Rusted Heroes Read online

Each thick document, Anoushka noticed, was bound in black leather and stamped with the Crown Committee for the Security of the United Counties of the Realm of Rammelstaad insignia: a wreath of interconnected padlocks ringed a jewel-studded crown sitting aloft a mound of keys. Ruprecht snatched the first, shooed Markus off, and broke the wax seal with a soft snap. Anoushka always liked that sound. A fresh job. The start of things.

  Inside, an overexposed photograph. A middle-aged man with dark center-parted, thinning hair. He was one of those rare folks you occasionally see who, while trim of body, inexplicably, have a significant double chin. Hawkish eyes behind round spectacles peered from the glossy paper—like he’d noticed the daring photographer’s distant lens catching the suns, shining, just as the aperture winked.

  “Lyle Ian Eichelberger,” Ruprecht read. “A file clerk from Yarnigrad who hadn’t declared his inclination. Upon being found out and threatened with jail time, our lad here must’ve decided his desire to practice outlawed magick was simply too great and opted to abandon the loving embrace of his realm to side with the orc. Though his groan-inspiring self-appointed soubriquet of the Baron of Decay is . . . awful, it’s forgivable, given our story’s potential tone and themes. Fits.”

  “One man?” Anoushka said. “We were usually sent after entire gangs—twenty or more.”

  “True, he is but one man. But for necromancers, one whispered call and just like that, instant reinforcements.”

  “Sure, but a necromancer, singular,” Anoushka said, head inclined, “is still one man.”

  Ruprecht rolled his eyes. “Your moxie’s very impressive, Miss Demaine, but have you ever faced a necromancer before?”

  “Back in sixty-three, we got a writ to go after a swamp witch. She’d turned a handful of the local bog-dredgers into—”

  “Not the same. And what of magick do you know?”

  “Somewhere—comfortably—betwixt zilch and jack shit.”

  “You’re not registered?”

  “No.”

  Pinching his pointy beard, Ruprecht estimated her like a curiosity on display. “I thought I’d once read snowies all harbor a natural penchant . . .”

  “North-born elves or snow elves, if you must, don’t all practice,” she said. True, perhaps, but Anoushka suspected in due time every elf, north- or prairie-born, would need to register as inclined—even if most were like her and hadn’t honed their inborn talents, regardless of how easily it might come if they simply tried a little.

  “In that case, I’ll deet ahead, see if an associate of mine would be willing to dry herself out long enough to be of aid.”

  Anoushka finally sipped her potato wine. “And the Ma’am wants this one dead,” she managed, throat seared, “above any of Skivvit’s warchiefs—and Skivvit himself? What of them tunneling?”

  “Rest assured, while the War King, without question, holds top spot on the royal to-snuff list, Lyle Eichelberger still has his own precedence in this. Reports say our frontline boys have to put down orcs three or four times, wasting precious energy and powder to reduce them to pieces to keep them from standing again. The Baron is a hemorrhage to Crown finances. And you, I’m sure, having been a victim of the Ma’am’s frugality, know how tight she can be about coin. Hair dye isn’t cheap. His will be an essential expunging that will, with hope, also make for a rousing page-turner.”

  “And this expunging requires Peter Elloch’s presence?”

  “Scared of some gobs, Miss Demaine?”

  “Not when they don’t have home-field advantage, as they will at Breakshale.”

  “If you’d permit me to inquire, how much do you care for your realm?”

  Anoushka shot forward. “Don’t question my dedication. I’ve fought for Rammelstaad over half my godsdamn life.”

  “Wonderful,” Ruprecht squealed, clapping. “Now let’s take your aggression and redirect it—away from me—and toward him.” He rapped a knuckle on Lyle Eichelberger’s photo. “Yes?”

  “So,” she continued with forced plainness, heart still thumping, “what comes next?”

  “You sign, I pack my bags, we go get your squad, and pluck us a protagonist.” After Ruprecht slid the contract from under the heavy nemesis dossiers, he turned it around toward her.

  She read every line. Ruprecht sighed a few times, waiting, but she wouldn’t blindly sign anything.

  “Are you planning to come with us?” she said, jotting her chicken-scratch signature. Might be only you and I if I can’t convince them to jump, again, into the fire. And, beyond that, it’d take a small miracle to free Peter and not have it wind up disastrous; she was already trying to word how she’d explain that catch to the others.

