basking in her radiance.

  “Tell me your true name,” she said. “I claim you. Speak your name, and I will bring you to my bosom, and keep you there forever.”

  I could hear Darla, demanding that Slim tell her what was going on. I could hear Slim’s bass voice, but couldn’t make out his words, and suddenly Darla and Slim’s voices were silenced, and I stood alone with the Lady.

  She was close enough to touch now. Her smile was so pure, her eyes so wise and warm.

  “A second time I ask your true name, your birth name, Markhat,” she said. Her perfect hand lifted, coming so very close to my cheek. “Tell me.”

  She rose, growing taller, beginning to loom over me, lighting my world, becoming the source of all my warmth, the center of my being. Her hand was still outstretched, still within reach, and all I had to do was reach up and take it and speak my secret birth-name, and give her my soul.

  She grew. Behind her rode the moon.

  But no. It was not the moon.

  I remembered the slilth. Remembered walking in my dreams, remembered growing to cross the Brown River in three small steps.

  So up I rose, matching the Lady’s stature.

  She took a step back. The light shining about her flickered. Her smile fell away, and her blue eyes lost their kindness.

  “Twice I have asked your name,” she said. Her voice grew as sharp and as shrill as a blizzard’s howl. “Speak it now.”

  Instead, I took her hand.

  She twisted and tried to pull away, but I held her easily. She diminished quickly, trying to snatch her hand from mine, but I shrank with her. When she flew snarling upon me I was ready.

  She was no longer lovely. She was a gnarled thing of vines and bark. Her teeth were sharpened branches, set in a mouth of fresh-scraped oak that chewed and worked. Her hollow eyes were mere holes in a husk of a face.

  “Tell me your name!” she screeched. “Thrice I have asked! Tell me your name, mortal! Speak it to me now!”

  For the briefest instant, she became the Lady again, slender and lovin
g and lovely.

  “I have a better idea,” I heard myself say. “Why don’t you tell me yours?”

  She struggled, she did. She writhed and blazed and called down her magic.

  But I smiled and pulled her close. Close enough to kiss. I stroked her hair, and asked again, and she cried tears of pure ice but when I asked a third time she whispered in my ear.

  It isn’t thunder, I realized, that I hear. It is mad laughter, loud enough to fill the wide black sky, and it is mine.

  When I came to my senses, I was on a boat.

  The boat was wallowing drunkenly across the Brown. Water was up to the gunwales, sloshing over now and then, only to be heaved back overboard by dozens of black-clad halfdead.

  “He’s awake,” said a voice.

  Faces floated into view, looking down on me like sweaty concerned moons.

  Mama was there, and Darla, and Gertriss.

  My head was resting in Darla’s lap. My back was wet, resting in what I fervently hoped was nothing but murky river water.

  “What happened?” I said. The words came out slurred beyond coherence. “What happened?” I repeated, with slightly more distinction.

  “Mister Troll yonder claims you kilt yourself an Elf with nothing but your bare hands,” said Mama. I heard Slim hoot in agreement from somewhere out of sight. Mama leaned close and whispered. “’Course from the smell of him I reckon that might be old Jack Crow talking.”

  “No,” said Darla, her face grim. “He killed it, Elf or whatever it was. Without landing a blow or swinging a blade.” She stroked my hair. “Say something, so I know it’s you in there.”

  “Can’t be two men in this world as handsome as I,” I said, slowly and carefully. “You’re one lucky woman, wife of mine.”

  “Sounds like his mouth, all right,” said Mama. She poked me in my chest with a stick. “What’s your dog’s name, boy?”

  “Cornbread,” I said. I managed to get my elbows beneath me and push. “Cornbread Rutherford Generis Malfeasance Hog, the third.” I sat up. “Where are we? Is everybody here?”

  “We’re nearly home,” said Gertriss. “This is Evis’s private launch. We’re heading for a place along the waterfront. Hit the docks and get everybody off.”

  “Why?”

  “We just blew up a carnival,” she said. “We can’t come sneaking back to Avalante’s party-boat slip loaded down with cannons and soldiers. Did you hit your head, boss?”

  “Repeatedly,” I replied. “Just groggy. Is Alfreda aboard?”

  “Got that poor child wrapped in blankets,” said Mama. She lowered her voice again. “Boy, that there Troll. He keeps sayin’ as to how he’s took the Ordwald child under his protection. That your doing?”

  I shook my head. “Not a bit, Mama.” I looked around, didn’t see Slim.

  Mama saw me looking, and pointed out into the water. “Didn’t even know Trolls could swim,” she said.

  Slim sliced through the water, keeping pace with our boat, raising a great spray each time his furry Troll arms slapped down on the river’s muddy face.

  “They tells me you saw Buttercup,” said Mama.

  I nodded. Aches and pains began to present themselves. “Found her. Trapped inside a mirror. Couldn’t get myself inside or bring her out.”

  Mama put her hand on my shoulder. “I know you tried your best, boy,” she said. “Don’t go faultin’ yourself. They gots some strange magic, they do.” She lowered her voice. “I ain’t even sure whether that poor slip of a girl is livin’ or dead, or some of both.”

  “I won’t let Buttercup wind up that way,” I said. “If I have to haul in a brace of cannon myself, I’m going back.”

  “Not tonight, dear,” said Darla. “You’re going to Avalante. You’re going to let Evis’s doctors have a look at you. And then you’re going to rest, whether you like it or not, because as someone once told me, fatigue gets you killed as surely as delusions of heroism.”

