Blood River Down

by Lionel Fenn

  "This is crazy," he said; and as if the words were a signal, a door opened in the rear wall and a man stepped out.

  "Good day!" he said cheerfully, hitching at a pair of dark trousers several sizes too large for his lanky frame. His hair was a thicket of unruly brown atop an equine face that beamed as Gideon crossed over to him and took his offered hand.

  "You are the hero?"

  Gideon didn't know what to say.

  "Ah. Modesty."

  Gideon still didn't know what to say.

  "They call me Whale," he said, using one finger to scratch the side of his wattled neck. He laughed then and thumped a fist against his belly. "I used to be much heavier."

  "Okay," Gideon said, grinning.

  "And I suppose you want something to fight with," Whale said, immediately heading for his display of swords and dirks. "A good thing, too, since I doubt you'll be able to handle things very well with just your hands." He laughed. "I think that's a joke. Is it a joke? Handle, hands? I don't know. They tell me I don't have a sense of humor, so I have to keep asking if I've found one. I do know how to fight, though, you can ask anybody. Why, just last week—" He stopped, blushed, and picked up a dagger with a curved-horn hilt. "What do you think?"

  Gideon, who hadn't the slightest idea what to think about any of it, pointed to the rifles. "What about those?"

  "Those?" Whale's face wrinkled in disgust and mild shock as he shook his head. "You don't want those, sir. They're only good for hunting, not killing."

  "Oh, I don't know," he said. "I should think you could stop a man pretty well with one, don't you?"

  "Never!" Whale backed away as if Gideon had insulted every female member of his family, then had refused to marry any of them. "You don't treat a man the same as you do a pacch, do you? Of course you don't. A man has dignity, isn't that right? A man deserves a chance to defend himself. How can he defend himself if you're going around potting at him from a mile away, huh? What kind of dignity is that?"

  Gideon hastily agreed there was no dignity to that whatsoever, though he did not add that neither did he think opening a man's insides with a sharpened piece of steel was all it was cut out to be, either.

  "Well, then," Whale said, the matter of propriety settled, "what shall you have?"

  He moved more swiftly than Gideon could answer and soon had an impressive, gleaming, deadly array of swords and short blades on the counter between them. He extolled the many virtues of each (made by his own hand) and the few drawbacks of each, especially if one had a short arm, which Gideon apparently didn't, though you can't always tell about these things, fashions today being what they were, and finally ended his spiel by stepping back and spreading his arms with a flourish.

  "Splendid, aren't they? Absolutely..." His face flushed again. "I'm sorry. I get that way. One grows attached to one's wares after a time, don't you think?"

  "I suppose," Gideon said. Then, after passing a hand over several of the weapons, he dropped it to his side and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't."

  "Oh. Oh, dear. Oh, my heavens." Whale quickly gathered the blades up and reset them in their places. Then he reached for another group.

  "No," Gideon said. "That's not what I meant."

  Whale frowned.

  "I mean, I don't know how to use any of them."

  "You don't?"

  "I don't."

  "You can't..." And he dropped into en garde and swished a bit at the air with his arm. "You can't?"

  "Nope."

  "Oh. A problem."

  "Perhaps something else," Gideon suggested, feeling foolish for feeling guilty at the man's distress. He had a memory, and an idea. "I have been successful with a bat."

  "A bat?" Whale flapped his arms. "A... bat? My goodness, how does one train one? It must be awfully difficult. Patience, I suppose, though I can't imagine anyone having the—"

  Gideon gripped an invisible baseball bat and put it to his shoulder, then swung in slow motion. "No, a bat."

  Whale frowned. "I thought a bat was a bat."

  "In this case, no. A bat's a bat." A giggle rose in his throat and he swallowed it hard, then saw a half dozen different-sized clubs on the wall next to the rear entrance. He pointed. "Something like those, only a bit thinner."

  "Thinner will break."

