Burge snorted derisively.
Rudi put on a small frown, being generally more supportive and respectful of Greyhawk’s leaders than either Burge or Blossom. “Well, look at it from Thigpen’s point of view,” he said irritably. “You know what those mages charge every time the city asks them for the smallest favor. They’ve got no sense of civic responsibility at all. Ask any common constable in the watch how much a guild wizard wants for the simplest capture spell. They’re worse than the Thieves’ Guild, I tell you!”
Burge waved a hand before his face, as if swatting Rudi’s words aside. “When five citizens die in one night,” he countered coolly, “you’d think Thigpen would at least ask their fee.”
“Why?” Blossom said with sudden indignation. She tossed her long braid over one shoulder and stared stony-faced at Burge. “Because these five all lived on the north side of Black Gate?” Her voice was sharp and ice-edged. “Five bodies have also been found recently in Old Town, too, or did you overlook that coincidence?”
“That’s Old Town,” Rudi interjected disinterestedly. “Bodies turn up there all the time. It’s the Thieves’ Quarter, for all the gods’ sakes, and the Slum Quarter. Those people will kill for a scrap of food.”
Garett turned a sharp eye toward Blossom. “Five in the New City and five in Old Town. Are you suggesting there’s a connection?”
Blossom frowned again and slumped back against the wall, resuming her former relaxed posture. “I’m not suggesting anything, Captain,” she said wearily. “But that kind of attitude really yanks me off. Five poor souls wind up floaters in the south stream, and it’s a normal night in Old Town, nothing to get excited about. But a few wealthy fortune-tellers get capped, and the city wets all over itself.” Burge balanced his right ankle on his left knee and held it there as he leaned forward. “You’ve got that look, Cap’n,” he said quietly.
Garett looked at each of them. “I wonder if Blossom’s on to something,” he answered with a look of calculation. “Five and five. It could be coincidental.” He gave a shrug. “Then again, I don’t believe in coincidence.” He faced Blossom. “This was your idea. You locate the watchmen who found those bodies. I want to hear their reports personally before I leave here in the morning.”
“Some of them were daylighters,” Blossom responded. “I’ll have to wake them up.”
“Wake them up,” Garett ordered. Most watchmen of enlisted rank lived and slept in the barracks just off the High Market Square grounds. Only officers and those granted special permission had private apartments. Blossom could rouse the sleepers just before their shifts began. “Have them here in my office just before dawn.”
Blossom nodded. “Anything else?”
“Yes’’ Garett said. “Any of you. By reputation or report, these were the five best seers in the city. Their visions were the clearest. They saw farthest into the future. Even the Attloi, Exebur, if he was as good as his people claim. Now with them out of the way, who else would you go to if you wanted to know what the future held?”
“Duncan, in the River Quarter on Queer Eye Street,” Rudi answered, then hastily amended, “but most people say he’s a fake.”
“The Cat,” Burge suggested thoughtfully. “He’s an old man who lives in the slums. On Bladder Lane, I think. He’s supposed to have the power.”
Rudi snorted. “How much power can he have,” he queried, “if he can’t make enough money to get out of the Slum Quarter? Or maybe he likes living with the mice?” Burge turned one eye toward Rudi without altering his posture in the least. “Perhaps he prefers the mice of Old Town,” he suggested evenly, “to the rats who live in better places.”
“Well said, elf.” Blossom nodded appreciatively to Burge before she looked at Rudi and addressed him steely-voiced. “You insist on reminding us of your youth at every opportunity.”
“I’m not an elf,” Burge muttered, running his gaze calmly up her seven-foot frame, “you unfortunate, mixed-up mass of glandular confusion.”
“What do you mean by that?” Rudi asked Blossom indignantly.
Garett interrupted before an argument broke out. These were his chosen officers, as well as his friends, but they didn’t always get along with each other. Rudi was the youngest and sometimes said thoughtless things, and both Burge and Blossom had tongues that could cut stone or tickle silk, however they chose to employ them.
