Guildpact

by Cory Herndon

  “All right! All right! Just don’t leave me hanging—” she managed as the end of the bam-stick flashed. She had just enough time to see the projectile vault from the end of the weapon straight at her, before Grubber pulled her back inside. With a faint pop, the bam-stick punctured a tiny, sizzling hole in the leather binding just over Grubber’s head.

  Crix felt herself swing around involuntarily to face the Orzhov guard, whose looks hadn’t improved in the interim. He was now sporting what looked like pieces of skin that weren’t his and a nasty cut across his brow. The bone of his skull was exposed, and blood streamed out of the small head wound.

  “Well, what are you going to do now?” Crix demanded. “I’m a licensed courier, you know. You can’t—” The goblin stopped. Grubber’s expression had begun to change, stretching from an angry scowl to a look of disbelief. Together he and the goblin looked down and noted the silver spear tip protruding from his chest. With a wet slurp, the weapon disappeared and Grubber’s last breath finally gave out.

  A second later, they hit the floor, one dead and bleeding, the other alive but pinned beneath Grubber’s meaty, lifeless arm. Crix managed to roll onto her back and gazed up at another Gruul. There was something strange about him from this angle, like bits of him were simply … not there. Wounds showed clearly on his arms and chest, but instead of flesh underneath, there appeared to be something that glowed from within.

  The parts that were there lifted an axe overhead and roared, a leonine sound that should not have been able to emerge from a human mouth. The rusty blade traveled in an arc directly at Crix’s face as she struggled to free herself from Grubber’s body. Just before the axe struck, she stopped trying to push the arm upward and satisfied herself with rolling beneath it to the side. The axe severed Grubber’s arm above the elbow, spattering the goblin with bits of bone and gore but freeing her from her immediate predicament. She managed to push herself to her feet and boldly faced the Gruul warrior, her right forearm exposed.

  “Do you see this? Do you have any idea what the penalty for attacking a licensed courier is under Guildpact—”

  The Gruul scooped up Grubber’s arm, tore a hunk of graying flesh off the bone with a set of large, apelike teeth, and swallowed it in one gulp.

  “No, I don’t imagine you do,” Crix finished.

  She was cornered. The Gruul had maneuvered between her and the goblin-sized exit, and the warrior, blood running from the edges of his mouth, took one step, then another, pushing her back, back—into the door to the next car. She felt the latch slap against her hand as the Gruul raised his bloody axe again and flashed a wide smile of berserker glee.

  “No!” Crix shouted and slapped the latch. It slid aside, and she rolled through just as the axe came down again. Sparks from the blade striking metal struck her legs, and she instinctively crawled back in pain.

  Yes, Crix was an extraordinary goblin, but many of the things that made her extraordinary were not technically hers to use without express permission of her magelord. She had been given no such dispensation on this mission. Therefore, she would have to get out of this like any other goblin would—by scrambling and running.

  This car must have been one of the first hit, she now saw as she regained her footing. There wasn’t anyone left alive in here, and not even ghosts remained. The only living things other than herself and her pursuer appeared to be a pair of horse-sized brutes that looked like brutal crosses between wolves and hyenas. The monstrous beasts fed upon the remains of what looked like still more helot servants.

  The beasts growled as soon as she stood and continued to do so the nearer she got to their food. The pursuing Gruul wasn’t giving her any other avenue to escape, however, and through the shattered, cracked windows she saw the Gruul riders now much closer. The Orzhov guards were long gone.

  Until now, Crix had been pretty sure that even with the attack, the powerful lokopede and the Karlov security forces would be able to fight their way through and on to Utvara proper. Now she was much less certain, and concern for her mission took complete control. She had to get out of here, even if it meant walking all the way to the Cauldron. If she could somehow get word to her master and permission to use some of her more unique abilities—

  One of the beasts roared through bloody jaws, interrupting her train of thought. They closed in slowly, mirroring the movement of the snarling Gruul warrior, all three circling her like a tiny prize. A courier’s legal protections meant nothing in this circumstance. She felt the back of her head brush against something she thought at first might be an intestine but turned out to be a single, simple length of rope with a heavy weight on the end. She followed the rope up to the roof of the car, where it ended with a knot tied to some kind of emergency hatch. The roped was twisted like a spring, as if it had spent a very long time wrapped around the edge of that hatch waiting for someone to come along and pull it.

