Beastly (17 page)

The Beast marveled at the brilliance of the pirate’s ink blotted renderings. Seeing
Poogs’s work, his attention to detail, the scope, was every bit as impressive as Urda’s sky writing. The voice from the woods whispered softly in his head.
The world was much grander than the Road had revealed. It is out there, waiting for you...
Perhaps rescuing the girl was as important as the old ghost claimed. Perhaps this was his chance to matter.

Poogs worked one of the dangling chains. The ratcheting clicks stirred a few critters from hiding. A rust colored mouse streaked from
underneath a canvas, then disappeared into a wall crack. The tiny critter reminded the Beast of his wintergreen home. A mere three days had passed since stirring from his mossy bed. Much had happened since then. The world was getting larger and larger with each step; an exciting and terrifying prospect. He wondered if he’d ever see his green cushioned bed again.

Poogs released the chain, clapping dust free from his hands, snapping the Beast’s daydream. He awoke to find one of the canvas coverings had revealed their secret. Astonishment was understatement. The sprawling schematics had been impressive. The item on display stole the very breath from the room. The Beast’s jaw dropped like a boulder. Poogs circled a display, waving for the Beast to join him. Inside the shell of light an odd looking device rested on iron prongs.

A weapon...
the Beast thought. The device’s wooden stock was familiar enough, but beyond that... A long metal tube was fastened to the device’s top, a trigger below.
What had Poogs conjured up?

Poogs puffed his chest.
“Blunderbuss.”

The Beast was speechless. He reached for the strange device, but Poogs froze him with a terse warning.

“Careful, she’s loaded.”

The Beast stepped away.
No quarrel, no sign of magical charge
. “Loaded with what?”

Poogs hoisted the blunderbuss free. He thumbed a switch near the
trigger. The weapon’s barrel broke apart, tilting forward. Poogs tapped a metallic projectile free, catching it in his unoccupied hand. He pinched the smooth object between his fingers and then flipped it nonchalantly to his guest. The Beast plucked the projectile from flight. He regarded the curious weapon, unsure how such a simple device could hurl something fast enough to damage a target. He tossed the projectile back to Poogs who deftly reloaded the shell and snapped the weapon shut.

“Some years ago, the winds carried my ship to a walled city far to the East. There I saw a child, a boy, no more than six, playing with a black powder. He was snapping pinches of it against the city’s roads.” Poogs threw a snap of imaginary powder.

“The powder ignited and then... boom!” Poogs puffed into a closed fist, blowing it open. “I purchased a pouch from the boy. The possibilities seemed endless. I’ve been working with it, refining it. It will change everything we know of armed combat. No longer would a man need years of training to learn to fight. The meekest among us could defend his family with the simple pull of a trigger.”

The Beast caught a flare of anger in the pirate’s eye. The flash burnt strong for a heartbeat and was gone, swallowed up by
Poogs’s natural swagger.

Poogs racked the blunderbuss and lowered the covering. He tossed another cover aside, revealing a modest work bench well stocked with worn hand tools. The bench was a perfect microcosm of the shop:
plastered in schematics, buried under discarded junk. The Beast regarded the messy scene. How the pirate got any work done at all, he did not know.

Poogs cleared a space on the bench with a cavalier swipe. Clutter crashed and fluttered in an avalanche of refuse. The pirate moved a strange looking device to the bench’s center. It was of better quality than anything else the Beast had seen in the shop. He manipulated the stack of seven affixed lenses. “This was a gift from the stuffiest professor I have ever had the privilege of being expelled by.”

Poogs invited the Beast to place the medallion beneath the lowest looking glass. The Beast responded with a look to kill. Separation from the medallion occurred on exactly one occasion since his awakening. The consequences had been dire for all.

Never again will the chains bind...

“If you wish to know more...” Poogs gestured again to the work bench. “Where would I run you big fool? You’d have me in two steps.”

