by Scott Lynch
Norna shrugged, and Freeder shook his head before wincing and touching his bandage. Salia sighed and dropped her pencil on the desk. “My brain is squeezed dry. Maybe this meeting with Tobas in the morning will shake something loose.”
“Why does he want to meet with you anyhow?” Norna asked. “The Laers family never struck me as being particularly keen on helping the law, whether it was public, private, or Imperial.”
“I don’t know, but he was awfully keen on something in that office....” Her eye glanced down at the photographs again, and suddenly she slapped her hand on the table. “Of course! It’s been staring me in the face the whole time!”
Freeder stood up and looked over her shoulder. “What? What is it?”
She leaned back, smiling triumphantly. “Gentlemen, I know who killed Magistrate Taliwar.”
The next morning was dark with storm clouds, and a slow patter of rain fell from the sky. A few drops fell from the brim of Salia’s hat as she looked over at Freeder.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
His face was firm. “Yes, I do.”
“I know you’re worried about Norna, but this is the kind of thing Twin Eagle gets paid for. You’re my client.”
He turned to look at her. “No, Detective. I’m the deputy.”
She looked at his face for a moment. His jaw was firm, and his eyes were clear, despite the bandage tucked under his hat. Just for a moment, Salia thought he looked very young. “So you are. Let’s go in.”
The Laers house was large, as big as two or three buildings put together. A couple of men with rifles and swords tried to take their weapons at the front gate, but Freeder showed them his badge, and they both made their way inside unmolested. As they walked up to the front door, Salia noticed a large carriage sitting outside. The black vehicle had the Emperor’s logo prominently displayed on the side, and a well-dressed driver stood ramrod straight beside it while the light rain soaked into his uniform.
A uniform of the Imperial Army.
“Maiden’s Tits. I bet you a million talons that the Marshal’s here. Probably hopped an Army airship to get here faster.”
Freeder stared at the carriage, and Salia noticed his hands shaking a little. “Why is he here at the house?”
She adjusted her grip on the bag. “Because he’s with Jarl, and Jarl has business with Tobas poking around at the Magistrate’s office.”
A butler that was probably old when the Secession Wars were just a fistfight led them to an opulent library. Deep red wallpaper peeked out around heavy shelves covered in books that were probably bought to be impressive and never once read. Seated in an overstuffed chair was Tobas Laers, a drink in his hand and Scar and Baldy standing behind him. Baldy’s nose was heavily taped up, but she could still see the purple bruising under his eyes. Scar snarled at Salia, and she simply tipped her hat at him.
Pacing the floor behind a matching chair was Jarl, whose dark grimace seemed to light up for a moment upon Salia’s entrance. A third chair sat facing a large stone fireplace, making a nice triangle for easy conversation. Cigars and bottles of aged agave wine sat on little tables by the chairs.
At the fireplace was a tall, strong man in a simple uniform of black. His face was covered with a matching silk mask painted with very realistic looking burn scars that almost looked like the Imperial crest. Salia recognized him – Marshal Brand.
She took off her hat, and bowed respectfully to Brand. “A surprise and an honor to see you here, Marshal. I hope that this town’s humble problems do not distract you from more pressing duties.”
Jarl stopped and looked at Salia, waving a hand dismissively at the Marshal. “He is here at my request, as befits an acting Magistrate of the Empire, to arrest and sentence that murderous Sheriff.”
Salia’s body stiffened at Jarl’s casual treatment of Brand. “You might want to put that pretty little hand of yours back in your pocket, Agent Jarl. He’s here at your request, but he isn’t your minion, and I’d hate to have you... damaged.” She smirked at him before turning to Tobas. “But I’m more interested in why they’re here in your house, Mr. Laers. I had the impression that you weren’t a fan of the Empire.”
Tobas’s lips twisted up. Salia got the impression that he was trying to smile, but it came out as a sneer. “I invited Agent Jarl here to discuss the imposition he has on the Magistrate’s papers. I was... unaware of the Marshal’s presence, but now that he is here, I am happy to cooperate in any way that I can to see that justice is done.”
