The Banshee's walk m-5

by Frank Tuttle

My name was being called in a shout as well, by either Scatter or Lank or both.

  I opened the door just as they charged in, faces ashen, mouths wide open and gasping.

  Both held bundles of surveyor’s stakes. Both let them fall clattering to the floor. Both started ranting at once.

  “Camp” and “woods” I caught first.

  And then “body.”

  “It was Weexil,” said Scatter. “Dead. Throat cut. He was dead, Mr. Markhat. They didn’t even bury him.”

  Gertriss slammed the door shut and bolted it.

  “Where?”

  They exchanged a brief but guilty glance.

  “I know there was a camp, lads. I didn’t know where, but I knew there had to be one. So spill it.”

  “’Bout a quarter of a mile north of Hobson’s Creek,” said Scatter. I hadn’t seen any creek, Hobson’s or otherwise, noted on any of the maps of the Werewilk property.

  “Three miles due west of here,” reported Lank. “Ain’t much of a creek.”

  “But I’m guessing it’s a good place to hide.”

  They both nodded. Gertriss watched, arms tight across her chest, her face reddening.

  “Kind of in a gulley. Hides light and smoke from cook-fires.”

  I nodded. That’s the kind of place I’d look for too, were I hoping to keep the presence of ten or fifteen men from becoming common knowledge.

  “You boys ever see the camp before today?”

  Gertriss cussed under her breath. “What makes you think they’d tell the truth about if they had? They knew about the camp. Knew right where to look for stakes.”

  “Because they want to be paid,” I said, to Gertriss. “Don’t be too hard on them. We’re strangers from town. Talking to strangers from town about goings-on in the woods didn’t seem like a good idea, did it, lads?”

  Heads shook in unison.

  “I don’t blame you.” I did, but not much. “You found Weexil. You’re sure it’s him?”

  “We’re sure,” said Lank. He paled. “He stunk. Flies all over him.”

  “You know I’m going to ask you to take me there.”

  “We know.”

  “They’ve broken camp, I presume?”

  “Nothing left but trash on the ground. Tents gone, wagons gone, horses gone. Just trash. And Weexil.”

  “Round up some shovels. One for me too. Meet back here as soon as you’ve had some water and calmed down. Gertriss. Go fetch Lady Werewilk, please. And Marlo. I think we’ll ask Marlo to join our little picnic.”

  “Mister. Weexil. Why’d they kill him, like that?”

  It was Lank who spoke. I could see by his pale face and wide eyes he was reliving the moment he’d stood over poor dead Weexil.

  “I don’t know yet. I hope to find out. Now scoot.”

  Not exactly profound words of comfort, but they were the best I had to offer.

  Chapter Ten

  I rummaged around upstairs while waiting for my army to assemble. Toadsticker I’d take, of course, but I secreted a few less obvious instruments about my person as well. I’ve got a pair of Army flash papers left over from the War, and they went in my pocket. I have no idea what they’d do if I tore them now, so many years after the company sorcerer put his spell on them, but if I ever needed a quick distraction maybe I’ll find out.

  While I was sorting through brass knuckles and short daggers, I found something else.

  Darla had somehow snuck a letter into my bag. To this day, I have no idea how or when she did it. I’ve got to stop surrounding myself with women who continually outwit me.

  I sat and unfolded the letter and read.

  Darling, it began, and I smiled at the word. If you’re reading this, it’s because you’re arming yourself. This is not a happy thought for me.

  That said, though, if you’ll look in the right toe of the nice new socks I gave you, you’ll find something that I hope you’ll never need to use. Yes, I know it’s illegal. Yes, I was very careful about buying it. You’ll know what it is when you find it.

  There was more, but it was largely concerned with herb-gardening and would be of very little interest to anyone but Darla and me.

  I burrowed through socks until I found one with a lump in the toe. I turned it inside out, and there was Darla’s charm.

  I whistled. She’d paid dear for it. Your run-of-the-mill alley wand-waver hangs their charms on sticks or scribbles them on paper or weaves them into cheap jewelry-anything that can be easily torn or broken to release the hex.