  Goblins were natural burrowers and, by extension, natural climbers. True, usually the climb was up a cliff face or a mining tunnel that had taken a turn for the vertical, but a rope was just a very, very small vertical surface. At least that’s what she told herself as she leaped up and grabbed hold of the thing.

  The fibers cut into her skin, but it was enough to let her pull her legs out of the way when the Gruul’s inevitable axe strike sliced beneath her. One of the wolf-hyenas leaped up, snapping its jaws at her, but came away with the rope in its mouth instead. The thing’s fangs clamped tight, and it kept barreling through the air, forcing Crix to hold on even more tightly to the painful rope as the creature inadvertently yanked open the hatch over her head. The fibers digging into her palms kept her in place, and she crawled up the rest of the way in a few seconds.

  Crix pulled herself through the hatch and rolled onto the bouncing, shaking roof of the car. She managed to slam the exit shut just as the beast thumped against it from the interior.

  “Well, at least I’m outside,” Crix said. She rolled onto all fours and thought better of standing when the car lurched again and forced her to dig in with her claws to stay onboard.

  The goblin could see more of the howling Gruul riders and their various mounts and attack beasts. Some of the warriors bore torches, others spears, and a few packed bam-sticks like the one that had almost killed her a few minutes earlier. They lined either side of the lokopede, but she couldn’t tell if they also followed along behind. She saw no firelight coming from that direction, and there didn’t appear to be anyone else sharing her roof, so she proceeded back the way she’d been going while inside the car—toward the hind end of the lokopede.

  She’d made it over the accordion-leather gap between the fourth and fifth cars when something screeching and leathery piled into the small of her back and knocked her flat on her face. The thing hissed something that sounded like “Sssstop!”

  Crix pushed onto her back and started to crawl away from the thrull, who stood over her with hunched batwings and glowing, red eyes. His thin, membranous skin was wrapped tight around a roughly humanoid frame topped by a toothy head. The batwings spread from the tips of his fingers to his ankles, and as the moonlight caught the thing’s tattoo, Crix realized why the screech had sounded familiar—it was one of the trio who had been tormenting her the entire trip.

  “Gruul sssspy,” the thrull hissed. “Gonna kill ya now.”

  “Spy?” Crix shouted. “Are you crazy?”

  The thrull merely advanced and repeated, “Gonna kill ya, gonna kill ya,” over and over.

  The goblin patted her belt, feeling around for some trick that would keep the thrull off of her, but a cursory search revealed nothing. And in a situation where it seemed like a courier might be in danger of losing her life despite the many edicts against harming messengers, fighting was not the rule. Crix turned and ran toward the lokopede’s tail.

  She cleared the gap between the fifth and six cars easily, running on adrenaline and panic. The thrull spread his wings but continued to follow her on foot. An orange flash str
eaked overhead, reminding her that the Gruul weren’t all that far away, and they were well-armed. Now that she thought about it, she wouldn’t have been too eager to take to the air either.

  The thrull cleared the gap just as Crix reached the end of the line, the edge of the last car. She’d guessed right—there were no Gruul directly behind the lokopede, where there were no windows and the creature’s natural armor was toughest. The attackers seemed happy to enter through the easily shattered glass.

  Crix gazed at the dirt road fleeing away behind them and back at the thrull. Her message had to get to the Cauldron in Utvara. That was the important thing. If it took a little extra time, so be it, but if she was killed here the message would never make it. That was simply not acceptable.

  “Going to have to find someone else to kick around, thrull,” Crix said and vaulted backward off the rear of the lokopede. She landed hard and didn’t stop rolling until she struck a pair of legs. The legs were covered in clumps of bristly, white fungus, as were the arms that scooped her up and carried her away from the scene of the attack. When she finally opened her eyes again, they were deep into the Husk, and the burning lokopede was out of sight.

