Bitter Gold Hearts

Morley's troops were inside the coach and Saucer head was clambering aboard. Crask and Sadler were up on the guard's and driver's seats, donning the traditional tall hats and dark cloaks. Each man had immediate access to a pair of powerful, ready crossbows. Such items are necessary on TunFaire's night streets if you're rich enough to use a coach but not powerful enough to have its doors blazoned with the arms of someone like a stormwarden.

Most high-class folk travel with outriders. We made do with a pair of grolls toting their favorite toys, head-bashers twelve feet long and almost too heavy for a runt like me to lift. Morley followed me into the coach, then leaned out and told Crask to go. The vehicle jerked into motion.

"I suppose you've made a plan?" I said.

"It's all scoped out. That was one of the reasons I brought Chodo in. His boys know Gorgeous's place. I've never seen it. And neither have you."

I grunted. The rest of the ride passed in silence.

______XXXIV______

Ogre town was quieter than death at that hour. There seems to be a cultural imperative that sends them to bed very late and brings them out in the after­noon. We were going in soon after most ogres had sacked out. The streets weren't entirely deserted, but it made little difference. Those who were out were scavengers. They made a point of being blind to our presence. Twelve hours earlier or later we might have been in trouble. The streets would have featured a more treach­erous cast. We swung into a passage between buildings just wide enough for the coach, then continued until we could open the doors. Crask told us to disembark. We tumbled out. He backed the coach into the passage again so we could gather in the shadows, off the street.

"That's the place." Morley indicated a four-story verti­cal rectangle a hundred yards down the street. "The whole thing belongs to Gorgeous. He had the buildings on either side demolished so nobody could get to him that way. We're going after him that way."

"Wonderful." Light still shone in a couple windows on the top two floors. "You're a genius."

The buildings in Ogre Town are fifty to a hundred years older than the tenements in Fishwife's Close. In many cases that showed. But they had built in brick and stone in those days and Gorgeous's citadel had been kept up. It didn't need to lean on neighbors to remain standing.

There was a ghost of a promise of dawn.

Morley said, "Doris and Marsha are going to climb the buildings on either side. They'll drop ropes. Me, Crask, Blood, and Sarge will go up top the nearer one. The rest up the other. After we get our wind ..." He droned on with the plan.

"It sucks," I told him.

"You want to march in the front door and fight your way to the top?"

"No. Hell, if I didn't have questions to ask, I'd just go start a fire on the ground floor. Ought to go up that thing like smoke up a chimney."

"But you do want to ask questions. Ready? So let's go." Doris and Marsha were already gone, not bothering to wait out my protests.

We were halfway there when the man came out the front door. His hands were shoved in his pockets and he was looking down. He was human, not ogre. He walked fifty feet toward us before he realized he wasn't alone. He halted, looked at us, and his eyes bugged.

"Bruno," I hissed.

He whirled and headed for the building.

Sadler's crossbow twanged.

It was a damned good try for a snap shot. I think it clipped Bruno's left arm. He veered right and headed up the street, concentrating on speed.

"Let him go. I'll hunt him down later," I said. "He has some answers I need."

While I talked, Crask sped a bolt that split Bruno's spine three inches below his neck. Sadler reached him seconds later and dragged the twitching body into the nearest shadows.

"Thanks a bunch," I snarled.

Crask didn't bother turning that embalmed face my way. Doris and Marsha reached the roofs of their respective structures. They anchored ropes and dropped them. In­side Gorgeous's place the lights were dying. Saucer head and I stood at the foot of the rope. "You going to make it?" I asked.