Hammer and Bolter 24

by Christian Dunn

  The road behind the cart seemed to mend, firming to packed earth again, but with two deep grooves where the cartwheels had passed through it, filled with more of the sand. The cart had only two large wheels, and might have been pulled by a pair of horses, if the double yoke was any indication, but the little band was clearly impoverished, and the vehicle was being manhandled by two more slender, cloaked figures; who pushed from behind the yokes rather than pulling as a horse would.

  Their feet and hands were bound in dusty linen in the absence of cobbled shoes and stitched gloves, to protect them from the hazards along the road, and from the blisters and callouses that would result from driving the cart. The bowed heads were shrouded in the hoods of their cloaks, and their faces were not visible.

  Most of the cart’s contents were roughly covered with a tarpaulin that looked almost as if it had been made from a great canvas banner or sail, but which was filthy and threadbare, held together by the gritty dust that penetrated its weave. Stacked further back on the rocking cart, roped in place, were several earthenware jars made of a clay that was too pale and yellow to have come from the Empire. The jars were of similar sizes, no bigger than eighteen inches tall. They were round of belly with narrowing shoulders and carved wooden lids sealed in place, and they were heavily inscribed in a language that appeared to consist entirely of pictograms or hieroglyphs, which were so entirely alien that only two people living in Nuln at that time could decipher them, and one of them was now too old and too blind to attempt the task.

  The shape under the tarpaulin was roughly human, although rather larger than a man; the arms appeared to be crossed, resting on the torso and the feet stuck up slightly, as if the figure were resting peacefully on its back.

  The little group was only a matter of a few yards from the gate when Surn happened to look up from his hot breakfast. His mouth was open to allow the steam from his pie to escape, and to allow enough air into the mix to cool the morsel between his teeth so that it didn’t burn the inside of his mouth.

  The sight of the cart came as a shock to Surn as he had not heard it coming up the road, and he instinctively inhaled, when he should have swallowed, forcing a piece of gristle into his throat, so that he choked and gasped. The man standing next to him thumped Surn on the back with one bony fist, but his arms were so scrawny that there was little strength in them, and the lump of gristle remained lodged.

  Surn’s face reddened, and soon the fat man on the other side of him joined in the thumping, trying to revive the poor boy, whose mouth was still open, and who was trying to cough the scrap of food up with so little success that his lips were rapidly turning blue.

  The boss continued to eat his breakfast, his back to the road.

  Surn flapped and gestured, at the same time, distending his throat and neck, trying to dislodge the unfortunate blockage that was preventing him from warning his fellow guards of the arrival of the cart, not to mention cutting off his air supply.

  The pantomime continued for twenty or thirty more seconds, Surn becoming increasingly frantic for his life.

  At last, the guard boss wiped his oily fingers on the greasy paper his pasty had arrived in, and balled it up before tossing it onto the little fire in the brazier where it spat and gave off the stink of burning rancid fat. Then he came behind Surn.

  As he did so, the cart, pushed by its pair of human labourers, rolled past the guards as they shuffled back the few inches required to avoid having their feet crushed under its wheels. Not one of them noticed that a spray of sand, almost like the wake behind a fast moving, small boat came up over their boots, leaving a film of pale dust behind, unlike the dark, hard earth the track on that side of the city was actually made of.

  The guard boss raised a hand to the cart as it trundled past, noticing that the lead man lifted his staff a few extra inches off the ground, as if in acknowledgement as they passed beneath the arched portal that marked entry through the gate. Then he clasped Surn manfully around the torso from behind, and thrust his clenched fists into the boy’s sternum, twice. The second thrust caused the piece of mutton gristle to burst, dramatically from Surn’s throat and hit the stone of the arch where it stuck, wetly, for a moment.

  Surn placed a hand flat on his chest, bent double and heaved in a huge, gasping breath.

  He blinked and looked down at his boots. He lifted one of them and the feint layer of sand that coated them shifted, collecting in the creases of the worn out leather. Surn replaced his foot on the earth and looked after the cart, but he could neither see nor hear it.

  ‘What was that?’ he asked.

