by Conrad Mason
Without waiting for the others to follow, she strode off down the alleyway.
A figure stepped from a hiding place in the shadows, into her path. A hunched, twisted figure, wearing long gray robes.
An old woman.
Ice pounded through Grubb’s veins. The moment stretched on and on.
Where is the wooden spoon?”
Her voice was thunderous and ragged, like the bellow of a wild beast.
“Give it to me. Give it to me now.”
Grubb tried to stir his body into action, but it was too late. She was right in front of him, without seeming to move at all. Savage fingers clawed at his throat, gripping and squeezing so hard that he let out a gurgling cry of pain. He could feel the spoon tucked into his belt and braced himself for the clatter of wood on cobbles. But the spoon stayed put, where his oversize shirt hid it from view.
“Where is it?” she hissed. Her voice had transformed into something low, deadly, and insidious. “I know you have it, mongrel. He told me you had it. Tell me where it is, or I’ll kill you.”
Grubb had no idea what to do. Maybe it was the witch’s magic, or maybe it was just blind terror. But either way, his body was paralyzed, and his mind was as empty as a blue sky.
He could see every detail of her crooked face, every crease and wrinkle. Her nose was hooked like a seagull’s beak, and most terrifying of all were the eyes, cold and black as obsidian. He felt light-headed, as if he was going to faint or be sick, or both.
And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tabitha. Her face was flushed, her eyes were shining, and Grubb knew what she was going to do.
“No, no, no,” he burbled. “No.”
Tabitha shoved him into the wall. He flew out of the witch’s grasp, and the fog lifted from his mind.
The wooden spoon was gone. And yes, there it was, in Tabitha’s hand.
“No,” he yelled again, uselessly.
But already she was sprinting down the alley, heading for the backstreets.
“Save yourselves,” she called out, her voice shrill with excitement.
Newton’s words came back to Grubb. You were reckless. I’ve told you before, this isn’t a game.
The old woman was smiling. He couldn’t see it—her face was hidden in the shadow of her hood—but he knew it all the same.
“Stop,” he said pathetically. “Please stop. Leave her alone.” But his voice was just a hoarse whisper, and before he could try again, there was a blur of gray and the witch was gone, flying after Tabitha so fast it was as if she didn’t need to touch the ground.
At last, his stupid body leaped into action. He scrambled up and began to run. But instead of carrying him down the alley, his feet connected with something, and for the second time that day he found himself heading for the cobblestones, face-first.
Not again.
Ouch.
His shirt was soaked through. He rolled over and found a figure crouching above him.
“Come on, matey,” said Phineus Clagg. “You can’t do ’er no good now. Thought you had some sense in yer.”
Grubb struggled to get up, but the smuggler gripped his shirt and held him down.
“Let me go. I have to help her!”
“Don’t be such a bilge brain. What do yer think a little goblin boy can do against a witch like that, eh?”
“You don’t understand, I … I need to …”
“You need to calm down is what you need to do.”
Grubb looked around for help and saw the Bootles. They were clinging on to each other, staring down the alley toward where Tabitha and the witch had disappeared. Their eyes were as big as cannonballs; their faces as white as sails.
Immediately, Grubb knew that the smuggler was right.
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to pull himself together. “Of course. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight. We’ve got to get to the lighthouse, like Newton said.”
“That’s more like it.” Clagg rose, offering him a hand to haul himself up. “Good luck then, matey.”
“What … What do you mean, good luck?”
Clagg turned up the collar of his coat and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“I ain’t going to that lighthouse so your Captain Newton can throw me in jail.”
Grubb felt himself being carried away on a wave of desperation.
“But you can’t go. I thought you—”
“Look here. Yer a good lad, and I ain’t going to watch you run off to yer death. But I ain’t going to do what yer tell me neither. Far as I’m concerned, the contraband’s been delivered now. Not the way I would’ve liked, but you can’t have everything. So there’s nothing to keep me in this port of yours anymore.”
