Scourge Page 8

  “Probably. Been some attacks down toward Skinton, over on Barker Street. Ghouls, I hear. Folks are sick of it, you know? Mayor says his guards will handle it, and the soldiers kill a few monsters, but they don’t ever get them all. I think the guards are as scared of the monsters as anyone.”

  “Maybe so.”

  Tek frowned. “You think it’s true, what they say? That the monsters come when the Balance is off-kilter?”

  Kell snorted. “You think the gods have nothing better to do than chalk off lives and deaths like the score in a dice game?” He shook his head. “I don’t know where the monsters come from. Can’t be anywhere good. Don’t care, so long as they go away again.”

  They turned the corner, and Kell could see the site of the accident. Three walls of a brick building were still standing, but the fourth had collapsed into rubble. Workers crawled over the rubble while the foreman shouted orders. Kell saw a man’s foot protruding from the wreckage.

  “Looks like you might need an undertaker,” Kell said as he strode towards the foreman. Tek vanished into the crowd.

  The foreman looked up, scowling. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

  Kell grinned. “Valmonde Brothers, the hardest working undertakers in Wrighton.”

  “The only damn undertakers in this part of Wrighton,” the foreman grumbled. There were other undertakers in Ravenwood, but the Guild Masters governed their number and location, and the areas they served.

  “The only—and the best. You need some help?”

  “No.” The foreman watched with a grim expression as the workers uncovered the crushed remains. “What will it cost me to see him buried well?” he said, gesturing to the corpse. “He was one of our senior masons.”

  Kell quoted a figure twice what Agatha paid. The Masons’ Guild had money, and they thought highly of themselves. Guild members paid into an account to handle burials and accidents, so Kell had no compunction about making a profit. They’ll give a stipend to his family, so I’m hardly taking bread from his widow.

  “That’s extortion,” the foreman grumbled, but he dug into his vest for his money pouch and counted out the coins into Kell’s palm. “I expect a burial worth the price. A proper preparation, with honey and myrrh, clean winding sheets, and homage made to the Old Ones as well as the Guild gods.”

  Kell gave a respectful bow. “As you wish, sir,” he said, hiding his glee at getting such a good price. He kept a suitably melancholy expression as the unfortunate worker’s colleagues loaded the smashed remains into his wagon. The metallic tang of blood and the odor of shit and entrails assaulted his nose. “I’ll have my brothers work on him right away,” Kell promised, eager to be on his way before the foreman reconsidered the terms.

  I’ll have to be sure to pay Tek an extra bronze when I see him. That’s enough to keep us fed for most of the month.

  RONDU, THE OWNER of The Hound and Hare, paid Kell double the standard vagrant fee to haul away the body of a man killed in a knife fight, with a few coins more to say nothing to the Mayor’s guards should they make enquiries. Mistress Glimph, the owner of one of the better kept tenements, flagged him down for the body of a tenant whose heart had failed him in the night. Two families hailed Kell on his rounds with fever victims; Kell pulled his scarf up over his face, and sprinkled those bodies with quicklime to prevent contagion.

  Still, a good run , Kell thought. The quicklime brought an extra fee, and Mistress Glimph paid nearly as much as Prendicott at The Lame Dragon, the last stop on Kell’s regular route before heading home.

  Kell thanked the gods for the cool day, since it kept down the smell and the flies. Hot summer days were the worst, drawing maggots and making the corpses bloat faster. Digging the graves in winter was hard work, but Kell much preferred cooler temperatures when collecting bodies.

  He cursed under his breath when he found his way blocked by a crowd just a few streets from the pub. Kell could hear voices, but could not see over the people blocking the road, so he climbed up and stood on the back of the body cart.

  “It’s a sign! A sign that the gods are displeased with our tribute. The monsters walk among us because we have turned away our faces and hardened our hearts!” The speaker paced up and down as he spoke, gesturing and lunging with the force of his words. His beard and hair were shot through with gray, and his thin body and hollow cheeks—along with the stained and ragged robe that barely covered his unwashed body—suggested an ascetic, or a madman.