  ‘A waste of good gristle,’ said the hungry, fat guard.

  ‘The cart,’ said Surn, finally standing upright. He pointed through the archway and then down at his boots. ‘What was the cart?’

  ‘Just a cart,’ said the skinny legged man.

  Surn looked his boss hard in the face.

  ‘What?’ asked his boss.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Surn. ‘Only this.’

  And with that, Surn pointed at his worn boot and then kicked the arched wall with the toe of it, sending a puffing cloud of gritty, yellow dust billowing up from it. He did the same with his other boot.

  The boss took his chin in his hand and looked from Surn’s face to his boots.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘your boots are dusty.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Surn, ‘but so are yours, boss. And when are your boots ever dusty?’

  The boss looked down at his boots. He took his pristine, white neckerchief from around his throat, and rested the toe of his left boot on the wall so that he could wipe it without bending double. Sandy yellow dust came away on the neckerchief, leaving a smudge of staining ochre on the clean linen.

  The boss held the neckerchief up to his face and flinched slightly.

  ‘It’s hot,’ he said, ‘and it smells of... I know not what.’

  ‘It’s just dust,’ said the fat guard. ‘Are you going to finish this pie, or shall I eat it before it goes cold?’

  ‘Dust comes from somewhere,’ said the boss. ‘This dust didn’t come from these parts. ‘The earth here is brown, or grey since the plague, and sometimes it’s black. There’s the clay brought in from the west that comes in red, and a spot of chalk if you go far enough north, but this is yellow. Where’s the nearest yellow earth?’

  ‘So, they’ve come a long way,’ said the fat guard.

  ‘If they’ve come so far, why haven’t they left the yellow earth far behind, why are they still scattering it?’

  The boss looked at the cloth again, and smelled it.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Surn. ‘What does it smell of?’

  ‘It smells of the hottest, driest day of the hottest, driest summer of your life, boy,’ said the boss, ‘and then some.’

  The boss lifted his nose from his neckerchief and wheezed to catch his breath. As he coughed, his lips shrivelled and cracked, and he reached for his canteen, suddenly parched. Then, he blinked hard, his eyes suddenly tearless and gritty.

  ‘Is the professor still talking about sand?’ asked the little bit of a girl, whose name was Gianna, and who had raided her father’s supply of decent ale for her visitors.

  ‘He is,’ said Fithvael, ‘but I feel sure he’s getting to the point.’

  ‘How long has it been?’ asked Laban.

  ‘Who asked you?’ asked Gilead. ‘What are you still doing here? It will soon be dawn, and the horses need tending.’

  ‘Shall I never live it down?’ asked Laban, slumping onto his elbows so that he was almost lying on his back on the hard flags of the tavern floor.

  Gianna leaned over and touched Laban on the top of his head with her free hand, as if he were some child to be indulged.

  ‘I’ve forgiven you already,’ she said, smiling.

  Gilead looked from Gianna to Laban.

  ‘The horses,’ he said.

  Laban got elegantly and swiftly to his feet, making sure that he didn’t lock out his knees,
avoiding banging his head on the low ceiling beams of the small room.

  ‘Try not to be seen,’ said Gilead, ‘and close the door and the gate behind you.’

  ‘It’s the composition,’ said Professor Mondelblatt. ‘Every region has its very own combination of silica and quartz, and earth and stone compounds; every area has its own specific balance of biological matter and geological, so that with careful study it’s possible to determine within a matter of miles where any sand sample originated from. Then there’s the range of sizes and colours of the individual grains, the weight and density of a sample, how powdery it is, for example, how silty. There’s a fine line to be drawn between silt and sand, I could debate it for hours.’

  ‘You have debated it for hours,’ said Fithvael, ‘and still I do not understand what it is you are trying to tell us, old man.’

  ‘I can tell you nothing,’ said Mondelblatt, surprised. ‘By what means did you presume I could impart any knowledge to you about what is to come, what must befall?’

  ‘Why are we here?’ Fithvael asked Gilead.

  ‘He knows,’ said Gilead. ‘You know old man.’

  ‘What I know,’ said Mondelblatt, ‘has taken a lifetime to learn. If only you trusted me, I might impart a small portion of it, but you will never trust me as you should.’

