Chapter 3

“Mom! Mom! He’s here!”

“Where? And where’s your sister?”

“Chloe’s still looking around, I guess.”

“How do you know he’s here?”

“The duke’s tower? It’s empty. They found Nate’s Eight in the toilet down at the base of the tower? You know, it’s like a big pit under the seat, right? Like mega-latrine except in stone?”

“Yes.”

“The Eight are in there, Mom, along with, like, ten other random guards. Didn’t Nate’s Eight demolish that pirate flotilla a month ago?”

“Yes, they did.”

“Dad’s badass.”

“Do they know where he is now?”

“Dad? No. Nate’s in the shitter. They’ve called for masons to break them out of there. You know? They’ll have to wreck the stonework. I mean, how’d he even get them in there?”

“In where?”

“Chloe! We think he’s here. He’s neutralized the duke’s tower. What did you find?”

“Nothing good. That platform outside? It’s a gallows.”

“A gallows.”

“A long one. Five nooses. Five stools. No trapdoors. No quick breaking of necks but slow strangulation. It’s awful. What is it?”

“I think I know what’s going on. You girls stay here. Wait for your father. Make sure he gets out.”

“Where are you going? Mom? Hey, your hammer’s glowing!”

“Jaz, let her go.”

“But dad’ll be here any moment, right?”

“Probably. Him getting in is not the problem.”

Ned looked down from the rafters above the throne room. It was much like the last time he was here right before the duke threw him out of Laggisport and tried to have him murdered. A large open rectangular space with galleries along each long wall. The throne had been moved to the rear wall and there was no sign of the duke’s dogs. The two enormous mastiffs must be in a kennel somewhere for the party.

There were many people down there, milling around, socializing. Only some of them were legitimate guests and petitioners. Many more were guards and mercenaries in disguise. Ned could see the hilts of swords and other weapons peeking from cloaks and breastplates under blousy shirts. There were even some owlish, bookish types that could be mages.

The duke himself was arguing with Jerome by the northern gallery. The doors there were thrown open, letting in natural light and birdsong from the large courtyard beyond, if Ned remembered right. Jerome from Philadelphia was pointing outside and gesturing, his dark face flushed with anger, his left hand resting on the pommel of a long slim sword.

Ned was pretty sure Jerome was right-handed. It’d been the one Jerome had hit him with last time. Ned didn’t have any hard feelings about it. The duke had told him to do it. Jerome was the duke’s pet Earthling. Ned liked him.

And he liked him more and more as Jerome got angrier and angrier, clearly upset about something in the courtyard or garden or whatever it was. The big African American former cop was not having it. Anybody that angry with the duke was a potential ally.

Movement on the rafters in Ned’s peripheral vision drew his attention. Whatever it was had been quick and on the far side of the room. Too small to be a person. People? There might have been two quick little blurs. Rats?

There were enormous decorative tapestries above the throne and the double doors to the throne room that took up most of the smaller walls of the rectangle. Deciding he’d waited long enough, Ned lasered the one behind him from right to left. It fell, burning, into a pile blocking the entrance.

People screamed. Many ran for the courtyard.

To hurry them along, Ned burned the one off the wall above the throne.

He dropped as the second tapestry fell smoking over the big wooden chair and Ned found himself with a big smile on his face, quite satisfied. It'd only be fair if the damned pompous chair burned to ash.

People were running and screaming now, herding through the gallery doors on either side of the room. More were drawing weapons. A few arrows flew at Ned only to vanish into his inventory as they got close.

“I’m here for the duke and only for him!” Ned roared. “Stay back and don’t interfere and no harm will come to you!”

Three guards charged him and fell almost in the same instant. Two had sprouted odd, thick quarrels in their chest while the other had a slender arrow bisecting his neck. The quarrels… maybe crossbow bolts? They’d come from behind. The arrow from above. Surely not from the gallery. Maybe the rafters.

Had Hughie found a crossbow somewhere? How’d he manage those shots so fast? No. The arrow meant two shooters at least, right? Do I have allies here? Ned thought.

The duke stood where he’d been arguing earlier with Jerome. He took a step forward now and bellowed, “Stop!”

