Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) (5 page)

Every beggar had to have a license. As always, the city took its cut.

There were no animals in the Devil’s Hook. If it moved, and was smaller than them, the occupants ate it. Sometimes they even cooked it first. When times got really bad, in the depths of the harshest winters, when the bitter cold kept paying customers off the narrow streets, the occupants had been known to eat each other. People with any sense avoided the Hook in winter, and sometimes barricades were erected across the entranceways to keep the occupants in.

It was rumored that the Devil’s Hook was where plague rats went to die, because they felt at home there.

The general smell was appalling, but Hawk and Fisher didn’t flinch. They were used to it. But when they’d finished their shift, they knew they’d have to fumigate their clothes and beat them with a stick to get rid of the smell, and whatever tiny wildlife they’d picked up along the way. They stuck to the middle of the street, and were careful where they put their feet. Hawk looked around him with more than usual attention.

“In a city full of disgusting spectacles, this has to be the most appalling. Every time I come in here, I think it can’t get any worse, and every time it is. When people die here and go to hell, they must feel right at home. Is this what we’re fighting to protect, Fisher? Is that what we put our lives on the lines to support?”

“We support the law,” said Fisher.

“What about justice?”

The Hook fell away suddenly, like a vampire presented with raw garlic, as the slums gave way to the docks, and the foul stench of too many people packed into one place was pushed back by the sharp, clean smells of the docks, and the open sea. Gulls keened overhead, getting an early start on the day. The dock buildings formed a wide semicircle surrounding the bay, which was currently crammed full of ships from a dozen countries and city-states further up the coast. Flags of all colors and designs flapped proudly in the gusting breeze, and the tall soaring masts made a kind of forest against the slowly lightening sky. Hawk was briefly struck by a kind of homesickness, though it had been many years since he had last walked in the Forest Kingdom. He brushed his feeling firmly aside and studied the situation with a soldier’s eye.

A vast crowd of protesting dockers had formed at one end of the dock, facing off against a thin line of gaudily clad private guards bolstered by the handful of city Guards who normally patrolled the area. The crowd of striking dockers numbered in the hundreds, backed up by their wives and families, and the prevailing mood was not good. Tempers had been pushed to breaking point by the introduction of mass zombie scab labor, and the strikers were spoiling for a confrontation. A few placards were being waved here and there, for the few who could read their simple messages, but mostly the dockers and their families put their feelings across by mass chanting. Simple slogans, crude insults against the DeWitts, declarations of defiance, all of them in voices ugly with rage and resentment and growing desperation. Savings were fast running out, bellies were empty, and the strikers were determined that if they had to back down and return to work, someone was going to pay first. There was also the unspoken fear that the zombies might replace them entirely. The thunderous roar of the massed chanting drowned out all the other sounds in the docks. Hawk couldn’t help noticing that every man and woman in the crowd was armed with something, from the steel hooks and claws and hammers of their trade, to clubs and lengths of chain and broken glass, and every man and woman looked more than ready to use them.

Hawk counted twenty private guards, each with a drawn sword, but there was no telling if they’d have the guts to hold their ground and use those swords if the crowd tipped over into a mob and surged forward. They were more used to bullying individual workers, or ganging up on the occasional smuggling ring. Hawk had already decided that if there was going to be a fight, he was going to make damn sure the private guards were between him and the dockers. That way they wouldn’t be able to turn and run.

All along the harborside, zombies were hard at work, moving slowly and silently back and forth from the ships, unloading their cargo and transferring it to the waiting transports. They carried heavy weights seemingly with ease, and they never stopped to rest. There were hundreds of them, going about their business with no sense of confusion, and Hawk had to admit he was impressed. He’d never seen so many corpses in one place before. Creating a zombie from a dead body was a simple if unpleasant business, but very expensive. Not many sorcerers specialized in necromancy, given the kind of deals they had to make for power and knowledge in that field, and they charged accordingly. Certainly, controlling so many dead bodies simultaneously had to involve a lot of power. In fact, if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Hawk would have said it was impossible. The DeWitts must have imported a new necromancer, and a real heavy hitter at that. Hawk frowned. If someone that powerful had come to town, he should have known about it before now.