“Well ain’t that kind of you,” Freeder spat, but Salia put her hand up and shook her head.
“What my client means is that he appreciates anything you can do to help this investigation,” Salia said, her eyes still locked on Tobas.
The merchant nodded. “I hope that since these gentlemen are finished with my time, we can move on to our own business?”
“Actually, if you don’t mind, Mr. Laers, I’d like them to stay. I think they’ll be quite interested in what I have to say to you.”
Tobas’s smile turned into a more sincere-looking frown. “I would really rather we talked in private. These are sensitive matters, and not for the ears of others.”
Salia carefully took the chair between Tobas and Jarl, and crossed her legs – not only to give off a casual air, but to give her better access to the pouch on her belt. “I disagree, Mr. Laers. I think the attempted murder of a member of the Twin Eagle clan is something the Empire would be moderately interested in.”
The room fell silent. Scar and Baldy moved slightly, eyes locked on Salia, hands like claws over their sword hilts. She looked past them, smirking at Tobas. She knew that Freeder was carefully freeing his pistol while all the attention was on her.
Jarl was the first to break the silence. “This is a serious accusation, Detective. I do hope you have some evidence.”
“Of course she doesn’t!” Tobas burst out. “She’s lying! Arrest that woman and take her from my house immediately!”
Salia slowly reached into her jacket. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the two guards grab their swords, but she only pulled out a small stack of photographs, which she handed to Jarl. As she did, she glanced at the Marshal, who looked as still as a statue, never moving.
“The reason why he intends to kill me, Agent Jarl, is that he believes I know the real reason that Magistrate Taliwar was killed. It just so happens that I do.”
Jarl took the photographs but kept his eyes on Salia. “Then please tell us, Detective, why the Sheriff shot the illustrious Magistrate, and what it has to do with Mr. Laers here.”
She shifted in her seat to look at the Marshal, and she used the motion to pull a small pellet out of her pouch. “The motive is quite simple. There is a jade deposit under this town that is worth a fortune. The Magistrate knew of this, which is why he was killed.”
“The Sheriff killed Magistrate Taliwar because of a jade deposit?”
Salia smiled at Jarl. “Oh, did I imply that the Sheriff killed him? I’m sorry, I forgot to mention. Mr. Laers here shot him.”
She heard Tobas bark something at his guards, who lunged forward. She squeezed the pellet in her hand, breaking the thin membrane inside, before throwing it at Scar. The two chemicals inside combined into a fast-acting acid, which hissed and popped as it splashed on his face. He screamed and dropped his blade while she ducked down to avoid Baldy’s sword. The blade slammed into the back of the chair, trapping it, and Freeder clapped the barrel of his pistol on his forehead.
The room became still again except for Scar’s screaming. Salia took the moment to stand up and dust herself off before looking at Baldy. “Drop the sword and get your friend to the doctor, or he won’t have a face left.” Baldy hesitated, but Freeder nudged him with his gun, and the guard dropped his sword to carry Scar out of the room.
Tobas gripped the arms of his chair with white knuckles, quivering in fury. “How... dare you! You....”
Salia stepped forward. “Tob
as Laers, your father, Osten Laers, found out about the jade under this town. I don’t know whether you came out here to secure a mine or were already here when he found out, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, you were told to acquire the rights to that deposit, no matter what. That meant making sure the Magistrate didn’t know what was under the land you were going to try and buy up. But you got his attention somehow, and he looked into it, and found out about the plan. And he took notes, although because he was afraid of who might see them, he only referenced the plan as being driven by ‘Old Lion’ -- O.L. Osten Laers -- your father.”
Jarl flipped through the photographs. “These are....”
“... photographs of the papers in his office, yes.” She glanced at Jarl. “As handsome as you are, I couldn’t be sure you weren’t the one who had the Magistrate killed, and I thought you locked up the papers to hide the motive for your crime. But then the clerk mentioned that even you hadn’t seen them yet, which dropped the number of suspects down to one. So I…” She shot a quick glance at the Marshal. “… convinced the clerk to give me a look at the papers. He quickly saw it was in the Empire’s best interest to let me take a few copies.”
