D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (2 page)

It was time to arm himself. He reached for his sword by the bed. The scabbard was of clean white sheepskin, but was crisscrossed with bands of black leather and decorated with silver coins from different lands. Pretty, but not too ostentatious. He slid the sword half out of the sheath. The blade was short, well honed. It gleamed with a fine sheen of oil in the light of the room’s hanging cresset, which Almi had considerately lit for him. It was a plain-looking sword, but it had served him well. The imprint of his hand was plain to see on the wrappings of the grip.

He fastened the sword belt around his waist and moved to another trunk not far from the foot of the bed. He opened it and reached inside for his favorite dagger. Its blade was nearly the length of his forearm, and in a pinch it had served him nearly as well as a sword. A plain leather sheath with a matching belt housed the weapon. He fastened it over his sword belt, and then, picking up his purse with his few coins, fastened that to the dagger’s belt.

A smaller sheathed dagger hung on a peg inside the trunk. That he slid down into his left boot.

Finally he lifted out a pair of broad leather bands and fitted them one at a time around his biceps. Small, square brass studs in the ends slipped through appropriate holes in the other ends, though there were not enough to hold the bracers in place long by themselves. Garett reached back into the trunk and selected two bronze throwing stars. Square holes in each of those corresponded with the size of the studs. He mounted them on the bands and gave them a twist, locking them in place. He half smiled to himself. The stars looked like little more than ornamentation, as he’d intended when he designed them.

Closing his weapons trunk, he returned to the first, which held his few garments, and selected the lightest red cloak he owned. It was approaching the summer solstice, and even the nights were warm in Greyhawk. The cloak, though, was part of the uniform, and it fastened with the gold brooch that bore the sign of his captain’s rank.

He looked around the room for his helm and picked it up from the corner of the floor, where he’d dropped it when he came home. He tucked it under one arm. Then, as an afterthought, he turned it upside down and deposited his two apples within its padded interior.

It was nearly time to go, he reckoned. He closed the shutters of his two windows and carefully barred them. Without the thin breeze, the room quickly became an oven. Garett went to a hook on the south wall and unwound a cord there, lowering the cresset. He blew out the small flame, plunging the room into darkness. For just an instant, some element of a dream flashed back into his head, but it was too elusive and quickly gone. He hesitated, then shook off the chill sensation it had brought with it, and stepped out into the night.

He paused again on the landing, took an iron key from his purse, and locked his door. Putting the key away again, he turned and surveyed the city from his second story vantage. A few lanterns sputtered from posts in the empty street immediately below him. The Lamplighters’ Guild in Greyhawk was nothing if not efficient. But most of the shops and dwellings around him were dark. The peaks and pinnacles of rooftops rose around him, stark silhouettes in the encompassing blackness. The air was quiet, almost still. But that was because he’d chosen a quiet neighborhood in which to rent his small apartment.

There were other parts of Greyhawk, he reminded himself, where, like Capt. Garett Starlen, the residents never stirred until nightfall. Those streets and those people were his special province.

His apartment dwelling was only two stories high. He ran one hand along the stucco wall as he descended the narrow stairs to street-level. Almi was in her window, as she always was, and waved him off. Her quiet little tavern would stay open most of the night. She’d keep an eye on his place, and none of her customers would cause trouble, because it was generally known that the captain of the City Watch’s night shift lived above her business and would take any harm to her person or her furnishings most personally. Most personally, indeed.

With a nod to Almi, he stepped out into Moonshadow Lane and walked south a short distance to Cargo Street. West would take him to the river wharves, and he should probably check that area out later. There had been reports of theft along some of the docks lately. Instead, though, he turned east toward the Processional, which was Greyhawk’s main street. In no time, he arrived at the Garden Gate, which separated the Garden Quarter and the High Quarter, the patrician sections of the city, from the rest of Greyhawk’s “great unwashed.” The four guards on duty at the gate recognized him at once and saluted as he passed through.

The Processional led directly into the High Market Square. For the first time, as Garett walked across the broad •expanse, he noticed the waxing moon as it shed its silvery light upon the hard-packed ground and threw his shadow far before him. Again he noted the surprising quietness of the city. It was most unusual. Even in the High Quarter, of which the High Market Square was officially a part, he normally encountered a few folks wandering about.

