The Rover Read online

  “Of course,” Wick said. Is he here? He glanced around the large room quickly, but no one stepped forward to claim the package. “May I tell the grandmagister it has been delivered?”

  “Of course,” the clerk said, handing Wick a receipt. “We’re the best Customs House around.”

  Wick also knew they were the only Customs House. He took the receipt and carefully put it away. But questions he knew he shouldn’t have been thinking about filled his mind.

  Outside the Customs House, Wick wasn’t able to let go of his curiosity. It was, he knew, a dweller’s worst fault and greatest weakness. He waited, watching the people who entered the building.

  Nearly ten minutes later, the arrival of a tall human pricked Wick’s interest. At first glance the tall man’s long stride was deceiving, not giving away how fast he covered the ground. He came on foot, a broad-shouldered man dressed in worn brown warder’s leathers. A long sword hung at his left hip and he kept his hand on it as he hurried. He wore his dark brown hair cut short, mostly squared off, and his face was tanned and sharp-featured. He vanished inside the Customs House and reappeared almost instantly with Grandmagister Frollo’s package. He walked down the long trail back toward the harbor area, glancing around him often.

  Probably, Wick thought, most people won’t even notice him watching so carefully. But the little librarian had. The man’s behavior was certainly circumspect. Wick took off after the long-legged warder. He stayed to the other side of the street, letting the human walk along the street nearest the docks, and tried to stay out of sight. As the little librarian dodged between the buildings, he tried to remember everything he’d read in Maktorleq’s Art of Shadowing, a Guide to Subterfuge for the Men Behind the Kings.

  The warder’s behavior became more defensive as he stepped down into the shadows among the buildings fronting the docks. Dusk had thickened to the west, Wick knew, because the fog seemed darker back in that direction, and dark gloom had settled in over the city. It wouldn’t be long before night covered the harbor.

  Without warning, the warder turned and strode down an alley between two warehouses that had closed for the night. His reflection passed swiftly across the glass in the small windows, and his outline dimmed slightly in the thick fog.

  Across the street, Wick hesitated, watching the man walk away. You have to know what he is about, he told himself, or you won’t have a decent night’s sleep for a month.

  The little librarian hurried into the alley. The air between the two warehouses absolutely reeked of foul odors. Rotting vegetables as well as chicken and pig bones littered the area between the warehouses.

  The stone warehouses were a hundred fifty feet long by Wick’s estimation, and stood two stories tall. The eaves hung well out from the buildings, almost touching in the center.

  Some primitive instinct made Wick freeze. A skittering noise sounded on the rooftop to his right. Dread filled him as he looked up.

  What looked like a misshapen elf hung upside down from the eave of the building. The creature was long and thin the way elves were, but it had a squared-off head and blunt features that included a massive, piggish snout and two ivory fangs that curled up on either side. The thing held onto the underside of the eave with curled toes and one hand. The other hand held a short scythe. The thing’s shoulders were narrow but held great bumps on them, and it was the color of old mahogany. Deep-set ruby eyes gleamed as they focused on Wick. The thing cocked its head like a dog listening to a flute player. The puzzled expression it made showed primarily through the thick brows, hardly touching the lipless mouth.

  A hissing snarl came from the warehouse on the other side of the alley, and Wick suddenly knew the creature above and in front of him wasn’t the only one there. He wished he could turn and run, but his legs seemed locked. He turned his head slowly and spotted two more of the creatures hanging from the eaves to the left. Another creature moved across the warehouse roof in a low crawl. Claws scraped the slate tiles.

  “Not thisss one, my brothersss. Thisss one isss nothing to usss.”

  Fearfully, Wick turned to look at the first creature he’d seen. It had turned its head back toward the human warder striding into the fog.

  “Come, we mussst go!” the creature declared urgently.

  Wick watched in astonishment as the creature released its hold on the eaves and dropped like a rock. For a moment he thought the thing would flatten against the fog-dampened ground. Then it unfurled great leathery wings that caught the air with a liquid pop. Only then did Wick realize that the foulness that he’d smelled actually came from the creatures, and that odor—like the trapped musk of a desecrated grave—told him that the creatures were Boneblights.

