Bitter Gold Hearts

  “Then she’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Late, I’d guess. The winds are unfavorable.”

  It was something to think about. I didn’t have enough to ruminate already.

  The alley was filled with the huge black hulk of a four-horse closed coach. And two gargantuan characters with shiny eyes and sparkly fangs grinned down from twenty feet. “Hi, guys.”

  They were grolls — half troll, half giant, green by day­light, all mean, and tougher than a herd of thunder-lizards. I knew these two. They were two-thirds of triplets who had gone with me into the Cantard to bring out a woman who had inherited a bundle. Despite what we had been through together, I hadn’t the slightest notion whether or not I dared trust them.

  They had been cursed with unlikely names, Doris and Marsha.

  “A little of what I call ally insurance,” Morley told me. “You think I’m a raving moron for bringing Chodo in?”

  “No. I think you think it’ll get you out from under your debts. I hope you’re right.”

  “You’re a cynical and suspicious character, Garrett.”

  “It’s people like you who make me that way.”

  Morley’s troops were inside the coach and Saucer head was clambering aboard. Crask and Sadler were up on the guard’s and driver’s seats, donning the traditional tall hats and dark cloaks. Each man had immediate access to a pair of powerful, ready crossbows. Such items are necessary on TunFaire’s night streets if you’re rich enough to use a coach but not powerful enough to have its doors blazoned with the arms of someone like a stormwarden.

  Most high-class folk travel with outriders. We made do with a pair of grolls toting their favorite toys, head-bashers twelve feet long and almost too heavy for a runt like me to lift. Morley followed me into the coach, then leaned out and told Crask to go. The vehicle jerked into motion.

  “I suppose you’ve made a plan?” I said.

  “It’s all scoped out. That was one of the reasons I brought Chodo in. His boys know Gorgeous’s place. I’ve never seen it. And neither have you.”

  I grunted. The rest of the ride passed in silence.

  __XXXIV__

  Ogre town was quieter than death at that hour. There seems to be a cultural imperative that sends them to bed very late and brings them out in the after­noon. We were going in soon after most ogres had sacked out. The streets weren’t entirely deserted, but it made little difference. Those who were out were scavengers. They made a point of being blind to our presence. Twelve hours earlier or later we might have been in trouble. The streets would have featured a more treach­erous cast. We swung into a passage between buildings just wide enough for the coach, then continued until we could open the doors. Crask told us to disembark. We tumbled out. He backed the coach into the passage again so we could gather in the shadows, off the street.

  “That’s the place.” Morley indicated a four-story verti­cal rectangle a hundred yards down the street. “The whole thing belongs to Gorgeous. He had the buildings on either side demolished so nobody could get to him that way. We’re going after him that way.”

  “Wonderful.” Light still shone in a couple windows on the top two floors. “You’re a genius.”

  The buildings in Ogre Town are fifty to a hundred years older than the tenements in Fishwife’s Close. In many cases that showed. But they had built in brick and stone in those days and Gorgeous’s citadel had been kept up. It didn’t need to lean on neighbors to remain standing.

  There was a ghost of a promise of dawn.

  Morley said, “Doris and Marsha are going to climb the buildings on either side. They’ll drop ropes. Me, Crask, Blood, and Sarge will go up top the nearer one. The rest up the other. After we get our wind...” He droned on with the plan.

  “It sucks,” I told him.

  “You want to march in the front door and fight your way to the top?”

  “No. Hell, if I didn’t have questions to ask, I’d just go start a fire on the ground floor. Ought to go up that thing like smoke up a chimney.”

  “But you do want to ask questions. Ready? So let’s go.” Doris and Marsha were already gone, not bothering to wait out my protests.

  We were halfway there when the man came out the front door. His hands were shoved in his pockets and he was looking down. He was human, not ogre. He walked fifty feet toward us before he realized he wasn’t alone. He halted, looked at us, and his eyes bugged.

  “Bruno,” I hissed.

  He whirled and headed for the building.

  Sadler’s crossbow twanged.