“You mean you’re going to leave?”
Clagg hesitated.
“Why don’t yer come with me, eh? Get out of this mess, matey, that’s my advice.”
Grubb could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“But what about these old folk? What about Tabitha?”
Clagg shrugged.
“Suit yerself. Me, I’m going for another plate o’ them eels. Ain’t tasted eels that good in a long time. And after that, I’m getting out o’ this scurvy town. Ain’t been nothing but trouble since I got here.”
He winked, turned, and disappeared into the darkness.
Grubb watched him go, in a daze. “Fine,” he said at the receding figure. “You do whatever you want. Don’t bother worrying about anyone else.”
But there was nothing he could do.
Grubb began to realize that his neck was aching from the witch’s grasp. He reached up and found it was wet—horribly wet, and sticky. He looked down and saw drops of blood soaking into his shirt. For a moment he felt like he might faint, but he managed to rally himself. There were still things to be done. People were relying on him, and not just the trolls—Captain Newton and the Demon’s Watch. He wasn’t going to let them down, whether they were alive or … not alive.
The Bootles had barely moved throughout everything that had happened, except to shudder with fear and cold.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” he told them, trying to sound confident despite the gunfire still cracking in the distance. “Let’s get out of here.”
He strode off, dabbing at his throat with a sleeve, and got almost halfway down the alley before he had to stop.
“Umm …” he said. “Which way are we supposed to be going?”
Slik couldn’t wait for the fun to begin.
The rain was easing up now, and from his position—crouched on a rooftop opposite the pie shop, sheltering in the lee of a chimney—he had an excellent view of the action.
He could see Cyrus Derringer in the alley below, kneeling behind a barrel, using a spyglass to try to see inside Bootles’. Behind the elf, a black-coated, gray-haired militia magician waited for orders. Slik reckoned he’d spotted all of Derringer’s men now. There were five hidden in the shadows to the left of the pie shop, bayonets fixed. Another five on the right. Muffled voices came from the chimney beside him, enough to suggest that Derringer had a detachment in the upper floor of the house too.
A triple-pronged attack: textbook stuff. Just what you’d expect from an old stick-in-the-mud like Derringer.
Slik licked his lips. It had been a surprise to find the blackcoats here, of course. He probably should have gone straight back to Jeb the Snitch and warned him to hold off. But this was too good a chance to miss. What was going to happen when Jeb showed up with his dangerous friend? Slik didn’t know, but he’d bet his left wing it would be entertaining.
Derringer checked his pocket watch and slid his sword from its scabbard.
Then, gunfire.
It came from down the street. Scattered pistol shots and a tinkle of broken glass, followed by whooping and the strains of drunken, loud sea shanties, sung horribly out of tune. Derringer lowered his sword, turned to his magician, and spoke in a fast whisper.
Slik grinned. Here we go.
A crowd of figures rounded the corner, carrying burning firebrands that lit up the street and one another. They were a rabble of humans, dwarves, elves, imps, goblins, trolls, and ogres, at least forty strong, armed with cutlasses, blunderbusses, knives, clubs, and axes. Most of them had daubed on crude black war paint, or knotted handkerchiefs around their faces. They came to a shambling halt in front of Bootles’ Pie Shop, tossing their empty grog bottles to smash on the walls, sniggering and joking with one another and generally looking extremely unpleasant. One of them held a long pole with a black flag attached. It flicked out in the wind, revealing a large white skull with a white cleaver stitched underneath.
Jeb’s dangerous friend stepped out of the crowd, squat and bald as ever. He was dressed in his usual black waistcoat with no shirt underneath, so Slik could see his prosthetic arm—a network of carved wood and rusted metal.
Captain Gore.
This time, there was a large serrated blade attached where his left hand should be, and in his right hand he held a rusty, outsize butcher’s cleaver. Jeb the Snitch stood at his side, dressed in a ludicrous pink coat. He looked very, very pleased with himself. Gore just looked very, very angry.
