"Why? All you're going to see is more dead guys."
She had a point. There was another on the first floor landing and three in the hallway on the second. Two of those may have been attackers. They were better kempt, better clad. Gnorst's bunch.
The fight had proceeded along the hallway, scourged a half-dozen sleeping rooms, and tumbled down a cramped rear stairwell. None of the rooms had doors. Most had been torn apart by somebody in a hurry looking for something. We found a ratman and a dwarf, both critically wounded and a lot of nothing else. I asked, "Was this the place you wanted to sell me?"
"Sure was." Still depressed.
"You tried."
"That don't put money in my pocket. What's that racket?" She meant the yelling out front.
"Watch must be coming. People telling each other to make themselves invisible. Which isn't such a bad idea." I stomped down the back stairway. Behind me, Winger muttered about her luck couldn't turn worse if she prayed. Her vocabulary wasn't unique or imaginative, but it was colorful.
The back way out featured a broken door. I squeezed through. The mess beyond suggested somebody tried to hold Gnorst's dwarves there while the renegades made their getaway. One of Gnorst's dwarves lay partially buried in litter, alive enough to groan. I tried asking him questions. If he spoke any Karentine, he was too involved in his own misery to respond. He did manage one dwarfish outburst filled with fireworks, the only word of which I caught was "ogre." I told Winger, "This one will be all right. If the Watch don't lynch him just to make believe they're doing something useful."
"I think they're in the building." There was a racket inside.
"Time to go. Watch your step." TunFaire's alleys serve many unplanned uses, especially those of trash dump and public relief facility. The quality of cleanup attention they get from the city ratmen declines as one moves farther from the Hill. What the lords don't see don't exist. We were far from the hub of the wheel here, in a stretch so foul it boasted no homeless tenants.
A Watchman stepped into our path as we approached the street. Being a naturally courteous kind of guy, I'd let Winger go first. The Watchman was about five six and tricked out in those gaudy blues and reds, a pretty little devil who got him a nasty grin when he saw he had somebody boxed. He started to say something.
What did he want to say? Who the hell knows. Winger grabbed him by the throat, planted one on his nose, hoisted him up, and flipped him into the mess behind us. Like he weighed about six pounds. I wanted to gawk but knew it wouldn't work. He had friends. "Bright move, Winger. Real bright." I hoped he hadn't seen me well enough to know me if we met again.
I put the old heels and toes to work doing what the gods intended and didn't slow down till I was ten blocks away. Huffing, puffing, snorting like a bilious dragon, I looked for Winger. Not a sign of her. She'd gone her own way. Which was maybe an excellent idea and one I ought to hope she'd pursue indefinitely. A guy could get hurt hanging around with people like her.
27
I trust the light was feeble there, the Dead Man sent Winger's behavior amused him. Is there any likelihood the Watchman recognized you?
"Why should he?"
You are a known character.
That sack of petrified lard was worried about losing his free ride!
He wouldn't have admitted it if I'd set a fire under him but the truth smoldered through. If he lost me, he might actually have to work to keep a roof over his head. There's nothing in this world he loathes more than work.
The fact that he was worried worried me. It was out of character. I take my life in my hands every time I go sniffing around after the bad boys. That never bothered him before. It got me thinking and that's always dangerous. Wondering if he hadn't had some premonition. Wouldn't surprise me to find he could peek into the future. Especially after the way he'd been guessing what Glory Mooncalled would do.
"What's happened?" I thought it a perfectly reasonable query. He ignored it. "Be that way, then." I took my question to Dean.
"Nothing," Dean told me "Except that he did hint that he was getting something like a black vibration out of the Cantard. I think he meant he felt something happening down there."
"Oh, my. It'd have to be big." Oh, my, oh, my.
I couldn't believe it was anything but imagination. Dead men got nothing to do but fantasize. But... If something that big was happening, it had to involve Glory Mooncalled.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. When the going gets tough, Garrett puts his feet up and has a beer. I took a pitcher into the office and snuggled up with Eleanor. We had us a chat about whether or not I had any obligation, anywhere, now I could be sure Tinnie was going to be all right. Eleanor didn't have much to say, but somewhere along the way, after things got a little dizzy, I recalled that I'd taken on a client, a wee lovely who thought me finding an improbable book could save her father's bacon.
I didn't want to believe in the thing, but people and dwarves were dropping like flies. We were playing morCartha down here on the ground. I was caught in it, like it or not. Somebody wanted me to join the flies.
Dean brought beer and a stern look I asked, "Where's Carla Lindo?"
"Guest room. Worrying." He assumed his human roadblock stance. "She doesn't need comforting. She needs help."
"Yeah. Sure. So do. I You don't see me getting any. Hell. I'm done waiting for it to come to me. I'll go round it up." I drained another mug of courage, checked my portable arsenal, headed for the door. Dean trotted along behind grinning like an old death's-head.
His romantic notions would be the death of me yet.
I'm immune to romantic notions, of course. I'm a block of heavy metal unshakably planted at the center of a plain of common sense, illuminated by the sun of reason.
Right. Look up. See the swarms of pigs flying south for the winter.
I hadn't been inside, isolated from the city ambience, for long, but something had changed. Some new level of tension had been reached. There were fewer people out. Those who were seemed nervous. I could see no real reason.
I visited Morley's place but found no Morley. I went away puzzled, headed for Saucerhead's shabby den.
Tharpe was out, too. Not one of his mouse-size lady friends was there to clue me where he'd gone, either. 'Twas a puzzlement
I went away frowning. Something had to be going on. Especially with Morley. He faded from sight sometimes, but I'd never known him to take his whole crew with him. There'd always been some way to get in touch.
I headed for home.
I got the news from a neighbor moments before I reached the house.
"Big roughhouse in the Cantard, Old Bones," I told the Dead Man. "Word's just in. All mixed up. Sounds like our troops and the Venageti caught up with Mooncalled at the same time, some place called Broken Back Canyon. No word how it came out yet, though." All the neighbor knew was that the battle had been all-time big. I assumed the northbound dispatches had been sent immediately on contact. The mere catching of Mooncalled was news of major importance.
I suspected as much. To yield vibrational energies I can detect here... It must be the battle of battles and still going on. I would not have expected Mooncalled to be capable of so violent a defense.
"Cornered rats. But Mooncalled always did the unexpected.
Perhaps. Let us not concern ourselves overmuch before more coherent information arrives. I sense that you are troubled.
"What a genius. Amazing how you figure things out." I told him about my day, such as it was so far.
Go eat. Let me think.