D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (7 page)

“Soldiers!” Garett snapped, stepping back and peering at the men.

One of the soldiers saluted crisply. “Begging Captain’s pardon, sir,” he said with a straight face. “Where’s our apple, tonight, sir?”

Garett realized these were the same men who had stood duty at the entrance last night, and he hid a grin. After all, he appreciated a sense of humor, as well as a man with courage enough to use it on his superior officer. Still . . .

Garett put his face close to the face of the soldier who had spoken. “Are you asking for a bribe, man?” he accused in his sternest voice. “I give you something, and you let me in? Is that it?”

The soldier paled a bit and shook his head vigorously. “No, sir! That wasn’t . . . !”

Garett turned toward the others. “Are any of you taking bribes? Speak up!”

All four shook their heads as they shot nervous glances at each other. The two who had crossed their lances to bar the captain’s path snapped to attention, bringing their weapons to their sides, opening the way for him.

“That’s good,” Garett growled as he peered at each of them in turn. “I’d hate to think ill of any member of Greyhawk’s constabulary.” He made a face and drew his thumb slowly across his throat before he went inside.

He grabbed the first man he encountered in the hallway, a young lieutenant whose name he didn’t remember. “Go to the barracks at once,” he ordered the man. “Get four apples from the kitchen and give them to the guards outside.” The lieutenant sputtered as he adjusted the weight of an armload of papers. “Sir, I hardly think . . . ,”

“I’m sure that’s right,” Garett interrupted. “Don’t argue. Just do it.”

“But, sir,” the lieutenant persisted. “The cook will be asleep!”

Garett caught the young man by his arm, pulled him close, and pressed one finger to his lips. “Shhhh,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Don’t alert the cook or anybody,” he said. “You take care of it personally. Sneak in. Be quiet. Can you handle it?”

The lieutenant drew himself erect. “Of course I can handle it,” he said, suddenly cooperative and eager to prove himself.

“Then go!” Garett turned him around and pointed him to the door.

Halfway there, the lieutenant turned and called back in a loud whisper. “Sir, is it all right if I take one for myself?”

Garett grinned and nodded, then headed for the stairs that would take him to his second-level office. Even from down the hall he saw the fine line of light that seeped under the edge of his door, and he drew a breath and let it out, knowing that his friends were already waiting for him.

He pushed open the door, spying Burge at once. The half-elf was sprawled atop his desk, propped up on one elbow, with one knee bent. Garett pointed a finger at him. “Don’t give me a hard time,” he ordered, hoping to defuse any criticism.

Burge, of course, ignored him. “See?” he said to Blossom, who leaned against the wall to his right. “I told you he’d be here on time. The sun just sets a little slower in the River Quarter, that’s all.”

Blossom said nothing. She merely frowned and turned blue eyes, heavy with boredom, on Garett.

“Welcome home, Captain,” Rudi said patiently from where he sat in the chair right behind the door. “I took the liberty of refilling your oil lamps, sir.”

“Thank you,” Garett answered, setting his helmet down on a corner of his desk as Burge swung around and sat up. “I’m sorry I’m late. Anything from the watch houses?” He pulled out his chair, but instead of sitting down, he planted his hands on the desk and leaned over it.

Burge rose with a fluid grace and went to stand by the opposite wall, facing Blossom. “Every Attloi in Greyhawk has packed up and fled the city,” he answered quietly.

“All of them?” Garett said, incredulous. “In one night?”

Burge pursed his lips. “All of ’em,” he affirmed.

’“That’s not all,” Blossom said. “A number of dwarves, or folks with dwarvish blood, have reportedly slipped out, too. Sentries also reported a pair of half-orcs left through the Highway Gate at the far south end of town.”

Garett raised an eyebrow. “Dwarves? Orcs? None of them have been murdered. The Attloi I can understand after seeing Exebur’s body. But why them?”

Blossom folded her hands behind her back and began to pace in a small area. She’d tied her blond hair back in a tight braid, and it swung as she moved. “I think we should ask Burge how he feels right now.” She shot him a look from the corner of her eye and leered down at him. “How about it, sugar boy? Any queasies?”

Burge drew himself straighter and flashed her a bright smile. “I feel fine,” he answered at once.