“That’s enough.” Garett rapped once on his desk with his knuckles to draw their attention. “Rudi, you take a patrol to Queer Eye Street. Find Duncan and ask him to come to the Citadel. Tell him I need my palm read, or my tea leaves studied, whatever it is he does.”
“It may take a little time,” Rudi said, rising to his feet. “He doesn’t have a shop front. He works the streets and the street corners.”
“Just find him,” Garett repeated. “Blossom already has her assignment. I want to know everything about these Old Town murders. 'You’re right; we haven’t really done enough to check them out. You get me the details, and get me those watchmen.”
Burge uncrossed his legs and stood up. “What about me, Cap’n?”
Garett put on his best false smile. “It’s a beautiful night,” he said slyly. “You and I are going to take a little walk down to the Slum Quarter.”
Burge put a hand dramatically to his chest. “I haven’t a thing to wear.”
“Rip something,” Blossom suggested helpfully.
“Like a stomach muscle,” Rudi added with a caustic note
as he opened the door and exited.
“Nice kid,” Burge commented as his eyes met Garett’s. “Were his mother and father by any chance brother and sister?”
A high wall, so ancient it was blackened with stone-rot from the heat of old fires, separated Old Town from the New City, and the Black Gate, as it was called, was the only entrance or egress. Beyond the Black Gate lay the Slum Quarter and the Thieves’ Quarter, and the guards kept a careful record and a sharp eye on those who traveled back and forth, for no one did so on honorable business.
Garett and Burge took a single lantern from the gatehouse, and after exchanging a few pleasantries with the guards on duty, they passed under the gate’s imposing arch and into the Thieves’ Quarter, the most dangerous part of Greyhawk.
There were no street lamps in Old Town, and the darkness was oppressive. The Processional became an ill-kept road, full of ruts and holes, littered with refuse. Even the buildings in Old Town looked tired and weary. They leaned at odd angles on settled foundations. Shutters hung on broken hinges, and chimneys pitched precipitously, as if at any moment they might crumble and slide into the street below.
A few taverns were still open. This close to the gate, few businesses flourished. A bored young noble with a taste for adventure—but not too much adventure—might wander this way for a drink and brag about it afterward to his friends. Some of the lower quarter’s citizens sometimes preferred to take their pleasures on the south side of the Black Gate, rather than venture into the River Quarter, where their poorer clothes might subject them to scorn and prejudice.
And of course there was the usual assortment of thugs and ruffians and low-life characters one would expect to find in the most impoverished section of the city. Men could hide in the labyrinth that was the Thieves’ Quarter and never be found again. Indeed, most of Greyhawk’s criminal element did just that. This quarter was home not only to the city’s powerful and devious Thieves’ Guild, but to the Assassins’ Guild and the Beggars’ Union as well.
The sound of raucous laughter spilled suddenly into the street. A door crashed open unexpectedly, and somebody sprawled face down in the road at Burge’s feet. A large man, his bald head gleaming in the lamplight, suddenly appeared in the doorway, his hands curled into fists. Several others crowded quickly behind him, expecting the fight to continue.
The man at Burge’s feet gave a moan and rolled over. He stared upward in confusion for a moment, his panicked gaze swiftly raking over the two men above him before he s
hot a glance toward the door. Then he gave another moan, scrambled to his feet, and disappeared up a narrow alley.
The large man and his comrades directed hard stares at the two City Watch officers before returning to their drinks and gaming tables. Someone closed the door, shutting in the light that had spilled onto the street. Garett and Burge both felt the surreptitious eyes that watched through the cracked shutters as they started down the Processional again.
“Wonder what that was all about?” Burge said conversationally.
Garett shrugged. “I’ll wait if you care to make inquiries.”
But neither had any intention of returning to the tavern. Their scarlet cloaks and star-embroidered tunics meant little in the Thieves’ Quarter after dark. They were not afraid. They just weren’t looking for that kind of trouble tonight.