At the end of the Processional loomed the Grand Citadel. It was a tall, intimidating structure, apparently win-dowless to outside appearances due to the way the stones had been cut. Officially it housed offices for the mayor and members of the Directorate, as well as some of Greyhawk’s military leaders, but these days it primarily headquartered the City Watch.

A flock of birds calling to each other as they flew overhead made Garett look up. Briefly they crossed the moon and were gone. The cries faded shortly after, and the night was still once more.

Garett sighed and wondered what it would be like to be curled up on the bank of the Selintan with a soft woman in his arms, listening to the purl of the river as it flowed between its banks from the great lake called Nyr Dyv southward to the Azure Sea, with nothing over them but the stars and the moonlight. That would be nice, he figured.

But he had given up such pleasures. He was captain of the City Watch’s night shift. Night after night, he walked this same route, to this same building. He dealt with the same kinds of scum and solved the same kinds of crime. Or didn’t solve them, as often as not. It was easy for a man to murder in the darker streets, or along the wharves, and disappear in Greyhawk. And it was just as easy to steal in a city where half the politicians were openly members of the Thieves’ Guild.

Still, someone had to try to keep order. That was his job, to try. Not to solve every crime or catch every criminal. Just to try. Though he was damned to explain why, he bore a strange affection for this cesspool of humanity, this city of his birth, and figured as long as any honest men walked its streets, the gods would let it stand one day longer.

Sometimes, though, he felt as if he were the last one.

Four more guards stood duty watch at the Citadel’s entrance. They snapped a smart salute as he approached. He paused to exchange a few words with them. Drawing out his two apples and his dagger, he divided the fruits and gave a half to each man. They relaxed a bit and accepted his offering gratefully.

“I assume His Lordship Korbian Arthuran has departed?” Garett commented as the four munched their apples.

“Has the sun gone down?” one of the soldiers rejoined, casting innocent-faced glances over both his shoulders, as if looking for the shining orb.

Garett didn’t bother to rebuke the man for his mockery. No one cared much for Korbian. The captain-general was never about his post, leaving his duties instead to junior officers. As a minor noble, he considered his title purely ceremonial. Each afternoon, he put in an appearance at the Citadel and hung around until sundown, playing at his office and attempting to “chat the men up,” as he put it, claiming it raised their morale, while in reality every soldier on the watch sniggered behind the old man’s back.

Maybe it was good for morale after all.

After a few more pleasantries, two of the soldiers opened the great doors, and Garett passed inside. Torches sputtered in sconces mounted on the walls and poured a black, oily smoke into the air. The main hallways of the Citadel had never been fitted with proper lamps or cressets, and the city was too cheap to pay the Wizards’ Guild for any of the en-sorcelled globes of light that lit the better offices and richer streets of the High Quarter. Thus, the air constantly reeked of burning rags and stale smoke.

Garett wrinkled his nose. It was always worst when he came in from the outside air, but he knew from experience that his delicate senses would quickly adjust and push any awareness of the foul stench to the back of his mind.

He made his way to his office, returning without enthusiasm the salutes of soldiers who passed him in the halls. He mounted a set of stairs and climbed them wearily. He just wasn’t in the mood for this place tonight. Its thick walls oppressed him as much as the smell. He seemed to feel their ponderous weight on his shoulders.

He pushed open the door to his office. At least here the light was better. He paid for new lamps himself, out of his own pocket, and he kept the oil wells filled personally. It was a ritual with him to fill them each night, just as some merchants watered flowers and plants in their shops. He went straight to his desk, opened the bottom drawer, and removed the pot that contained his precious supply of galda oil. It was an expensive luxury. The oil had to be squeezed from the pulp of the fruity galda tree in the Cairn Hills. But it produced a sweet smell that invigorated the otherwise drab atmosphere of his small space.

“Evenin’, Cap’n.”

Garett didn’t jump. He knew the voice. Burge spent as much time in his captain’s office as he did his own, no doubt because he, too, preferred the better light. Garett straightened, his pot in hand, and turned toward his lieutenant. Burge was draped languidly over the chair behind the door. His violet eyes, which betrayed his elven blood, were dulled with boredom, as was his entire expression.

