Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) (18 page)

“Oh, hell,” said Chance. “Haven’t you killed enough people for one day? How much will it take to satisfy your need for revenge?”

“You’d be surprised,” said Hawk, and something in his voice made Chance decide not to say anything else. Hawk looked broodingly at the great hole in the ground. “One man wasn’t there, the greatest villain of them all. He never gets his hands dirty himself, but he takes a cut from everyone else’s business in return for financing their various schemes. A great fat leech, feeding on the blood of the city.”

“St. Christophe,” said Fisher. “He has a personal army of over four hundred men, and a mansion better protected than Guard Headquarters. We were hoping he’d be here with the other scumbags, but apparently he’s too important these days to appear in person. So we’ll have to go after him the hard way.”

“Hold everything,” said Chance, trying hard to sound firm and decisive. “There is no way the four of us are going to fight our way through an army of
four hundred men
, dammit. I don’t care what the legends said you did. And Hawk, if you even look like you’re thinking of unleashing another of those chaos bombs, I am going to knock you unconscious for your and everybody else’s good.”

Hawk smiled slightly. “Well, you could try. But you’re right. No more chaos bombs. Not until I have a much better idea what their limits are. And we’d never fight our way through four hundred men to reach St. Christophe. So we’ll just walk up to his front door and demand to see him. He’ll let us in because his pride won’t let him do anything else. And then we’ll have him.”

“And just how do we get out afterward, past the four hundred armed men?” said Chance.

“Oh, we’ll think of something,” said Hawk airily. “In fact, I think we ought to take a little present with us, a little something for St. Christophe’s personal bodyguards.”

“Of course,” agreed Fisher. “I have just the thing in mind. We’ll pick it up along the way.”

Chance looked at Chappie. “We are dead. Very, very dead.”

Chance didn’t know where he’d been expecting to stop off to pick up St. Christophe’s little present, but a sewer opening sure wasn’t it. Hawk levered open the heavy iron grille with the edge of his axe, and shouted down the hole. There was a long pause as several appalling odors wafted up into the street, and then a voice singing something vaguely melancholy could be heard drawing gradually nearer, along with the sounds of boots sucking deep into something Chance preferred not to think about. Finally a gray and grimy head appeared through the sewer hole, and the smell in the street was suddenly worse. Much worse. Chappie retreated, coughing and spluttering, and Chance felt very much like doing the same. But Hawk and Fisher held their ground, so he had to, too. Hawk nodded amiably to the grimy head, which smiled pleasantly in return.

“Greetings, Captains. Isn’t it a simply lovely day?”

“So it is,” said Fisher. “Chance, this is Gently Northampton; he knows the sewers under Haven better than anyone.”

“Sewers are my life,” said Gently. He blew his nose on a filthy handkerchief that Hawk wouldn’t have touched with two pairs of gloves on, and then smiled again. “You can’t beat the sewers for a bit of peace and quiet. No one bothers you. I haven’t paid taxes for years. Though you’d be surprised what you can find down here some days. We’ve had to block off the tunnels under Magus Court. I don’t know what those magicians have been up to, but there’s something big and white in the passages now, and it’s giggling. We’ve had to call in the SWAT team. Mind you, the sewers under the East Side are lovely this time of year. There’s flowers there as beautiful as anything in the gentry’s gardens. And, of course, they eat the rats, which helps keep the numbers down.”

“Fascinating as always, Gently,” said Fisher. “Did you get our message about what we need?”

“Certainly,” said Gently. “Anything for you, Captains. One bagful, as requested.”

He ducked back in his hole and then handed up a large cloth sack that writhed and bulged ominously. Fisher took the sack, tested its weight with one hand, and grinned unpleasantly. “Thank you, Gently. That will do nicely.”

“Time to go see St. Christophe,” said Hawk as Gently’s head disappeared back into the sewers. He levered the iron grille back into place and stamped it down.

“Then can we please go back to the Forest?” said Chance, just a little plaintively. “I didn’t feel this threatened during the Demon War.”

“Some people just don’t know how to have a good time,” said Hawk, and Fisher nodded solemnly. The sack bulged and kicked.

