The Sable City

by M. Edward McNally

  *

  Tilda could now feel the motion of the air on her face as well, and faintly smell pines. There was no light from up ahead that she could see, and only the flickering lanterns with the wicks turned low played upon the nervous faces around her.

  Tilda knelt with her gun on a knee and looked at the soldier standing next to her with his pick held ready. He was a young man Tilda thought spoke a bit of Codian, so she whispered a question.

  “What is supposed to be up ahead?”

  The man glanced at his fellows but answered her in a whisper.

  “The Dauls do not hide this entrance as do the Trellanes. There is a little fort, maybe twenty men, high on the mountainside. There is a door that gives right into the yard and it is always kept closed and locked, as the men are close enough to hear knocking.”

  “Why would it be open?”

  Instead of an answer, Captain Block said Tilda’s name in a tone that meant shut up. She did. The gnome Fitz whistled lowly from up ahead, just announcing his presence before stepping back into the lantern light so that no one chucked anything at his head.

  He spoke quietly in Daulish to his men. Tilda saw their eyes widen and brows knit. The gnome then turned to Block and spoke in Codian.

  “We have a problem. The fort is sacked. The only men I can see are dead.”

  A soldier asked a question to which Fitz shrugged and answered in Daulish before repeating himself in Codian.

  “There are three bodies in the last room, probably ran in here but got no further. The door is wide open. I didn’t see any men outside but there is equipment all over the place. Bows and shields, everything ransacked. The barracks is a smoldering wreck. My guess is most of the garrison was inside when it was fired. Anyone who got away, gods help them, are long gone.”

  “What killed the three in the last room?” Block asked. Fitz sighed and pushed back his cap to mop his brow with a dirty hand that left smudges.

  “They are bashed up rather stringently. Pulpy, almost.”

  “Ogru,” one of Fitz’s men said, but Dugan shook his head.

  “There are no ogres in these mountains. Probably bugbears.”

  All the men seemed to understand his last word, and nodded grimly. Tilda wanted to ask what in the hells was a bugbear, despite being certain that she was not going to like the answer. Block continued before she could ask.

  “If they are gone, they are gone, and if the barracks have burned out it was a while ago. Lead on, Coalmounderan.”

  Fitz closed one eye and raised the eyebrow of the other.

  “Begging your pardon, Cap’n, but I’ve orders to head straight back should any trouble crop up on the Way.”

  Block sneered. “We are what? A few hundred yards from the exit? Do you really think I am going to turn around and march back three days, only to be on the wrong side of the mountains again?”

  Fitz sighed through his large nose. “No, I don’t. But I am saying that not one of my boys is setting another foot forward. Were you wise, neither would you.” The gnome pointed a stubby finger almost into the dwarf’s broad chest. “With the fort sacked you are still a day from anywhere. The Dauls would have given you escort, but with them run-off at best, and bugbears in the hills, how far do you three expect to get?”

  Block glared, and when he spoke it was to Tilda.

  “Gather our baggage. Separate just what we three can carry.”

  Tilda stared, and such of Fitz’s men who lugged some of the Miilarkians’ possessions started setting down bags and packs next to her.

  “Captain,” Tilda said. “We can’t carry more than a…”

  Block silenced her with a look. Tilda snapped her mouth shut and settled to a seat on the floor, undoing the drawstrings on the nearest duffel. She knew the way ahead was going to be dangerous, but that was a given. But she also knew they were about to abandon quite a bit of money, not just Block’s but hers, and that made her want to tell the dwarf what she thought of him at the moment. Tilda breathed through her nose as she sorted the necessary from the wanted, and tried not to keep a running total in silver in her head.

  Fitz and Block glared at each other all the while, the gnome shaking his head. The soldiers shifted nervously and kept glancing up the hall. Dugan emptied the bags that were going to be easiest to carry, those strapped as backpacks and pouches that could hang from belts and shoulders, and adroitly repacked the things Tilda separated to bring along. Flint and steel, canteens and wineskins, socks and undergarments. A small lantern and fuel. Weapons and ammunition. They had barely any food, and a full change of clothes was suddenly an impractical luxury. Tilda left at least two bags full of souvenirs she had gotten in Tull, the Beoshore, and Orstaf. Small things bought, bartered, or otherwise acquired. The riding boots were just too good to leave, and Tilda stuffed them full of small bundled items, tied the laces together, and slung them around her neck before standing and awkwardly wrestling on a backpack over her buksu club. She had to keep her hands free for the long gun as the emptied case was staying here.

  She helped Dugan hang a backpack on either shoulder and tied them together in the middle to give him the appearance of a turtle. Captain Block cut a long strap from a spare pack and fastened it to his kit bag to sling it over a shoulder. He looked around at all that remained on the floor.

  “Take what you want as a tip,” he said to Fitz. “For services rendered, such as they were.”

  Fitz sighed. “There is a road, or at least a cut, running due south out of the fort. One day on that and you’ll overlook the Cross-Heftiga High Road. Left to Mont Royal, the right bends down into Chengdea via the Sibyl River.”