Everybody stopped.

Well, except for Ned. He kept walking forward.

“You too, Cartwright,” said the duke.

“Now why would I do that?” Ned asked.

“Because of what he’s got in the courtyard,” said Jerome. The man’s face was graying and he was shaking. He looked sick.

Ned stopped and looked out the gallery doors toward the courtyard as the last of the fleeing crowd escaped.

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Above their heads, Ned could see a gallows. Five people stood there on stools. He saw Gritta Stone, his old blacksmith from the Namastery, Myca Stonebender, her apprentice, Dara Furlong, a grandmotherly merchant and business partner, in the last two positions on much taller stools were two halflings, Ola Needlebottom, one of his former carpentry students and a spy for the duke, and, in the last spot was Bossi Greenfeet, the smartest student he ever had. Each had a noose tight around their necks. A big shirtless man stood to the side wearing a black hood over his face.

Ned turned back to the duke. “Let them go.”

“Surrender,” said Duke Leonart. “And I’ll consider it. Delay and Samwell will start feeling pushy. He's the one in the hood.”

Ned almost sank to the floor. He felt sick. He felt tired. Worse. There was a tiny morsel of relief mixed in and when he detected it, it grew. Finally, it was over. The pain would stop. He could stop. He looked back to the duke about to surrender and say fuck this place when a flash of light from outside caught his eye.

A gleaming hammer crashed right through one of the uprights for the crossbeam, shivering it in two. It barely paused in its trajectory as it swung down. Ned saw the whole platform shiver, knocking most of the condemned off their stools. It didn’t matter and wouldn't hurt anybody because the crossbeam was in the process of falling too. Another flash and the whole gallows tilted forward. Whoever was swinging that maul had collapsed the two forward supports, spilling the hangman and his victims onto the courtyard flagstones.

Ned didn’t know anybody with a hammer like that.

Duke Leonart stood there, agape, looking stupid and stupified.

A suitable final look, in Ned's opinion, so Ned sent an arrow through his eye and the man fell dead.

There was screaming and confusion. Many who had run out into the courtyard were now running back in.

Guards and mercenaries looked at each other. Some of them began to move toward Ned. Some looked unsure.

Someone in the crowd yelled, “For the duke!” and there was a commotion as somebody charged.

Ned heard an unearthly bellow, saw a humongous sword rise and fall, then rise bloody and fall again.

There was movement on his right.

Ned spun to see five bodies fall. Two with arrows. Three with bolts.

He was jostled on his right.

Jerome was there. His rapier out, bloody to the hilt. “Hi, Ned,” he said as he lunged forward to take a redheaded woman in the throat with his blade. “I never should’ve worked with a man like that. I didn’t know, man.”

A big guy with what looked like a fricking pickaxe leaped over a couple of corpses only to fall at Ned’s feet with a bolt and an arrow in his neck.

“Who is doing that?” asked Ned.

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t.”

Ned heard somebody yell, “Fuck this. A dead duke can’t pay anybody.”

“The next one might,” said somebody else.

“He’ll just kill the next one too! All my people! We’re out of here.”

The throne room began to clear out a little bit as some of the mercenaries left.

Jerome pointed at a contingent of guards backing toward the gallery doors that led into the gardens. “They’re gonna regroup.”

“Yeah, time to go,” Ned said. “I’ve got to get my people in the courtyard. Hughie!”

The big crow swooped down to land beside Ned. “What do you need?”

Ned handed his red bag to Hughie. “Take this. It’s empty. Go get our people from the courtyard.”

“By myself?”

“I’ll go with him,” said Jerome.

Ned took back the bag from Hughie and handed it to Jerome. “You get everybody in the bag then.” He pointed at Hughie. “You watch out for him.”

They each gave a nod and ran out to the courtyard.

“And try to get whoever had that hammer too!” shouted Ned. "We owe him!"

Ned turned around to face the doors to the gardens. There he saw guards forming up, shields at the ready.

Ned shouted. “Anybody going with me,” Ned took out his blue bag. “Get in the bag.”

“Ned!” someone shouted. The voice was familiar.

The smiling face of Olmer Tack approached through the chaos. He was dressed in fine clothes and held a dripping dagger.