“This it, Jeb?” asked Gore.
“That’s right.”
“Good. Nobody tricks Captain Gore and gets away with it. Nobody.”
He threw his head back and roared, sound ripping from his throat. It should have been bloodcurdling, but Slik wasn’t scared that easily.
“PHINEUS CLAGG,” the pirate bellowed at the pie shop. “GIVE ME PHINEUS CLAGG!”
“And the wooden spoon,” said Jeb, rubbing his hands together.
“AND THE WOODEN SPOON!”
Slik heard Newton’s voice from inside.
“Why don’t you come and get it, you bilge rat?”
There were whistles of disbelief and one or two angry shouts.
“You’ll regret saying that, Newt,” sneered Jeb.
“Only thing I regret is trusting you, you two-faced lowlife.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve no one to blame but yourself. I always told you, Newt. You can’t trust nobody in this town. Not even yer own fairy. It was him who put us onto you, in case you were wondering.”
There was no reply.
Captain Gore turned to his men and grunted.
“Slaughter them, boys. All of them. Take no prisoners.”
Pistols clicked as they were cocked, and blades slithered and scraped from their sheaths.
Slik giggled with delight. The best bit was, the pirates were all too drunk or stupid to have noticed the militiamen. Derringer’s blackcoats were still in hiding, waiting for orders, while their leader tried to decide what in all the wide blue sea he should do.
There was a musket crack from the room below, followed by an ill-concealed curse. Slik dodged back out of sight behind the chimney, as several pirates turned to look upward.
“What was that?” he heard one say stupidly.
Idiots, thought Slik. The whole lot of them.
As if to prove his point, there was a sudden battle cry from the right-hand side of the pie shop. He leaned around the chimney and spotted one of the militia detachments come pounding out from their hiding place, leveling bayonets at the startled pirates.
“Yaargh,” yelled the blackcoats. “Yaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”
Idiots.
“Attack!” barked Derringer, leaping from behind his barrel. “Attaaaaack!”
Musket fire erupted from the room below, answered by more gunfire from the pie shop. The militia magician stood up, flinging out his arms and sending a shimmering shock wave smack into the nearest pirate. A crossbow bolt smashed a window. Another zinged over the rooftop beside Slik, wildly off target. A grenadoe arced its way out of Bootles’ and landed among the pirate crew, with a flash and a deafening bang.
The pirates were caught in a cross fire. They panicked, charging blindly in all directions, hacking and slashing with their weapons.
“Militia!” roared Captain Gore. “Take them down!”
“Barricades!” shouted Newton, bringing his volley gun down with a hefty thump onto the head of a pirate who was trying to clamber through the window. The man went limp and dropped the knife he’d been holding with his teeth. He hung, half in and half out of the shop.
If Newton ever got ahold of Slik, that fairy was going to be in big trouble.
The door shook as pirates slammed into the other side.
“Frank, Paddy, prop up that door.”
The troll twins slung their weapons on their shoulders and started dragging over tables and chairs.
Old Jon let fly with one of his muskets and was rewarded with a squeal of pain. Calmly, he began to reload.
“How’s that spell coming, Hal?” called Newton, pulling a pistol from the unconscious pirate’s belt.
“I’m trying to concentrate,” said Hal through gritted teeth. “These aren’t exactly perfect conditions for magic, you know.”
Newton grunted and fired the pistol.
“Fine. Hate to rush you.”
On the far side of the room, a pirate was clambering through a broken window. Frank leaped at him, belted him round the head with a stool, and shoved him back outside again.
Another came through the next window along, and Paddy stepped up, parrying a cutlass blow with his grenadoe gun, then gripping the pirate by his collar and heaving him into the room. The man’s head connected with a table, knocking him out with a dull thud.
The door shook again. They didn’t have much time before …
And there it was at last—the familiar shiver of a spell being cast. Newton turned to see Hal’s hands filling with black smoke. Within seconds, it had spread out into every part of the room, blocking everything from view.
