Chapter Twenty-Four - An Interrogation of Fools

I was enjoying a nice beer after a hearty meal of steak and potatoes when someone came up behind me and cleared their throat.

Sighing, I swirled my pint around, enjoying the way the suddy beer moved in the nearly empty cup. “I’m just relaxing,” I said.

“Are you Charlie Norwood?” the person behind me asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “Depends on who’s asking, and why.”

“We have questions for you.”

“It’s storming. I just ate, drank two good beers, and had a nice bath. Right now, unless you’re offering to warm my bed to make this a more enjoyable evening, then I’d kindly ask you to piss off.”

A hand grabbed and my shoulder and pulled.

I spun around, the arm holding my mug staying atop the table even as my grip tightened on the glass. Juvenal charged three copper for each broken mug, but they were tough as hell. I’d used them more than once to level the playing field during a brawl.

There were three of them. Gnomes, in tight little uniforms made of thick grey cloth. Their shoulders had little black pauldrons, more decorative than anything, and the two near the back had a pair of hard helmets on with a little spike right on top. The one at the front had to be some sort of officer. He had a long black coat over his uniform, with a swooping wyrm emblem on his lapel.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

They might have been intimidating, but the gnomes weren’t in their home territory here. They had as many rights as I did, which was none. Mortarview took their clans and laws seriously.

“Are you Charlie Norwood?” the officer asked. It was barely a question at all.

“Maybe. Why?”

The officer reached into his coat. My hand tightened on the mug. I could ram it in his face and have my revolver out faster than the two behind him could blink. Problem was, I could see about five more gnomes at a table, and one of their officers was on stage, strumming a box lute next to that hurdy-gurdiest. I was tough, but not take-on-ten-to-one-odds tough.

I was expecting a gun, not a rolled up piece of paper. The officer unrolled it and turned it my way. On it was a decent likeness of Clin.

WANTED ALIVE

Clin of clan Teast’wood.

For the crimes of:

Conspiring against the Shadow Nation

Murder

Espionage

Theft

REWARD: ALIVE 3,000

Information leading to the capture will be rewarded appropriately

“Cute image,” I said. “That made with one of those picture boxes?”

“Miss Norwood, we are not here for your entertainment.”

I scoffed. “Buddy, we’re both stuck in this place until the storm clears.”

“We have reliable reports that you were seen in the company of an elf that fits Mister Teast’wood’s description.”

“How much,” I said.

“Pardon?”

Reaching out, I tapped the wanted poster near the bottom. “Says here, ‘information leading to the capture will be rewarded appropriately.’ That sounds fine to me. How much?”

“It would depend on the information.”

“That would depend on how much you’re willing to give me, little man,” I replied as I leaned back a little. The gnome frowned, not looking all that pleased about how things were going, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. Gnomes tended to be a bit sensitive about their smallness too.

“Five gold,” he said.

I turned.

“Miss Norwood, you are aware that the gnomish nation has contacts within the bounty hunter’s guild.”

“Then get a contract out for the elf, or for information on him. We’ll see if that’ll just cost you five gold.”

He huffed. “We could give you more.”

“I would certainly hope so,” I said. “Or is the gnomish nation too impoverished to pay for a bit of information?”

The officer muttered something, but it wasn’t in common. Still, it didn’t sound awfully polite. “Fifty gold, if, and only if, I find the information valuable.”

“Hmm.” I looked over at Juvenal who made a so-so gesture, then pointed upwards with his thumb. “Fifty gold then. Half now, half after I’m done. That’s fifty gold both times.”

“That would be a hundred gold over all,” he said.

“Really? Why, you gnomes are mighty fine at numbers, aren’t you?”

The officer stomped off. I expected his lackeys to follow, but they stayed rooted on the spot, staring out ahead of them until the officer returned and placed a sack onto the table next to me. “There.”

I tipped the bag over. The gold was gnomish, so not as big around or heavy as human gold which was the standard in Mortarview, but fifty gnomish was still around a good forty human. Damned fine pay. “What do you want to know?” I asked as I tucked the bag away.