  It was a damned good try for a snap shot. I think it clipped Bruno’s left arm. He veered right and headed up the street, concentrating on speed.

  “Let him go. I’ll hunt him down later,” I said. “He has some answers I need.”

  While I talked, Crask sped a bolt that split Bruno’s spine three inches below his neck. Sadler reached him seconds later and dragged the twitching body into the nearest shadows.

  “Thanks a bunch,” I snarled.

  Crask didn’t bother turning that embalmed face my way. Doris and Marsha reached the roofs of their respective structures. They anchored ropes and dropped them. In­side Gorgeous’s place the lights were dying. Saucer head and I stood at the foot of the rope. “You going to make it?” I asked.

  “You worry about yourself, Garrett. Ain’t nothing going to stop me now.” He started climbing. I held the rope taut. Saucer head went up like he was seventeen and had never been hurt in his life. Sadler followed with not one but two crossbows slung on his back, then the Puddle. Lucky Garrett got to do it with no one to tauten the rope. When I reached the roof, I found that Marsha had already leaped to Gorgeous’s roof. Saucer head was tying off the rope the groll had tossed back. Sadler was leaning on the chimney that anchored both ropes, sighting one crossbow on the top-floor window. Light still leaked through its shutters. I wondered if Marsha’s rooftop landing had been heard below. I didn’t see how Gorgeous could help but be forewarned with nearly two tons of groll prancing over his head. Puddle joined Marsha. Saucer head and I followed. I pretended the void below was really just water a foot beneath my dangling toes.

  The pretense didn’t help.

  Sadler stayed where he was. He untied the rope so Marsha could haul it across and resumed his lethal posture. Marsha bent one end of the rope into a harness for me. As I got into it I wondered what was wrong with Gor­geous and his boys. Were they deaf? Or just chuckling as they got a little surprise ready for us?

  I was going to find out all too quickly. There was enough light now to see Morley getting into a similar rig. Doris hoisted him and dangled him over the side.

  The universe twisted. An abyss appeared beneath me. I turned at the end of the rope, glimpsing Sadler aiming too close for contentment. Marsha swung me in against the brick, then over to peek through the cracks in the shutter. At first I saw nothing. No ambush evidence, no excite­ment, nobody. Just an empty room. Then an ugly some­one opened a door and shoved his face into the room and said something I couldn’t hear to someone I couldn’t see. The back of the other someone appeared momentarily as he followed the ugly someone out the door. The set of his shoulders said he was aggravated.

  I waved. Saucer head tied the rope to something. They left me hanging.

  Evidently the report from the far side was favorable, too. Marsha leaned over the edge and let go a mighty bash with his club. A second later he lowered Saucer head at the end of a mile of arm and flipped him through the window. Saucer head grabbed me and dragged me inside. Puddle came through an instant later. The room was uninhabited except for the insect life infesting the stack of bunk beds. Saucer head and Puddle headed for the door while I battled ropes like a moth in a spider web. There was one hell of a racket going on somewhere else.

  A guy came charging through the doorway just as Saucer head got there. His nose and Saucer head’s fist collided. No contest. The ogre’s eyes rolled up. Saucer head thumped him again as he went down, just fo
r spite. I got loose and charged after Saucer head and Puddle, into a narrow hallway that dead-ended to our left. As we turned right a couple of breeds popped out of another bunk-room doorway. They were no more fortunate than their predecessor. Saucer head was in one of those moods. In the meantime, heaven put on its dancing shoes and began hoofing it on the roof. The grolls were pounding away with their clubs.

  The racket elsewhere revealed itself as a lopsided bat­tle between Morley’s crew and Gorgeous and about ten breeds. Several more ogres were down, with quarrels in them, and as we came to the rescue yet another made the mistake of stepping in front of the window. He squealed like a throat-cut hog as he fell. The bolt had gotten the meat of his thigh. Poisoned? Probably.

  Being a nice guy, I just whapped a couple of heads with my stick instead of stabbing backs with Puddle. Saucer head threw ogres around the way us ordinary mor­tals might work through a pack of house cats. Holes appeared in the ceiling as the grolls kept pounding away, their blows so powerful they smashed through two-by-ten oak ceiling joists.