  Tired of lawlessness? Looking to make a difference and a little extra pay in this unforgiving world? If you want to do your part for justice and earn a guaranteed bumbat ration daily, contact your local Haazda recruiter today!

  —League of Haazda recruitment poster

  30 PAUJAL 10012 Z.C.

  “Why didn’t you join the Haazda anyway?” the off-duty deputy asked. His fifth mug of bumbat helped the middle-aged man—still only half the age of the man he challenged—stretch the “z” in “Haazda” until it threatened to become its own word. “You, sir, would have been a natural. Natural command material. Got a lot of former ’jeks, too, you know. You’re wasting your—you’re wasting your abilities here, pal. You could make a difference in this place. A difference.” He signaled the bartender for another round. “What you—what you drinkin’ there, sir?”

  “Dindin juice.”

  “Dindin juice?” the deputy asked. He added an exaggerated layer of disbelief that, had he not been alone at the bar—the last patron to leave, in fact, as usual—might have scored a rousing round of laughter from his fellow volunteer officers. The much older man sitting next to him at the bar simply nodded. Had the deputy been sober, he might have noticed the nod said a lot more in a simple motion than the taciturn fellow had said with words in the last two hours. Had the deputy been sober, he might not have chosen to press the issue.

  “I got a—got an aunt, she drinks that stuff,” the deputy volunteered, making an admirable effort to come off amiably and defuse the situation. “Supposed to be good for the digestion and the heart. ’Specially if you’re eldelell—ellelly—if you’re old.”

  “Don’t need to remind me of that, friend. You might want to try a glass yourself. You’re not getting any younger.” The old dindin drinker waved the barkeep over and indicated the listing deputy, who was momentarily distracted by concerted efforts to stay on his barstool.

  The barkeep, an imp no more than chest height, put down the glass he’d been polishing and ambled over, leathery wings folded against his shoulder blades and a friendly host’s grin on his face. He hopped up, balanced effortlessly on a brass rail bolted behind the bar, and let his wings flair once before he tucked them back to his side.

  “Bartender,” the sober one of the two said, “this fellow wants a dindin juice. That recipe I cooked up?” Because the bartender was the sort whose sensibilities demanded it, he waggled his brow. “Can you help him out?”

  “Certainly, certainly, my friend,” the imp replied. “I am here to serve. An excellent choice, if I may say,” the imp added and turned to the inebriated Haazda before launching into a sales pitch. “The dindin plant contains a natural stimulant that should prepare you for continued drinking of our more potent spirits as you enjoy the refreshing atmosphere that only the Imp Wing Hotel and Bar can offer you.”

  “You’re not so bad for a—for a—what’re you ’gain?” the deputy managed.

  “I am Pivlic!” the imp declared, improbably squaring his knuckles on his hips, his wings spread like a stylized eagle. “I am the owner of this establishment, friend Vodotro, and your host. Would you like anything to add enhancement to your beverage? Will you be booking time in the hourly suites this evening before setting off to a dangerous life of crime-fighting and derring-do that could, conceivably, end your life before you next experience the joys of—”

  “Juice, Pivlic, then this fellow’s going home,” the older man said. “We’ve got few enough lawmen around here, even if they are volunteers. Half of them are still recovering from your last ‘civic-awards ceremony.’”

  “And you care because …?” the imp said. “Every day since you came to work for your old friend Pivlic you have brought up these issues, but the fact is—friend Kos, dear old friend Kos—you are my employee. I have masters of my own, as well you know. It is time you accepted you are not in the Tenth anymore. This is a different place. Can you not, at long last, get used to it? The ogres would appreciate it, and so would I. I make good zinos off of ogres, and not one has set foot in this establishment the entire month.” Pivlic tsked as he pulled a pair of fresh dindins from behind the counter and tossed them into the juicer. “Kos, you’ve been here almost twelve years. You’re not a ’jek anymore. You don’t have to police the whole township, my friend, just my place. And you do have additional help for that.”