  “Of course. Second to old stories, a bard nearly soils himself with joy for only one other thing.”

  He kept arching his brow, trying to cue her.

  “What’s that?” she humored.

  “Why, being there as they’re made!” Rocketing to his feet, the bard rushed to the waiting-room door. “Right, thanks for coming out, fellas, but we’re hereby closed for the season.” Slamming it on disappointed groans and the clatter of two dozen men struggling to steel-wrapped feet, Ruprecht—actually skipping—came back Anoushka’s way. “So! Shall we make our way to the circus?”

  * * *

  The length of Ruprecht’s caravan featured a tableau of a wizardess with overflowing bosom and sienna curls laying waste to the world beneath her stormy mountaintop aerie with fire from her hands. Associated Bards Inc., in gold, ringed her. Stories Are Our Business.

  Their path was lit by buzzing headlights, drawn by two sable horses steered by Markus. Ruprecht’s office-on-wheels was spacious—for a caravan. A work area with a table that could fold up into the wall; another for recording music; one corner with shelves and shelves of tiny letters ready to be slotted for the portable press; a small kitchenette with a potbelly stove; beds that could appear with a kicked floorboard that’d roll them upright; half a dozen wine casks slish-sloshed; and an upside-down forest of instruments hanging from the ceiling clunking together, apart, together in a tolerable racket. It played bass to the chatter of rain on the tin roof.

  His radio, its grille so ornate it reminded Anoushka of a church window, was playing “One Shot at Glory.” The volume was down so low it may have just been Anoushka remembering the song.

  She’d dreaded being trapped for the entire trip to Crescentcliff with the bard, figuring he’d pass the time drilling her with questions, but Ruprecht spent the first leg at the fold-up table, scratching ink to parchment. She decided to break the silence.

  “Associated Bards, huh?”

  “Indeed,” he said, not looking up.

  “Is Markus one too?” Anoushka took out her moss pouch and pipe.

  “Certainly not.” Sitting back, Ruprecht massaged his writing hand. “It’s a sham, I’ll grant. Like when you see a business going by Whoever & Sons; there probably aren’t any sons, but a man alone announces, without words, his untrustworthiness. Have him walking a dog or towing along a simpleton by the hand: inexplicably trustworthy at once.”

  “Is that a concern of yours, maintaining an image of trustworthiness?”

  Ruprecht smirked. “Name one individual, nowadays, who isn’t.”

  All right. “And how’d you get into this racket?”

  “I was a playwright before ‘this racket.’ But my work wasn’t what you’d call liked. And so, since the critics don’t dare remark on the stories of the Ma’am’s warriors fighting in her name lest they find themselves accused of dissention, I finally found myself a happy writer. Which is not to say I am without competition. Oh, no. There’s Mann O. Mahan and his Blackiron Blaggards Press and the Marvelous Adventurer Company and others, but mine stands as most reputable with the widest readership by a mile.”

  Anoushka recalled the lumberyard canteen’s cylinder player. No brass bell to it, not fancy, simply a crank-operated box. She’d half-listened to a good number of the scratchy song-stories during brea
ks but had never thought to check the cylinder’s packaging. Maybe she’d heard some of Ruprecht’s work and never knew.

  “While my contemporaries get their quarries from the bounty signs nailed to trees,” Ruprecht continued, “I have an in with the Duke of Guard’s Isle.”

  Marion Titch. The Ma’am’s stepbrother, father of the twins whose double murder sparked the war.

  “I was plussed-one by an acquaintance to attend a ball at his estate,” the bard continued. “Went, rubbed elbows, and managed to pitch him my idea while we were both using the lav.” He giggled at his own anecdote.

  Anoushka did not. “So contractors needing intermediaries to get work was your doing?”

  “Enlistment was down. Now it’s up. Because of me.”

  “Except you’re making war seem like it’s a game of Rangers and Sorcerers out in the backyard. Most of those boys in your waiting room didn’t look like they were shaving yet.”

  “And four years ago, the Committee was considering reinstating the draft. People want to fight for their realm, Miss Demaine. Which is what I told the good duke: it only requires an inspired means of reminding.”

  Anoushka laughed without humor. “I sincerely hope you realize how awful that sounds.”