“Burge?” Rudi said at the same time. “Why?” “Think,” Blossom said with smug superiority. “Gypsies, dwarves, ores. All people or races who are sensitive to the presence of magic. There’s a pattern. Why not elves?” “I’m not an elf,” Burge snorted, looking insulted. Garett rubbed a hand over his chin, wishing he’d had time to scrape his cheeks and bathe himself. “You think they’re getting out because of the murders last night?” he said to Blossom. She was irritating sometimes, but she had a keen mind.

“While the ‘getting’ is good,” she answered seriously. Garett paced behind his desk, ignoring his friends while he thought out a course of action. The murder victims of last night had been the best seers in Greyhawk. That was the only connection they all shared. Due to the nature of the murders, the criminal was undoubtedly a wizard. Presumably then, there was some thing or some event this unknown magic-user didn’t want them to “see” in advance.

But, surely, in Greyhawk, a city some called Necropolis, those were not the only five seers. They were the best, maybe, but there had to be others.

“I thought we were goin’ to turn to the Wizards’ Guild for a little advice,” Burge said with the penchant he had for sometimes knowing what was on his captain’s mind.

Garett stopped near the window and gazed down into the darkness that filled the Great Square. Beyond, the lights of the High Quarter shone like little earthbound stars. “I suggested that this morning,” he answered. “But our new mayor, Thigpen, rejected it this early in the investigation. ‘An unwarranted expenditure of city monies,’ he called it.”

Burge snorted derisively.

Rudi put on a small frown, being generally more supportive and respectful of Greyhawk’s leaders than either Burge or Blossom. “Well, look at it from Thigpen’s point of view,” he said irritably. “You know what those mages charge every time the city asks them for the smallest favor. They’ve got no sense of civic responsibility at all. Ask any common constable in the watch how much a guild wizard wants for the simplest capture spell. They’re worse than the Thieves’ Guild, I tell you!”

Burge waved a hand before his face, as if swatting Rudi’s words aside. “When five citizens die in one night,” he countered coolly, “you’d think Thigpen would at least ask their fee.”

“Why?” Blossom said with sudden indignation. She tossed her long braid over one shoulder and stared stony-faced at Burge. “Because these five all lived on the north side of Black Gate?” Her voice was sharp and ice-edged. “Five bodies have also been found recently in Old Town, too, or did you overlook that coincidence?”

“That’s Old Town,” Rudi interjected disinterestedly. “Bodies turn up there all the time. It’s the Thieves’ Quarter, for all the gods’ sakes, and the Slum Quarter. Those people will kill for a scrap of food.”

Garett turned a sharp eye toward Blossom. “Five in the New City and five in Old Town. Are you suggesting there’s a connection?”

Blossom frowned again and slumped back against the wall, resuming her former relaxed posture. “I’m not suggesting anything, Captain,” she said wearily. “But that kind of attitude really yanks me off. Five poor souls wind up floaters in the south stream, and it’s a normal night in Old Town, nothing to get excited about. But a few wealthy fortune-tellers get capped, and the city wets all over itself.” Burge balanced his right ankle on his left knee and held it there as he leaned forward. “You’ve got that look, Cap’n,” he said quietly.

Garett looked at each of them. “I wonder if Blossom’s on to something,” he answered with a look of calculation. “Five and five. It could be coincidental.” He gave a shrug. “Then again, I don’t believe in coincidence.” He faced Blossom. “This was your idea. You locate the watchmen who found those bodies. I want to hear their reports personally before I leave here in the morning.”

“Some of them were daylighters,” Blossom responded. “I’ll have to wake them up.”

“Wake them up,” Garett ordered. Most watchmen of enlisted rank lived and slept in the barracks just off the High Market Square grounds. Only officers and those granted special permission had private apartments. Blossom could rouse the sleepers just before their shifts began. “Have them here in my office just before dawn.”

Blossom nodded. “Anything else?”

“Yes’’ Garett said. “Any of you. By reputation or report, these were the five best seers in the city. Their visions were the clearest. They saw farthest into the future. Even the Attloi, Exebur, if he was as good as his people claim. Now with them out of the way, who else would you go to if you wanted to know what the future held?”

“Duncan, in the River Quarter on Queer Eye Street,” Rudi answered, then hastily amended, “but most people say he’s a fake.”

“The Cat,” Burge suggested thoughtfully. “He’s an old man who lives in the slums. On Bladder Lane, I think. He’s supposed to have the power.”