  Lord Kharrion had fashioned the first Boneblights toward the end of the Cataclysm, when the forces of good repelled his attacks at last and started to drive him from the world. As each battle successfully won by the elves, dwarves and humans pushed the skirmish lines back, the Goblin Lord had used some of the oldest magicks of evil to raise a new army.

  On moonless nights, Lord Kharrion’s sorcery drew the bones of his conquered goblin troops from the earth of the battlefields where they’d been lost and left unmourned. Then the Goblin Lord had wedded the decayed flesh and bone to the raw pain and anger of innocents he had tortured to reave those emotions. There was nothing in the Boneblights of the individuals that had been killed so that they might live except the emotion of his or her death.

  Boneblights did not truly live, yet they were not undead as some creatures were. They had been fierce warriors, truly dedicated to Lord Kharrion, and served as his personal guard at the end. After his defeat, all the Boneblights were believed destroyed. However, talespinners still told stories of the creatures.

  Four other Boneblights joined the first, swooping low, then gliding to the end of the alley. They went quickly, cutting through the swirling fog easily.

  Now run! Wick told himself. But for some reason he couldn’t follow his own advice. His legs moved, but they carried him toward the end of the alley where the creatures had flown.

  The human warder had reached the docks, still watching carefully. But he didn’t hear the Boneblights gliding up behind him.

  “Look out, warder!” Wick yelled. “Boneblights follow you!”

  The warder turned, drawing his long sword in a twinkling. His face was grim as he surveyed the five Boneblights closing on him. He tucked Grandmagister Frollo’s package inside his shirt and took up his sword in two hands. Instead of fleeing from the Boneblights, the warder stepped toward them.

  The sword flashed, catching lantern light from a nearby cargo ship, then cleaved through the lead Boneblight’s head down to its shoulders. Boneblights had no blood in them, but the wound was still gruesome. A Boneblight’s head was its only weakness. Once the head was shorn from its shoulders or crushed, a Boneblight turned to dust and broken bones.

  The warder dropped from the path of his second attacker, then pushed himself up on his free hand, sprinting quickly toward a nearby frame where a pair of dwarven sailors mended a net.

  Wick still ran toward the warder, drawn by the mystery of Grandmagister Frollo’s package and the inability to quit the scene. Oh, curiosity is surely a dweller’s most unkind doom! he lamented as he rushed out onto the street.

  Quick as a fox, the warder dropped and slithered under the net as the second Boneblight struck. The creature’s claws raked the air where the warder had been only a moment ago, then it smashed into the net. The dwarven sailors that had been at the mending backed away at once, drawing the long daggers at their waists and swearing.

  On the other side of the net, still prone on his chest, the warder slashed through the nearest support pole with a single sword stroke, allowing his attacker to become entangled in the folds of the net. Rising effortlessly to his feet, the warder grabbed the lummin juice lantern from the keg where the dwarven sailors had put it to work on the net. He smashed the lantern over the third Boneblight’s skull, coating it
in lummin juice and dodging out of the way. The foul creature screamed angrily.

  “What goes on there?” a watchman from a nearby ship demanded in a hoarse voice.

  “Boneblights!” one of the dwarven sailors who had been mending nets cried out. “We’ve been attacked by Boneblights!”

  Confusion swiftly passed along the nearby ships. It wasn’t unheard of for pirates to pillage plunder quietly from ships lying at anchorage. The sailors didn’t leave their vessels, but they did batten down the hatches, shouting out orders and lighting more lummin lanterns. The eddying fog covering the harbor so thickly masked some of the action taking place on shore.

  “Someone send for the harbor guard!” another sailor roared out. “Whoever them people are a-makin’ all that noise, why the harbor guard will slap knots on their gourds right quick enough!”

  The harbor guard, Wick thought to himself as he hid behind an empty wagon only forty or so feet from the netbound Boneblight, would be helpful. The harbor guard had a reputation for no-nonsense dealings, and often times were the heroes of one tale and villains of the very next.