  “We can’t let them just pack up and take to the skies with Buttercup aboard,” I said. “They’re probably loading the balloons now.”

  Mama snorted. “I reckon you missed all that. Evis here tore them balloons to rags with that fancy gun of his, right when we first got there. Ain’t a one of them still flying, and that’s a fact, and I reckon they’ll be busy sewing for days and days.” She cackled. “One of ’em caught fire on the way down. Prettiest thing I ever seen.”

  “You sure? All thirteen?”

  “Damn sure. If they plans on leavin’ today, they’ll be walking, boy, and I reckon we can follow any trail left by clowns and mastodons without even squinting hard.”

  I let myself relax. If what Mama said was true, if the carnival’s balloons were out of commission, they’d be staying put for days—maybe even a week or two.

  “All right. We regroup. Devise a new strategy. Put on fresh pants and round up bigger guns. Then what?” I remembered seeing Buttercup struggling with the animated doll, seeing the thing wrap itself around her and squeeze. “Mama, how do I break a banshee out of a magic mirror?”

  Mama shrugged. “Hell if I know. We need to talk to that fancy lady sorcerer up to Avalante. Maybe she knows what to do.”

  “Stitches is away on business.” I glanced upward, but the moon was hiding. “Guess we’re on our own.”

  Mama threw the stick she’d poked me with into the river. “Well, ain’t that a fine how-de-do,” she said. Then she rummaged in her ever-present burlap bag and withdrew her black-handled meat cleaver and a whetstone.

  She spat on the blade before laying into the cleaver’s edge with her whetstone, raising sparks in the darkness. “I reckon,” she said, “we’ll have to go about things like they done in olden days.”

  “Which was?’

  “Cut throats till ye run out of necks.”

  I laid my head back in Darla’s lap and listened to Mama scrape away at that blade all the way back to Rannit.

  Chapter Twelve

  I hadn’t seen a black man since the War.

  For my first three years as a dog handler, our unit was under the command of a tall, gaunt black man from Samadat. We never knew his name, until after he fell.

  We’d just called him the Reaper.

  He was a master tactician, catching the Trolls by surprise, and always in places they didn’t expect and couldn’t effectively defend. He kept us alive and kept us fed and after a month under his command even the most villainous backwoods draftee was ready to march through Hell itself, should the Reaper glance that way.

  When word came that Samadat lay razed and burned, and all her people slain, the Reaper threw himself at a line of Trolls fifteen strong.

  He cut down four of them before dying. I’m told the Trolls still sing of his courage.

  So when I limped through the weathered doors of a bar named The Cat and Fiddle and came face-to-face with a towering, thin giant of a black man, I almost saluted out of habit.

  The black man smiled and kept smiling even as a soaking-wet Troll bearing what appeared to be a none-too-fresh corpse passed over his threshold. A dozen bedraggled halfdead soldiers, many still carrying firearms, followed Slim, and even that parade of mayhem didn’t cause the man to bat an eye.

  “That all?” he asked, when his door was finally shut.

  A solemn halfdead nodded yes. The black man passed by me, locked his door, and threw a heavy bar across it.

  “Welcome to The Cat and Fiddle. I’m Marshal. Drinks on the right,” he said, motioning toward the bar. “Wounded to the left. I’ll get my kit. Randy, serve these folks.”

  Another black man appeared. He too was tall and thin. It only took me a moment to realize I was meeting both father and son.

  I headed for the drinks, Darla on my arm. Mama came stomping up behind us. Slim, bent nearly double to avoid banging his head on the ceiling beams, bore
Alfreda’s still form toward a booth back in the shadows.

  “What will you have, sir?” asked the kid. I figured him for sixteen, maybe less. If he was at all put off by the arrival of dripping Trolls and bedraggled vampires, he didn’t show it any more than his father did.

  “Beer,” I replied. “And one for the lady too, if you please.”

  “And another for me,” said Mama, hauling herself up on a stool. “Reckon I’ve earned myself a wee drink.”

  “Reckon we all have,” I said.

  The kid nodded and sped off toward a gloriously clean brass beer tap.

  “Evis owns this place?” I asked. “Evis owns a bar and he never told me?”

  Mama snuffed. “Ain’t that a damned surprise,” she said. “Don’t suppose I’d tell neither. Can’t have you drinking all the profits and bringing around a low element, can we?”

  The kid returned with three tall mugs in his hands.

  “Berenstorm Black,” he said, beaming. “Best beer in Rannit, Dad says.”

  I took a sip. I’d have fallen off my stool in sheer delight, had it not been for Darla’s steadying hand.

  “Your father is a man of rare taste and fine judgment,” I said. I stuck out my hand, hoping it didn’t smell too strongly of wet Troll. “I’m Markhat. This is my wife Darla. The lady next to her is Missus Hog, sometimes called Mama.”

  The kid had manners. He shook my hand, nodded to Darla and Mama. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Markhat. I’m Randy. Dad lets me tend bar on quiet nights.”

  I chuckled. “Quiet no more, I guess,” I said, reaching for coins long lost in the haunted woods.

  “We don’t charge once the door is barred,” said the kid. Then he winked and sped off as his father called for bandages from the far end of the bar.

  “Evis never mentioned this place?” asked Darla.

  “Never,” I said. I sipped at my beer. “Guess everyone deserves a few secrets.”