  Our rear attack turned the tide. Suddenly, the num­bers were ours.

  Gorgeous made a run for the stairs. I flung a foot out and got enough of his ankle to unbalance him. His mo­mentum pitched him into the doorframe. The fight seemed over but it wasn’t yet won. Ogres are tough and stubborn. A few were still upright. Morley’s boys left them to us and went to work finish­ing the ones who were down. I yelled a complaint that got ignored.

  I’d gotten through the worst without a scratch. The others had a few dings and small cuts, except Sarge, who had collected a rib-deep slash across the chest and had taken himself out of the action to tend it.

  “Not that one!” Saucer head roared at Puddle. “You save that one for me.” He slammed the last upright ogre into unconsciousness, then explained, “That’s the one that was in charge when they killed the girl.”

  Panting, I asked, “You see any others that were there?”

  “Just him.” He dragged his ogre out of the mess.

  Morley said, “That’s the one called Skredli.”

  I’d suspected as much. For several minutes there had been considerable racket downstairs. Now Gorgeous levered himself up and roared. Morley and I jumped on him, too late to shut him up.

  The stairs drummed to stamping feet.

  An ogre stampede arrived.

  There must have been twenty in the first rush. They pushed us across the room, into the far wall. Grolls hammering heads from above scarcely slowed them. And more kept coming. Sarge couldn’t defend himself adequately. Puddle went down. I thought Morley was a goner. It looked grim for the rest of us. Gorgeous shrieked hysterical, bloodthirsty orders.

  It was time for something desperate.

  __XXXV__

  I dropped the witch’s gift and stomped on it. The crystal shattered. I followed instructions and covered my eyes, taking several vicious blows as a result. A thread of fire sliced the outside of my left upper arm. Hell called the proceedings to disorder. I opened my eyes. The mob bawled like cows in a panic, flailed wildly, purposelessly. Some howled and clung to the floor. I danced away from the nearer crazies and unlimbered my head-knocker. According to the witch, they were seeing three of everything and their universe was revolving. But that didn’t make them easy meat. There were so many of them flailing around....

  I watched Gorgeous bang into the wall three times trying to get to the stairs. I tried to reach him before he got away. My luck ran its usual taunting course. I was two ogres short of getting him when he made it out. He went tumbling downstairs, caterwauling in pain and fear. I wanted that man bad, but not bad enough to aban­don friends to fate. I returned to my harvest. I took a few whacks myself getting the mob done, but lay them low I did. Morley, I saw, had survived after all. He leaned against a wall, pale as death. Saucer head stood with feet widespread, grinning a big goofy grin. The grolls, who had caught just the edge of the spell, looked in through the ceiling and grinned too. They had helped with the head-knocking. Morley’s man Blood sat in a corner puking his guts up. Sarge and Puddle were somewhere under the mess.

  We all needed patching up.

  I stumbled to the window.

  It was light out now. And there were sounds outside. People sounds. Ogre Town folks were awake and interested.

  It was time to pick up our toys and get out.

  “Shut your eyes, you dopes,” I told everybody. “Get your hands on the wall and follow it around to the door to the stairwell. Wait for me there.”

  “What the hell did you have up your sleeve this time, Garrett?” Morley asked in a voice pitched an octave too high. He gagged as he fought to avoid upchucking from the vertigo.

  “None of your damned business. Just be glad I had it, you tactical genius. Come on. Get over by the door while I find Puddle and Sarge and Skredli.”

  An ogre groaned. I gave him a tap on the noggin. There would be plenty of headaches later.

  I found Skredli first, dragged him over, and gave him to Saucer head. Sarge turned up next. “Morley, Sarge checked out. You want to take him home?”

  “What for? Hurry up. I smell smoke.”

  So did I. I started digging for Puddle.

  “Oh, hell,” Morley said. “What would I tell my guys if I left somebody behind? They’d tell me I was no better than these ogres.” He babbled to the grolls in their tongue. They jabbered back. He told me, “Shove Sarge up where Doris can get a hold of him. And hurry. They say there’s a mob shaping up. Crask and Sadler have been shooting the boys down when they run out the front door.”