  “I did, once. Until it hit me how it’s not at all different than before. Think of your father or uncle or grandfather who, with you on their knee, would unfurl breathtaking tales about the heart-swelling honor one receives while serving their realm. That was marketing, too, after a fashion. Then you wanting to be just like them and signing up: transaction complete. Rammelstaad relies on that. Well, relied. Now, there’s no need for Grandpa’s long-winded stories. Ours are available in both prose and melody, to help the decision-making process in Rammelstaad’s courageous, able-bodied youth who are still on the fence as to whether they wish to give themselves for the Great Effort against the bloodthirsty green menace.”

  Anoushka had so many possible responses, but they bottlenecked in her throat. She looked around. The wax cylinders, the moveable press, the quills, and gallons of ink waiting to be turned into words. I’m inside a godsdamned mobile propaganda machine.

  They came to a halt. As the caravan creaked and rocked, Markus appeared outside Anoushka’s window. In the pouring rain, his tangerine-colored doublet clung to him—she could count his ribs. Nearly having his slippers sucked off his feet by the mud, he scurried to a small building beyond the road’s ditch, butting up to the railroad tracks on the other side. Slipping and sliding, he dragged a long, thick, black wire behind him. Somewhere on the caravan’s exterior, he hooked it on. Th-thump. “Wired, sir.”

  From a drawer, the bard removed what, to the untrained eye, may’ve been mistaken for a stapler. Tapping to make a steel pin connect to a copper plate, he continued, “Hope you won’t mind some visitors while you’re away.”

  “I would, actually.”

  “I’m requesting some associates of mine to get Joan loaded onto a locomotive. En route, she’ll get repairs, scrubbed, resprung—a full tune-up.”

  “That’s my home. My tank.”

  “I’m aware it’s your home and your tank,” Ruprecht said. He knocked on the caravan wall, and again Markus skidded and fumbled around outside, recoiling the slippery wire. “But imagine what a scene it’ll make when you see Joan, polished and looking virgin-new, roll up on a locomotive. She’ll meet us in Yarnigrad—if all goes according to schedule.”

  Fine. “Why Yarnigrad?”

  “Because it’s the last known location and stomping grounds of our quarry. Or, mark, to use contractor nomenclature. Next, to gather her occupants. Won’t be much of a tank squad without all of its crucial roles refilled, yes?”

  Music, faint. Trumpets and booming kettledrums. She glanced out the window. Up ahead, through the gray wall of rain, a group of colorfully striped big tops, illuminated from within by golden light, rose on the horizon.

  * * *

  That was Metallica. Good track. Up next, we’ll have the drawing for two tickets to the Duluth Monster Truck Rally next Sunday. But since I have a minute here, I wanted to touch on something real quick. Out on the I-35, I’ve been hearing there’s like all these hitchhikers. And I mean, if you gotta get somewhere, you gotta get somewhere. But be careful; be picky about who you get a ride with. Choosy, man! It’s your life! And the same goes the other way. If you’re on a long haul or a road trip, and you’re lonely or think you might wanna help somebody out, use caution, folks. Crazies look the same as everybody else. I would know. Heh-heh. This has been a public service announcement by yours truly, DJ Cliffy Cohen on KROX, comin’ at ya straight outta the heart of downtown Duluth. Keep it here for the best of rock from the seventies, eighties, and today.

  I Remember You

  Mammoths in formation held the tail of the one before in line as a chimp on a tricycle wove a circuit through their legs. Afterward, a sword swallower came out, did what you’d expect someone with that title to do—Anoushka couldn’t help but squirm. After, a mouflon and his human coperformer juggled flaming daggers, followed by halfling clowns goofing one another with squirting lapel daisies and cream pies. The crowd hushed when a dwarf in a tailed suit waddled out to the center ring and pressed to his lips a megaphone striped like candy.

  “From the wilds of the Nae Highlands, she came! By the patience of her keepers, their wild ward was taught to protect her adopted land first by sword, then by dagger and pistol. It was by shooter that she was found to be most astute. A prodigy of pyrotechnics! You know her. You love her. The eagle-eyed scourge of the orcs who never misses her mark: Cherry Bomb!”