  There was nothing cheap about the charm Darla had sought out.

  Take a hex. Work it inside a globe of blown glass. Enhance the hex further by covering the tiny globe in silver letters that crawled and spun when looked at. Throw in the odd bolt of miniscule lightning from deep within the roiling hex trapped by the glass and the silver.

  I’ve always known Darla is good with money, but I’d never dreamed she could afford a rich man’s charm like the one I held.

  Someone knocked at my door. I wrapped Darla’s charm in a clean handkerchief and put it safe in my right front pocket.

  “Finder? It’s Lady Werewilk. She wants to have a word.”

  “Coming right down.”

  I made a few final adjustments to my gear and then tramped downstairs to get my little expedition on the trail.

  The entire house was assembled at the foot of the stairs. I could hear Serris sobbing from the couch, flanked by a mob of cooing females.

  Lady Werewilk met me at the foot of the stairs.

  “I gave instructions that Serris was not to be told,” she said.

  “She’d have found out sooner or later.”

  “Once we were sure, yes. But I would have preferred you verified the story first.”

  I shrugged. Scatter and Lank may not be finders or even shaving regularly yet, but I had no doubt they knew a corpse when they saw one.

  Lady Werewilk let out a long sigh. “So you believe this encampment to be the one used by the surveyors?”

  “They found a few bundles of fresh stakes there. Makes sense. They’d need somewhere to make up maps, plan their next survey.”

  “And exactly what, Mr. Markhat, were they looking for?”

  I had an audience.

  “Best we talk about it later.” It sounded better than I have no idea. “Right now we need to get going. Is Marlo ready with the horses?”

  “Ready and waiting,” replied Lady Werewilk. “I am of course going as well.”

  “You are of course not doing any such thing.”

  “Marlo has already tried and failed to dissuade me, Mr. Markhat. I will remind you as I reminded him-I am the Mistress of this House. I control not only its direction but its payroll. Is that clear?”

  “I’m telling you it’s a bad idea.”

  “I acknowledge that. But I’ve stood back and allowed assaults on my House for long enough. I will not hide in my dressing room if one of my own has been murdered.”

  Serris let loose a fresh howl.

  “Gertriss?”

  “Yes, Mr. Markhat?”

  “Was there another leather shirt up there, one that would fit Lady Werewilk?”

  Gertriss had the good sense not to grin. “I believe there was.”

  “Would you go and fetch it for her while we get saddled up?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lady Werewilk rewarded me with a single curt nod.

  “Singh,” she said. Her voice carried above the rising din of the artists. “You’re in charge until I return. Keep the doors locked. And keep the staff inside their homes.”

  Singh nodded and toddled off, Milton shambling at his side.

  My mount was named Lumpy. Lumpy was a mule, as were all our mounts, and after we found the barely visible game trail that led to the encampment I realized why mules were the order of the day.

  Mules, unlike horses, can see all four of their feet at the same time. That makes them ideal for any trail that involves negotiating steep hills or win
ding around narrow high passes, and we did both, one right after another, the whole trip.

  The forest was ancient. I ducked under boughs and reflected that the trees around me were older than anything I’d seen outside the East. Hell, Elves might once have sneaked about on various murderous errands beneath these very behemoths.

  Marlo led the way. Scatter and Lank were right behind him. Then there was a husky carpenter named Burris who was said to be an expert bowman and then Lady Werewilk, Gertriss and finally myself atop my majestic steed Lumpy.

  The forest floor was wet loam. None of us spoke. Aside from the faint stretching of leather or the occasional soft snuffling of a mule, we made our way like a bevy of spooks.

  Marlo stopped and dismounted, as did Scatter, Lank and Burris. They’d crouched down in a circle around a featureless patch of loam to exchange whispers and nods. I was about to dismount myself when Scatter came tip-toeing back to explain that they’d found sign of a man on foot, a day or two old.

  The spot they indicated looked like every other bit of ground in sight to me, but I didn’t argue the point.