  Before the warder could set himself for the fourth Boneblight, the creature raked long nails across the man’s chest, ripping his blouse and scoring the skin beneath. The warder swung his long sword as he turned, avoiding most of the Boneblight’s attack, but only buried the blade across the creature’s back where it did no real harm.

  Wick saw pain etch the warder’s face as blood soaked his shirt. The warder stumbled against a stack of crates awaiting shipment, ducking under the remaining Boneblights’ attack. Turning, the warder ducked through the stacks of the crates, using their closeness against his pursuers.

  One of the Boneblights landed on the crates. From the way its arms and legs bent, Wick suddenly realized that they had more joints than a human’s, elf’s, or dwarf’s. Then the Boneblight sat back on its haunches, cocking its head to one side and then the other as it tried to follow its prey within the maze of crates. Seeing it like that reminded the little librarian very much of a praying mantis.

  The wind gusted, picking up a small envelope near the net that still held one of the Boneblights captive.

  Wick knew the envelope hadn’t been there earlier. There’s only one place that could have come from, he realized. I wonder if I can get to it before one of the Boneblights spots me? Then he realized what he’d thought and shook his head at himself. Only the most grisly fates awaited any dweller that started any thought with I wonder.

  Still, he did wonder if he could get to the letter now gleefully hopping across the sandy shoreline. He was terribly quick, after all. He glanced back at the warder, seeing that the three surviving Boneblights had clustered around the crates.

  Unable to bear his curiosity any more and wanting desperately to know why any package the grandmagister could have sent would have been of interest to Boneblights, Wick sipped a quick breath. Of course, it was possible that the Boneblights were simply looking for the warder and it had nothing to do with the package at all.

  The warder’s sword licked out, shearing the head from another Boneblight that collapsed into a heap of dust and bones.

  Taking that as an omen, though dwellers were raised from an early age never to trust such things, Wick sprinted toward the letter. He glanced fearfully in the direction of the warder and the two Boneblights. Drawing on the great speed and dexterity that dwellers had and kept despite how round some of them got, the little librarian scooped the envelope up from the sand. It was still sealed, although the wax was cracked, and he could tell the fine writing had been done by Grandmagister Frollo’s hand.

  “Foul guttersssnipe,” an evil voice rasped. “Dwellersss alwaysss take thingsss that do not belong to them. Ssso quick to run, ssso quick to hide. Mussst punisssh you!”

  3

  Boneblights

  Renewed terror suddenly flooded Wick’s heart as he glanced up at the Boneblight snugged up in the net and hanging from the remaining pole. The creature snapped its razored fangs through the net strands, making bigger the hole it had already started.

  “Yaaahhh!” Wick screamed in wide-eyed panic. He was no hero to confront a creature as darkly evil or powerful as a Boneblight. He had absolutely no wish to do that, and not even a weapon to do it with. The little librarian turned and tried to run, but his feet slid out from under him in the loose sand. The crack of leathery wings behind him told him the Boneblight was in pursuit.

  Glancing back over his shoulder, Wick saw the Boneblight fly into the air for a short distance, then come straight for him with a distended maw and reaching claws. Galvanized into action, Wick pushed himself back toward the Boneblight, knowing the creature couldn’t turn in that direction in mid-flight. He remembered that from a warder work on the habits of flying predators.

  After missing Wick, the Boneblight pulled up at the last moment, spreading the great wings and catching the wind so that it rose. Its claws trailed briefly through the sand.

  Sailors hung over the edges of nearby ships with lanterns in their fists, striving to see. The pale light hardly made a dent in the gloomy fog that clouded the shore, but it was enough so that Wick could see the Boneblight better. And he knew if he could see the Boneblight, it could certainly see him.

  The little librarian scrambled to his feet and fled back toward the wagon. It was the nearest cover available to him. He felt the Boneblight’s merciless gaze on him, knowing it was coming around for another attempt. Clutching the envelope tightly in his fist, Wick dove under the wagon. The heavy thump! of the Boneblight slamming into the side of the wagon sounded almost immediately afterward.

