Rusted Heroes Read online

  A pulse remained in Joan.

  It all came back to Anoushka, unbidden. Rumbling treads. Banging cannons. The road. Friends and adventure. Sleeping under the stars. Missions. A direction. With Skivvit tunneling, their kind was needed.

  I am not done with this.

  Hero of the Day

  From the city’s high curtained walls to the storefronts and its streets, Darvin was the same dead gray. Anoushka wondered if it wasn’t meant to camouflage the city amid the gulf fog, but even the people seemed gray. Packet steamers sounded melancholy blats as they chugged into port, stirring the flotsam. Gulls roamed in packs on the ground, in the air, crying, always crying.

  Outside the window, Anoushka began seeing so many similar signs glide by she wondered if the coachman had gotten them lost. Again and again liquidation, settlement, loan, and debt. Sunny. Let off in the town square, she filed into the line for the streetcars. The other women got one look at her wearing—imagine it—trousers—and turned away, disgusted. Suffocate in your skirts. Trousers are great.

  Anoushka’s sawdusty boots clicked on the sidewalk, alone. Even the seagulls seemed to avoid this corner of town. More than one front door had a yellow Condemned sign pasted on. Angled under the city wall’s shadow, the suns never reached this neighborhood. Dark mold crawled the sides of buildings and pooled wide on the streets. Farther on, bars over dark windows, dark bars with boarded-up windows. Rounding the corner, 124 Seven Bridges Road lay ahead. The six-story stack of moldering bricks had windows with old editions of the Trib taped up. Somebody was inside; the curb was crowded with muddy jalopies, and a dozen horses huddled at the same hitching post as if gossiping.

  The building’s front door wagged in its splintered jamb. In the lobby, only vague shapes remained on the hardwood, suggesting where furniture used to stand. Vagabond spoor: booze bottles fogged with condensation, a green crust of bread. A rat skittered over Anoushka’s foot, unafraid. On the wall, Associated Bards—This Way, in chalk. An arrow helpfully thrust itself toward the stairwell. Unnecessary, with the stream of wet footprints showing her the way. By the light of a match, Anoushka climbed, following farther chalk guide signs. Sixth floor. Associated Bards—Here. The footprint trail slid under the door. Anoushka knocked twice. A metallic clink from within but no spoken answer. Unlocked. A waiting room—a full waiting room.

  In armor never intended to bend in such a way, twenty men perched on chairs. Shadowed under every lifted helmet visor: chubby cheeks, doe eyes. It took some doing to hang her jacket with all the swords, shields, sabers, and spears heaped under the coatrack. Each steamed fresh from the forge, nary a nick on a one. She took the last seat. One aspirant sitting across from her scoffed. No mind. To the star-blind boys, she probably looked more like the mailwoman or a gutter shoveler; they didn’t know that waddling about in full-plate armor all the time hadn’t been the style for some time.

  A young man in shiny-new boiled leather trudged through the waiting room, dragging his spiked mace behind him as if his mother had shouted, “Take that godsdamn thing outside already.” After the reject, a waif with a hay-blond bob emerged. He studied a clipboard held close to the breast of his colorful out-of-fashion satin doublet, glancing to take in those remaining before him. He’d been born small—eighteen years, stooped and bony each second—and clearly got a kick telling these hardy farmers’ sons where the exit waited.

  Noticing Anoushka, he shuffled his curled-toed clogs near, stammering, “Are you . . . Anoushka Dee-mane?”

  “Deh-mai-nyeh. Admirable try, though.” She tried smiling nicely.

  “I apologize. I’ve only seen it printed, never heard it spoken.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I was wondering, though, if I could put my name down on the list to speak to Ruprecht LeFevre.”

  The boy bowed, nose nearly to knees. “Unnecessary, Miss Demaine. Mister LeFevre will see you at once.”

  * * *

  The door closed behind her. “One moment.” The boy who’d introduced himself as Markus Pinn slid aside a section of wall paneling, revealing a gap-toothed hole in the brick. Evidently, without neighbors, they had opted to expand their operation into the adjacent suites.

  Alone, Anoushka stepped about the room.