The Beast hesitated and then lifted the medallion free. The firestone’s iridescence battled the workshop’s sterile light in dazzling shards of copper and crimson, protesting the separation with pin pricks of energy into his paw. Poogs manipulated the individual glasses, searching for perfect magnification. His fingers worked the device the way a master musician would play his favorite piece. Poogs adjusted the medallion and the Beast moved a fast step forward out of reflex.

“Extraordinary, truly extraordinary,” Poogs said with hushed excitement. “The inscription is flawless, absolutely perfect. I
cannot translate most of the glyphs.” Poogs removed the medallion and pointed to a collection of symbols.

“But this one assuredly says ‘
wynisahil
’.”

The Beast shrugged. Never had he made the claim that he was a great scholar of magical tongues. Poogs snickered at the Beast’s ignorance until a flared nostril interrupted his fun. “I have heard this word. This ‘
wynisahil
’ is an ancient word. A root word from which all magic flows. The word has not been purposefully uttered by mortals for ages.”

The Beast lunged at the pirate, pleading. “How do you-- Where did hear that? Is there more? Speak fast, pirate, I have little patience and you have little time.”

The gleam in
Poogs’s eye reflected in the medallion. “My friend, its meaning is as simple as it is elegant.” Poogs’s flashy grin spread over his face.

“It means wish.”

Chapter 20

Beads of sweat dotted Tavril’s sloping forehead. The dwarf yanked a monographed handkerchief from a pocket and dabbed at the salty droplets. After his mark had escaped the ambush at the Rusty Rudder, Tavril had the good sense to summon more muscle from the guild. A dozen men now convened on the fountain outside the merchant’s enclave. Tavril split his swelled ranks which included a few on loan from the City Watch.

Tavril’s legs dangled from his seat at the fountain’s edge. He would remain behind with his personal guard. The other teams would storm the workshop, front and rear. They would tighten the noose and squeeze.
A basic enough strategy. Or so he hoped.

He stroked absentmindedly at a lengthy beard while the last of his men disappeared into t
he merchant’s enclave. Now, he need only wait.

***

The Beast was hunched over the looking glass when a crash rattled the workshop.

“Our guests have arrived. Quickly, to the back--” A second boom muffled
Poogs’s instruction. The workshop’s doors exploded, flew into the shop and smashed into the canvased pedestals. Several bizarre displays sent their contents sliding across the floor. The blunderbuss skittered behind a pile of scrap metal.

A pack of masked men, clad in leather armor, stormed inside crossbows raised. A staccato retort of twangs echoed. Quarrels ripped through the canvases, pinning shreds of fabric into the walls. The assault was fast and furious, meant to shock the wanted men within into surrender. Captain Poogs of the Reaper’s Song harbored no such intention. He dove to his side and smashed a hidden wall panel with a palm, dousing the array of ring-lights, blanketing the shop in blackness.

The Beast dodged a swarm of quarrels, tumbling behind a large brass globe. He peered over the model, flinching at a ricocheting quarrel. He quickly retreated and scanned around for options. He found Poogs on the move. The pirate had slipped undetected around the room, nearly reaching the wrecked entrance. Poogs crept along, crouched low, hugging the wall. The pirate reached into a pocket retrieving two small objects. The Beast’s keen vision strained but he was able to see the
contents of the pirate’s hand.

The shop key and a small metal ring
.

The crossbowmen held their formation just inside the door, less than thrilled at the prospect of advancing into the darkness. “Profit over peril” was their mantra. Poogs was one thing, the monstrous demon with him, another thing entirely. Instead, strings were re-drawn, quarrels reloaded.

It was exactly the reprieve the pirate needed.

Poogs sprung from the shadows, slamming the metal ring against the floor. He shielded his face, bracing an arm tightly against his eyes. The ring exploded a second later in a blinding flash and a thunderstorm’s boom. The guild assassins cried out, deafened and blinded. Crossbows piled onto the floor as the intruders stumbled over one another, fighting for the exit. Poogs appeared from behind a rack of shelves with his wide grin painted in place. He strolled to the door’s frame and inserted the key. The pirate whistled as the last of the guild stumbled from his ruined workshop.