  Gideon hesitated, then asked for a piece of paper. Whale, still puzzled but more intrigued, provided it, plus a straight pen and a small pot of ink. Gideon, not an artist at the best of times, valiantly attempted a sketch of the bat he had broken over the head of the black beast, and when he was finished, five sheets and two pens later, Whale held it close to his eyes, held it at arm's length, walked to the door, and turned so the light fell full upon it.

  "Ah."

  Gideon joined him. "One piece of wood, you see. Tapered, but a knob so the hands don't slip off. Fat up here."

  "You need..." Whale closed one eye. "This isn't enough, you know. Not for really proper bashing without losing it in an awkward spot. You need..." He pressed the paper to his chest and walked away in what Gideon could only suppose was a creative daze. He paused, then passed through the back door and closed it behind him.

  Gideon shrugged to himself and, since there was nothing he could do but wait, headed for the display of rifles. When he was close enough he felt a chill that was hard to shake off—except for minor variations in the design of the stock, and an addition here and there at the trigger guard and along the barrel for whatever purpose, they looked exactly like those he had seen back home. In the display counter there were boxes of cartridges. And it took him a while to realize there were rifles only; nowhere in the store could he find a single example of a handgun.

  Then the rear door banged open just as the front doors swung in.

  Whale held up a bat and said, "A beauty, don't you think?"

  And the woman he had seen with Tag and the three men looked him up and down, smiled slyly, and drew a dagger from her belt.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Gideon stepped nervously back toward the lefthand wall as Whale approached him from one side and the woman came at him from the other, knife and bat all too clearly displayed. He supposed he had transgressed some local custom, but he didn't think that whatever he had done deserved the ultimate solution to public or private ill behavior.

  Whale, shifting his gaze from his creation to the expression on Gideon's face, laughed abruptly and shook his head. "No, no, sir, it's not what you think! Please, don't you— My goodness"—he turned to the woman—"it's not at all what he thinks, is it? Of course it isn't, and for heaven's sake, Ivy, what are you doing with that thing?"

  Ivy Pholler flipped the dagger over in her hand and gave it to the armorer horned hilt first. "It needs a good sharpening, Whale. The damned thing won't cut a baby's—" She stopped herself. "It won't cut."

  "I can take care of it for you in an instant," the man promised, and rushed back out of the room.

  "Ivy?" Gideon said breathlessly as he leaned back against a display case in order not to fall weak-kneed to the floor. He was definitely going to have to learn not to judge people and events so precipitously, not if he wanted his nerves to calm down now and again.

  "That's right. And you're Gideon, so says Tag."

  "That's right." He gestured vaguely toward the back. "Mr. Pholler was making me—"

  "I know. I saw it. It looks... interesting. What do you do with it?"

  After a moment's hesitation, he shrugged. He was going to tell her about his confrontation with the black beast but changed his mind. She didn't seem to be truly interested in his answer, only marking time until Whale returned. Not that he was complaining about her disinterest. Ivy was an attractive woman, and he supposed he could be content with simply looking at her. She was about Tag's height, buxom with long blonde hair sensibly wound into a braid whose feathery tip brushed against the small of her back. Her clothes were similar to Tag's—hide leggings tucked into high thong-wrapped boots and a dull white blouse heavily embroidere
d in gold. She was green-eyed, strong-looking, and, he guessed, a formidable opponent either with words or deeds. It was clear from the hard lines faint at the corners of her eyes and mouth that she was not one to be shunted into corners.

  "Are you finished?" she said with a trace of amusement.

  Gideon, not realizing he had been staring, gave her a quick smile and looked to the back for rescue. There was none, and he heard a noise that made him turn his head. Ivy was laughing behind a hand.

  "You blush easy, do you?"

  "Not that I've noticed, no," he said stiffly, and strode over to the counter where Whale had left the bat.

  "Prickly, too."

  He ignored her for the bat and ignored as well the surge of temper he felt.