“Were you shooting earlier?” Ned asked.

Olmer shrugged, waggling his dagger. “This is all I brought to the party. I was here for business,” said Olmer. He ran a transportation service that specialized in wagon caravan security. Just a little while ago he’d been visiting Ned at the Namastery trying to get him and the king of the squirrels interested in a venture. “It might’ve been the Weird Sisters. I think I saw them. The green one fires bolts like that.” He kicked one of the corpses with a bolt in his chest.

“Get in the bag,” said Ned.

“Not for all the money in Laggisport.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” said Ned. “Here.” He handed the man the bag.

Olmer took it.

Ned said, “Once I’m in, just open the trapdoor and take me out.”

“What?”

But Ned jumped in.

He took a look at his little floating room. There was a cot, some shelves, and a fireplace but the fire was out. It was cold inside but there was enough firewood piled beside —.

Yanked back out, Ned staggered a moment to find his balance. He looked at Olmer who stared at him, shocked.

“But —.”

“Yeah, I know. Cost me a fortune but it’s safe.”

“But —.”

“Actually, can you get everybody in?” Ned said. The guards were making their move, advancing at a steady pace back into the throne room to avenge their lord. "I'll handle them. Unless you'd care to?"

“Right,” said Olmer. He moved behind Ned, shouting, “Anybody who wants to get the hell out of here and go with Ned, get in the bag!”

Ned approached the guards.

They stopped short, out of melee range, watching him.

“Hi!” said Ned. He made a vague gesture behind him. “We’re leaving. The duke’s dead. If the king is stupid enough to send you another one, I’ll kill that duke too. My fight isn’t with any of you.”

“Our duty is —.”

“To the king and the duke, yes. Now’s not the time to argue about how stupid that is and how you’ve been mistreated,” said Ned. “Here.” He dumped a small pile of pamphlets on the floor. “Read some of my writings on the matter. Later, though. Let’s not have any more death today, okay? Maybe I’ll be back soon and you can kill me then. Maybe I’ll even get Jerome to come with me and you can kill him too.”

One of the men said, “Loot, this guy took out Nate’s Eight. Took them all alive and dumped them in the shitter.”

His lieutenant looked thoughtful.

He saw movement to his left and saw four mercenaries charging him with spears.

Ned held up a hand and burned them down, concentrated light cut through smoking armor and flesh, and four bodies fell in eight pieces onto the floor.

Movement to his right.

It was Hughie. He held up the red bag, trying to catch his breath. “I’ve got everybody.”

“Jerome? The hammer guy?”

Hughie nodded. “Girl.”

“Huh?”

“Hammer girl,” Hughie said. “I didn’t get a good look at her, but it’s definitely a lady.”

“Olmer!” Ned bellowed, holding up a patient finger toward the guards and their lieutenant. “How we doing?”

“Just about got everybody,” Olmer said. “Just get in the fucking bag you fucking squirrel!”

Squirrel? Ned turned but Olmer stood and smiled. There was no one left around him. “That was the last of them,” he told Ned.

“Good, you get inside too.” Ned took the bag from Olmer, intertwined his fingers, and held them out like he was going to help the other man onto a horse.

Olmer shrugged, smiled, stepped onto Ned’s hands, and was soon also in the bag.

Ned turned back to the guards. “We good?” he said.

The lieutenant was staring at the smoking remains of the mercenaries. He looked at the duke’s corpse and the burning throne. “I think we should put out that fire. It's the more immediate threat, in my opinion,” he said. “Objections, men?”

There weren’t any and the guards moved off to deal with the building flames.

Ned turned to Hughie. “Well,” he said. “That worked out.”

Hughie rolled his eyes. “Just get in the bag, Ned, and tell me where we’re going with all these people.”

“Only one place we can go,” said Ned. “Which bag do you think is more crowded?”

Hughie shrugged.

The red bag’s room was bigger and there should be hammocks enough for everybody, but Ned had no idea how many people were in it. The blue one was where he lived. It was cold and Ned was certain there were at least ten people in there and one cot.

Ned took the blue bag and tucked it into his belt.

Then, he got in the red one.