Yowler Foul-Up

by David Lee Stone

  There was an uncomfortable pause.

  “I’ll ask you once more, then I’ll have your eyes out.”

  Jimmy looked nervously about, noticing on the edge of his vision that the gambling pits were opening for business.

  “You don’t look very fast,” he said to the bird, edging carefully toward the alley mouth. “I could probably outrun you.”

  The bird hopped along the wall. “Try it,” came the squawk.

  “I might, at that,” Jimmy said, and darted off across the road. The bird took flight and flapped speedily after him. The chase had begun.

  Jimmy ran like lightning.

  The bird flew like a bullet.

  Jimmy slipped through the door of the inn.

  The bird hit it.

  “Squawk! Squaark! I’ll get you yet, sonny. However long it takes, I’ll be waiting. You’ll rue the day you ever pulled the wool over my beak!”

  The barrowbird flapped against the wood a few times, then flew up to sulk on the swinging sign of a nearby tavern.

  Just after three o’clock, two bouncers carried out the comatose figure of a young man, dumping it unceremoniously in the alley across the street.

  Before they disappeared back inside the murky depths of their pit, one of the bouncers was sure that he heard a menacing and somehow feathery cackle.

  FIFTEEN

  KARUIM’S CHURCH WAS UNIQUE in that it was the only building on Oval Square to have its entrance on Bark Street. Well, unique was perhaps too strong a word. After all, the buildings that occupied the other side of the square would’ve been hard-pressed to have their entrances on Bark Street without some sort of magic door in use. Nevertheless, Karuim’s spurned the palace which dominated Oval Square, and many took this to be indicative of the Yowlers’ notorious defiance in the face of royalty. Not that the church was wholly Yowler-run: it hadn’t been so since a breakaway faction had claimed it a little more than a year ago.

  The church itself was an eyesore, black as pitch and thoroughly shapeless, with an ugly gaping hole where its doors should have been. Worshippers walked into this cave mouth and through the ensuing tunnel system before emerging into the dark expanse of the sanctuary proper.

  It was a frightening journey, especially for Grab Dafisful, who was increasingly of the opinion that his every move was being watched, and not by a bird. In fact, he couldn’t help but feel, as he was about to deliver his sack to the church’s vestry, that the kind of eyes currently monitoring his progress were the sort that traveled back and forth to a belt dagger between glimpses. Sweat beading on his forehead, Grab reached for his own blade.

  “Hmm … I’d move that hand back pretty sharpish if I were you, especially since you’ve got only the one.”

  Grab froze; the voice had come from behind him. His hand hovered an inch or so above his belt.

  “Throw down the knife,” the voice commanded. “You shouldn’t bring such things into a house of the gods.”

  The dagger clanked onto the stone floor, followed by three smaller blades and a set of knuckledusters.

  “Well, well, well,” the voice continued. “You do come prepared, Mr. Dafisful. Now, please deposit your burden into the pew at your extreme left. Very good. Now, face front and prepare to answer a few questions.”

  While Grab did as he was told, a hand snaked around from behind him and snatched up the sack.

  “Where’s my money?” he shouted, being careful not to move a muscle.

  “All in good time,” said the voice. “First, the questions.”

  There followed some sort of commotion in the shadows before Grab noticed two cloaked shapes moving up the aisles on either side of him. Once in the center of the sanctuary, they separated, to stand not more than six feet apart. When given occasion to speak, they spoke together, more, Grab fancied, to disguise their individual voices than to create an air of mystery. It worked; the only thing he could be sure of was that one was male, the other female.

  “Thief Dafisful. You have done as the brotherhood commanded?”

  Grab nodded. “I ’ave.”

  “You have retrieved no less than ten Batchtiki from the Grinswood?”

  “I have.”

  “You were not followed?”

  “What? Er … not exactly, no.”

  A male voice this time, solo. “What do you mean by ‘not exactly’? Either you were followed, or you were not.”

  Grab’s movements became very fidgety. “There was this bird, you see, and—”

  “A bird?”