She turned back to Tobas. “But you knew that there was no way the Empire would let House Laers just walk away with controlling interest in such a fortune. So you tried to play on the suffering of these folk, manipulate the fear and resentments of the Secession Wars, and tried to get them to turn against the Empire. It would have been bloody. Folks would have died. If they broke away, House Laers could come in and buy up all the land for cheap under the guise of helping them to rebuild.
“But the Magistrate wasn’t a fool. He knew what would happen. So he planned to tell the Sheriff. Maybe he planned to share the mine with Pardifall, or maybe he was going to bribe Norna to stay silent, but no matter what the locals would have known what they were sitting on. They would have had bargaining power.”
Salia jabbed a finger at Tobas. “So you killed the Magistrate, and framed Norna. You would have started a massacre, just to make more money.”
Tobas’s face grew paler during the course of the story. Once she finished, Freeder stepped towards him, pistol still out. “Tobas Laers, I arrest you for....”
Marshal Brand’s hand blurred, and a loud crack filled the room as Tobas’s brains splatted against the wall.
Freeder spun around while Salia’s small pistol shot out of her sleeve. Jarl dropped to the floor as Salia yelled out “Drop the gun, Marshal!”
Brand calmly holstered the pistol. His eyes behind the mask bored into her like two slivers of black jade. “I have judged Tobas Laers, and executed him in the name of the Empire.” His voice was deep and calm, like a river with hidden currents that would drag you under. “Magistrate Jarl will rebuild the Empire’s presence in Pardifall now, and make sure the mine is given to the Emperor. My duty is completed.”
He turned and walked out of the house, and everyone watched him go.
In that moment, Salia understood why people out West hated the Empire.
_________________________________________________
Eddy Webb (with a “y,” thank you) is a writer, podcaster, game designer, and transmedia developer. In his career he has written for a number of role-playing games, as well as for two MMOs, and he’s won a few awards along the way. He lives a sitcom life with his wife, his roommate, a supervillain cat, and two pug dogs. An anthology of his fiction and essays, “Slices of Fate,” will be coming out from FR Press soon.
ERRANT EAGLES
by Will Hindmarch
Delicate things, airships. The things work only if everyone on board behaves themselves. Get someone on board who ain’t got no respect for fellow travelers or the delicacy of flight and the whole thing can fall in a hurry.
The Maiden’s Breath looked something like a riverboat on its back, slung from its gasbag on hand-woven cables, the sky-ship’s white planks and shining brass bright in the afternoon sun. Angled black smokestacks splayed out below like the legs of a newborn foal. Trails of coal smoke smeared the air behind it. In place of paddles, wide props, looking like lovely petals, pushed her through the sky.
She was no soaring ship. She cruised above the plains so low that some small-town temple towers might have scratched her paint. No temples loomed in sight on that wide prairie, though—she sailed over wild grasses and subtle hills, her passengers bound for Prosperity in the west. Her faint altitude was meant to give her passengers a close look at the open range below, at the bucolic charm of its windswept fields of grain and the roaming courts of flightless thunderbirds.
That shallow flight also had Redhand wondering if he could survive a leap from the airship’s starboard railing. The sunlit prairie rushed by below. Passengers cried out in panic.
The ship was on fire pretty fierce by then and Redhand thought it might provide him the cover he needed to get free. Redhand hoped Hollowaigh would reel from his pistol-whipping in the parlor long enough for Redhand to vanish in the chaos of the accidental kerosene fire. Maybe Hallowaigh, who said he was aboard on a case, on behalf of the Twin Eagle Security Agency, would stop to put out the fire started when he threw Redhand into a kerosene lamp. Maybe Hollowaigh, who thought so little of pulling his pistol in the crowded airborne parlor, would think twice about making a foolhardy leap that would surely break a leg or two.
Redhand’s dreadlocks whipped about his head in the smoke and wind as he thought on the leap himself—thought too long.