Zombie scab labor wasn’t a new idea. Various businesses in Haven had tried replacing recalcitrant living workers with more compliant dead men in the past, but the expense and difficulty in controlling the corpses had always made the idea impractical. Besides no one liked having zombies around. They were just too upsetting.

The DeWitts had used smaller zombie forces in the past, to force striking dockers back to work, but the strikers usually took them out fairly quickly, by guerrilla tactics involving stealth and salt and a lot of running. This was the first time an entire work force had been replaced by zombies, so the strikers and their families were out in force. They knew they were fighting for their livelihoods, with nothing but the workhouses and the cold streets in their future if they failed. Desperate times breed desperate people, and Hawk knew no one fights more fiercely than a man who believes he has nothing left to lose.

Hawk and Fisher hung back in the shadows for a while, studying the situation. The mood was ugly, and just their appearance might be enough to spark something. Everyone knew that Hawk and Fisher were only called in after all thoughts of diplomacy had been abandoned. The dockers’ chanting was now degenerating into name-calling as the strikers goaded the outnumbered private guards. The crowd wasn’t quite ready to commit itself to action yet, but the threat of sudden violence hung heavily on the air like a brewing storm, dark and ugly and unpredictable.

“I really don’t like these odds,” Fisher said quietly. “Even if every Guard in the city turns up, right down to the lowliest probationary Constable, we’re still going to be outnumbered.”

“The strikers haven’t actually broken any laws yet,” said Hawk. “A lot of this is just letting off steam. Gives them the feeling they’re doing something. They must know that the Guard is on its way, and that if they start something, a lot of them are going to get hurt, maybe even killed. They’re not trained fighters, like us. It could be that a large enough Guard presence will take some of the wind out of their sails, calm them down.”

Fisher snorted. “You don’t believe that any more than I do. These people are spoiling for a fight. It’s all they’ve got left.”

Hawk made a disgusted noise. “If we were really interested in justice, we’d be down there fighting beside them.”

“Don’t get soft on me, Hawk. If that crowd becomes a mob, they won’t care who they hurt. They certainly won’t think twice about trying to kill you or me.”

“I know,” said Hawk. “Let’s report in to the DeWitts. See what they want us to do. Maybe we can persuade them to be reasonable.”

Fisher raised an eyebrow. “Bets?”

One by one the city Guard assembled in the great cobblestoned yard outside the DeWitt brothers’ business headquarters; an impressive three-story building in dark stone that overlooked the docks like a feudal lord’s castle. Inside, the hundreds of clerks and customs officers and other paper-shufflers were keeping their heads well down, and trying to persuade themselves that nothing of what was going on outside was any of their business. They didn’t even have the gumption to look out the windows at the gathering army of Guards.

Looking around, it seemed to Hawk that more than half of the entire city Guard was there, from Captains to Constables, but even so, they didn’t come close to filling the yard. Lamps in elegant frames added to the dim morning light, but still there were shadows everywhere, and a cold wind was blowing in from the sea. They would all have been a lot more comfortable inside the DeWitts’ building, but of course there was no way such very important people as Marcus and David DeWitt would ever allow mere Guards inside their premises. They might need the Guard, but they sure weren’t going to socialize with them.

Hawk sighed, and pulled his cloak tightly about him. Orders had come down from above that the DeWitts were to have full cooperation from every Guard, no excuses and no exceptions, and the Guards should follow the DeWitts’ instructions in all things. The DeWitts were connected. So crime was allowed to run rampant in the rest of Haven while the dock owners used the Guard as their own private bully boys. Hawk growled something under his breath, and Fisher looked at him uneasily. She just knew he was going to say something impolite and entirely regrettable to the DeWitts, when they finally deigned to put in an appearance, and she and Hawk were in enough trouble already with the powers that be. She seriously considered knocking Hawk down and sitting on him, while there was still time, but he’d only sulk later. Fisher settled for locating the nearest exit, just in case they had to leave in a hurry.