“Welcome home, Burge,” Garett answered, not because his friend had been on any trip. It was their not-so-private joke that the Citadel was really the only home either of them had ever known. They frequently greeted each other so at the beginning of a shift.

Burge rose, stretched his lanky form, and took a new seat on the corner of Garett’s desk. Garett turned to refill the first of his five precious lamps. “Anything interesting on our docket tonight?” he asked. Burge was always the first night-shifter to arrive, and he always had the day’s gossip for his captain.

“The day’s been reasonably quiet,” Burge reported as he picked up a stylus and began to play with it. “No leads yet on the dock robberies. Korbian says he’ll try to get to it just as soon as the new mayor and magister are installed in office.”

Garett looked up briefly from his refilling and mentally counted the days until the summer solstice. On that day, Ellon Thigpen would be made mayor by the Directorate. In turn, Thigpen would invest Kentellen Mar, his personal choice for magister, to run the city’s judiciary.

“Has Kentellen returned yet?” Garett asked offhandedly as he returned to his task. The soon-to-be magister had decided to take a vacation before assuming his new duties. Rumor put him somewhere in the north of Furyondy.

“Not yet,” Burge answered. The half-elf crossed his long legs, leaned back on the desk, and studied the ceiling. It was then that Garett realized his friend’s boredom was only an act. Well, he’d just laid it on too thickly.

“You’re holding something back,” Garett said, setting his pot down, turning to face Burge. “You want to tell me, or you want to walk double-shift with Blossom?”

Burge leaped up in mock alarm and held his hands out before him pleadingly. “No, Cap’n, sir. Please not that, sir.” The half-elf put on quite a show, pretending to swallow hard as he wrung his hands. Then he dropped the act and turned serious again. “The day watch found another body floatin’ in the stream down by the Old Town wall this mornin’.”

Garett frowned as he bent over his desk. That made five in the last two weeks. “Same as the others?” he asked.

Burge leaned against the wall and picked at a nail as he nodded. “Not a pretty sight at all. A woman this time. Nice lookin’, too. And there’s been reports of several more disappearances in the Slum Quarter.”

Garett pulled out his chair and sat down, digesting the information. A piece of his dream fluttered through his brain again, but it was gone as soon as he tried to grasp it. For some reason, he thought of the birds he’d seen above the High Market Square.

“Was it a patrol that found her?” he asked sternly.

Burge shook his head, and a flicker of irritation showed on his face. “A couple of merchants on their way to set up shop in the Petit Bazaar. You can’t keep this quiet, sir. Rumors are already beginnin’ to spread. People in the lower quarters are gettin’ nervous.”

“Exactly what we don’t need with a big citywide celebration coming up,” Garett said, his mind working. “Double the patrols in the Artisans’ Quarter, the Slum Quarter, and the River Quarter. The Foreign Quarter, too. And alert all the watch houses to keep a sharp eye out.” He leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk as he thought, and turned his gaze up to the ceiling. “I’ve got this strange feeling.”

“A woman would take care of that,” Burge quipped, rolling his eyes. “I’ve told you, a night down on the Strip is what you need. I could show you some places that would straighten your chest hair.”

Before Garett could make his usual excuse, his door opened. Blossom ducked her head as she passed under the jamb, and a cascade of blond hair spilled forward. The woman stood nearly seven feet tall. That was the first thing a man noticed about her. The second was her startling beauty. The third was the hard gleam in her cobalt eyes, which said she didn’t take dung from anybody.

“Trouble, Captain,” she reported crisply. “We’ve got a patrolman downstairs. He says Acton Kathenor has been murdered.”

Garett and Burge exchanged looks. Garett hissed an unintelligible curse and rose from his chair.

   A swift walk down the Processional brought Garett, Burge, and Blossom to the Street of Temples in the sector of Greyhawk known as the Halls. It was in this part of town that most government offices were located and where most of the day-to-day bureaucratic activities took place. Greyhawk University was also located here, as well as most of the city’s major religious institutions. It was a refuge for intellectuals and scholars, clerics and priests.