Goblin Precinct (Dragon Precinct) (14 page)

Worst of all, Gan Brightblade and Olthar lothSirhans died. They didn’t even die heroically, they were just murdered by a person seeking pitiful revenge for a nonexistent slight. Try as he could, Sam could not find a way to compose a compelling melody around that.

Not that his melodies were anything to cheer about. His best material was about Bronnik, but no one outside of Treemark cared about him. As time went on, he became more despondent. Worse, his fingers started to shake, and his ability to play the lute deteriorated to the point where he had to go back to performing unaccompanied.

He had no idea if he could possibly go on living.

Sam had gone from renting a small house in Dragon to a small flat in a building in Dragon to a smaller flat in a building in Goblin to a corner of a room in a tiny house in Goblin. Down the street from that tiny house lived a dwarf named Urgoth, who sometimes threw some coppers at Sam in exchange for his song about Bronnik. (Urgoth had no idea who Bronnik was, beyond what the song itself told him, but he really liked the melody.)

One day, Urgoth saw how miserable Sam was, and he offered him something that would make him feel better. It was just a pill, but Sam figured he had nothing to lose. It was worth a copper, and Urgoth gave that to him in lieu of payment for singing the song about Bronnik.

And he felt
fantastic
!

The last time he felt this good, he was back in Treemark in the Goblin’s Teeth, and he’d finished his day’s work of cleaning the bar and all the tables and then Mother and Father would smile at him and say it was okay to go sit with Honig and the bard would show him how to finger another note and they’d practice the evening set together and then he’d watch Honig perform while waiting tables and everybody clapped and Sam would dream of some day being up there on the stage and singing and telling stories and getting applause and it was simply glorious!

And then the pill wore off and he remembered that Mother and Father and Honig were all dead, that the Goblin’s Teeth was now an eatery called the Suckling Pig, and that Sam was an aging, arthritic bard with no prospects in a world that was fast running out of things to sing about.

He went to find Urgoth that night to give him all the coppers he had in his money pouch—which, sadly, was only thirteen—in exchange for thirteen pills.

“All right,” Urgoth said, “that should hold you for a couple of weeks.”

In that, Urgoth was wrong. Sam took all thirteen pills at once.

He was happier than he believed it was possible to be, right up until he died.

THIRTEEN

HAWK SCOWLED AS HE SAT IN A CAFÉ LOCATED ON AUBURN WAY across from the branch of the Cliff’s End Bank. To anyone walking past, he was a haughty-looking elf. Hawk had never had much time for elves, and doubted he could convincingly sound like one.

At that, he was lucky. He could’ve looked like a gnome.

Captain Osric had agreed to let them use glamours in order to keep the two remaining branches of the bank under surveillance. “But they have to be pre-set glamours. We don’t have the budget for an open glamour.”

Sergeant Jonas had sent one of the guards to purchase one, and Micah returned with two glamours, as requested. “’Fraid they only had these two left at Minar’s,” Micah said. “One’s an elf, one’s a gnome.”

Dru looked incredulously at the guard. “You’re tellin’ me Minar’s only had
two
glamours in the whole place?”

Micah shifted his weight from boot to boot. “Er, well, not exactly, sir, but—well, I assume you wanted
male
glamours, yeah?”

“Good assumption, yeah,” Dru muttered.

Osric was scowling, like usual. “You have what you need. Take them, go home, get a good night’s sleep, and stake out the banks tomorrow. I assume there are guards on the bank tonight?”

That question was directed at Grovis, who was seated at his desk. “Yes, Sergeant Kel said he would arrange it.”

Osric looked over at Iaian. “What about your murder?”

The older detective leaned back in his chair. “We’re lookin’ for a guy named Brindy. We got his description out to all four precincts—though I doubt he’ll be anywhere other than Goblin or Mermaid.” Iaian then explained about Brindy and Elko and their arrangement regarding the acquisition of Bliss.