St. Christophe’s mansion was reputed to be the single largest personally owned residence in the city, and Chance could quite believe it. Four stories high and what looked like several acres wide, it dominated the quiet residential area. The thick stone exterior walls were topped with iron spikes and broken glass, and the only entrance into the grounds was a great stone archway that featured not only a lowered steel portcullis but also half a dozen heavily armed private guards. They took one look at who was approaching them and immediately sounded a general alarm. Hawk strolled unconcernedly up to the steel bars of the portcullis and smiled charmingly.

“You know who we are. Just once, what say we do this the easy way? We’re here to see St. Christophe. You let us in, or else.”

“Or else what?” asked the leader of the private guards.

“Or else we’ll improvise,” said Fisher. “Suddenly and violently and all over the place.”

The guard leader thought about it. Technically speaking, he was perfectly safe behind the thick steel weight of the portcullis … but this was Hawk and Fisher. Plus someone with a big axe, and a wolf. He looked unhappily at Chappie for some time, and then decided this was all too much for him. He sent one of his men up to the big house for instructions, and then everyone stood around and smiled patiently for a while. Fisher hefted her sack now and again to keep it quiet. Finally a butler turned up, in full frock coat and powdered wig, and ordered the portcullis raised. He would escort the Captains and company up to the mansion to meet St. Christophe.

The private guards looked at each other, took it in turns to shrug unhappily, and then did as they were told. The wheels of the portcullis turned, the heavy steel bars rose, and Hawk and Fisher sauntered through the archway like they owned the place. The butler bowed briefly, and then led the way up a raked gravel path that meandered through the extensive lawns and gardens. Behind them came the sound of the portcullis crashing back into place. None of them looked back. The butler’s pace was nicely judged to suggest his master’s impatience, while at the same time slow enough for the company to be impressed by the specially imported trees and flowers and the exquisite landscaping. And then Chappie spoiled it all by chasing a peacock and coming back with a mouthful of feathers.

The butler went berserk. Did they have any idea how rare peacocks were in this part of the world? How expensive they were to acquire and maintain? He wanted the wolf killed, stuffed, and mounted, not necessarily in that order. Chappie invited the butler to step right up and try his luck. A certain amount of unpleasantness followed, until Chance was finally able to coax Chappie back off the butler’s chest, and allow the man to get up again. The butler led the party the rest of the way in dignified silence, pretending nothing at all had happened.

At the front door he passed them over to the head butler, resplendent in a uniform finer than most admirals, and he led the party down a great hall lined with ancestral portraits and two silent lines of armed men, and finally into a dining room, where St. Christophe sat at a feast. He was seated at the end of a long table of heavy mahogany, which was all but bowing under the weight of so much food. There was enough provender at that table to feed a dozen families, but St. Christophe was the only one eating. He dominated the room with his malign presence, his huge bulk contained in an exquisitely tailored suit of dazzling white, the only color a single bloodred rose on his lapel.

St. Christophe was over six feet tall, and weighed four hundred and fifty pounds if he was an ounce, but rumor had it that there was a lot of muscle under all that fat. Rather more disturbing rumors had it that he got that big by eating his enemies. His great round face was blank, almost childish, his features stretched smooth by his fat until he had the enigmatic brooding look of an oversized baby.

His gaze was flat and unwavering, and full of calm menace. He wore no weapons. It had been a long time since St. Christophe had fought for anything but his own pleasure. He left the necessary brutalities of his business to the twelve female bodyguards who went everywhere with him, each of them naked but for their swordbelts. They were reputed to be the twelve deadliest fighters in Haven, every one of them undefeated. So Hawk and Fisher made a point of ignoring them, and concentrated instead on the sumptuous furnishings and fittings of the dining hall. Hawk was particularly taken with the massive steel and glass and diamond chandelier hanging overhead. There were no visible supports, which suggested it was held aloft by some hidden magic. An expensive whim for something so monstrously tacky. St. Christophe casually threw a scrap of meat to one of his bodyguards. She caught it neatly on the point of her sword, conveyed it to her mouth, and chewed it calmly, all without once taking her eyes off the new visitors.

“Show-off,” said Fisher.

