Dread Brass Shadows

2

Tharpe had a block lead but I gained ground fast. I wasn't thinking. He was. He was pacing himself, matching the assassin's stride, maybe following to see where he led. I didn't care about that. I didn't care about anything. I didn't look around to see what else was happening on the street. I wanted that blademan so bad I could taste blood.

I came churning up beside Saucerhead. He grabbed my shoulder, slowed me down, kept squeezing till the pain took the red out of my eyes. When he had my attention he made a couple of gestures, pointed.

I got it. First time, too. Must be getting smarter as I age.

The skinny guy didn't know his way around. He was just trying to get away. There aren't many straight streets in old TunFaire. They wander like they were laid out by drunken goblins blinded by the sun. This character was sticking to Macunado Street even though we had passed the point where it changes its name to Way of the Harlequin and then again to Dadville Lane after it narrows down.

"I'm gone." I cut out to the right, into an alley, through, darted down a narrow lane, ducked into a breezeway, skipped over some ratmen wasted on weed and a couple of blitzed human winos, then blasted out into Dadville Lane again, where it finishes the big, lazy loop around the Memorial Quarters. I chugged across the street and leaned against a hitching rail, waiting, puffing, and wheezing and grinning because boy, was I in shape for this.

I was ready to dump my guts.

And here they came The gink with the mustache was going all out, scared to death, trying so hard he wasn't seeing anything. All he knew was the pounding feet were catching up.

I let him come, stepped out, tripped him. He flew headlong, rolled like he had some tumbling experience, came up going full speed—wham! Right into the end of a watering trough. His momentum kept his top half going. He made a fine big splash.

Saucerhead got on one side of the trough I got on the other. Tharpe slapped my hand away. Probably that was best. I was too upset.

He grabbed that gink by his greasy black hair, pushed him under, pulled him up, said, "Winded as you are, you ain't gonna hold your breath long." He shoved the mustache under again, pulled him up. "That water's going to get cold going down. You're going to feel it going and know there ain't one damned thing you can do to stop it." The big louse was barely puffing. The guy in the trough was wheezing and snorting worse than me.

Saucerhead shoved him under, brought him up a half second before he sucked in a gallon. "So tell us about it, little man. How come you stuck the girl?"

He would have answered if he could. He wanted to answer. But he was too busy trying to breathe. Saucerhead shoved him under again.

He came up, swallowed an acre of air, gasped, "The book!" He gobbled some more air—and that was the last breath he drew.

"What book?" I snapped.

A crossbow bolt hit the guy in the throat. Another thunked into the trough, and a third put a hole through Saucerhead's sleeve. Tharpe came over the trough in one bound and landed smack on top of me. A couple, three more bolts whizzed past.

Tharpe didn't bother making me comfortable. He did stick his head up for a second. "When I roll off, you go for that door." We were about eight feet from the doorway to a tavern. Right then, that looked like a mile. I groaned, the only sound I could make with all that meat on top.

Saucerhead roiled off. I scrambled. I never really got myself upright. I just sort of got my hands and feet under me and made that door in one long dive, dog-paddling. Saucerhead was right behind me. Crossbows twanged. Bolts thunked into the door. "Boy!" I said. "Those guys are in big trouble." Crossbows are illegal inside the city wall.

"What the hell?" I gasped as we shoved the door shut. "What in the hell?" I dived over to a window, peeked through a crack in a shutter still closed against winter.

The street had cleared as though a god had swept a broom along it, excepting a mixed bag of six nasties with crossbows. They spread out, weapons aimed our way. Two came forward.

Saucerhead took a peek. Behind us the barkeep went into a "Here, now! I won't have trouble in my place! You boys clear out!" routine.

Saucerhead said, "Three dwarfs, an ogre, a ratman, and a human. Unusual mix."

"Odd, yes." I turned. "You got trouble already, Pop. You want it out of here, lend a hand. What you got under the bar to keep the peace?" I wasn't carrying anything. Who needs an arsenal to lumber around the block? Tharpe didn't carry, usually. He counted on his strength and wit. Which maybe made him an unarmed man twice over.

"You don't get going you're going to find out."

"Trouble's the farthest thing from my mind, Pop. I don't need any. But tell that to those guys outside. They already killed somebody in your watering trough."

I peeked again. The two had pulled the mustache Out of the water. They looked him over. They finally figured it out, dropped him, eyeballed the tavern like they were thinking about coming inside.

Saucerhead borrowed a table from a couple of old boys puffing pipes and nursing mugs that would last them till nightfall. He just politely asked them to raise their mugs, picked the table up, and ripped a leg off. He tossed me that, got himself another, turned what was left into a shield. When those two arrived, he bashed the dwarf's head in, then mashed the ogre against the door-frame with the table while I tickled his noggin with a rim shot.

One of their crossbows didn't get broken. I grabbed it, put the bolt back in. popped out the door, and ripped off a one-handed shot at the nearest target I missed and pinked a dwarf ninety feet away. He yelped. His pals headed for the high country.

Saucerhead grumbled, "You couldn't hit a bull in the butt with a ten-foot pole if you was inside the barn." While I tried to figure that out, he grabbed the ogre, who was as big as he was, and tried to shake him awake. It didn't work. Not much of a necromancer, my buddy Saucerhead.

He didn't try the dwarf That guy had gotten pounded down a foot shorter than he started out. So Tharpe just stood there shaking his head and looking baffled. I thought that was such a good idea I did it, too. And all the while, that old bartender was howling about damages while his clientele tried to dig holes in the floor to hide in

"Now WHAT ?" Saucerhead asked.

"I don't know." I peeked outside.

"They gone?"

"Looks like. People are starting to come out." A sure sign the excitement was over They would come count the bodies and lie to each other about how they saw the whole thing, and by the time any authority arrived—if it ever did—the story's only resemblance to fact would be that somebody got dead

"Let's go ask Tinnie."

Sounded like a stroke of genius to me.