Shaking his head, Osric muttered, “An elf lord dead of a Bliss OD, bank robberies by people high on Bliss, and people getting murdered over Bliss. If we find out who’s manufacturing this, I may personally run him through.”

With that, Osric wandered back to his office, probably to sharpen his dagger some more.

Micah stared at Dru and Hawk. “So who gets what?”

Hawk blurted, “I’m takin’ the elf!” at the same time that Dru said, “Gimme the elf.”

They stared at each other.

Then Dru took out a copper. “Flip you for it?”

Hawk shrugged. “Sure.”

Dru pocketed the copper before flipping it. “Hang on, we caught up to Boneen, so you owe me a copper.”

Hawk sighed. He was never gonna save up for his boat if he kept losing bets to Dru like this. “Fine.” He removed a copper from his own pouch and handed it to his partner.

“Call it,” Dru said as he tossed it in the air.

“Heads.”

It landed on the floor of the squadroom with a
ping
, the profile of Lady Meerka looking up at them.

Hawk grinned and held his hand out to Micah. “The elf, please.”

Now, after going home to take care of his father and get a good night’s sleep—during which he dreamt about the boat—he sat in a café trying to look haughty so people would believe he was an elf.

For most of the morning, nothing happened. People walked into the bank, people walked out of the bank. Hawk was quickly growing incredibly bored. He started thinking some more about the boat, wondering what he should name her. Currently, it was called the
Starlight
, but Hawk thought that was a dumb name for a boat. Maybe he could call it
Sword and Sorcery
? No, that was even dumber.
Alone at Last
? Tempting, but a little too obvious.

Perhaps he could just call it
Retirement
.

Then he saw it: four people who all looked exactly alike. They were walking casually together up Auburn Way, heading straight for the bank. Hawk stared intently at them: they all had
exactly
the same face. Each was a nondescript, pale-skinned human.

None of them appeared armed, but neither did Hawk. His glamour was hiding the very large sword at his side, so it only stood to reason that the thieves’ glamour worked similarly. They entered the bank together.

Dropping some coins on the table, Hawk strode away from the café as fast as he could, following the foursome inside.

As soon as he entered, one of the thieves pointed a longsword at him. Two of the others had swords out, as well—one a broadsword, the other also with a longsword—with the fourth holding a dagger at the throat of someone in a suit.

“Nobody move!” Dagger cried. “I’m gonna kill this guy if anybody
moves
!”

Hawk’s hand was moving toward his currently invisible sword, then changed his mind. The bank employee’s life was at stake. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t know that—”

“
Shut up
!” Broadsword yelled. “Get your ass over there with the rest of the people!”

Hawk took in the scene. There were six people off to the side. Two wore suits similar to that of Dagger’s hostage, so they were probably the other employees. This was a small bank compared to the other two—the space was less than half that of the Frannik’s Lane location—and after Martel’s comments yesterday, it didn’t surprise Hawk that they only had three people working there.

The other four were a dwarf woman and a pair of gnomes, the latter two appearing to be a couple, since the two men were huddled together.

Hawk slowly walked over to join them.

“All right,” Dagger said, guiding his hostage toward the back room, “give us
all your gold
!”

“O-o-o-okay, just p-please don’t c-cut m-my thr—”

“Just
move
!”

Broadsword walked over to Dagger while holding a large burlap sack.

Longsword One stood near the seven hostages and looked over at Longsword Two. “Check the door, make sure nobody else comes wanderin’ in.”

“Why do I gotta do that?” Longsword Two asked testily.

“’Cause I
asked
ya to, shitbrain! Now move it!”

Longsword Two spit on the floor and then went to stand by the door.

Hawk didn’t think he was going out on much of a limb by hypothesizing that these guys weren’t hopped up on Bliss the way they were at the Axe Way robbery yesterday.

