by Peter David
“Why didn’t I see you in the camp?”
“I was hiding above.”
“But . . . my voice . . . it sounded like it was coming out of my mouth . . .”
“You never heard of being able to throw your voice? Although if I’d really wanted to be accurate, I would have made you sound like you were talking out your arse.”
“And the imitation . . . it was perfect.”
“That was no great trick,” said the gnome, waving dismissively. “All I did was squeeze my legs tightly together so I’d sound like a castrato. Naturally, that sounded just like you.”
I was finally fed up. “What the hell is your problem, anyway? You, with your endless insults and your stirring up trouble. I don’t understand the point of what you’re doing.”
“Point? The point is, I hate humans.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re so damned full of yourselves.” He swaggered toward me. “Acting like you’re so much better than everyone and everything else. Look at you. Without your guns, your swords, your knives, without all that, you’re nothing. Hobbes, hollow men, balverines, countless other beings that crawl or walk or slither their way across Albion . . . even the least of them can destroy the best of you if you don’t have your precious weapons with you. What gives you the right to exist at all?”
“Maybe the fact that we can conceive and create those ‘precious weapons’ is the thing that makes us better. Did you ever consider that?”
“No,” said the gnome flatly. “They’re just the defenses you came up with in order to compensate for your own inadequacy.”
“Maybe. And maybe the same can be said of your endless insults and hostility. Seems to me you have your own inadequacies that you’re compensating for.”
The gnome made a rude noise. “You certainly enjoy talking about feelings. How about I lead you to a nice big pile of gold? You can use it to buy some handbags and other nice things that ladies like.”
I regarded him thoughtfully. I might well have been imagining it, but I could have sworn that, just before he delivered more of the same insults, there had been a hesitation in his voice. As if I had struck home with the comment about compensating for inadequacies, but naturally he would never allow himself to admit it.
I suppose that, after everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve seen, there should be something of the cynic in me. I had seen evil thrive and prosper. I had seen good triumph on occasion, but typically at great cost. Those filled with innocence died at the hands of those filled with vice, and the latter oftentimes went unpunished while the former remained unavenged. There were times when I wondered what indeed the point of anything was, and I had come to realize that sometimes you really had to work hard to find it.
Plus, I realized that somewhere along the way I’d started thinking of the gnome as a “he” instead of an “it.”
“You want to come along?” I said abruptly, and even had to double-check myself to make sure that I myself had actually spoken.
The gnome looked surprised. It was the first emotion I’d seen on his face that wasn’t related to hostility. He covered it quickly as his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Come along where?”
“To Blackholm,” I said carelessly. “You heard. They could use some help over there.”
“Help?” he said with disdain. “From you? A virtuous hero, perhaps? Is that what you fancy yourself? People love a virtuous hero. You know why? Because people are idiots. That’s why I hate them.”
“Well, then, just think: If you come along with me, you’ll have plenty of people to shower all that hatred upon. As opposed to here, where you wait for random travelers to come along so you can have your brief amusements.”
“That’s true,” said the gnome thoughtfully. Then he seemed to catch himself. “What’s it to you? Why are you suddenly inviting me to come with you instead of riding as hard and fast as you can to leave me behind? What, you don’t think you can change my way of thinking, do you? Is that what this is about? Some disgusting, noble notion to salvage the evil, cranky gnome? Is that what you’re on about? Or . . . I know! Because you’re a woman, you think like a woman, which means you’re a contrary little thing. You figure that if you try to leave me behind, I’ll conspire to come along just out of perverse spite. But if you ask me to come along, then you figure I won’t. Idiot. Did you think I was born yesterday?”
“I’m honestly not sure when you were born. I hadn’t given it any thought. When were you born?”
“That’s none of your business!”
“Fine,” I said with a shrug. “So . . . I’m leaving now. Are you coming or not?”
I could actually see his internal struggle reflected in his exterior. He was physically swaying, like a tree in the wind, except in his case the winds were coming from within him.
“You know,” I continued, “if you did come along now, there’s nothing to stop you from departing anytime you want.”
“You’re not wrong about that,” said the gnome, which was probably as close as he would ever come to saying I was right about something. He took one step and leaped, covering the distance between the two of us with one effortless bound. He landed on Clash’s rump and Clash made a small noise of protest. He obviously didn’t like the gnome one bit. Who could blame him?
“Do you have a name?” I said.
The gnome twisted his head at a full ninety-degree angle and stared at me. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, I’m serious. Do you have a name?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Fine. Keep it to yourself.”
“You trying to get all friendly with me? Maybe we should braid each other’s hair next.”
“Do you even have hair under that hat?”
“You know the main reason I’m coming along?” said the gnome. “It’s so I can be there when you die.”
“Everybody has to be somewhere,” I said with a shrug, and snapped the reins. Clash, apparently relieved for the opportunity to finally get going, started off down the road and in short order was galloping at full speed in the direction of Blackholm. At least I hoped that was where we were heading. All I had was a general idea of where it was geographically in relation to two other regions.