  There did not look to be any more formal parting forthcoming, as Block strode away without another word. Tilda and Dugan moved to follow but as she passed the gnome he said one more thing.

  “Miss Matilda.”

  “What?” she snapped, sounding angry in her own ears.

  “Don’t go out there.”

  Tilda stopped and looked back. The little gnome‘s grin was nowhere to be seen and his amber eyes were solemn in the low lantern light.

  “It isn’t up to me,” Tilda said, and she left.

  The bodies in the last room were as bad as Fitz had said. They had been soldiers and lay in a heap surrounded by dented shields and broken helmets. Their chain mail coats had acted almost like strainers.

  Block edged outside first through the open door into a short tunnel with a bend that kept sunlight from shining in directly, which was fine with Tilda as there was nothing she wanted to see better. She stood next to Dugan as the dwarf slipped around the corner, and whispered to him.

  “What is a bugbear?”

  “Biggest breed of a goblin.”

  Tilda glanced at him. “I thought that was a hobgoblin.”

  “No, bugbears are even bigger. Maybe eight feet, at the shoulder. Covered in hair, like a bear. But they climb like bugs.” Dugan glanced briefly at the bodies. “They favor big bardiche axes. Or mauls.”

  Block whistled from up ahead and Tilda and Dugan stepped into the tunnel. The walls and low ceiling were of loose stone braced with timbers, not the smooth stone construction of the rest of the Underway nearby. This bit had been excavated long after the dwarves were gone.

  Around the corner the tunnel opening was behind a large boulder, concealing it from view from the mountainside and hills in the area. Tilda emerged from behind the great stone to find herself in a dirt yard surrounded by a tall palisade wall of sharpened tree trunks, forming a square that met the mountain to either side at sharp, scooped-out cliff faces. This whole section of the Yellow Mountain seemed to have slumped some distance down the slope long ago. A smoking pile of wreckage was all that remained of one long wooden building within the palisade, while another that looked to have been a stable was simply collapsed in a heap against the mountainside. All around the yard lay refuse, broken weapons and furniture, blowing parchments, shredded blankets, a few gleams that might have been coins. Th
ere was a wagon turned on its side and a broken flagpole with a purple emblem trampled into the dirt. Straight across from the tunnel entrance was a gap in the palisade where the gate had been. Tilda did not see any doors, but she did not know if that meant they had been battered in, or wrenched off.

  She and Dugan spread out a bit, both looking back up the mountain behind them. The way was steep. Tilda thought she could probably negotiate it but doubted something bigger than a hobgoblin could, no matter how bug-like were its climbing abilities. Block had crossed to the palisades and mounted a narrow walkway on the inside. He stared at the surrounding country all around in a number of directions for several minutes before coming back down, and approaching the others in the middle of the yard. The Captain met Tilda’s eye and pointed one finger at the ground. He crooked it and rolled his wrist in a circle. Take the weapon.

  “I doubt it is worth looking for food,” Dugan said. “That’s probably what the bugbears were after.”

  Block hurled himself into Dugan’s lower legs, grabbing a sandal strap in either hand and twisting. The man twirled and pitched headlong, crying out as Block straightened and actually hoisted him airborne before darting away. Dugan landed on his tied backpacks with a grunt and lay there, more turtle-like than ever. Block pulled a pistol from his kitbag but held it at his side, left-handed. With his right he pointed a dagger at Dugan’s face.

  Dugan blinked at the dwarf and sighed, then looked down at his own hip to where he had shifted his short sword to hang from a cord. The cord was cut, and Tilda was standing several paces away with the heavy imperial gladius in her hand. Dugan looked back at Block.

  “Seriously. You want to do this right now?”

  “Tell me where John Deskata has gone,” Block said softly. “Or Tilda repacks the luggage for two.”

  Dugan lay back atop the packs, almost comfortably. He started to say something but abruptly stopped and shouted, “Cover!” He twisted sideways and started struggling loose from the packs.

  “Don’t be an ass,” Block said, but then noticed at the same moment as Tilda that there was a shadow around Dugan, rapidly becoming bigger.

  Tilda snapped her eyes up in time to see a boulder plunging down from high above, with more following. The first, half the size of a man, crushed a backpack Dugan had only just gotten loose from, missing him by inches and sending a sharp, echoing bang off the mountainside. The rocks behind it came like hail.

  Tilda ran for the nearest shelter, the tunnel back into the Underway. Crashing rocks echoed behind her like cannon blasts, and a horn was blowing. She reached the bend in the short tunnel and turned to find the door closed. Fitz and his boys had shut it up behind them before leaving, but they could not have gone very far yet. Before she could start hammering on the door to bring them back, Dugan barreled into the tunnel behind Tilda and slammed her against the rock wall even harder than he had bashed her off the cottage before gutting Procost. She at least took this blow on her shoulder and hip rather than with her forehead, though she crumpled to the ground all the same. Dugan snatched his sword out of her numb hand as Tilda blinked up at him, and the blade. His eyes were as cold as they had been facing the knight.

  “I’m sorry?” she tried.

  “Me too,” Dugan said.