Chappie sneaked up behind one of the bodyguards and stuck his cold nose up her bottom. She squeaked loudly, and then tried very hard to look as though she hadn’t. The dog sniggered loudly. Chance didn’t know where to look. Spending most of his life in an all-boys private school had done nothing to help him deal with so much female nudity. He found it all very distracting, but he was still smart enough to realize that that was the point.

“So, Captains,” said St. Christophe, in a slow voice as implacable as an avalanche. “What could be so important that you must disturb me at my repast?”

“Oh, nothing much,” said Hawk easily. “We’re just here to kill you, burn down your house, and cripple your extensive criminal operations. We’re leaving Haven, you see, so we won’t get another chance. You should be flattered, Christophe; we saved the best for last.”

St. Christophe chuckled fatly. “Insubordinate as ever, Captain Hawk. Must I remind you that I am a perfectly respectable businessman, with no criminal record of any kind? The law has no interest in me.”

“We’re not the law anymore,” said Fisher. “We answer to a higher cause. How many lives have you ruined over the years, Christophe? Do you even know?”

“Of course not,” said the big man, patting delicately at his rosebud lips with a monogrammed silk napkin. “I have people who keep track of such things for me. I really have no interest in continuing this conversation, Captains. Because of my admiration for your many exploits, I offer you this one chance. Leave my home, and this city, and never look back. While you still can.”

“Good thinking, having nude women as your bodyguards,” said Fisher calmly. “Men are so easily distracted by things like that. I, on the other hand, am not. So I considered the problem dispassionately, and decided to bring your bodyguards a little present. Or two.”

She undid her sack, upended it with a flourish, and out of the sack dropped twenty of the foulest, fiercest, hugest, and most vicious sewer rats to be found in all of Haven. They all hit the floor running, mouths snapping, and went straight for the nearest undefended food; in this case, the dozen sets of bare female feet. The bodyguards shrieked, and scattered in disarray and confusion as the rats bit at their feet and tried to run up their legs. One rat made the mistake of going for Fisher, and she casually booted it the length of the room.

St. Christophe surged to his feet, a squat giant in blinding white. He pushed back his chair, and snatched a sword from a bodyguard as she ran past him with a rat rooting in her hair. Hawk and Fisher drew their weapons and advanced on him. Chance slammed the only door shut and wedged it with a sturdy chair. Chappie meanwhile was having a fine time, chasing the darting rats and female bodyguards with equal glee.

Hawk and Fisher closed in on St. Christophe, who wielded his sword with surprising strength and speed, parrying their every blow. He moved impossibly quickly for one of his great bulk, and there was real power in his attacks. Try as they might, Hawk and Fisher couldn’t pierce his defense, even when they came at him from two different sides at once. St. Christophe backed slowly away as Hawk and Fisher pursued him, not even breathing hard. Servants and guards were already hammering on the other side of the door Chance was guarding. Hawk and Fisher fought well and hard, but it had been a long day, and they were tiring fast. Steel clashed on steel, and St. Christophe smiled mockingly at his old adversaries. His fat face was slick with sweat. Both sides stopped for a moment, to regain their breath and call up new resources.

“You can’t win,” said St. Christophe. “The best you can do is arrest me, and my lawyers will have me out in under an hour. There won’t be any trial. I am protected on levels you can’t even imagine. You’re just the city’s attack dogs, and I have the means to muzzle you. Leave my home, or die here.”

“Somehow I just knew you’d say something like that,” said Hawk. “You think we can’t touch you, and you’re wrong.”

He threw his axe at the point where the massive chandelier hung from the ceiling, and the rune-etched blade sheared through the simple magic supporting all that weight. St. Christophe looked up, and just had time to realize where Hawk and Fisher had maneuvered him into standing, and then the whole immense weight of crafted steel and glass and diamonds came crashing down, and smashed him to the floor. The reverberating sound seemed to go on for ages, and everyone turned to look. St. Christophe lay pinned beneath the chandelier, only his head and one hand showing. He tried to force himself up, throwing all the strength of his great bulk against the weight holding him down, and for a moment the chandelier actually moved; but it was only shifting its mass, and St. Christophe groaned loudly as his strength gave out, and the chandelier pressed him even more firmly to the floor.