Just ahead, three more men stepped out of another tavern and halted when they saw the gleam of Burge’s lantern. For an instant, they stared at the pair of watchmen, their expressions surly, and Garett thought there would yet be trouble. One man’s hand drifted toward his sword, and he tossed the corner of his cloak back over one shoulder to make sure the trio saw that he was armed. After a moment more, the three exchanged dark glances and wandered down the street and around a corner.
“Lower the hood a bit,” Garett told Burge. His lieutenant fingered a small lever on the side of the lantern, and a thin metal panel slid down a few inches over the glass front, narrowing the aperture through which the light shined. The amber pool surrounding them drew in by half, and Garett nodded approval as his eyes adjusted to the new darkness.
As they walked farther on, the blackness and the silence deepened. Ramshackle tenements rose on either side of them, old wooden structures barely fit for habitation. In a good wind, they swayed and groaned, and timbers could be heard as they cracked under the stress. In Garett’s memory, two such tenements had collapsed without warning. Seven bodies had been found in the ruins of the first. No one had bothered to excavate the other.
“We’re bein’ watched,” Burge announced in a whisper. Though he continued to face straight ahead, his eyes raked from side to side.
“Of course,” Garett answered without hesitation.
The old wooden boards of Kastern’s Bridge creaked softly underfoot as they passed above the shallow waters of the South Stream. The bridge, named for its architect, was one of the oldest surviving structures in all of Greyhawk, dating from the city’s earliest village days. The square-cut stones that made its supporting arches had been quarried and brought all the way from the Cairn Hills by cart and set in place by hand.
South Stream made a pleasant enough sound in the quiet night, but a mild odor caused Garett to rub his nose. The stream was a narrow, meandering ribbon that actually began at the upper end of the High Quarter, where it was called, logically enough, North Stream. But as it flowed southward, it collected most of the city’s waste and refuse. By the time it passed under the Black Wall, it was quite unsanitary.
A few of the poorest citizens still drew their water from the stream’s banks and sometimes fished in it for their suppers, a thought that made Garett shudder, since so much of the city’s sewage also emptied into it. Still, he had seen hungry men do worse. He wondered, though, if Greyhawk hadn’t grown too large for its own good, when it couldn’t take better care of its citizens.
Once across the bridge, they left the Processional and turned up the Serpent’s Back, a twisting, shadowed street that ran diagonally through the Thieves’ Quarter into the Slum Quarter. Ancient warehouses, long unused, rose on either side of them. Dark holes could be seen in the faint moonlight where the roofs had fallen through.
“Damn!” Burge muttered suddenly, stopping, and lifting one foot. The lantern revealed the look of disgust on his face as he hopped aside and scraped his boot several times on the ground. A noxious odor wafted up from the spot where he had stood a moment before. “Stepped in somethin’,” he added needlessly.
“Smells like a couple of fools to me,” a gruff voice said from overhead.
“Come on down,” Garett invited calmly, not bothering to look toward the source. “I was getting tired of listening to you breathe up there.”
A lithe shadow dropped to the ground in front of him. In its hands it clutched a stout club. Three more figures landed noisily in the street behind them, blocking that way. Garett turned only enough to ascertain they carried similar weapons.
“You might have told me they were there,” Burge whispered as he moved to Garett’s side and turned to face the three. His sword was already in his hand.
“I didn’t want to upset you,” Garett answered with quiet sarcasm. “There’s only four of them.”
Actually, Burge’s hearing and eyesight were considerably superior to Garett’s, thanks to his father’s elven blood. “Afraid not, Cap’n,” Burge muttered.
“Four, did you say?” the leader interrupted, proving the quality of his own hearing. He snapped his fingers. Just up the street, another pair of figures stepped out of the shadows. As far as Garett could tell, they still only carried clubs, though it was possible they had daggers tucked into their belts.
“You’re on our turf,” the leader commented, clearly thinking himself in command of the situation. He was a wiry little fellow, perhaps a third of Garett’s age, though most of his teeth were already missing. A gleam of desperation burned in his eye, despite his mocking tone. He tapped his club against the palm of one hand in an intimidating manner. “You want to use the Serpent’s Back, you got to pay a toll. You haven’t paid the toll yet, General.” Garett frowned. “It’s captain,” he responded dryly as he studied the figure before him.