  Breaths were held. A woman jangled out in spurs, chaps, and a tailoring wonder of a top—a mix of fringed corset and bandolier. Once in the center ring, she turned a circle, hat low, giving the audience a view of herself and her wealth of armaments. Two pistols on her back, two on her hips. And the last, slung at her front, had a barrel that nearly reached her knees. Twirl complete, she struck a pose—hip popped, arms akimbo. She allowed the spotlight to sneak under her hat’s rim—square face, full lips, crystal blues. Kylie-Nae Browne.

  She tore off her ten-gallon, tossed it high. Spinning among the tightropes above, just as gravity began to cull the hat back, she drew. Twelve shots and the hat fell in smoking pieces.

  The crowd exploded.

  Immediately, accompanied by the band beating out an impressive mimicry of “Wheel in the Sky,” wooden targets sprang around the edge of the center ring. Each painted snarling orc had its head blasted off in sequence, sending toothpicks flying into ale mugs and popcorn baskets in the stands. Holstering the two spent revolvers, the woman drew the long barrel from her front holster, giving a winking Hey, sailor to the bachelors in the front row. She spun the revolver on one finger, saucily sauntered, spurs chiming with each slow swing of long, perfect legs. The band’s drummer accompanied her swagger with a bum-bah-dum, bum-bah-dum. Producing an apple from her pocket, Cherry Bomb polished it on her sleeve with a vigorous shimmy, presumably to make her breasts jiggle. Anoushka watched as the men in the audience around her—Ruprecht and Markus included—became transfixed, dumb-eyed as dogs ogling a bone.

  Amazingly able to convey a lusty coo while stage projecting, Cherry Bomb said, “Who reckons they’d like to aid little ol’ me with something I’ve really been itchin’ to do? You, handsome? Fancy a bang with Cherry Bomb?”

  Her target of breathy summons was elbowed by his drunk friends. But, blushing, he declined. His buddies howled and punched his arm, mussed his hair; he’d be playfully—and maybe not playfully—shamed about his cowardice the rest of his life.

  “Okay . . .” Cherry Bomb, with the shuffle of a scolded toddler, continued down the front row spinning the mammoth-killing revolver on her finger. She dropped the mannerism, the brokenhearted shuffle blending into the hip-swaying strut between steps. It was dizzying to watch the gun whirl; Anoushka remembered when Kylie-Nae started doing that with her old flintlocks around the campfire.

&
nbsp; But when Cherry Bomb’s gaze caught Anoushka, the sultry puff of her lips fell and the gun on her finger wobbled and landed in the trampled hay and mammoth dung.

  Before the audience got a chance to laugh, Anoushka shot her hand up. “Right here! I’ll do it!”

  The spotlight’s beam tore across the audience to hunt her down. Its heat landing on her, Anoushka stood, shielding her eyes.

  Ruprecht scolded from the shadows next to her, “Isn’t going to be much of a tank squad with a headless captain.”

  Below, Cherry Bomb had retrieved her mammoth-killer, shaken free of shit and dirt. She smiled a thank-you.

  Anoushka said, “She knows what she’s doing.”

  * * *

  “Maybe I should’ve just found you afterward.” Leaning into Cherry Bomb’s vanity mirror, Anoushka had white bits of detonated apple covering her shoulders. She touched gingerly at her scalp, her hair crispy just right of her part.

  “Sorry.” Kylie-Nae unbuckled her gun belt and let it hit the floor of her dressing-room caravan. After kicking off her boots, she dropped onto the bench next to Anoushka. Her aggressively freckled face resurfaced with each daub of a cloth. “One of our hydra tamers lost a bet—the bet—so I’ve been doing three shows a night.”

  The ringleader’s story had been mostly true; Kylie-Nae had been born in the Highland wilds, among the first netted out of the fens for the Ursula Stellen-Austenhoff’s Invitation to Civility Initiative. After she was wrestled into a dress and bonnet, affluent couples arrived by the score to estimate the “poor dears” and place bids. When Mister and Missus Browne’s bid was deemed satisfactory to the Civility Initiative people, she was sent home with the childless couple, to the Brownes’ estate. But caving in the head of every porcelain doll and making clear her preference for the library’s potted ferns over the W. C. wasn’t behavior the Brownes thought adorable. Kylie-Nae found herself on a train bound for Josephine Calloway’s School for Girls after only two weeks with the Brownes. Marched into the classroom, she was plunked down at a desk. “My name’s Annie,” the elf girl next to her said with a faint lisp she’d later outgrow. “What’s yours?”