  On first and second examination, the thing on the counter resembled an ordinary big-league baseball bat, save that it was flawlessly fashioned from deep green wood and, when he picked it up one-handed, nearly broke his wrist with its weight. It was also a few inches longer, and its rounded tip nearly squared the toe of his boot before he could pull it back. A beautiful piece of work, he thought as he hefted it back to the counter, but I wouldn't be able to swing it even if I wanted to bash my own brains out with it.

  "A problem?" Ivy said, coming up beside him.

  He pointed at it and shrugged. She made to lift it, scowled at the weight, and shook her head.

  "He's done something," she told him.

  "I know. He's made a bat I can't lift."

  "A bat?"

  "That."

  She frowned at it, at him, and at the rear door. "Well, he's still done something. You'll have to wait—"

  But he didn't. Whale came out at that moment, Ivy's dagger wrapped in soft blue cloth. He handed it to her ceremoniously, and she dipped a finger into a velvet purse slung from her belt. Two silver coins changed hands, and Whale dismissed her with a polite smile and a turn to Gideon. Ivy didn't take the hint.

  "It's lovely," Gideon said, nodding at the bat, "but I can't lift it."

  "Of course not, it's yours."

  "I appreciate that very much," he said, "but what good is it going to do if I can't use it?"

  The thin man looked puzzled, then triumphant. "Ah! But you're the hero, you don't know!"

  Ivy giggled.

  "Know what?" he said, ignoring the woman.

  "Stroke it."

  Gideon narrowed one eye. "What?"

  "Stroke it, sir. It's yours, as you can see since I've just brought it out from my humble workshop, and I've wasted my time if you don't do it, because then no one else will be able to and I'll just have to burn it or give it to the pacch for lunch." He reached out and grabbed Gideon's hand with an apologetic smile, placed it on the bat's grip, and moved it up and down until he got the idea. "Not to worry, sir, it won't bite."

  Like the forest lamps, he thought, and looked to Whale, who nodded.

  An imprinting of some kind, he concluded, though he felt rather foolish standing in a weapons shop surrounded by a delirious array of swords and knives and rifles and cudgels while he stroked a baseball bat. But he did it because Ivy wouldn't stop her giggling, her face flushed now and tears beginning to glint in her eyes, and because Whale kept nodding silent encouragement, directing his hands first to the top, then to the grip, then to the knob, and back again.

  "That's it, sir. Gentle if you will, so it doesn't think you a man of ill intention."

  The wood was cool and smooth, feeling like wet glass or, he thought with a deliberate turn of his head away from Ivy, like a woman's soft skin. It was also growing warm, so warm as a pulse of crimson appeared down the bat's central axis that he started to pull his hand away, but Whale's warning hiss kept him at it, hissing himself as he watched the flickering crimson spread, grow brighter, and, as he was ready to pull back because he knew his palms were blistering, suddenly vanishing.

  He stumbled backward while Whale applauded, and Ivy gazed at him in a combination of suspicion and wonder.

  "Now," the thin man said with a final clap of his hands, "you can use it. Just as if it was your third arm, which, of course, I can see you don't have because you're not from— Never mind. It's all yours. Just pick it up, put it on your shoulder—" He frowned, tapped a long finger on his chin, and tsked loudly. "Oh, no. We can't have that, can we? We can't have you marching around like that. It would be unseemly." He disappeared behind the counter. "Never. I would never live it down. People would talk. Whale Pholler, they would say, can't even provide his customers with a simple but effective means of— Aha!" He leapt up, brandishing what looked to Gideon like a rifle sheath with a narrow leather belt. "Just the thing to add a bit of dash and practicality."

  "It's... interesting."

  Whale, however, hastened around the counter and fastened the contraption to Gideon's waist. Then he nodded to the bat.

  Gideon eyed it doubtfully, and somewhat fearfully, but picked it up in both hands, steadying himself for the weight, and nearly tumbled onto his back. It was light. It was virtually without weight. He didn't get it, and put it to his shoulder, stared at the pitcher waiting on the mound by the front door, and swung... and gasped at the high-pitched hum the weapon made as it sliced through the air, struck one of the posts, and split it in two; the lower half toppled to the floor, the upper dangled and rocked from the ceiling.

