And brought him down again, and again.
“Go now,” boomed Mister Smith. Down came the half-dead. Black fluid sprayed. “The Misters will see you safe.” The Haverlock still writhed and grappled.
Thunder rang out, right under my fundament, and light flared so bright below me I saw every crack between every board in the floor. Another crack and flash ripped through the warehouse, and a Troll laughed. Tiny wisps of smoke began to coil up and out between my feet.
I got up. My left arm hung limp and numb. Black dots were swimming across my vision. “We haven’t gotten what we came for,” I said.
“We go to House Haverlock,” said Mister Smith, between lifts and falls of the still-twitching Haverlock. “We search there.”
The room pitched and yawed like the deck of a troop ship.
“No need,” I heard myself say. “I know where your cousin’s head is.”
Mister Smith eyed me over the ruin of the eldest Haverlock, gave him another slam for good measure. “Are you well, Finder?” he said.
I laughed. Sizzles and roars under us spoke of Troll magics. More timbers burst, below, and the floor dropped several inches before catching. One of Mister Chin’s tame bubbles floated up through the floor, made a quick circuit of Mister Smith and I, and then sank back through the floor in search of paler prey.
I wobbled my way across tilting, popped floorboards to the other side of the desk.
On the right-hand side were six drawers, all too small to contain a Troll-head. On the left were four drawers-and a single enormous cabinet. A sane man might keep a keg of beer or a wastebasket or a barrel of snacks in it.
The thing Mister Smith was smearing all over the room hadn’t been sane for a long, long time.
I tried the big cabinet door. It wasn’t even locked.
I opened it, moved a cloth and there it was.
“When you’re done with him,” I said. “Help me lift this out. Need two arms, got one.”
Mister Smith grabbed Haverlock by either end and pulled. I turned my head until it was done.
The floor shook. The thunder rolled. I stood there blinking and gasping and sorting out storm-sounds from Troll battle magics. The Misters were making a mess. I hoped they were winning.
Mister Smith turned that desk around with two fingers. He looked down, sang something short in Troll and closed the drawer.
Then he turned those big owl eyes on me. “You have done as you said, Finder. I thank you. Here.”
Three lumps of gold appeared in his bloodied Troll paw.
“Your fee.”
Maybe the Troll nightstick around my neck joined with my newly acquired concussion to play tricks on my eyes. I didn’t see three fist-sized chunks of gold in Mister Smith’s four-fingered hand. I saw one of Mama Hog’s wear-worn cards. I blinked, and there it was again, turned over so I saw a bony finger, crooked and beckoning.
“Keep it,” I heard myself say. “No charge. No fee. Not this time. Can’t buy my soul, Mister Smith. Shame on you for trying.”
Then the floor buckled and fell and the last thing I remember about that night is Mister Smith smiling at me.
Trolls really, really shouldn’t smile at people they like.
I woke up. That surprised me so much I sat up and opened my eyes.
Home sweet home, my tiny room behind a room. Someone had shoved the bedding back in my mattress and sewed it back up. The door to the office was upside down, but back on its hinges, and closed.
I swung my legs around, snarled when I rediscovered my broken left arm and spent a few minutes scratching under the splint.
Mama Hog’s short fat shadow slid under the door. “You awake, boy?” she barked.
“No. Go away,” I said.
She opened the door and shut it quickly behind her. In her hands she held a steaming bowl of soup and half a loaf of fresh baked bread and she’ll never ever look that good again.
“Brought you some food,” she said. “Don’t you go puking it up, you hear?”
“I hear.” I sat on the edge of the bed. I was wearing my other pants and I wondered if I’d been dressed by Trolls or fortunetellers.
“The Misters?” I said, grabbing a spoon.
Mama Hog’s warty face split in a grin. “They’re Trolls, boy,” she said. “Took twenty-seven half-dead and mashed them flat. Twenty-seven!”
I whistled.
Mama Hog rattled on. “Mister Smith, he came marchin’ back here with you in one hand and his cousin’s head in the other. You’ve never seen the like, boy-and the other two, they were singing some Troll battle song, all thunder and bellowing. Woke up half the city and scared the Watch near to death. Pissin’ their pants, boy! You shoulda seen ’em run!”
I shoved bread in the soup, sopped it up, made it disappear.
“Where-”
“Don’t choke, boy, don’t choke,” said Mama Hog. She lost her grin. “They’re gone,” she said. “Gone back East. Got to do some heavy purification rituals. They touched the undead, walked our sewers, handled our money.”
I swallowed hard. “When did they-”
“Yesterday,” said Mama. “Noon. After the Watch came sniffing around. Mister Smith gave them that gold around his neck to pay for the damages they did. Then he warned them to keep off your back, and they took off for Troll country.” She smiled. Not a grin, but a smile, and for an instant some of the ugly vanished. “He told me to watch after you, Markhat. Said you were clanless no more.”
I put down the soup. “He said that?”
“He did,” said Mama Hog. “Left you something, too. Here.” She held out an egg-sized chunk of smooth white river rock. “Take it. Tell it to speak.”
I took it. It was heavy and cold. “Tell it to what?”
Mama Hog rolled her eyes. “Tell it to speak. Say ‘Rock, speak to me.’”
“Rock,” I said, “Speak to me.”
Troll grumbles filled the air. “Greetings, my brother,” said Mister Smith. “Forgive our hasty departure. It was necessary, but unhappily so. Mister Chin, Mister Jones and I would have shared with you one last meal of the catfish, had circumstances permitted.”
“We will honor your memory,” said Mister Chin.
“You are welcome among us,” said Mister Jones.
“I have warned your Watch, and the half-dead Houses,” said Mister Smith. “You fought by our side. You fought for the soul of one of our own, one who could no longer fight for himself. You walked with us, through darkness, and when you looked upon the yellow metal you turned away.”
I remembered that, and winced.
“I name you Markhat of Clan-” the translator stopped using Kingdom and choked out a long, wet Troll word. “In all things, we are brothers, now and forever. May your shadow fall tall and your soul grow to meet it.”
“Goodbye, my brother,” chorused the Misters, unseen. “Walk brave, in beauty.”
Silence. Mama Hog took the empty bowl and the dirty spoon from me. “You don’t look much like a Troll,” she said. “But I reckon looks can be misleading. Can’t they?”
I put the stone down. I was tired, and my arm was broken, and the lump on the back of my head started throbbing, but I felt good-better than I’d felt since the War.
Memories stirred. “What was in that bracelet you gave me, Mama?” I asked. “Looked like a bug. Scared old man Haverlock so bad he got himself killed.”
Mama Hog grinned with both her wide front teeth. “Fooled you both, didn’t I? Bracelet wasn’t worth squat. Some flash, some heat-bet he tore it off hisself, before he saw the worm.”
“He did.” I shuddered at the recollection. “He acted like I had snakes in my pockets.”