  An ornate metal flower in the corner, hammered brass, a spiralphone. From the depths of the horn’s center, the crooner called, sounding like he was suffering a head cold. Like magick how a needle could draw sound from a groove on a shellac cylinder. Her boot banged against a bucket. Several had been arranged under sagging discolored sections of ceiling. The hardwood floor was rippled and ruined in places, poorly concealed by luxurious, colorful rugs.

  A group of beautiful electric lutes, violins, and mandolins leaned near a second spiralphone, but its cylinder was clean of grooves. It wasn’t hard-black shellac but yolk-yellow. It accepted the sworls of Anoushka’s fingerprint. Wax. The brass funnel captured vibrations and scratched them down as it turned, she puzzled out.

  By electric light, held tilted, Anoushka scanned the books on the shelves; the spines varied in width but often included the word champion, warrior, or hero. All shared an author: Ruprecht LeFevre II. She found a lonesome brick of Outstanding Valor copies on a low shelf. She saw her name fifty times down the small spines, and anger came to her. While one of her friends telling the story to this Ruprecht LeFevre II for money had been a knife to the back, it’d been only one man to hear it. But this bard prick had gone and retold it to an audience of thousands—if not hundreds of thousands. She took a breath and decided she’d resist ripping into the bard when she laid eyes on him. (Which might be soon with the talking in the next room drawing closer.) Because she wanted something. So, flies and honey.

  “Ruprecht LeFevre the Second,” Markus announced, stepping in ahead of another also dressed in out-of-date clothes: puffy breeches that made him look half goose from the waist down, stripedy tights, a frilly collar strangling him. A swishy feather in his puffy cap raised his height by a foot. It needed the aid.

  “What a marvelous surprise, Miss Demaine,” the bard cheered, saying her name with perfect enunciation. He thrust his small, bejeweled hand at her.

  She took it. Moist. “Don’t you mean Junior?”

  “Pretty sure I mean the Second.”

  Don’t laugh. “Apologies.”

  “Forgotten.” Ruprecht LeFevre, releasing her, charged over to the window to peer down at the street. “Please tell me you brought it with you.”

  “Brought . . . what?”

  “Your fearsome tank, of course.” He overrolled his Rs.

  “I coached. Joan’s in need of repairs.”

  “Joan! That’s right. How fun! Still, allow me to say what an absolute pleasure it is to finally make your acquaintance.” His tiny hand came at her again.

  Still moist. “I think it’s me who’s making the acquaintance,” Anoushka said. “As I understand, you’re well acquainted with me. Or some secondhand rendition.” So much for flies and honey.

  The bard tightened his clammy grip. “Did your lawyer accompany you, dear? Perhaps it’d be best if I simply spoke with him so you can save the repartee for the handsy louts at the pub.”

  She crushed him in return. “I’m alone. And a lawsuit isn’t why I’m here. Though I’d be perfectly entitled.”

  Letting go of her, the bard said, “I daresay you wouldn’t have much of a case. Never, at any point, have we claimed Outstanding Valor is a factual account.” He collapsed into the rotting wingback, and his assistant took his place beside him, finding his mark (a masking tape X on the floor). “Please, have a seat.”

  She took the chair not positioned under a trickling leak. “Therein lies the problem,” she said, crossing her legs.

  “Problem?”

  “What you printed could be considered libel.”

  Looking pained, the assistant found the seagulls wheeling outside the window suddenly extremely interesting.

  The bard snorted, derisive. “A fictionalized acc
ount. Not that we ever say it in such austere terms—we want our readers to be transported and bolstered by what they read, not bogged down by distinguishing what really happened from what’s been . . . given poetic adjustment.”

  Anoushka had a problem with eye contact. Not with keeping it but with keeping it too well. Most of the time, small talk was painful for her; she always felt she was burning holes into people. Sometimes, though, it worked to her advantage.

  Like now.

  In reply to her dead-eyed glare, the bard grew a wolfish smile not quite reaching his eyes—Anoushka got the impression he’d practiced this before a mirror.