  ‘You can keep us all locked up in here for as long as you like,’ said Gianna, pouring more ale into Mondelblatt’s glass. ‘I can’t say I mind, especially not with my old dad incapacitated for once, and serve him right. You brung the old professor here for a reason, though, and that big boy out there, he’s worse than useless. So, if you get my drift, I’m thinking that you’ve run out of choices. Show the professor a bit of respect and find out what you need to know.’

  Gilead did not look at Gianna nor answer her. She finished pouring, and harrumphed slightly before wandering away from the little table where the two elves and the old man continued to sit.

  ‘She’s right,’ said Fithvael. ‘What harm can it do?’

  ‘To trust him?’ asked Gilead.

  ‘It’s what you came for,’ said Mondelblatt.

  There was an almighty crash from somewhere above, followed by a thud and the tinkle of falling glass. Fithvael was out of his chair in an instant, but Gianna, already on her feet, was quicker, and she flew up the wooden steps at the side of the room.

  ‘He had to wake some time, and he’ll be as mad as a bear,’ she said, over her shoulder.

  Mondelblatt’s gaze followed the girl as she disappeared at the top of the steep staircase.

  ‘See,’ he said, pointing, ‘look there. They’re all over the city. All over my beautiful Nuln. It was only a matter of time.’

  ‘We should go,’ said Fithvael. ‘It isn’t fair to the girl to keep her father subdued.’

  ‘I think she rather likes him like that,’ said Gilead. ‘Better to keep him unconscious and remain here than to render every man that sees us in the city unconscious. With Laban for company, we’ll leave a trail of bodies.’

  With that, Laban entered the tavern again.

  ‘I heard a noise,’ he said. ‘A window broke. There was shouting.’

  ‘See to it,’ said Gilead, pointing up the stairs.

  When Laban entered the room at the back of the tavern that looked out over the yard, he saw Gianna and her father in a stand-off, one on either side of the narrow bed. The tavern keeper was trying to grab at his daughter, growling at her like the bear with a sore head he surely was. Gianna was trying, not very hard, to placate him. The elves made her brave, and she had taken too much grief from her bullying parent for too long. She goaded him.

  ‘I’ll set them on you. I’ll make you pay. You’ve paid already, you old goat. They’ve been drinking your ale all night long, and serve you right. I doubt they’ll pay, either, since they can tie you up and do what they will with you.’

  The tavern keeper growled again and lashed out, swinging his left arm across the bed, still trailing the length of rope that had restrained him, but which he had broken free of.

  Laban reached out a hand, almost nonchalantly, and took a firm hold of the rope. With a twist and a tug, he turned the fat man onto his side and pulled him onto the bed, where he hogtied him.

  ‘I’ll see Sigmar’s great wrath come down on you... you beast!’ said the tavern keeper, but without any force in his words, since his face had paled and his heart was beating too fast. He did not like the elves. He did not understand them, and he was very much afraid of their presence in his establishment. He knew that if he should live long enough to see them leave, he would become the hero of his own modified tale about that night, but, until then, he was a coward and he knew it.

  Laban sighed.

  ‘Go on then,’ said Gianna, gesturing towards her father with a look approximating glee on her small, pretty face.

  Laban sighed again, and then he cuffed the tavern keeper high on his shoulder, against his neck, so that he rendered the fat man unconscious once more while trying to inflict the least possible damage on him. As it was, he’d wake up with a fearful ache.

  ‘I never could stand listening to the old goat whining,’ said Gianna, ‘and, Sigmar help me, I’ve been doing it for long enough. Now, what’s next?’

  Laban and Gianna emerged from the top of the staircase, the elf bending at the shoulder as he descended the stairs.

  ‘He won’t wake again any time soon,’ said Gianna, wiping her hands on her apron as she stepped off the bottom stair. ‘Feels like breakfast time, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘Then we stay,’ said Gilead.

  ‘What are all over Nuln?’ he asked Mondelblatt. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The signs,’ said Mondelblatt, ‘they are all over the city.’

  ‘What signs?’ asked Gilead.

