D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (12 page)

They went back inside the watch house long enough to help Graybo put things in order and get the prisoners under control again. The arrest line had shortened considerably, as some of those arrested but not yet placed in cells had availed themselves of the confusion and escaped into the night.

It was with some amusement, however, that Garett noticed Perch sitting patiently on a stool in the comer. If anyone had had a chance to make a getaway, it was Perch. Curious, he went over to the old man. “What did they pinch you for, Perch?” he asked.

“Spittin’ on a lady, Yer Honor,” Perch answered without blinking.

Garett rubbed a hand over his chin and considered. “Well, you’ve been a help to us here,” he continued finally. “Let’s just overlook it this time. Go on home.”

Perch’s ears turned a bright red, and the old man slammed a fist down on his bony thigh. “Home?” he shouted, enraged. “I was arrested proper and legal, I was! I did the crime, an’ I admit it! Now you got to lock me up! ”

Garett looked down at the thin, rag-tattered figure. Of course, Perch didn’t want to go home. He probably didn’t have a home to go to. Spitting on a lady? What kind of a crime was that? No doubt, Perch had intended to get arrested. At least, in jail, he’d get a bowl of crude gruel to eat.

Garett left Perch fuming and went to Graybo. “How often do you see him here?” he asked the huge sergeant in a soft whisper.

“Perch?” Graybo almost laughed, but Garett’s stern visage warned him to lower his voice. Graybo folded his arms across his chesty “We put the pinch on him just about every other night, I guess. Always minor things. We toss him in for the evening, and let him go come sunrise. He never gives us any problems. I think he comes mostly for the

breakfast meal. Gods know why. I sure wouldn’t eat it.” “This place is filthy,” Garett said, glancing around and putting on his most officious manner. “It stinks, too. I think you could use someone around here, Sergeant, to run a broom and mop occasionally. You understand me?” Graybo looked bewildered for a moment, then he began to nod. “That’s real kind of you, Captain,” he said quietly.

“just give him a copper or two every time he sweeps,” Garett continued conspiratorially. “Take it out of general operating expenses. And if Korbian Arthuran names a permanent commander later to take your place, you just tell him Perch has always worked here. If there’s a further problem, you let me know, and I’ll handle it. Got it?”

“That’s real kind of you,” Graybo repeated. The gentle expression he suddenly wore seemed wholly out of place on his huge body as he stared into Garett’s eyes and bobbed his head up and down.

Garett felt abruptly uncomfortable. He looked around for Burge and spied his friend standing by the open doorway. As he headed across the room to join him and leave, however, Perch leaped up and caught his arm. When Garett stopped, the old man took advantage of it and spit on his boots.

“I didn’t want to do that!” Perch scolded angrily, still clinging to Garett’s sleeve. “Ye made me! Now, am I under arrest, or what?”

Garett did his best to put on a scowl as he called to Graybo. “Lieutenant, lock this man up!” Then he gave Graybo a wink and gently pulled his arm free of Perch’s grip. The old man smiled as if he’d just been invited to the governor’s feast as Graybo personally led him away.

The night breeze bore the odors of the river as Garett and Burge left the watch house and started north up Ratwater Way. Even here, north of the Strip and west of the Processional, people wandered in the street, half-diunk, singing and making merry, getting a head start on the celebration that would greet Kentellen Mar’s return to Greyhawk.

If the River Quarter watch house was any indication, Garett’s night shift officers would have their hands full tomorrow evening. The drinking would begin early as merchants and dockers and workers throughout the city declared a holiday and took to the streets. Only the taverns and inns would be operating, and their doors would be wide open. The pickpockets of the Thieves’ Guild would have a field day, of course. The whole population would turn out to watch the fireworks display the Wizards’ Guild had promised. That meant more people in the streets.

Then, sometime after darkness settled, the fights and assaults would commence. It would start in the River Quarter. It always did. Then it would spread. The fights would lead to knifings, and the knifings to killings. Garett’s watchmen would be going crazy, and the jails would be overflowing. Civilized Greyhawk would fade away. By midnight, Necropolis, in full ugly flower, would take its place.

Garett hated holidays and celebrations.