“I’d like to thank you all for coming, but most regrettably I must bid you
good-night and farewell,” Poogs said with a low, flourishing bow. He twisted the key, activating the trapdoor. He spun back to the shop, arms raised in victory. “All is well, my friend. They are gone, you may quit cowering now.”

The Beast stood from behind the globe. Only muffled shouts remained of the intruders.
“The trap?”

Poogs winked.

“And that flash? Do you meddle in sorcery as well?”

“Tis not sorcery, my savage friend, but science. A power all may claim regardless of lineage,” Poogs replied. The pirate brandished a second ring before slipping it over a blackened fingernail. “But no time for lessons now. There are more waiting outside to be sure.”

The fur of the Beast’s golden brown mane quivered as his jaw set. He started for the door. “Then let us take the battle to the cowards who would shoot us down like dogs.”

It took Poogs both hands and two braced boots to slow him, sliding a full two feet backwards before the Beast relented. “The guild will shoot us down indoors or out. It matters not to them.” Poogs pat the Beast on the chest. He pointed to a rack of cluttered shelves. “Have no fear. There is yet another way out.”

The Beast pushed hard against the wall, tensing as the wall stood its ground. “We are to walk through it I suppose?”

Poogs sighed. “How sad it must be to possess such shoddy vision.” The pirate tugged on a hunk of scrap
lying waist high on a shelf. Dust puffed from the outline of the hidden door. He swung the shelving away while the false panel slowly slid into the wall.

The proud pirate turned his back on the passage, preparing another grandiose quip. A quarrel fired from
within the newly exposed exit grazed Poogs’s shoulder. He staggered a step, caught off guard by the sudden pain. Warm blood trickled down his arm. He grabbed at the wound, trying to squeeze away the spreading sting.

Three men filled the short passage to the alley. The man at center dropped to a knee for a reload, ordering the others to advance. The pair fired into the workshop as they closed in. Poogs smiled and tilted his face away from the inevitable.

The Beast flew through the darkness with a roar, knocking Poogs from his fate. A quarrel ripped a fresh hole in the Beast’s tattered cloak. He rolled to his feet, grasping for a suitable weapon. His paws brushed something curved and cool.
And heavy.

The globe
.

The Beast heaved the gigantic brass sphere at the assassins, battering the pair into their comrade and back into the night. The globe wedged into the hidden doorway that now restricted admission to only slivers of moonlight that cast an eerie glow over the brass. Poogs picked himself up with a groan, still clutching at his wound. He uttered
a gratitude and then a curse before slipping to his hands and knees.

The Beast thought the pirate to have feinted at the sight of his blood. He knelt to pick Poogs up and was greeted with a laugh. The pirate stood, clutching the blunderbuss, winking with an air of defiant confidence. “It will take more than a scratch.”

The Beast sidled next to the wall and peered out the window. “What now?
Too many out front.” He regarded the brass globe. “And I broke your secret door.”

Poogs smirked at the heavy handed renovation and tapped the blunderbuss against the brass barricade. “It would seem so.”

The clanging of heavy armor intensified near the door. Poogs pointed to a staircase behind his work station and shouted for the Beast to move. The pirate retreated to the base of the stairs, blunderbuss raised. The
Beast snatched up the medallion and took the stairs by three. He found a loft full of stacked shipping crates at the top. At the far end, moonlight painted a wide window in a welcoming silver hue.

The Beast snaked his way through the wooden maze of crates stamped in tongues he did not recognize. It seemed that
Poogs’s stories of wonder had been truthful. The tight labyrinth’s splintery edges snagged and tore at his cloak. Halfway to freedom the sad sound of ripping cloth tore the cloak free. The Beast doubled back, but Poogs’s shout warned him off. “Keep going!”

A dozen men in heavy chain armor veered around the open trap door and stormed the workshop. The time for crossbows was over: The new arrivals brandished swords and battle axes and were eager to avenge their comrades in the pit. But fortune smiled upon the pirate for a third time. The pirate squeezed the trigger and the blunderbuss’ muzzle flashed with a sharp crack.