Hollowaigh got two fistfuls of Redhand’s coat and pulled him clear of the railing, swung him about, and pushed him through flimsy flapping shutter-doors into the ship’s game room. Hollowaigh was no big man but he knew how to move. Redhand crashed into a card table, which flipped off its mountings beneath him. Clay chips went flying. The room was already clear of gamblers and gamesters—they’d fled the choking smoke.
Redhand felt the heat of the spreading fire on his face, on his palms; heard Hollowaigh stomping across the wooden floor behind him. Redhand rolled. Ivory game tiles skidded away as he threw himself to his feet, coming face to face with Hollowaigh.
Hollowaigh drew a six-gun from his hip, the oiled holster stamped with twin eagles.
Redhand drew Hollowaigh’s other six-gun from the oiled holster on the detective’s other hip.
As Hollowaigh raised his gun, Redhand knocked it aside with the gun in his hand, grabbed Hollowaigh’s pistol in his free left hand and jammed his thumb between the pistol’s cylinder and frame. Then Redhand backhanded Hollowaigh with a fistful of iron.
Hollowaigh reacted less than Redhand hoped. As floorboards crackled and split in the widening fire, the two of them roved, unsteady, trying to get their feet, trying to push the other about. When Hollowaigh finally got a foot planted, he thumbed the hammer in his gun-hand. The cylinder slipped out from under Redhand’s thumb. Hollowaigh put his barrel to Redhand’s belly. Redhand slipped his ring finger between hammer and cylinder as the hammer fell. Redhand cussed as his finger broke. The gun didn’t go off.
Redhand hit Hollowaigh with his stolen pistol again, yanked Hollowaigh’s six-gun from his grip, then shouldered the man against a shuttered window. Slats creaked. For a second, Redhand had both guns. Hollowaigh reached for one and Redhand held the piece straight out behind himself, out of reach, with practiced speed.
Hollowaigh put his knee into Redhand’s groin. Redhand doubled over, his right-hand gun tucked in his gut, and flicked Hollowaigh’s gun into the fire with his bloody left hand. Hollowaigh groped for the remaining gun. Got it in hand. Redhand put all his weight against Hollowaigh. Shutter slats snapped.
The whole room rolled. Hollowaigh went from being pressed against a wall to pinned underneath Redhand as cable moorings outside broke free from burning boards and the airship’s hull sagged and dangled partway free of the gas-filled bag above.
The shutters now underneath Hollowaigh gave way. He fell shoulders-first through the window and tumbled against the starboard railing now
below him. Redhand caught himself with a palm on either side of the broken window, as if he was doing push-ups over the gap.
Hollowaigh still had the gun. He shifted it in his hand, palmed the grip, took aim.
Redhand pushed off the sideways wall, rolling along it as Hollowaigh’s shot splintered the window frame. Tables and chairs piled up where the floor met the wall, rolled into place by the tumbled hull. Redhand stood on the wall, scaled the furniture heap as flames lapped around him, and leapt for the ceiling made by the far wall. He got his hand on a wall sconce and swung on it. Blackened wallpaper curled away in sheets as the glue beneath it melted and ran. Ashen paper swirled in the air like leaves amid the blowing cinders.
The airship lurched as more cables broke free. Redhand got his hands on the doorframe opposite the one he’d been thrown through a minute before and hung from it. He winced at the weight on his broken fingertip. His eyes poured out water against the smoke.
Hollowaigh, still sprawled on the railing below, caught sight of Redhand hanging above and fired again. The bullet cut the air near Redhand’s head.
Redhand pulled himself up through the doorway and rolled across the wall of the tumbled room above—the ship’s rear bar.
More shots rang out in the game room as the pistol Redhand threw aside cooked in the fire, its ammo exploding and Hollowaigh firing back at the noise.
Redhand scrambled for the bar, which ran from floor to ceiling now, and heard Hollowaigh clamboring up through the game room below. Redhand swung on a brass fixture, slipped behind the bar, and hoped his instincts were good.
They were. He tossed his dreads out of his face and yanked a twin-barreled breech-loader out of its sheath within the bar. Tucking it into his loose leather belt, wiping tears from his eyes, he scaled the inside of the bar like a ladder until the wood spit out yellow splinters when one of Hollowaigh’s rounds punched through it.