  “Look to the old stories!” the prophet cried. “As it was in the days past, so it is again, to call us to give the gods their due.” He thrust a bony finger at a man in the front of the crowd.

  “You! Do you remember what befell our ancestors before the sea rose and the crops died? The gods tried to warn us. Do you remember the stories?”

  The man stepped back, either from fear that the gnarled finger might poke out his eye, or perhaps to dodge the spittle flying from the prophet’s lips. “Monsters, each kind a judgment for our sins,” he stammered.

  The legends were part of what every child learned about the gods of Ravenwood. Kell knew the stories, though now that he was older, he wondered about their truthfulness.

  “ Judgment!” the prophet shrieked, throwing up his arms. “An army of ghouls, robbing the dead of their rest, because of their unfaithfulness to the worship of the gods. Snake-monsters from your worst nightmares, two-mawed and twice-fanged. Beetles that eat flesh and drink blood, mortifying the body. Great beasts that come in the night and hunt their prey through the streets, to remind us that we are nothing compared to the power of the gods! Corpses animated by vengeful spirits because the wicked will never know rest. And worms, a plague of maggots, because Doharmu, the god of death, will not be mocked!”

  The crowd murmured in dismay, caught up in the spectacle. Kell had to admit the prophet put on quite a show. His cynical side wondered when the old man would pass the hat.

  “You! Gravedigger!”

  Kell’s eyes widened as the crowd turned to look at him. Kell realized he stood head and shoulders above them on the body cart. “Don’t mind me—”

  “ All of you should beg his pardon!” the wild prophet shouted. “Beg him for deliverance to the After. Because he’ll be the one who sees your wretched flesh to its final rest, who lowers your rotting corpses into the wet dirt. Beg the gods for deliverance and the undertaker for confession, and turn from your sins so we may be delivered from the cycle of monsters that the gods have brought down upon us!”

  Kell’s mouth was dry and his hands were shaking, but he managed his best cocky smile. “Just making my rounds,” he said, feeling his cheeks flush scarlet from the unwanted attention. “Don’t mind me. Clear the way.” He put his head down and picked up the cart handles, resolutely refusing to look up until he was past both the prophet and his followers.

  A wooden sign with a picture of a dragon holding a crutch heralded The Lame Dragon, a wattle-and-daub building with a steeply sloping thatch roof. The smell of sausages from the inn made his stomach rumble. As had been agreed, he came around to the back. Two stable hands loafed by the corner, smoking their pipes. Polly, one of the cook’s helpers, smiled when she saw him.

  “You come looking to see if we have a stiff for you?” she called, merrily.

  Kell grinned. Polly was close to his own age, and he liked how her red hair bobbed when she moved. “That, and more,” he said with a wink that made her blush. A kitchen girl could do much worse than a boy from a Guild, even one in his trade. Corran and Rigan are slow to take wives, Kell thought. But when I’m of age, I want a lass like Polly, one who can cook and make me laugh.

  “I heard a riddle when I took ale out to the common room,” Polly said, glancing over her shoulder as she emptied her bucket of scraps into a slop tray for the hogs.

  “Tell me.”

  “‘What I build, I build stronger than the mason, the shipwright, and the carpenter. What am I?’”

  Kell thought for a moment, then s
hook his head. “Don’t know.”

  Polly laughed, her eyes sparkling. “Silly! The undertaker, because the houses of the dead last forever!”

  Kell laughed, but sobered when he saw the bruise on her cheek. His gaze fell to a fresh cut on one arm, and he noticed the handle of a small knife tucked into the apron ties around her waist.

  “What happened?” His voice deepened with anger.

  “Nothing.” Polly looked away.

  “Prendicott needs to keep his eyes open and have a care.”

  “Please, don’t,” Polly begged. “I need this job. That sort of thing happens—” Kell guessed what she didn’t say aloud. —in a place like this. To a girl like me.

  Kell’s teeth ground together. “Polly—”

  Polly met his gaze and moved a step closer. “I stopped him, Kell. Don’t ask for details.” He saw a dark line beneath her fingernails that might have been dried blood. “After a while, you learn. It’s just the way of things.”