  “I must say, though, when Markus came back and told me who was here, I was—hand to the gods—overjoyed. I always loved your story, Miss Demaine. I don’t wear this thing normally. Special occasions. Which, unfortunately, it’s become clear, this is not.” He tore the frilly collar from around his neck. He smacked his palms together, the collar collapsing to the size of a card deck. “And now I’ve gotten ink on the godsdamned thing—”

  “Who told?” Anoushka asked, interrupting his futzing.

  He replied, half-engaged, only working to make the black dot into a black smear. “The party in question, and I signed a confidentiality agreement.” He shoved the ruined collar at his manservant. “Make yourself useful.”

  “It was my story,” Anoushka said as Markus raced off to the wash basin. “Doesn’t that count for something? You used my name.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, a tank requires more than one individual to keep in motion, yes?”

  “True, but—”

  “Your squad had an experience as well, then. And from it, a story. Don’t you think they, too, have some right to retell it, if they so desire?”

  “All I’m saying is—”

  “Someone knocks on my door with an interesting yarn to share. If I like it, I take down—for all its warts, inaccuracies, and exaggerations and, in full disclosure, sprinkle on some of my own—whereupon it’s proofed, typeset, printed, and put in shops. Songs for the less-than-literate come later. But that’s the gist. You don’t own that story, Miss Demaine. You just happened to be the most interesting part of it.”

  “Look, I’m not accusing anyone. I just—”

  “Didn’t come here to accuse anyone? Given your attitude, I’m surprised you didn’t come armed, if that is, in fact, the case.”

  You’re making me wish I had. “I’d like to take contracts again. We’re needed, I hear.”

  That shut him up.

  “So I want to fight for the Ma’am again,” she said. “With my squad.”

  No sooner had the assistant returned holding aloft the stain-liberated collar than the bard blasted at him: “Boy. Paperwork. Now!” A book was sent floppily sailing, and it collided with the globe stand and gave the glue-paper depiction of their world a wild spin. Yelping, the assistant squeezed back through the hole in the wall. “And the sales report from Outstanding Valor,” the bard shouted after him.

  Ruprecht sighed. “His parents were related, pretty sure. Saw him once without shoes; it was like two rows of thumbs. But, yes, right, you want to work. Delightful! I’m glad you chose Associated Bards; we’re very happy to have you.” He leaned to peek toward the waiting room door behind her. “Would your fellows care to . . . ?”

  “I don’t have them with me.”

  “You haven’t spoken to your squad about getting back together?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Haven’t kept in touch?”

  “Not really. But no reason not to. It was amicable, our disbanding.”

  “I didn’t suggest it wasn’t. But let’s see if memory serves.” He counted on his fingers. “Kylie-Nae Browne’s working as a trick shooter in the Crescentcliff circus; Zuther Fuath’s a monk now; Russell Ironbeird is also at the aforementioned circus as a faux-wrestling entertainer; Matthew Coonan’s no longer with us; Peter Elloch has landed himself in Breakshale; and you’re now chopping down trees. That accounts for everyone in contractor squad 166391972139, yes?”

  “Encyclopedic. But what did Peter do to get sentenced to Breakshale?” It couldn’t have been merely running on his parole. Not to be sent there.

  “It’s right there in the name, dear,” Ruprecht said. “Berserkers berserk.” He stood. “Drink?”

  Ruprecht sashayed to the globe stand, swerving slippers around buckets and moldering book towers. He split Gleese in half. Inside, bottles and glasses. “Potato wine, yes?” he asked as he filled one highball with clear liquid, then another. “I know that may come off as presumptuous—snowies and potato wine—but I figure some stereotypes don’t sprout from nowhere.”

  “Potato wine’s fine, but what did Peter—?”

  “Ice?”

  “Don’t care. What did he do?”

  “Well,” Ruprecht began, handing one glass to Anoushka, “Peter skipped on his parole, murdered again, and now the lug is where most believe he best belongs. Which, if you’ll forgive another presumption: you are among that majority?”

  “Must’ve been someone important.”