  It took us a little over an hour to get near the camp. Finally, Marlo raised his hand, listened for a long minute, and signaled for us to dismount.

  We tied the mules, and crept up the last ridge on foot.

  Marlo was the first to pop his head over. He looked, and we listened.

  Squirrels chattered and leaped. Birds sang. Crickets and cicadas chirped and sounded.

  “Let’s go,” said Marlo, rising. “Camp’s empty. They’re gone.”

  And they were. Even my city-bred eyes could see where the camp had been, could tell there had been tents and a corral and half a dozen campfires. I wanted to try and get a rough count of the camp’s population, but there was time enough for that after we found Weexil.

  Scatter and Lank pointed out Weexil’s resting place, but refused to return to it. The spot they indicated was right behind a thick copse of chokeweed, at the base of a lightning-struck blood oak. It wasn’t in the camp proper, but it was right where I’d put a latrine, if I was the one arranging secret camps.

  Not exactly a dignified way to die.

  There was blood on the ground, right behind the chokeweed bush. The blood was pooled in a flat, smooth depression in the loam. And there were still fat blue-green flies haunting the air.

  But there wasn’t any Weexil.

  I dropped to my knees and tried to see drag marks or footprints.

  If they were there, I couldn’t see them.

  Marlo and Burris joined me. Marlo sniffed the air and made a face.

  “Stinks like a dead one.”

  It did, though I’d not noticed the stench immediately. I’d learned to not smell that during the War.

  I pointed at the blood. Blue-green flies took flight at the movement.

  “There was a body here. Someone moved it, which means someone has been here since Scatter and Lank found Weexil this morning.”

  Marlo squinted at the ground. “Don’t see no drag marks.”

  “One got his arms, one got his legs.”

  “Don’t see no fresh footprints neither. Look.” Marlo poked a finger into the ground. “The loam takes a while to spring back up. Aint’ nobody been here.”

  I shook my head. Weexil had died at the latrine all right. There was a clear, oft-used trail, and a freshly filled trench. They’d even left a shovel behind, stuck upright in the dirt. The amount of blood drying on leaves left no doubt. He’d died there, but he sure as Hell hadn’t strolled away alone afterwards.

  I stood. “Let’s get back to the women. I don’t like the idea that someone came back to tidy up.”

  Burris wordlessly nocked a long, lethal arrow. He favored an old-fashioned longbow made of wood so old it was black. His steel-tipped hunting arrows looked meaner than any crossbow bolt.

  “I reckon I ought to shoot any body what didn’t come here with us.”

  “I reckon you ought,” I replied. “I just hope you don’t have to.”

  We moved quietly back to the mules and the rest of our party. Lady Werewilk was holding a fancy black-lacquered crossbow that must have been concealed in a saddlebag. Gertriss was trying to feed her sleepy-eyed mule a carrot.

  “Was it Weexil?” asked Lady Werewilk.

  “I believe it was,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “But the body has been removed.”

  Scatter and Lank went ashen. Gertriss dropped her carrot in favor of her short plain sword. Scatter and Lank found their voices and began to protest that they hadn’t been lying.

  They forgot to keep their voices down. “Hush,” I said. When that didn’t work Gertriss grabbed Scatter, who had the misfortune to be the nearest to her, and twisted his arm around to the small of his back.

  “The man said be quiet. Remember where we are.”

  Amazingly, that worked. Gertriss even got a nod from Lady Werewilk.

  “What now?”

  “We have a quick look around. Everyone in pairs or better. No one gets out of sight of everyone else. No shouting unless you see a stranger. If you find something you want me to see just stay there and wave. Got it?”

  A chorus of yeses was my reply. We struck out. Scatter and Lank stuck close by Burris and his famous deer-slaying longbow. Marlo and Lady Werewilk took off in a different direction. Gertriss joined me, her borrowed sword at ready.

  It had been a fair-sized camp. I’m thinking twenty men. There’d been six three-man tents, four of the much larger tents we’d called officer’s halls in the army, and then a single massive tent that had been filled with rows of long tables.

  There had been numerous cook-fires. They’d set up a temporary corral for the horses. They’d had six wagons.