“There,” said Hal, from somewhere in the fog. “Are we happy now?”
“Not until we’re out of here. Everybody move!”
The watchmen scrambled out of the room, firing as they went.
Newton was the last to leave. As he went, he tugged out his tinderbox, lit the fuses of the last few grenadoes, and tossed them through the window. There was no need to stay and hear the result. He flung himself out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him.
The walls shuddered as the grenadoes went off.
Newton wiped sweat from his brow.
“Which way to the cellar?” he said. “Reckon it’s about time to get out of here.”
Slik couldn’t stop grinning as he watched the Snitch flee headlong down the street, the goblin’s polished shoes spraying muck onto his fancy pink coat. This was absolutely the best thing he’d seen in ages. Plenty of blood and guts, and here on the rooftop he had a great view with no danger whatsoever. The only thing that could possibly make it any better would be a nice big sugar lump to suck on.
He would have liked to see the Snitch get it in the neck too, to be honest, but the sight of him wetting his breeches and running away like a frightened mouse was good enough. And anyway, there were much more exciting things to see in front of the pie shop.
The pirates had got into a right tizzy when they were attacked on both sides, and already many of them were wounded or dead. Now they were fighting back though, and their natural savagery was overcoming the blackcoats’ training. Slik sniggered as one militiaman fell onto the cobblestones, squashed under the weight of three freebooters. The blackcoat magician was still casting the odd spell, but he was sweating and panting from the effort, and Slik reckoned he wouldn’t last much longer. On the left-hand side of the shop, Bosun Tuck was cutting a swath through the blackcoats, his cutlass swinging in great, bloody arcs.
The tattooed ogre was impressive, but he was nothing compared to Cyrus Derringer. The elf moved steadily into the midst of the enemy, his sword arm dancing with deadly speed. Slik followed each deft blow, each parry, and each lunge. Elves were usually pretty fast, of course, but this was something else. Derringer ducked a whistling ax blade, punched its owner in th
e guts, swiveled, deflected two cutlasses that were swinging toward him, shoved one of his attackers away, and slapped the other with the flat of his blade. And then Captain Gore stepped in, blocking his path.
Slik squealed with pleasure. It was a delicious contrast. The slender elf, with his elegant swordsmanship, versus the mad butchery and unstoppable strength of Captain Gore. All around them the fighting died down and a space cleared.
“Cut his bleeding head off!” roared the pirates.
The two leaders circled each other. Derringer’s blade seemed to slide snakelike through the air, while Gore hefted his massive cleaver, his blade hand held out in front like a pistol leveled at his opponent’s head. He hawked, spat, and leaped forward, his cleaver raised.
The pirates howled with excitement. Slik held his breath. Here it came. Death or glory. The greatest duel any of them would ever witness. A fight to the bitter end. Two champions, locked in mortal combat. It felt as if fate had brought the pair of them together for this one moment of intense—
There was a heavy thud as Captain Gore hit the ground.
Cyrus Derringer knelt and wiped his blade on the back of the pirate’s waistcoat. He looked utterly calm, as if he’d done nothing more than gut a fish. Blood spread through the cracks between the cobblestones.
It was over. And Slik hadn’t even seen the killing blow.
There were a full five seconds of silence before Bosun Tuck took the initiative. “Run away,” he croaked.
And the pirates turned tail and fled like cockroaches from a flame.
Slik banged the rooftop with his fist. It wasn’t fair! The fight had been getting better and better, and now the militia colonel had ruined it.
“The shop,” barked Derringer at his men. “Don’t just stand around—search the pie shop, you sea slugs.”
The militiamen began to advance warily, nervous of the black smoke that billowed from the pie shop’s windows and chimney.
But Slik had lost interest. With a flick of his wings he was away, skimming over the rooftops. That stinking Derringer and his fancy swordplay … Still, at least Newton and the Snitch had gotten what was coming to them. On balance, he decided, it had been a good night.
