Dread Brass Shadows

23

I don't figure I set a record for the standing high jump but I did go up like I had wings.

"Garrett!"

I came down facing Winger, knowing I'd have been dead if she'd wanted me that way.

This was a free one. The gods wouldn't hand me another chance to get away with napping on the street. "Hey, Winger." I hoped my voice didn't quaver too bad.

How had she found me so fast?

Homework. I'll bet she took my advice and did her homework. There was hope for her.

I looked around. I didn't see the guys who'd chased me. "Where are your brunos?"

"Huh?"

I'd forgotten she was from out of town. She wouldn't know the argot. Brunos are low-grade hired thugs. "The hard boys who were with you outside my place."

"They weren't with me. I didn't know they were there till you took off and they went after you."

"Oh?" The gods shield fools, all right. "Maybe you better think about getting into another line of work. You aren't going to stay alive long in this one."

She shrugged. "Maybe not. But if I go, I'll check out doing what I want to do, not worn out from pulling a plow and making babies."

She had a point. One of the reasons I do what I do is because I get to be my own boss, not a creature caught up in a web of commitments and responsibilities. "I got you."

"It's tomorrow, Garrett. And Lubbock is getting impatient."

Tough, I thought. I said, "All right. Lead on."

She headed toward the Hill. I let her lead and set the pace, kept my mouth shut. She walked like she was still behind a plow. Kind of a waste. If you took time to look her over, you saw she wasn't a bad-looking woman at all, just put together on a large scale. Way too big for my taste. I figured she would clean up pretty nice. If she wanted.

I asked, "You happen to get a look at those clowns who were sniping at me off that roof?"

She grinned. "I did better than that, Garrett. I ambushed them when they came down. Kicked their butts and broke their toys."

"All of them?"

"There was only four of them. Little hairy fellas. Stubborn. Trick with them is, stay in too close for them to use them crossbows but don't get so close they can reach you. Work on them with your feet." She skipped, kicked a foot high. I hadn't seen boots like those since I got out of the Marines. Those would do a job on somebody. If you had the strength to lift them.

"How come you did that?"

"They was horning in on my game. You ain't no good to me full of them little arrows."

"I wouldn't be much good to me, either. Wish I knew where they came from."

"Them fuzzballs?"

"The very ones, Winger. That makes three times they've come after me." Recalling that I started watching my surroundings with more enthusiasm.

We were headed toward the Hill. Her principal had to be a stormwarden or firelord or... I tried to recall which of our sorcerer elite might be in town. I couldn't think of a one. Everybody who was anybody and old enough was down in the Cantard helping hunt Glory Mooncalled.

If I was the political type, I'd figure this was a great time for an uprising. Our masters hadn't left anyone to keep us in line. But I'm not a political type. And neither is anyone else. So we'll just keep going on going on the way we've always gone on—unless Mooncalled pulls off his greatest coup yet and arranges it so none of -them come home.

After deliberating, Winger told me, "I don't know where they come from, Garrett. But I got a good idea where they went."

"Ah?" Turn up the charm and cunning, Garrett. Shuck and jive this rube right out of her socks.

"Twenty marks. Silver. After you see Lubbock."

I'm nothing if not adaptable. "I'll give you three." I wasn't carrying much more than that.

"It's your ass. You don't figure it's worth twenty marks, I'm not going to argue with you."

Some of these rubes have a certain low cunning and a nose for sniffing profit out of disaster. "Make it five, then."

She didn't say anything, just led me on toward the Hill. All right. She'd come around. Five marks was a lot of money to a country girl.

A couple of dwarves ambled across an intersection ahead. I blurted, "Ten." And they hadn't even looked our way. Hell, they never did. They were just a couple of short businessmen.

Winger ignored me.

All right. I know. I gave myself away there. But I was nervous. You'd be nervous if you had dwarves trying to poop you every time you stuck your head out of the house.

Dean doesn't let me do the marketing, either.

I didn't let up on keeping a lookout. Not for a second. I didn't see anything disturbing, either, except once I caught a glimpse of a guy who could have been Crask, but he was a block away and I couldn't be sure. I did grin, though. That might be something to bargain with.