Rudi snorted. “How much power can he have,” he queried, “if he can’t make enough money to get out of the Slum Quarter? Or maybe he likes living with the mice?” Burge turned one eye toward Rudi without altering his posture in the least. “Perhaps he prefers the mice of Old Town,” he suggested evenly, “to the rats who live in better places.”

“Well said, elf.” Blossom nodded appreciatively to Burge before she looked at Rudi and addressed him steely-voiced. “You insist on reminding us of your youth at every opportunity.”

“I’m not an elf,” Burge muttered, running his gaze calmly up her seven-foot frame, “you unfortunate, mixed-up mass of glandular confusion.”

“What do you mean by that?” Rudi asked Blossom indignantly.

Garett interrupted before an argument broke out. These were his chosen officers, as well as his friends, but they didn’t always get along with each other. Rudi was the youngest and sometimes said thoughtless things, and both Burge and Blossom had tongues that could cut stone or tickle silk, however they chose to employ them.

“That’s enough.” Garett rapped once on his desk with his knuckles to draw their attention. “Rudi, you take a patrol to Queer Eye Street. Find Duncan and ask him to come to the Citadel. Tell him I need my palm read, or my tea leaves studied, whatever it is he does.”

“It may take a little time,” Rudi said, rising to his feet. “He doesn’t have a shop front. He works the streets and the street corners.”

“Just find him,” Garett repeated. “Blossom already has her assignment. I want to know everything about these Old Town murders. 'You’re right; we haven’t really done enough to check them out. You get me the details, and get me those watchmen.”

Burge uncrossed his legs and stood up. “What about me, Cap’n?”

Garett put on his best false smile. “It’s a beautiful night,” he said slyly. “You and I are going to take a little walk down to the Slum Quarter.”

Burge put a hand dramatically to his chest. “I haven’t a thing to wear.”

“Rip something,” Blossom suggested helpfully.

“Like a stomach muscle,” Rudi added with a caustic note

as he opened the door and exited.

“Nice kid,” Burge commented as his eyes met Garett’s. “Were his mother and father by any chance brother and sister?”

 A high wall, so ancient it was blackened with stone-rot from the heat of old fires, separated Old Town from the New City, and the Black Gate, as it was called, was the only entrance or egress. Beyond the Black Gate lay the Slum Quarter and the Thieves’ Quarter, and the guards kept a careful record and a sharp eye on those who traveled back and forth, for no one did so on honorable business.

Garett and Burge took a single lantern from the gatehouse, and after exchanging a few pleasantries with the guards on duty, they passed under the gate’s imposing arch and into the Thieves’ Quarter, the most dangerous part of Greyhawk.

There were no street lamps in Old Town, and the darkness was oppressive. The Processional became an ill-kept road, full of ruts and holes, littered with refuse. Even the buildings in Old Town looked tired and weary. They leaned at odd angles on settled foundations. Shutters hung on broken hinges, and chimneys pitched precipitously, as if at any moment they might crumble and slide into the street below.

A few taverns were still open. This close to the gate, few businesses flourished. A bored young noble with a taste for adventure—but not too much adventure—might wander this way for a drink and brag about it afterward to his friends. Some of the lower quarter’s citizens sometimes preferred to take their pleasures on the south side of the Black Gate, rather than venture into the River Quarter, where their poorer clothes might subject them to scorn and prejudice.

And of course there was the usual assortment of thugs and ruffians and low-life characters one would expect to find in the most impoverished section of the city. Men could hide in the labyrinth that was the Thieves’ Quarter and never be found again. Indeed, most of Greyhawk’s criminal element did just that. This quarter was home not only to the city’s powerful and devious Thieves’ Guild, but to the Assassins’ Guild and the Beggars’ Union as well.

The sound of raucous laughter spilled suddenly into the street. A door crashed open unexpectedly, and somebody sprawled face down in the road at Burge’s feet. A large man, his bald head gleaming in the lamplight, suddenly appeared in the doorway, his hands curled into fists. Several others crowded quickly behind him, expecting the fight to continue.

The man at Burge’s feet gave a moan and rolled over. He stared upward in confusion for a moment, his panicked gaze swiftly raking over the two men above him before he shot a glance toward the door. Then he gave another moan, scrambled to his feet, and disappeared up a narrow alley.