  “Yeah, and I thought it was—”

  “As in ‘flap flap’ bird?”

  “Er … yes.”

  The female voice took up the questioning. “We have no interest in birds. When we asked if you were followed, we were talking beast, not bird.”

  Grab’s features creased like a brown paper bag. “No, I’m sure I wasn’t followed by any of them.”

  “Good. And you spoke of your endeavors to no one?”

  “Nope. Definitely not. No, siree. I’m not stupid, me. I spoke to no one. Well, no one worth speaking of …”

  “So, in fact, you did tell somebody.”

  “Um … sort of. Yeah.”

  There was a collective sigh. “More than one person?”

  “No. Just the one, I swear. Just Jimmy, ’e’s a friend of mine, ex-thief, understands perfectly, ’e won’t tell a soul.”

  “Hmm … we shall see. For now, you may go.”

  “’ey! What about my money?”

  “You will find it beside the decorative font on your way out.”

  Grab nodded and turned to leave, muttering to himself about conspiracies and the kind of people who lurked in shadows. He didn’t see a soul on his way out of the church, but, even as he collected his money, he felt they were watching him. In the shadows.

  As soon as Grab had left the sanctuary, two dark hoods were drawn back in unison.

  “Your thief talks too much,” said the female voice. “He’ll have to be silenced.”

  “And his friend?” echoed her male counterpart. “This Jimmy? A danger, you think?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “We can’t just leave it and hope. We’re too near!”

  “Exactly.”

  “Two jobs for Mixer, then?”

  “Ha! If our little gnome’s as good as you say he is, Lopsalm, I’m sure he’s dealing with it already. … ”

  “Oh, he is, my dear. I can assure you of that.”

  “He’ll need to be fast, mind; thieves like Grab can be wily and resourceful.”

  Lopsalm turned in the darkness.

  “A good job we dispatched Moors and Edwy, then, isn’t it?”

  SIXTEEN

  GRAB HAD A TERRIBLE feeling in the pit of his stomach. Keeping a tight grip on the money pouch with his remaining hand, he began to run.

  Footsteps echoed behind him.

  On he ran, urging his tired body through the pain barrier.

  The footsteps increased with him, and he heard the distinctive sound of a crossbow being primed.

  Grab peered over his shoulder, caught the merest glimpse of a small figure as it slipped into a doorway, and then he started to run, very fast.

  The streets, slippery and lashed with rain, were deserted; they seemed to flitter past as Grab hurtled around corners and leaped over bins in a frantic dash for the safety of the market square. He knew the stalls would be long gone, but there were always people in the square. There had to be.

  Incredibly, the rainstorm picked up. Grab thought he saw a shape up ahead; large, almost impossibly so. Was it a troll or a person? Difficult to tell. Grab strained to see through the veil of rain. Yes, a person. Definitely. Thank the gods. Now, if he could just put on another burst of speed …

  The shape lumbered forward, and Grab almost fell into it.

  “Hey, watch it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Grab managed, righting himself and standing back to stare in awe at the size of the human mass before him. “Th
ere’s someone after me. … ”

  “I can’t see anybody.”

  Grab swung around and squinted into the rain. “No, well. I could swear I was being followed.” He turned back. “Anyway, it’s a nice nigh—”

  The lumbering shape threw out a fist so hard that Grab almost achieved flight as he fell backward, landing in the middle of a collection of rubbish bins with a resounding crash.

  The rain hammered down. As Grab fought to get to his feet, he noticed that his noisy collision with the rubbish had failed to attract even the slightest hint of attention; not a light in a window, not the creak of a door. Grab moaned as he regained his footing.

  Shapes loomed up ahead; the large man who’d hit him had now been joined by a second, slimmer figure. Grab turned on his heels and started to run, hopelessly, back toward the church. After a few steps, he hesitated, then stopped and peered over his shoulder. The two men weren’t moving; they were simply standing there, closing off the end of the street.

  Grab tried to think clearly, his head still fuzzy from the strength of the big man’s punch. They were obviously herding him toward a greater danger. He shook his head, then turned back and practically walked into the gnome.