Ratwater Way took them over to Horseshoe Road. There were fewer people out, but candles and lamps still burned in the windows of many of the dwellings and apartments that lined the street as the citizens within made their preparations for the morning and Kentellen’s arrival.

Kentellen Mar was much loved by the common people of Greyhawk. After all, he was one of them. Born and raised in the lowest corner of the city’s Artisan’s Quarter, in a shack near the Black Wall, he was the success story that inspired all poor citizens. His father had been a sewer scraper—one of those who managed repairs and kept the sewers and ducts of Greyhawk free from blockages. Such men were generally considered pariahs, because they voluntarily worked in filth under conditions that were usually reserved for the prison work gangs. His mother had been a sometime midwife to the poor, which meant she brought in little money.

Somehow, from this bleak beginning, Kentellen Mar developed a taste for learning. At an early age, while most other youths were roaming the streets looking to do mischief, he started spending time in the small gardens and groves of the Halls, that section of the city where professors and students and priests, as well as the city’s army of bureaucrats, were wont to dwell. He’d sit at a respectful distance and listen to their lunch-time discourses, or hide in trees to overhear the open-air philosophy classes and theology lectures.

Ultimately, of course, he came to the attention of those professors who were flattered by his hunger to learn. When he was old enough, with their help, he worked his way into Greyhawk University and, finally, into the College of Law, where he excelled beyond any of his fellow students.

In the years that followed, he made a name for himself as a defender of the city’s poor. A man without a common in his pocket could turn to Kentellen Mar and hope for representation if he could convince Kentellen of his innocence. The poor people came to trust and love him, and even Greyhawk’s nobles respected him for his honesty. Kentellen Mar could have made himself rich by serving those nobles. He could have lived in a fine house in the Garden Quarter, or even the High Quarter. But, instead, he had lived his life quietly and never moved from the small house he purchased near his parents’ original home.

A near riot had been the result when Ellon Thigpen, himself newly appointed to the office of mayor, named Kentellen Mar to become the new magister, the city’s highest judiciary official and the supreme interpreter of justice. Kentellen had claimed surprise, and no one doubted him. Everyone had expected the post to go to Elmon Kohl, the headmaster of the Guild of Lawyers and Scribes, who already had a seat among the city’s all-powerful directors. In fact, many speculated openly about the politics behind Thigpen’s decision. There was no doubt, however, as to the popularity of his choice, and that alone may have been the reason behind it. After all, no one really liked or cared much for the high-born and haughty Elmon Kohl, except Elmon Kohl himself.

It was as a small reward to himself for years of hard work that Kentellen Mar then decided to take a vacation before assuming the office of magister. His youth and middle age had slipped by, and he had never been farther than the lands surrounding Greyhawk. He had outfitted a small caravan, and in the company of a close band of friends, set out to hunt and explore the lands that surrounded the greatest of all lakes, the Nyr Dyv. A voyage of discovery and self-discovery, he had called it cheerfully in his farewell address to the people who saw him off at Druid’s Gate.

Now Kentellen was camped just a few miles from Duke’s Gate to the northeast of the city, about to return home after an absence of three months. Already the city was going crazy with anticipation. What, Garett wondered worriedly, would the actual day of investiture be like?

Garett spared a glance toward Burge as they came to the end of Horseshoe Road and turned out onto the Processional, where the crowds were thick again. His friend had said not a word since leaving the watch house. His thin, half-elven features were creased with a deep frown, and unconsciously he hugged himself, as if against some chill as he walked.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Garett said as they weaved their way among a line of torch-waving celebrants, who were twining back and forth through the street in a serpentine dance. “Because of Soja and Duncan?”

“Partly that,” Burge admitted after a moment’s pause. He glanced up toward the sky and hugged himself again without seeming to realize he did it. “I don’t know, Cap’n. It’s like I got an itch I can’t quite scratch. Like there’s somethin’ in the air. I don’t know what. But it’s trouble, and it’s big, and somethin’ in me’s whisperin’, ‘Get out, Burge. Get out while you can.’ ” He shut up, looking embarrassed by his admission, and again he rolled his eyes skyward. “’you noticed how many birds are flyin’ around here lately?” he asked, changing the subject. “Big black ones, all at night.”