  And they’d been very careful to leave absolutely nothing behind. What they hadn’t carried out they’d burned.

  I found a stick and poked through the ashes. They’d burned papers. Lots of papers. And tools-I found hammer handles, I found shovel handles, I even found a handful of half-burned pencils, the fancy kind, with gum erasers stuck to the blunt ends.

  “Who the Hell burns perfectly good pencils?”

  “What?”

  Gertriss had crouched down beside me. I hadn’t noticed. I chided myself for letting my attention lapse while pilfering the enemy camp.

  “Look what I found.” I waved the pencil stubs. “They left in a hurry and burned what they didn’t feel like packing.”

  Gertriss frowned. “You know those fancy figuring machines, the ones with the wires and the beads?”

  “An abacus?”

  “I found one of those in yonder fire. Aren’t they expensive?”

  “They are. Odd.” I used my stick to move aside ashes, put my hand down on the ground beneath them. It was dry, and still faintly warm.

  Gertriss put her hand down beside mine.

  “They left late yesterday, didn’t they?”

  “Pretty close, I’d say. Right after they killed Weexil.”

  Gertriss shivered. “And he’s gone now?”

  “Afraid so. Maybe somebody up the chain of command didn’t approve of them leaving corpses behind.”

  “Marlo is waving, Mr. Markhat.”

  I looked up. He was. Lady Werewilk was on her knees beside him, poking at something on the ground with a long thin dagger.

  Crossbows and daggers. “I’m surprised she doesn’t clank when she walks,” I muttered.

  Gertriss giggled. “I was just thinking the same thing,” she said. “But she has some of the most interesting items, Mr. Markhat. Look what she gave me.”

  From the top of her boot Gertriss revealed a good five inches of slim steel. The blade had been blackened to prevent it from flashing even in firelight, but the razor-sharp edge glinted and shone.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is that what the ladies are wearing to Court this year?”

  Gertriss pushed her black dagger back down. “We’d better go.”

  Marlo was dancing an angry little
jig by the time we arrived.

  “Nice of ye to drop by. Thought you might need to see this.”

  We knelt by Lady Werewilk, watched her stir the ashes with her blade.

  “There,” she said. Her knife coaxed something solid out of the ashes.

  It was a finger. A skeletal finger, attached to a skeletal hand, a hand which had been stuck upright in the ground, buried, and then burned.

  The burned bones jerked. The dead fingers flexed. It made a fist, and then relaxed, and then it start turning on its wrist, fingers grasping at ash and empty air.

  I threw Gertriss back with one arm, shoved Lady Werewilk down on her side with the other. Marlo bellowed, eyes full of murder, his axe turning and preparing to swing my way.

  I leaped to my feet and whacked him hard and straight in the gut with Toadsticker’s hilt. He didn’t go down, but he did back up.

  “Get back.” I kicked at the skeletal hand and missed.

  It extended a bony forefinger, pointing it right at me.

  And then the banshee sang.

  She howled. She keened. Buttercup rent the air with that penetrating howl of hers, and she was somehow at my side and she gave me a pitiful little yank, as if trying to pull me away.

  Marlo bellowed and brought up his axe, slashing at Buttercup.

  Buttercup screamed, and was gone.

  I brought Toadsticker down on the hand with all the strength I could muster. Ashes flew. The bony finger pointed.

  And that’s when I felt the fingers close around my neck.

  Close, and begin to squeeze.

  Marlo caught on. He swung his axe down, brought sparks when he struck Toadsticker, but failed to damage the bones.

  I tried to tell him not to bother, that the spell had been sprung, but I couldn’t speak.

  Gertriss spun me around, and I felt her hands on my throat, but she couldn’t feel the hex choking me, much less grapple with it.

  I let go of Toadsticker and stepped away. The spells our sorcerer corps had cast in the Army always had limited ranges. I took a useless pair of steps back, but could feel no lessening of the grip around my throat.

  The traps left by our sorcerers were always designed so that by the time the victim realized what was happening, flight was simply too late.