  “They weren’t, but it was a matter of quantity. Sad fact: it takes a sizeable mound of us bottom-rung folk to equal a highborn.” He’d said those words as if he included himself amid the former in order to not offend present company. The bard stole a slurp, set the glass aside, and clapped his hands. “Now, if you’d like to discuss business—once my idiot returns with the damn paperwork—we’ll get started. Gathering the others should pose no problem; they’ve probably been hoping you’d come along with this offer. Especially Mister Fuath. I mean, monkhood? Really? No sex, no talking? Who raises their hand for that? Ah, give me those. What took you?”

  “Sorry, sir.” Markus recoiled sliced fingers when Ruprecht snatched the papers from him, returned to ensuring his X remained pressed to the floor.

  After donning delicate eyeglasses, the bard licked a fingertip and flicked through the sales report. His mouth worked as he read. For some reason, this annoyed Anoushka. Perhaps because Erik read like that; a nasal nur-nur-mur-nur while skimming text.

  What would the next one be called? she caught herself wondering.

  “Here’s the thing,” Ruprecht said, sitting back, “as delicately as I can put it: Outstanding Valor’s sales do not warrant a sequel. We like you, we’re open to working with you again, but it’ll need to be in a different capacity.”

  She was surprised at how disappointed she was by this news but barred her face from betraying it. “What kind, then?”

  “Not as protagonist.”

  “Well, it seems I wasn’t protagonist of the last, either.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “I didn’t get paid. I, the protagonist, didn’t receive protagonist pay. That’s how it works, isn’t it?”

  “I thought you’re living in Hawkpointe.”

  “Yes, but not under a rock.”

  “So it must’ve taken you, what, two days to get here?”

  “It did, but I don’t see what that’s got to do with—”

  “And how much did the coach rides set you back?”

  “Four julas.”

  Ruprecht tore open a desk drawer. He clinked before her a swollen coin purse. “Your trip home, plus the thirty I inadvertently shorted you. Good day.”

  She didn’t reach for the money.

  A paddleboat in the far harbor sounded a downhearted toot.

  The bulbs in the electric sconces flickered, their buzzing brightness restored.

  “You’re firm,” Ruprecht said.

  “I am.”

  He studied her face. “Goodness, it’s really true; snowies are hard to read.”

  She ignored the pejorative . . . barely. “Who, then?”

  With hands clasped behind his puffy hat, Ruprecht searched the ceiling, touring the sagging brown nowhere continents the stains had formed. “I’m seeing our angle as hardened warriors getting together for one last ride. Long in the tooth but still battle-hungry.�
� He clicked his tongue. “Though those don’t really sell either. You know what does? Redemption stories. Weighty yarns with antiheroes hauling themselves from the clinging muck to fight something worse than even they. Very in at the moment. For ours, I could stretch out a trilogy and at least five songs per installment.” He squeaked melodies through his nose. “Five songs per volume, three volumes, fifteen songs in all.”

  “The redemption of who?”

  “Whom.”

  I’ll smack him. “The redemption of whom?”

  “Peter Elloch.”

  “You said he’s in Breakshale.”

  “I did. And he is. Currently.”

  “Whoa, wait. No way.”

  “Boy,” he shouted aside, “quit your pouting and bring us a nemesis.” Ruprecht told Anoushka, “We’ll have an assortment from which to pick; the Ma’am’s in no shortage of targets in fealty to the War King.”

  Anoushka set her glass aside. “Won’t the Committee be a little curious how someone who was supposed to be in Breakshale managed to not be while serving his realm?”

  “Bah. As long as he and his fellows—you and your squad—do their job to completion, I all but guarantee the Ma’am and her Committee dogs will turn the collective cheek, given the desired result. Might even earn himself an honorary pardon, something about his love of his realm being so immeasurable, not even hard iron bars could restrain it or blah-buh-blah. And you, my dear, might even find yourself knighted.” He gave the word a splash of razzle-dazzle that might work on some of his other applicants, but Anoushka didn’t give a shit about knighthood. Never had.

  “Therefore, the end justifies the means? With this?” she said.

  “The Ma’am loathes her enemies that much, indeed.”

  Markus shuffled in with a stack of documents piled in his arms. He thudded them on the corner of the desk. “Three marked priority, sir,” he panted.