While standing at the door, Longsword Two said, “Dunno why you’re bossin’ me around anyhow. Gavin’s the boss.”

Longsword One didn’t look at his friend as he replied, keeping his eye on the hostages. “An’ Gavin’s in the back room, so out here,
I’m
the boss. You got a problem with that?”

“Yeah, actually, I do! You and me, we joined up with Gavin at the same time. An’ it was your stupid idea to take the stuff they advanced us, ’stead’a givin’ it to Cap’n Bridgers like we were s’posed to. S’why do I gotta—”

“Just shut
up
, already!” Longsword One finally turned to look at his comrade. “We can fight this out
after
the robbery, okay?”

“Fine.” Longsword Two was pouting now.

Now Hawk had more information. Dagger was probably this Gavin person, and they were working with Captain Bridgers. If Hawk remembered correctly, he was the shipmaster of the
Amarilla
. Even if he wasn’t able to capture these guys now, he had a name and someone they could question.

Broadsword came out hauling the burlap sack over his shoulder. It jingled as he walked. Dagger—or, rather, Gavin—came out behind him. Gavin’s blade was still at the employee’s throat, which now had a trickle of blood mingling with the poor man’s sweat.

Gavin then threw his hostage at the others. His two fellow employees caught him awkwardly, all three of them stumbling and nearly falling to the floor, managing to steady themselves on a nearby desk.

“C’mon, let’s get outta here.” Gavin moved quickly toward the door, the others following suit.

Now that there wasn’t a life directly in danger, Hawk made his move, gripping the glamour in such a way that it would deactivate.

“Castle Guard—don’t be movin’ a muscle!” To punctuate his point, he unsheathed his sword, which came out with a metallic scratch that usually got people’s attention.

“Shit!” Longsword Two cried. “See? See?”

“Shut up!” Gavin said. “It’s four on one, Cloak.”

“Not for long,” Hawk said. “When I took off my glamour, that alerted every guard in Dragon that I’m in trouble.” That was a stretch of the truth—the only one who’d be alerted was Dru, but he’d come running quickly, dragging along as many of Dragon’s guards as he could. Hawk just had to hold these guys off for a little bit.

Gavin stepped forward. “Seriously? You think you can take us down?”

Hawk also started moving forward, bringing him and Gavin closer to each other. “What I ‘think’ is that you four just robbed your third bank in two days, and that that ain’t entirely legal. What I ‘think’ is that you fellas are in some serious shit because you’re messin’ with the place that holds a lotta money belongin’ to a lotta rich people who get all cranky when folks mess with their coin. What I ‘think’ is that your stupid ass shouldn’t be lettin’ me get so close.”

And with that, Hawk ran Gavin through with his longsword.

Hawk had been in the Castle Guard for almost a decade, including tours in Unicorn and Mermaid before being promoted to lieutenant. In all that time, he had never actually used his sword. Indeed, he could count the number of times he went so far as to unsheathe it on the fingers of one hand.

He hadn’t really expected to use it now. But Gavin had kept moving closer to Hawk, and Hawk had kept moving closer to Gavin, and all Hawk could see was Gavin’s dagger blade drawing blood from a poor innocent bastard whose only crime was to come to work in the morning, and Hawk just found that he had to run the shitbrain through.

Gavin fell to the floor, bleeding rather profusely from a chest wound. Hawk couldn’t keep his grip on the sword hilt, the blade seemingly stuck in Gavin’s body as he collapsed. Blood continued to gush from either side of the blade as Gavin stared blankly at the ceiling, gurgling up blood.

The other three just stood in shock for a bit. So did Hawk, suddenly realizing just what it was he had done and not entirely sure what should be done next. After all, robbing banks wasn’t generally a capital offense. On the other hand, threatening the life of a lieutenant in the Castle Guard most definitely was, and Hawk doubted the magistrate would accept the argument that Hawk was in disguise, and therefore they didn’t know they were threatening a guard.