Garett followed his gaze upward. High above, crows and ravens and all manner of black birds gyred and danced, their wings shining in the reflected light of the street lamps that lined the Processional. Burge was right. There had been a lot of birds lately. But the summer had been hot, and the marshes just beyond the east wall were a fertile breeding ground for insects. It was only natural for the insects to be drawn to the Processional’s brighter street lights, and only natural for the birds to feast upon them.

Still, an odd shiver rippled down his spine as he watched them and listened to their shrill, muted calls. “Let’s get back to the Citadel,” he said suddenly, quickening his step.

But before they got much farther, all the hells broke loose. The air shook with a sound like thunder, and the black heavens transformed. For an instant, Garett thought the sky itself had caught fire, and a true religious terror gripped his heart. It was Burge who spun him around and pointed back in the direction of the Halls.

The last wisps of a huge geyser of fire rocketed into the sky and faded. For a brief moment, the black of night reasserted itself. Then a second geyser shot skyward, as high as a mountain, and another blast of thunder rocked the street as the air super-heated and the night once more burned.

A hot wind rushed unexpectedly over Garett. From somewhere came the groan and crash of timbers as a building or buildings crumpled under its force. Someone screamed, and someone else took it up. The celebrants along the Processional suddenly ran like panicked animals. A woman, her eyes on the fire geyser, blundered into Garett. It was enough to snap him from his own fear and spur him into motion.

“Come on!” he cried, and began running toward the Halls.

“You are seriously out of your mind!” Burge shouted when he realized they were heading for the disturbance, not away from it like all the saner folks around him. Nevertheless, he followed.

The second geyser faded like the first, rocketing into the clouds, and the world turned dark once more. A third time, though, fire fountained upward, crackling. Thunder roared, and a scorching wind whipped savagely over the city. This time, though, a new sound joined the din. It was a cry, a monstrous, bestial trumpeting, a bellow that only one creature on Oerth made.

“It’s a dragon!” Burge cried, catching Garett’s arm and drawing him up short in the middle of the street. “A dragon! ” His grip tightened suddenly, painfully on his captain’s arm. “Look! It’s rising!”

Over the dark outline of the Halls, immense wings slowly spread and flexed, and again the creature bellowed. Up, up into the sky, its long neck gracefully stretched, and its head swept back and forth. The light from a dozen fires flickered and rippled upon its red-scaled hide, upon its splendid, horrifyingly powerful wings. One great pinion twitched and brushed against the stark silhouette of a tall building, sending it toppling. The beast screamed, as if in pain, arched its neck and shot fire at the moon.

The dragon rose into the night. For an instant, it hovered above the city, writhing and shrieking, exhaling blasts of fire, as if in fierce battle with some invisible foe. Finally, with an extended cry of torment, it flew off into the night, northward, leaving Greyhawk behind.

Leaving it to burn! Garett thought suddenly, forcing aside the images of beauty and terror that still filled his head. The dragon was gone, but the danger to the city was greater than ever. Fire! There was no greater threat to any city.

“They’re usually peaceful creatures!” Burge shouted, wondering aloud as he stared after the rapidly vanishing dragon. Bursts of flame punctuated its departure, lighting up the distant clouds. “Who was it, do you think, Cap’n? What made it go mad?”

But Garett wasn’t listening. He glanced hastily around to get his bearings. They were on University Street. He grabbed Burge’s arm and began to run toward the blazes. Already the houses and apartments were emptying as people spilled into the streets. Cries of “fire! ” filled the night. To the credit of Greyhawk’s citizens, most did not run away. With buckets and pans and jars, men and women alike, even some children, surged out into the roads. Like a human wave, they rushed toward the crackling glow, knowing full well what they all stood to lose if the fire spread.

At the edge of the devastation, Garett stopped short again and stared in horror. Two blocks of Bard Street had been leveled. Not a house remained standing. Flames rose from the broken ruins, and from another row of buildings on the next block. An old dormitory for students attending the university was already completely swathed in flame. As Garett watched, it crashed to the ground, sending streamers and sparks in all directions to spread greater destruction.