  Kell swallowed his anger. “I won’t say anything. I wish I could get you away from here.”

  Polly kissed him on the cheek. “You’re sweet. Keep thinking that way. Maybe in a few years—”

  Just then, the kitchen door opened and the stern-faced cook leaned out. “Polly! Get in here. There’s work to do.”

  Polly winked at Kell before slinking back into the kitchen.

  The cook eyed the undertaker. “I’ll tell the tavern master you’re here,” she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she glanced at the wagon’s contents. The door slammed behind her, leaving Kell in the cold.

  Prendicott came out a few moments later. “There’s a man’s body in the barn,” he said. “Found him in there this morning. No idea who he is; he wasn’t staying at the inn, and he’s not one of the regulars. Looks like he got a knife between the ribs. There’s a second body, too, and from the way it’s been chewed on, he ran into some monsters and crawled in there to die. Don’t want anyone catching sight of either of them. Bad for business.” He paid Kell his usual fee. “Throw a piece of burlap over them so the gossips don’t see, or there’ll be no end to the tales. Things are bad enough as they are.”

  As Kell hauled the cart towards the stables he glanced up: almost sunset, and he still had a distance to go to get home. Best be back before dark if I don’t want to end up like the fellows in the barn. Corran would skin me alive for taking the risk.

  The first corpse looked to have been a few years older than Corran, with bruises on his face and upper arms. Like a slap to the cheek might make, or where punches would land if you were holding someone’s arms. Kell felt his temper rise. Only one wound marked the body, a thin cut where a small knife had slipped between the ribs and into the heart; a knife much like a kitchen girl would carry.

  I’m glad Polly killed you, you son of a bitch. I’ll fix it so the gods will never accept your soul. People forget that undertakers get the last word. He threw the body into the cart, making no attempt to be gentle, and went to look for the other corpse.

  He found it in the back of the barn on a blood-soaked pile of hay. Deep claw marks had gashed the dead man’s chest and opened up his belly. One arm looked as if it had been gnawed by something with a disconcertingly human bite. Ghouls. So it’s true—they’re back. Kell braced himself and dragged the corpse by its feet until he was close enough to shoulder it into the wagon, trying to get as little of the dead man’s blood on him as possible.

  This wasn’t the first time he had retrieved a monster kill. He was no stranger to the many ways men died, and the particular horrors of each. More than once, Kell had seen the hanged man’s purpled face and swollen tongue, the rope bruise fresh around the throat and the head flopping at an odd angle on the broken neck. He had seen bodies green with rot and contorted from poison, and mangled from fall and accident. Drowned men with their fish-pale waterlogged skin and murdered women with throats slit were all in a day’s work, along with the old, the sick and, at times, the plagueridden.

  But the monster kills were the worst, the corpses most likely to haunt Kell’s dreams. Unnatural creatures roamed the streets and alleys of Ravenwood. No one knew where they came from, or why sometimes they would disappear for months at a time, only to return hungry and more vicious than ever. That’s what made the rantings of the old prophet so appealing to his audience. Angry gods could be appeased, sins atoned or avoided. Mad or not, he offered an explanation, something better than random chance and bad luck. His wild tales were not the only theories Kell had heard for the return of the monsters: some said it followed a pattern, while others blamed a shift in the Balance, though Kell doubted that.

  Do they even know what they mean when they mention the Balance? Or is it just something they tell themselves because any reason—however flimsy—is better than no reason at all?

  Once, Kell had glimpsed one of the creatures savaging its victim in the street outside the shop. Corran and Rigan had ordered him away from the window. Rigan stayed with him, while Corran joined the other men who took to the street with whatever tools might double as weapons to protect their families. That alone would warrant a beating if the Mayor’s guards caught them, but the guards, as usual, were nowhere to be found.

  Dead is dead, Kell thought, taking two burlap grain bags from a heap in the corner to cover the corpse. But though he tried to convince himself, he knew the truth—not all deaths were equal.