“Where is he?” the officer asked.

“Haven’t seen him in a while,” I said.

The trick with lying, was to always tell the truth. Least, that’s how I won my share of rounds at the poker table. Some folk could read an outright lie, others could sense a bluff, but something in the middle? That was harder.

“Presumably, he’s still on Mortarview though,” I added. “Can’t have gone too far with this storm.”

“When did you leave him?” he asked. He looked a bit irate with me. Poor man.

“Ah, I left him a bit before taking my bath. Juvenal, you see him leave?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said.

“Did he get a room?” I asked.

“Yep, but it’s empty still.”

I turned to the gnomes and gestured towards the bar-tender. “Well, there you have it.”

The officer harrumphed, but didn’t press. “When and where did you encounter him?”

“In the Vasts,” I said. “I was over... eh, not too far from the Shadow Heights? Couldn’t tell you the coords. Saw an elf in the desert, he offered me some good coin to bring him... anywhere, really. Mortarview wasn’t too far off, and I had business here.”

“And what were you doing in the vastness?” he asked.

“I’m a bounty hunter. I was bounty hunting,” I said.

“We will need to confirm that with the local guild,” he said.

I nodded. “I won’t be stopping you. Just a contract on some goblins. We rode over with some local nomads, then I brought him over here. Not much of a talker that elf. Looked a bit battered too. Didn’t figure him for a murderer though.”

“His crimes are indisputable,” the officer said.

“Hmm,” I agreed.

Two gnomes came down one of the spiral staircases and moved over to us. They stopped by the officer and saluted. “Sir,’ one of them started. “We’ve searched her rooms. No sign of the elf.”

“You did what now?” I asked. I didn’t have anything in my room worth taking, but the intrusion still pissed me off.

“Very well,” the officer said, dismissing his men. He turned back to me and weathered my frown without so much as a flinch. “Did the elf mention anything about operation Second Dawn?”

“No,” I said. “What’s that?”

“What about the Elfhattan project?” he asked next. His gaze was locked onto me, and I felt like I was an ant under a magnifying glass for a moment.

“No. Like I said, he was the quiet sort. Didn’t get much out of him at all.”

The officer nodded. “Very well. Let’s go.”

“Hey!” I called out as I watched the soldiers turning around and heading back to the middle of the room. “Where’s the other half of my payment?”

“Be content with what you were given already,” he said.

I scoffed and turned. “Nice bunch,” I muttered.

The bartender slid a fresh pint before me, then took one gold coin out of my little bag and pocketed it. “Real nice,” he said. “They don’t know the real cost of keeping one’s mouth shut though. On that note, do you think you’ll be in town for long?”

“Nah,” I said as I took a pull. Nice and frothy and cold. “Just another day, at most. When the storm clears I’ll get someone to look at Rusty. You mentioned knowing a few good scavengers?”

“I know some folk, yeah,” Juvenal said. “Got some work lined up for that sort?”

I nodded. “Yup. Need a good crew, able to handle, say, four burnt out mechs, maybe two day’s travel north and west. I’ll pay half their trip’s cost up front, and I want a tenth of the salvage value plus that half back as repayment.”

“Oh-hoh, one of those jobs,” Juvenal said. “Goblin mechs?”

“No,” I said. I flashed the nomad hand-sign for ‘got’ on the counter, and he nodded.

“I’ll get you a list. There’s an independent bunch nearby, and a group with the Fox clan. You know how they are about salvage. Your best bet’s just giving the job to Tattletail, she’ll have it one way or another, and she won’t cheat you as much if you go straight to her.”

That was fair. “How are things in Mortarview?” I asked. “Especially with all these gnomes about.”

Juvenal took a moment to reply. “Heard that the price for shells has gone up.”

That wasn’t a good sign. Meant that the folk around Mortarview were stocking up. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” I tossed the last of my beer down, then stood. “I’m off. Can you knock thrice on my door when morning comes?”

“Will do,” he said. “Sleep tight.”

“I’ll try.”

***