  Although he didn’t want to, Wick turned to look. Did it fly over the wagon, only bumping it in passing? He needed to know that before he darted from the other side and tried to run back through the alley.

  The Boneblight lay on the ground at the side of the wagon. It groaned in pain, something Wick would never have believed Boneblights could or would do, and put one hand to its head.

  If only the Boneblight had hit the wagon harder, Wick lamented. But he seemed to be having a run of bad luck today. At the front of the wagon, the horses stamped in consternation, pulling at their load but halted by the chocks blocking the front wheels.

  Beyond the horses, the warder broke free of the crates and the two Boneblights striving to get him. He dashed across the sandy beach, covering the ground quickly.

  Wick suddenly felt as though his right ankle had been gripped in an iron band. He looked down and saw that the Boneblight had seized his ankle in its thin, bony hand. Malevolent red lights flickered in its eyes and it distended its jaws, intending to bite the little librarian’s leg.

  “Nooo!” Wick yelped hoarsely. He kicked his free foot into the Boneblight’s forehead as it snapped its jaws tight. The sharp fangs missed him by a scant inch but shredded the lower hem of his robe. A desperate plan filled the little librarian’s mind. Simply trying to escape the Boneblight by running under the other side of the wagon wasn’t going to do. He recalled a daring escape attempt that Galadryn Carrolic had used to escape a pair of ferocious beasts in Deepmud Bogs.

  He kicked his feet against the sandy shore, inadvertently breathing in some of the fine dust. Despite the fact that the Boneblight was there to very probably rend him limb from limb, Wick sneezed so hard his ears popped. Oh, and wouldn’t that make a fine epitaph, he thought. Brought unto death by a lowly sneeze. He sneezed twice more, great blowing gusts that tossed more sand in all directions, and one of them that drove his head sharply up into the wagon bed.

  The horses stamped in frustration and fear as they pulled at the wagon. The wheels rolled momentarily up on the big chocks, but didn’t get up high enough to go over.

  “Easy!” Wick called as he crawled rapidly under the wagon on elbows and knees. He glanced back and saw the Boneblight hissing angrily and swiping under the wagon with its claws. Hurriedly, he stuffed the grandmagister’s letter into a pocket of his robes.

  F
lipping over onto his back, Wick kicked first one wooden chock from under the wagon’s front wheels, then the other. He saw the Boneblight crawling under the wagon now, hissing as it clawed its way toward him. The horses stamped close to the little librarian’s head, shaking the traces, no longer aware that the chocks had been moved.

  “Haw, horses!” Wick yelled. “Haw, haw!” Then he reached up for the wagon tree. Before he could grab it, though, the horses took off. In frightened disbelief, the little librarian watched as the wagon shot by overhead, pulling the tree out of his reach. “No, horse! Whoa, horse!”

  But the fear-maddened animals made no attempt to stop. Their hooves thudded close to Wick’s head, throwing sand into his face. The little librarian forced himself to remain still to avoid the churning wheels. He heard a sickening crunch of bone and waited to feel the pain in his legs, thinking either the Boneblight had gotten him or the wagon had.

  After the wagon passed, he sat up, expecting to see the Boneblight coming for his throat. Instead, the Boneblight lay in several pieces, smashed beneath the wagon wheels. Several of those pieces had once been the creature’s skull. Wick surveyed the disassembled Boneblight in total awe.

  “Are ye all right?” someone asked.

  Rough hands helped Wick to his feet. He looked up into a dwarven face that showed concern. “Why, yes,” the little librarian answered, truly astonished. “Though I didn’t expect to be.”

  The dwarf kicked the pile of ash and broken bones in disgust, but a little trepidation as well. “Boneblights. Hmph! Thought we’d seen the last of them things.” A crowd began to gather from a nearby tavern, pooling around different lummin juice lanterns as if to ward off the night. “I never thought I’d meet someone that had actually done for one of them blasted things.”

  “Actually, I—” Wick started to explain that the wagon had accidentally run the Boneblight down, but he heard the whispered conversations by the tavern’s patrons and thought better of that. “Actually, that’s the first Boneblight I’ve struck down.”