  Chapter Seven

  WIDGEM’S FAVORITE PLACE to conduct business was a seedy tavern called The Muddy Goat. Kell’s cart full of corpses looked right at home beside the disreputable tavern, and the couple of drunks passed out in the gutter might almost have fallen from it.

  No one gave Kell a second glance when he walked in, stepping carefully as his soles stuck to the grubby floor. The tavern was more popular for its low prices than the quality of the watered ale. An offkey minstrel caterwauled in a corner, but most of the patrons were too consumed by their card games or too deep into their cups to care. The smoke wreathing the tap room did little to mask the smell of unwashed bodies and old vomit. Worn-looking trollops cozied up to clients who looked to have a few coin to spare.

  The Goat stood on a back street in Wrighton, far enough from the harbor that only locals congregated here. Farriers and blacksmiths favored the place, assuring enough strong men in the tavern to keep the peace so the barkeeper seldom needed the assistance of the Mayor’s guards; that the guards were not welcome here went without saying.

  Kell found Widgem in his usual spot: a table in a shadowed nook where business could be transacted with some degree of privacy. Widgem’s massive, rolling belly strained at the buttons beneath a dirty shirt and a torn jacket worn thin at the elbows. The tankard in front of the big man was likely not his first, but, even in his cups, nobody could get one over on the old codger.

  Widgem looked up as Kell approached.

  “What do you have for me today?” Kell asked. He glanced around, then perched on a stool on the other side of the table, making sure to keep his back to the wall. Widgem dug a pouch from beneath his jacket and put it on the table.

  “As you requested,” Widgem said, his voice unctuous. “I made the very dangerous trek Below to get these from the witches down there.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “Terrible place, Below. And those witches—”

  “I make it worth your while, don’t I?” Kell replied without looking up. Widgem’s acting was worse than the amateurs on the stage in the city green, and Kell did not fall for it.

  Kell dumped the bag’s contents onto the table between them. A motley collection spread out: good-luck charms of dubious value, a ‘lucky’ ring of uncertain provenance, a worn set of prayer beads, a few carved worry stones.

  “Let me see the money,” Widgem said, his rheumy eyes lighting up as Kell held a few coins up, then withdrew them again. Kell gathered the pieces toward him and picked them up and examined them, one after the other.

  “The amulets are nice,” Kell said. “But the beads look lik
e the ones I saw on the peddler’s cart for three bronzes. The worry stones will sell.” He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t steal them, did you?”

  “Can’t steal from witches, boy. I’d be a dead man.” Widgem chuckled, a wheezy sound that ended in a coughing fit.

  “Well?” Kell asked.

  “Ten bronze,” Widgem replied.

  Kell laughed. “Take me for a fool? They’re not worth more than five.”

  Widgem’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll give them to you for six, and not a bronze less.”

  Kell grinned. “Done!” He dug the coins out of the pouch tied around his neck. “Here,” he said, sliding them toward Widgem and gathering the items with a sweep of his arm. “Now, how’s business?”

  Widgem shrugged. “Been busy. What do you hear?”

  “What do you know about that street prophet filling people’s head with nonsense about monsters and gods?”

  Widgem gave him a measured look. “Who’s to say it’s nonsense? The monsters are back—and more than what should be. Why’re they here? Where do they come from? Why now, and why so many?” He shook his head. “Maybe he knows something we don’t.”

  Kell snorted. “I’d think the gods could find a better mouthpiece than the likes of him, if they had a message to send. What else do you hear?”

  Widgem looked around, dropping his voice. “I heard that the price of bread is going up. And that the Merchant Princes are worried about the trade negotiations with Garenoth. Have to fix the contract for the next while, you know.”

  “Couldn’t care less about the Merchant Princes, or trade agreements. None of my business. We don’t import dead people. Anything else?”

  “Couple more people gone missing, a few more hunters dead or dragged off to jail. Some folks took sick, down near the harbor. They say witches did it.”

  “Magic like that’s illegal in Ravenwood.”

  “Lots of things are illegal in Ravenwood,” Widgem said with a crafty smile. “Don’t mean they aren’t going on.”