There was a self-important banging noise from above, as the doors on the balcony overlooking the yard finally flew open, and Marcus and David DeWitt strode imperiously out to stare down their noses at the assembled Guard. They were both in their early fifties, well-fleshed, with the easy elegance and arrogance that comes from being born into lots and lots of money. Their carefully backbrushed and pommaded black hair made their fat, pale faces appear washed-out, cold, and impassive as masks. There was a quiet, understated sense of menace in their unwavering self-possession, as though no one and nothing in the world could ever disturb their privileged world.

David was the elder by a year, but otherwise there wasn’t much difference between them. They dressed well but soberly, their only jewelry a collection of thick golden rings on their fleshy fingers. David had a cigar, Marcus a glass of champagne. The DeWitt brothers looked down on the Guards in their yard, assembled at their command, and they couldn’t even be bothered to look disdainful. They looked more bored than anything, as though forced by duty to carry out some petty but necessary protocol.

“You are here to protect the docks against any threat,” said David flatly. “Most definitely including the strikers. You are hereby authorized to use any means necessary to ensure the safety of the ships, their cargoes, and the harborside buildings. You first task is to disperse the mob at our doors, and send them packing.”

“You shouldn’t have too much trouble,” said Marcus in a voice eerily like his brother’s. “Just be firm, and they’ll back down.”

“And if they don’t?” said an anonymous voice from among the Guards.

“Then you do what you have to,” said David. “They’re troublemakers. Scum. We want them off our property. Hurt them. Kill them, if necessary. But get that rabble out of our docks.”

“If we kill them all,” said Hawk in a remarkably restrained voice, “you won’t have a workforce anymore.”

“We have the zombies,” said Marcus. “Now that we have the means to control such a number, they will be our workforce. The living are now redundant. The dead should prove much more reliable. They don’t need paying, or cosseting, and you don’t get any back talk from them.”

“Right,” said David. “Should have done this years ago.”

“And what about the people who worked for you all these years?” asked Hawk, still dangerously calm. “What right do you have to take away their livelihoods, destroy their lives, throw their families out onto the streets? Aren’t there enough beggars in the Hook already?”

“Life, and its riches, belong to the strong,” said Marcus DeWitt, entirely unmoved. “To those who have the strength to take what they want, and hold it.”

“And you’re the strongest ones here?” asked Hawk.

“Of course,” said David.

Hawk smiled nastily. “Want to come down here and arm wrestle?”

Several Guards laughed, and then quickly turned their laughter into coughs as it became clear the DeWitts had no sense of humor. Those Guards nearest Hawk and Fisher began to edge carefully away from them, not wishing to be associated with such dangerous people. The DeWitts moved forward to the edge of their balcony, to get a better look at Hawk.

“You are hired help,” David said flatly. “You’ll do as you’re told. Is that clear?”

Hawk’s hand dropped to the axe at his side. He was smiling, and a wild light burned in his eye. Fisher grabbed his arm and held it firmly in place. “Hawk, no! Not here. Not in front of witnesses.”

Hawk’s arm muscles bulged dangerously under her hand, and then slowly relaxed again. Fisher let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. The DeWitts glared down at Hawk until it was clear he had nothing more to say, and then they turned their backs on him and left the balcony. Members of their private guard moved slowly among the city Guard, assigning them positions on the harborside and giving them more specific orders where necessary. Hawk was surprised to see a familiar face approaching him. Mistique was a charming sorceress of no uncommon ability, and had impressed him greatly the last time they’d worked together. A tall, slender, constantly fluttering figure in her mid-thirties, Mistique was dressed in traditional sorceress’ black, but the outfit was carefully cut in the very latest fashion to show plenty of bare flesh. She had a long, horsey face, and a friendly, toothy grin that made her look easily ten years younger. It also made her look like she was about to take a bite out of you, but then, you couldn’t have everything. She had a thick mane of jet black curly hair that fell well past her shoulders, which she was constantly having to sweep back out of her eyes. She had a husky upper-class accent, a disturbingly direct gaze, and wore dozens of bangles and bracelets that clattered loudly with her every movement.