Yet another reason not to be a cynic. Sometimes, hope is the only thing we have to keep us going.
Chapter 5
The Walls of Blackholm
FROM THE WAY THE SOLDIERS HAD BEEN speaking, I had expected Blackholm to be this little pisspot of a place, a scattering of huts and hovels held together by family connections and sentiment. I could not have been more wrong. Blackholm was quite a large town, and a rather formidable wall had been erected around it. Whether it was as a result of their recent difficulties, or if it was historically that way, I had no way of knowing. There was a main gate with sentries posted keeping track of the comings and goings of everyone who had any intended dealings in the town.
I reined up in front of a sentry who was clutching a flintlock with both hands. He was unconscionably young: a beardless youth who might well have been pressed into service straight from his cradle. The most likely scenario was that the actual sentry had been killed in battle at some point, and they’d taken whoever they felt could hold a rifle, stand at his post, and ask simple questions like, “What’s your business here?”
“What’s your business here?” said the sentry.
“Well,” I said, “my understanding is that you’re in need of additional manpower. I’m here to offer my services.”
“Being a woman,” the gnome said from behind me, “you’d know a lot about servicing people.”
The sentry jumped when he heard that brittle, arrogant voice. He spotted the gnome on the back of the horse and immediately swung his rifle up. “What the hell is that!?”
Clash whinnied loudly in protest since, understandably, he wasn’t enthused about the idea of a weapon being aimed in his direction. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the target; shots could sti
ll go astray, especially when the rifle was in the trembling hands of an inexperienced youth.
“At ease, son,” I said, using my most soothing voice. “He’s a gnome. He’s harmless.”
“And you’re gormless!” the gnome shot back.
The sentry still looked confused. I could hardly blame him. “I picked him up en route,” I said. “Like a foot fungus. What can you do?” and I shrugged to indicate that, as far as I was concerned, that was the end of the matter. “My name is Ben Finn. I’ve been fighting life-and-death battles since you were in short pants. You can either welcome me in, or I can go on my way. From what I understand, though, you folks aren’t exactly in a position to turn away helping hands. Am I right?”
The sentry assessed the situation, then said, “Yeah. You are. All right, then. Pass,” as he fired a warning look at the gnome—“but I’m going to be keeping an eye on you.”
The gnome glanced down at the sentry’s feet. “Those are nice shoes, but don’t you think your gran’s feet are cold without them?”
The young man paled slightly, and I wondered if perhaps the gnome had actually made an insult based on truth for a change. There was certainly no reason to hang around and find out, though, so I snapped the reins and guided Clash into the confines of the walled city.
I had forgotten to ask the sentry where I should go in order to offer my services, but I certainly wasn’t inclined to go back to him. Instead, I checked around, making inquiries of the townspeople. Invariably, they would look at the gnome in confusion, unsure of whether they were seeing an arrogant child, an angry midget, or an animated statue. That invariably delighted the gnome, who would come up with new and increasingly florid insults to toss around, which would invariably stun everyone into silence.
I was told that the person I should be approaching was “Old Henry.” This did not inspire me with a great deal of confidence. At the very least, I expected I’d be working with someone who had some manner of military title. “Old Henry” definitely did not qualify as such. Nevertheless, they had barracks set up to house “our defenders,” as one woman put it, and it only took me a few minutes to find it.
“Now listen carefully,” I said to the gnome. “You seem to be having a good deal of fun insulting the townspeople—”
“I like it when the tears start to well up in the corners of their eyes.”
“Okay, well . . . just so you know . . . you pull that crap when we go in here, and there’s every possibility that we’ll be invited to leave Blackholm as quickly as humanly possible. And that will put an end to your fun pretty quickly. With that in mind, it’s up to you, but you might want to consider keeping a muzzle on your impulses.”
The gnome looked like he was ready to simply toss off another insult, then something approaching genuine thought went through his mind. “Fine,” he said, which I have to admit surprised the hell out of me.
“Fine?” I echoed.
“Yeah. Fine. You want me to sing it for you? Whisper it to you, then stick my tongue in your ear? You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?”
I decided the best thing to do was not even deign to respond. Instead, I hopped down off Clash and tied him off at the hitching post. I then headed for the door of the barracks, pausing to glance behind me to see if the gnome was there. He was not. Apparently he had decided to absent himself and go find something more interesting to occupy him. I shuddered to think what that would be and could only hope that I wouldn’t hear my voice issuing insults to the men inside. There were only so many times I was going to be able to escape the ramifications of such situations.
I entered and wasn’t thrilled with what I saw.
There was an uneasy mix of men in the stark barracks. Some of them were hardened mercenaries, their faces road maps of scars and injuries that they had sustained in their careers. Others were youngsters of the same type as I had seen in the post of sentry. There were beds for them to sleep on, and some meager cooking facilities where some women were preparing an equally meager meal for the men. They looked up at me with curiosity when I entered, studying me and obviously assessing me and whatever attributes I might have been able to bring to the business of defending the city.
“I’m looking for Old Henry,” I said.