  “I know,” Agrus Kos said, not looking directly at the imp or the drunk. “Gave ’em the night off. Just doing my job, Pivlic. Watching your place. That’s all I’m doing. And you could be a little more civic yourself when you’re yammering on about my employment situation.”

  “Oh, now you’re ashamed of me, are you?” Pivlic said, hopping from the rail to the bar. “Kos, please. How long have you worked for me?”

  “Twelve years,” Kos said through gritted teeth. I have this one taken care of now, Pivlic. Get off it.

  The imp was no telepath, but he seemed to get the message the teeth sent. “And twelve years should be enough time to acclimatize.” Pivlic didn’t elaborate and didn’t need to. The drunk, on the other hand, saw an opening and dived into it.

  “That’sh what I’m shaying,” Vodotro slurred. “You, you need to join up. You’re an Orzhov now, Kos. Think about that for a shecond. But the Haazda, we’re … we’re … well, we’re volunteers, you know, but we pay dues to the Borosh just like ’jeks. I mean, you could even keep this job. You could do the noble shervice in your off hours. I myself am responshible for inshpecting shtructures for poshibilty of fire. As my day job.” He picked up the glass of liquid Pivlic put before him and took a pull that emptied half of it into his mouth, a quarter into his moustache, and the rest somewhere onto the table. That should easily do it, Kos reckoned.

  Kos nodded but said nothing and finished his glass of juice. He set it down hard on the table and pushed back from the bar. Kos made a mental note to check in with that goblin foreman out at the Cauldron and see about getting Pivlic to “civically” purchase the services of a few emergency hydromancers. He rarely mentioned it in front of others, but the imp was very much of the same mind as Kos when it came to that sort of thing. And the fact that this deputy was, apparently, somehow responsible for the safety of the township in case of fire was bad news for anyone. Having a few hydros around might not hurt.

  “Thanks for the thought, Vodotro,” Kos said, “but I think it’s about time I showed you the door.” He hooked one arm around the sloppy drunk, whose balance seemed to have gone. That would be the special recipe kicking in.

  Kos didn’t want drunks sobering up in Pivlic’s place, they just got angry. There was a lot of anger in Utvara: prospectors showing up to find the streets not exactly paved with gold, people trying to start a new life only to find that their new life was confined to five square miles around the Vitar Yescu, and plenty of
people who, in this remote town of squatters, were just plain mean. The Utvara township was a semilegal establishment, but when the fallow period ended it would likely see a big population increase. From what Pivlic said, the fat Orzhov who owned the whole thing was due any day now. The retired wojek imagined even more anger would be forthcoming, though fortunately not directed at him. Kos was just Pivlic’s security man while Pivlic was acting as the owner’s agent in this township.

  Kos was getting too old to deal with politics or violence. Unfortunately, they kept bumping into his life even when he dragged his aging carcass out to this remote reclamation zone.

  Then there were the Haazda. Overall security for the Imp Wing was something Kos and a small staff hired by Pivlic could handle without too much trouble. Pivlic had an unbelievable number of cousins, nephews, and nieces who needed just a few months of toughening up before they could break up most any typical Imp Wing brawl at Kos’s order. He didn’t have to get involved directly with, well, anything. The township didn’t have much in the way of government, but it had a way of policing itself: Most of the small population was only interested in getting out to the flats and hunting for their fortune, and if someone did something that merited absolute punishment, they simply cleared it with the imp, who acted as agent for the Orzhov owners. The Haazda were largely unnecessary. And they never ventured into the Husk. Nobody with any sense did, and the Haazda might be a bunch of drunks and wojek wannabes, but they did have enough sense to steer clear of the Gruul.

  Kos wasn’t getting any younger, and the angry types weren’t getting happier. He couldn’t bring himself to join those Haazda volunteers. Their lack of any real authority was the main reason. By and large, the volunteers were frustrated, barely trained, and looking to lash out.