  I found Puddle. He was alive, and would make it with help. I got him to Morley. “I’m going down first. You guys come as fast as you can.” I bounded down the stairs.

  Noises rose to greet me. It sounded like somebody dragging himself....

  I overtook Gorgeous on the second-floor landing as he was getting ready to head down the last flight. But to catch him I had to jump the fire he had started halfway to the third floor.

  He had a broken leg. He wasn’t seeing more than double now, and nearly stuck me before I bopped him. I checked for other enemies. The only ones left upright were down at the front door, three or four just inside, arguing about how they were going to get out. That door was the only ground-floor exit. Anybody who used it ran into a crossbow bolt. I hustled back to help the others past the fire. It was growing, but we managed. Only Morley got singed. I couldn’t restrain a chuckle at his pathetic appearance. He’s one of those guys who spends hours on his appearance.

  The problem of the ogres below solved itself. I went after them behind a bloodthirsty shriek, brandishing my knives, and they flushed like a covey of quail, hitting the street.

  Now we’d learn the value of Morley’s ally insurance.

  I stuck my head out.

  No bolt greeted me.

  I stepped out carefully, looked around, frowned. What had become of the mob? I saw no one but the flying ogres and the grolls, who had clambered down the out­side of the building. The coach came pounding out of its alley, swung in, and stopped. Crask growled, “Get them in here! There’s soldiers coming.”

  Troops? No wonder the streets were empty. We tumbled inside, piling on the coach floor. Crask and Sadler took off before we sorted ourselves out. The grolls loped ahead, scouting.

  I got myself seated. “This is weird, Morley. They don’t call out the troops for squabbles in Ogre Town.”

  The coach thundered through alleys that had to be too narrow, around corners that had to be too tight. What­ever faults the boys up top had, lack of guts was not among them.

  Morley grunted in response to my remark.

  “They only come out for riots. And there’s maybe only eight or ten people who can deploy them.”

  Morley grunted again. “You figure it out, Garrett. Right now 1 don’t give a damn.” He was in pain.

  If Bruno hadn’t gone down... Bruno was off the Hill. Bruno had been visiting Gorgeous. It took a lord from the Hill t
o order out the army. Maybe Bruno worked for somebody who thought enough of Gorgeous to call out the troops to save him.

  The whole affair began to tilt in my head. Maybe Bruno and a few facts I’d ignored needed re-examining. “I’ve got to find out who he worked for.”

  Nobody bothered to ask what I was muttering about.

  A frightening notion had crept into my mind. Perhaps Junior daPena, his family, and his keeper, were innocent of bloodletting. The coach careened onto a major street, scattering pedestrians, drawing curses from the other drivers. Around another corner. Then a slowdown to become just another vehicle in the morning flow. I never saw a soldier. Five minutes later we halted behind Morley’s place. Sadler growled at us to get the hell out.

  I was exhausted and hurt and about as tired as I could get of someone else taking control of what I had started.

  “Easy, Garrett,” Morley said. “Keep your mouth shut and get inside.”

  “Stuff it, Morley. I’ve had it.”

  “Do what I tell you. It’ll improve your long-term health picture.” He grabbed me and, with help from Saucer head, got me through the back door. I was more amenable once I noted that our ally insurance had vanished. Morley had Saucer head help get his men inside. Sadler crawled into the coach to baby-sit Gorgeous and Skredli. The coach rolled.

  Morley suggested, “Why don’t you go upstairs and make a list of questions you want asked? I’ll have a messenger run it. Then go home and sleep. You’ll feel more reasonable afterward.”

  I supposed if Saucer head could endure not getting first crack at Skredli, I could live without an immediate shot at Gorgeous. “All right.” But I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get a lot of rest.

  On the way upstairs I glanced out a window toward Ogre Town. A pillar of smoke stood like a gravestone over a ferocious fire. Maybe most of our grim handiwork would be erased, thanks to Gorgeous.