  Mixer was standing in the street, his brass teeth glinting in the glow of the streetlamp beside him. He was holding a large and very nasty-looking crossbow.

  Grab turned yet again, and ran. His hope was to break through the human barricade up ahead. He made a last, desperate dash.

  Lightning split the sky, and thunder echoed through the clouds. The rain came down hard …

  … and so did Grab Dafisful.

  “Ahhhh!”

  The bolt struck home, spearing into the thief’s back and forcing him forward. Grab gasped, his legs folded under him. Rain plastered his hair to his forehead. He laid a hand flat against the cobbles and tried to push himself up, but the gnome was on him.

  Thunder boomed overhead, announcing its warning to any citizens who hadn’t already turned their mirrors to face the wall.

  “Ahhh! No! Mercy, I beg you!”

  Mixer drove a boot into the small of the thief’s back, reloaded the crossbow, and aimed it at his head. Then he pulled the trigger.

  There was a sickening thud.

  As the last of the rain came down, the corpse of Grab Dafisful was dragged into a nearby doorway and left propped up against the door like a stuffed dummy. Mixer smiled at his handiwork, and promptly departed.

  PART TWO:

  THE DUKE AND THE DETECTIVE

  SEVENTEEN

  MODESET WAS FUMING, AND with good reason.

  He’d been walking through the streets all night. He was dirty, hungry, and worst of all, he didn’t have anyone else to blame. All he had were choices. He didn’t want to go back to the Steeplejack Inn without the others (the innkeeper was enough of a pain as it was), and he certainly had no intention of loitering anywhere near the palace, so he’d decided to kick off his new day with a depressed stroll around the harbor district instead.

  It wasn’t a bad day, by Dullitch standards, and the sun glinted off the highly polished paintwork of The Mostark, the viscount’s supreme galleon. Modeset wondered if he’d ever own such a ship again. Considering his current finances, a rowing boat seemed the more likely option, if they hired them out.

  Heading along the quay, he came upon a small platform where two dwarfs were unloading a heavy crate of Legrash Ale. They tried to lift the crate, failed, and then proceeded to drag it off the platform, accompanied by an orchestra of grunts and groans. Modeset asked if he could lend a hand, expecting them to decline.

  “You’re on,” said the older of the two, a dwarf with a beard almost down to his ankles. “Get at the side and guide us in.”

  Reluctantly, Modeset did as he was told. The dwarfs took a breath, lifted again, and set off, remarking on how the ale seemed even heavier than before. They were right, too; Modeset didn’t like to admit it, but after the first few feet, they were actually carrying him as well. Some of these dockers, he reflected, had more sinews than sense.

  At length, the crate was set down and the dwarf with the beard consulted a tattered scroll fastened to the lid.

  “I’m done believin’ it,” he said. “What kind of grizzled nut am I?”

  His colleague waited for the bad news.

  Modeset, sensing the possibility of further involvement, had already taken a step back.

  “This is supposed to go on to Spittle,” the first dwarf said.

  “So?” said the other docker moodily.

  “So, it’s the Day of Storms, right? Day of Storms cargo for Spittle. See any connection there? We should be in Warehouse Five, not Warehouse Six. Let’s move it out. C’mon.”

  The second dwarf prepared to lift the crate, then stopped and looked about.

  “Where’s the bloke who was helpin’ us?” he said.

  “Dunno,” said the first. “Maybe he fell under the crate.”

  They burst into a roaring, gut-rooted laughter and, after four attempts, carried the crate over to Warehouse Five.

  Meanwhile, Modeset hunkered down in the shadows. Either through fate or fortune, he’d found himself in the warehouse that the scroll had mentioned. What harm could it do to take a look around?

  Apart from an aging hill troll unpacking barrels in the northwest corner, the warehouse was deserted. Crates of various shapes and sizes, piled haphazardly with barely an inch between stacks, reached almost to the rafters in every direction. The trick, he decided, was to know where to start in such a maze of merchandise.

  Stay away from Warehouse Six. The words rang in his ears, but they offered no clue. Still, he suspected he’d recognize something to stay well away from as soon as he got on top of it.