  "Oh my," Whale said as he stared mournfully at the shower of dust piling on their feet.

  Ivy ran out of the shop laughing.

  "Hey, I'm sorry," Gideon said, staring at the bat, then at the shattered post. "Jesus, I didn't think—"

  "It's all right, all right, don't worry about it," Whale said hastily as he nudged him toward the exit. "I'll have this mess fixed in a jiff, don't you bother yourself about that. Just test it elsewhere, if you don't mind, and I'll get about... Oh my."

  Gideon soon found himself under the log overhang, alone, the batwings swinging up behind to shove him gently farther toward the street. He looked back with an apologetic sigh, then looked to the gadget Whale had given him. It was little more than a belt and a holster, but when he placed the bat inside he saw the dark leather close around it snugly. When he reached a tentative hand to the knob, the leather sagged and opened, and the bat fell into his grip.

  "I'll be damned."

  But he couldn't help feeling again like a gunslinger as he walked over to Red and ran a hand down the side of its neck, patting, watching as Tag backed away from the trio he had been talking to and stomped toward him, his face flushed and his fists swinging hard at his sides. Whatever he'd been trying to do had not been successful, and Gideon kept his mouth shut when the young man gestured brusquely at him and started around the square, heading out of town.

  "Red, let's go."

  The lorra hesitated before following slightly behind, hooves loud and echoing off the walls of the buildings. There were no watchers now; the houses were silent, the windows empty, and the pennants snapped angrily in a wind that had come up from the south. He felt his nerves tighten, and there was no shame when his right hand touched the bat and the bat became a part of him at his side.

  When the last house dropped behind, he called Tag's name, but the lad continued to march on, muttering, gesticulating, punching at the air over his head and spitting at the side of the road. A second call was no more effective than the first, and with a look to the lorra he trotted up and took Tag's shoulder.

  "What's up?" he said, refusing to let go though the young man tried to shake the grip off. "C'mon, Tag, what's going on?"

  Tag's face was ominously red. "They won't help," he said in almost a wail. "Those bastards aren't going to help us at all! Can you imagine it? They said they took us in because of what happened to Kori, but they won't do anything more. You know, I ought to—"

  He shook Gideon's hand away and reached for Pholler, his dagger suddenly in his hand. Gideon hurried after him, but he needn't have bothered—Red put himself squarely in the middle of the road, lowered his head, and growled. Tag yelpe
d and jumped back, demanding at the top of his voice to be saved from the beast. Gideon reached him, snatched the dagger away, and spun him around.

  "Now look, boy, this is getting ridiculous. What did you ask them, and why won't they do it?"

  "It was nothing," Tag said sullenly. "All I wanted them to do was help us get to Chey. What's the matter with that?"

  Gideon looked over his shoulder at the horizon, at the thickening haze there that dulled the sky above it. "I thought you said that meant something like the end of the world."

  "Not something like—it is."

  "And you want to go there?"

  "We don't have a choice!"

  "Why not?"

  "Because if we don't..." He shook his head in abject sorrow and dropped himself onto the grass at the roadside. "It isn't fair. They're supposed to help us."

  Gideon crouched down beside him. "Tag, does this have anything to do with that..." He could barely bring himself to say it. "With that duck?"

  "It has everything to do with it! God, didn't Glorian tell you anything?"

  "Nope."

  Tag's eyes widened. "She didn't?"

  "No."

  "That's like her, you know. That's just like her. She has all these stupid secrets and she never tells anyone and then, when she gets in trouble, she expects us to run after her like she was a queen or something. She's always doing that, always. Sometimes I think I should just forget her and let her get herself out of trouble for a change."

  Gideon touched the lad's shoulder. "Tag, you forget—Glorian is dead."

  "What? Who said that?"

  "You did. When I told about what happened that first night here."

  "I never said she was dead."