He’d encountered such gangs in Old Town before, rover packs of desperate youths who usually preyed on the weaker, poorer members of the neighborhood. Lacking talent to win a place in the Thieves’ Guild, too proud to join the Beggars’ Union, and too stupid to learn a fair trade, they ran wild, depending on their numbers for survival. It was unusual for a gang to come this far north, though. They usually stayed to the southern part of the Slum Quarter.
This group, then, probably counted itself as one of the more important and daring of the Slum Quarter gangs. The possessions of a couple of city watchmen would make nice trophies they could show off. No doubt they would win a lot of respect from rival gangs.
Too bad for them it wasn’t going to be that way.
“We can do this politely,” Garett suggested reasonably, addressing the leader. “Let’s just go our separate ways and pretend we never saw each other. No embarrassment for either of us. My men at headquarters won’t laugh at me for walking into your very clever trap . . .” Garett shrugged and turned his palms outward in a gesture of offering. “And you don’t get your guts handed to you by my nasty-tempered friend here.” He put an arm around Burge’s shoulder, and the half-elf gave a low growl.
The gang leader put on a smirk. “He don’t look so nasty to the six of us,” he proclaimed, emphasizing their greater numbers. “Now the toll on the Serpent’s Back is kind of expensive this time of night. First, it’ll cost you your swords. Then, we’ll see what else you got.”
“Don’t he know, Cap’n,” Burge said in a mocking voice as he waved the sword he’d already drawn easily before him, “that it’s illegal for a citizen to carry a sword on the streets without a proper license?”
The leader watched Burge’s sword warily. The blade gleamed with a mesmeric quality in the amber light that seeped through the lantern’s narrowed aperture.
“That’s true,” Garett replied. “ you don’t have a license, do you?” he said to the leader.
An impatient voice from behind them hissed sharply. “Enough of this, Burko! Let’s just bash ’em and take their stuff before somebody else comes!”
“Now that would be really stupid, Burko,” Garett warned quickly before the gang leader could think it over. “There are six of you, yes, but you’ve only got clubs.” At least, he hoped they only had clubs
. At most, some might have daggers or knives, but if they did, surely they’d have them out by now. With a hasty glance around, he still counted only clubs.
“On the other hand,” he continued, “we’ve not only got swords, but these long, ugly stickers, here.” He gestured toward the long-bladed daggers both he and Burge wore on their belts. “Now, even if we weren’t watch officers, even if we hadn’t had a bit of training in our lives, it’s still a safe bet one or two of you would die before you bludgeon us.”
“All you have to do, little boy,” Burge said, openly taunting them now, “is figure out which of you is gonna get it.” He laid the flat of his blade back on his shoulder, as if it were a shovel or an axe being carried home at the end of a long day’s work.
Garett watched Burko carefully, noting the doubt that crept over the young man’s face. It might still be possible to bring this to an end without killing one of them. “Let’s give them a sporting chance, my friend,” Garett said with a wink to Burge.
Burge frowned and shook his head with great drama. “I don’t know, Cap’n. They might be tougher’n they look.” With a show of reluctance, though, he sheathed his sword.
“Look at ’em, Burko!” hissed the voice behind them again. “They’re laughing at you! A couple of soft-bellied New Towners in their prissy uniforms, and they’re laughing at you!”
“Shut up, Whisper!” Burko yelled suddenly, loud enough to be heard several blocks away in the stillness of the Slum Quarter. It was an amazingly careless thing to do. There were always rival gangs in the quarter who might decide to drop in on Burko and try to take his captives away from him and stomp Burko in the bargain. Burko knew it, too. It showed in the way his gaze suddenly raked along the rooftops above them.
“Last chance, lobbers! ” Burko said with frantic intensity, obviously feeling the pressure from his gang to do something, at the same time realizing he might have bitten off more than his small mouth could chew. He tried to bluff his way through now. “You gonna give up them weapons? We might let you walk out of here alive! ”
D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch Page 6