  Time passed.

  Modeset squeezed between row upon row of crates, studying the little scrolls attached to each one.

  As it turned out, the cargo came from all over Illmoor and included unmarked stock from Legrash, Spittle, the Gleaming Mountains, the Twelve, Shadewell, Carafat, Grinswood, and Sporring.

  More time passed.

  Modeset stalked the aisles. It was beginning to dawn on him that there was a lot more to this investigating lark than met the eye, when a voice interrupted his train of thought.

  “S’cuse me,” it said. “This is private prop’ty and you’re a trusspisser.”

  Modeset had his answer all worked out. Unfortunately, when he turned around to supply it, the troll head-butted him.

  As a red mist drifted over Modeset’s field of vision, his hulking attacker stomped off to look for a crate winch.

  EIGHTEEN

  ELSEWHERE, MORNING FOUND MIXER in a quiet corner of Mudsen Mill, the city’s premier café. When the stout (but not unpleasant-looking) waitress had delivered two squares of charred toast, he peered around for any obvious signs of attention before producing a tattered notebook from the recesses of his jerkin.

  Flipping open the top leaf, he ran a grubby finger down the hastily scribbled list of names. Then, plucking a tiny length of lead from behind his ear, he put a neat line through the last two.

  That was the inventor and the thief out of the way. Now there were only a few loose ends to worry about.

  He studied the remaining list and considered his options. As far as he could see, there was one “urgent” and a possible “pending.”

  The loftwing wouldn’t wait much longer. In fact, Mixer had already decided that the next time he was followed, the investigator would get what was coming to him, indubitably. Then there was the boy: Dafisful had spent a long time talking to the young wastrel in the Ferret. He might have told him anything; hell, he might have told him everything. So: another one to add to the list. If only there were a little more time! Still, needs must …

  First things first, he told himself. Breakfast—the most important meal of the day.

  Mixer took one last glance at the notebook before returning it to his jerkin pocket. Then he ordered a coffee to go with hi
s charcoal.

  NINETEEN

  JIMMY QUICKSTINT, HALF BAREFOOT on the cold cobbles of the alley in which he’d spent the night, was livid. Of course, he’d enjoyed himself at first. Everybody did. This was because, for sheer incredible logic, gambling was hard to beat. You came in off the street with bugger-all except three acorns and a foot infection, and in less than fifteen minutes you had a bag of gold, six illegitimate children, and a couple of empty cottages in lower Dullitch with rental possibilities. That, of course, was if you were endowed with luck, knew how to play, and carried loaded dice.

  Jimmy wasn’t, didn’t, and hadn’t. He’d been carried from the pits of Primo Don barely three hours after he went in, having parted with two shoes, one sock, and his left eyebrow. The latter, he’d been assured, he could claim back at a later date in exchange for the seventeen crowns he owed Logoff the Merchant. Additionally, to form a nice creamy topping on his elephantine disaster of a day, he now found himself hungry and alone in a part of the city he had hitherto only seen on the secondhand maps outside the cartography school.

  He was about to make a move, when a frighteningly familiar voice said: “You’re up, then?”

  Jimmy turned slowly on his heels and found himself staring into the beak of the barrowbird.

  “Leave me alone!”

  “Shan’t.”

  “Damn you!”

  “Nice.”

  “No, I mean it! Damn you to hell.”

  “Colorful; do you blaspheme professionally or are you still on the amateur circuit?”

  Jimmy extended a finger to support his annoyance. “Stuff this in your beak and curse you, you emaciated feathered twit.”

  “Listen, you can damn me all you like. I told you last night that I wouldn’t be easy to shake off.”

  “Yes, but what do you want?”

  “Your friend with the limp.”

  “But I don’t know where he is!”

  “Then find him, and I’d be pretty sharpish if I were you. I’m not a patient bird.”

  Jimmy fell against the alley wall and allowed himself to slide down. “This is ridiculous!” he gasped. “Do you have any idea how big Dullitch is? He could be anywhere!”