  ‘Signs of things to come,’ said Mondelblatt. ‘Signs carved into the fabric of my beautiful city. I see them everywhere. I see them in the gargoyles and waterspouts and drain covers of the temples and shrines. I see them in the gable-ends and muntins and keystones of the colleges of the university, and I see them in the fence posts and banisters, and handrails and beams of the taverns and houses.’

  ‘And you see them here?’ asked Gilead.

  ‘Don’t you?’ asked Mondelblatt.

  ‘I will when you show them to me,’ said Gilead.

  ‘Then we must begin,’ said Mondelblatt.

  ‘It’s three blokes and a cart,’ said the fat guard. ‘How much trouble could they possibly be? Besides, they’re in, now, and what could we have stopped them for?’

  ‘Don’t we have a responsibility?’ asked Surn. ‘Aren’t we here to keep the city safe?’

  The fat guard and the one with the skinny limbs looked at Surn and then at each other, and then they laughed. The fat guard laughed so hard that he had to put his hands flat on his knees so as not to over-balance, and he stood like that for several long moments, laughing deep and soundlessly in his throat.

  The boss, though not inclined to work harder than was absolutely necessary, did not join in with the merriment.

  ‘What do you think we should do?’ he asked Surn.

  ‘We didn’t stop them,’ said Surn, ‘so we didn’t do our job. Did we?’

  ‘Supposing we had stopped them?’ asked the boss. ‘What then?’

  ‘We might have found a reason to turn them away,’ said Surn.

  ‘We might,’ said the boss, ‘and we might not. If we’d found a reason to turn them away, and they’d decided not to leave, what then?’

  ‘Then we’d have driven them off,’ said Surn. ‘After all, it was just three blokes and a cart, and we’re armed and trained.’

  The fat guard bent low over his knees, his face crimson with mirth.

  ‘They might have passed muster,’ said the boss.

  ‘Then at least we would have done our duty,’ said Surn.

  ‘You think we neglected our duty?’ asked the boss. ‘That’s a serious allegation.’r />
  ‘I do,’ said Surn, ‘but can’t we put it right?’

  ‘How can we put it right and fully man the gate?’ asked the boss. ‘Traffic has been light, but the sun is rising steadily, and there are bound to be more pedestrians and more wagons and carts to check and clear. It could be a long day. Is it wise to begin at a disadvantage?’

  ‘Three men can easily man the gate,’ said Surn. ‘There’re only ever three guards on this gate, except when there’s a trainee.’

  ‘But you’re the trainee,’ said the skinny limbed guard. ‘You’re the guard we can manage without.’

  ‘Then I shall volunteer,’ said Surn, standing tall, puffing out his chest, and resting his hand on the hilt of his stiletto blade.

  ‘Volunteer for what?’ asked the boss. ‘No one asked for a volunteer for anything.’

  ‘I volunteer to shadow the three blokes and their cart. I volunteer to watch them, to see where they are going and what they are doing. I volunteer to keep a close eye on them at all times and to report to the city guard if they transgress or circumvent any civil or criminal laws.’

  The fat guard, his hands on his knees, and his head so low that all anyone could see of him was the puce bald spot on the crown of his head, rocked gently with his silent laughter.

  ‘Since you put it like that,’ said the boss, with a wry smile, ‘you have my permission, for one shift only, to monitor said vehicle, and you may report back to me at the end of the allotted time.’

  Beaming, Surn bowed slightly to the bemused boss, and ducked quickly through the city gate, hugging the wall, making himself as inconspicuous as he possibly could while drawing far too much attention to himself simply by moving as no one else was likely to in a month of Sundays. He could have sauntered or wandered through the gate and gone unnoticed, but he skulked; he bobbed and wove, and he sneaked and insinuated. If anyone had been within a hundred yards of him, he would surely have drawn their gazes, but nobody was within a hundred yards of him on the outside of the city wall, except for his fellow guardsmen, and anyone within a hundred yards of him on the inside of the city wall was not within sight of him as he wedged himself into the corners and crevices between buildings, and skulked in the alleys and byways that had no windows looking onto them.