There was a brief silence. Perhaps sound moved differently in the barracks, and it took a while for my voice to get from one end of the large room to the other. Then one of the women looked upward, and shouted, “Henry! Someone to see you!”
I heard a scuffling noise from upstairs, then a heavy, rhythmic tread from the upper floor of the building. Slowly, steadily, it approached a nearby set of stairs, and Old Henry emerged into view.
I could readily see why he had no rank. He didn’t need it. This was a warrior in the most classic sense. Trust me, I could tell. He oozed confidence the way other men oozed sweat. He had a huge, bristling gray beard and was as broad as any three men put together, but there didn’t appear to be an ounce of fat on him. His body didn’t jiggle at all; he was solid muscle through and through. His dark eyes focused on me and seemed to bore right into the back of my head, getting a feel for what type of man I was. I couldn’t say I was thrilled by the prospect because there were days that I didn’t know what type of man I was. That tended to vary with the circumstances.
“You’re a soldier,” he said at last. His voice sounded as if it were starting from somewhere around his boots.
“I am.”
“You’ve seen things. Fought things.”
“I have.”
“And you’re here to help us?”
“Yes.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Why?”
I ran through all the reasons in my mind, then just decided to answer as simply and honestly as I could. “Because I really don’t have much of anything better to do.”
“I see.”
I removed my gloves and extended a hand. “Ben Finn,” I said. “Formerly I served at . . .”
“Don’t much care where you’ve been, only where you’re going to be.” He hadn’t taken the hand I had outstretched. I took no offense; not everyone was much for handshaking. “What is the significance of that ring?”
I glanced down, having worn it so long that I didn’t even think about it. It was nothing special: a simple silver ring with an ornate “F” emblazoned upon it. “Family heirloom,” I said. “Nothing more. Not even particularly valuable. Why do you ask?”
“It was not a crest I recognized.”
I chuckled at that. “My family is not one prone to crests. I’m hardly that highborn. We made these ourselves, my family did. Nothing you need concern yourself about.”
“I concern myself with the safety of this town,” he said. “Beyond that, I care very little.”
“Then I believe I can be of some service to you in that regard.”
“All right, then,” said Old Henry. “Welcome to the fight—”
And suddenly a fierce clanging sounded outside, a cacophony of bells that signaled one thing to me. The soldiers immediately started scrambling to their feet, grabbing their equipment. The older men looked eager; the younger men nervous but determined.
As if he hadn’t even heard the bells, because his voice was so calm and detached, Old Henry said, “I hope you didn’t make yourself too comfortable.” Then he turned to the men who were down in the main area, as well as the ones who were hurrying down the stairs from above. “You all know your posts. You all know what to do. I suggest you do it. You.” And he glanced my way. “Come with me. Let’s see what you can do.”
We headed out into the main square of the town, where citizens were hurrying toward their homes, locking the doors, and obviously praying that the militia would manage to beat back the attacks. A set of rickety stairs led to parapets above, where soldiers were already lined up, taking aim with rifles. I noticed that a squadron of swordsmen had set themselves up at the large double doors that served as the community’s gate, which had been closed and was in the process
of being barricaded. Everyone was moving with smooth efficiency, and I had to think that was largely Old Henry’s doing. He had obviously reached a position of trust in the city by overseeing everything that needed to be done, then making sure that everyone did it.
Old Henry climbed the rickety stairs, which shuddered under every heavy step he took. I followed, moving two steps at a time, trying to make sure I didn’t get thrown off the stairway. We reached the parapets, and I started to look over the top of the wall. It was a stupid, amateur move, and the only thing that kept me from getting my head blown off was Old Henry grabbing me by the back of the shirt and yanking me to one side. A bullet pinged past me; I could practically feel the air sizzling.
There was a rack on the wall that had helmets, shields, a length of rope, and additional ammunition. Old Henry snatched a helmet from the rack and slammed it down on my head. “Are you sure you’ve done this before?” he said.
“Just give me something to aim at, and I’ll show you.” I made sure to crouch as I said that.
He tapped a small aperture in the wall and I peered through it.
Sure enough, a small army was charging the city. They looked very organized and very determined. A number of them were carrying ladders that were clearly intended to help them scale the wall.
They were the ones I went for first. The aperture was just wide enough to provide room to aim. I unslung Vanessa and started firing immediately. Just as immediately, attackers tumbled over, hit by perfectly placed shots. Not a single shot wasted, not a single shot missed.
I turned to Old Henry to see what he had to say about such precise marksmanship. Funny how I’d only known him for a few minutes, and yet his opinion was already important to me. Apparently, though, he was satisfied by what he had seen because he had already moved on down the parapet, guiding the efforts and endeavors of others as they worked to beat back the invaders.
“That’s brilliant shooting!” came an excited but nervous voice from near me. I turned and saw that it was, of all people, the sentry who had first granted me access to the city. He was in a proper crouch and had his rifle at the ready. It was older than mine and less efficient but would get the job done if he could just manage to keep his hands steady. “I’m Russell, by the way.”
