1

It wasn’t so bad back home in Axle Deep. A little boring, though every few years an ogre might find

its way out of the hills and stomp through the countryside. True, it hadn’t happened during his lifetime, but his

Nan had told him stories. With his luck, right now his father, brothers, and neighbors were scouring the hills

and fields for a rogue gorger, while here he was on a damp cot in the worst public house Hornsbellow had to

offer, staring at the same water stain on the ceil-

ing night after night.

Braden had come to the city for adventure.

Where were the swaggering blades, the enigmatic

wizards, the women of dark beauty and purpose?

So far, marking the slow expansion of this water

stain had been it. Well, he had been cheated of

most of his money by a shell sharp right inside

the city gates, day one. And the bow he’d made

when he was 15, the one he’d hunted rabbit and roebuck with these three years past, had been stolen from the

common room downstairs as he’d listened to a crusty, one-eared stretch of grizzle-meat named Maglary spin a

tale of combat and rescue from greener days gone by. The old soldier had been the only person to offer him a

kind word about his bow, and was the closest he’d come to a friend in the three weeks since he’d arrived.

He had a weakness for stories. How could his Da expect him to learn wheel repair, or any other trade,

when the world offered so much more?

ROOM SERVICE

by

Bailey Reade

2

“See what comes of yammering on with your stories?” his Da had said to Nan the day Braden made his an-

nouncement. “Filled his head with all manner of faddle and now he’s off to Hornsbellow for to conquer the

filthiest streets in all Wheland!”

Nan made one of her toothless sounds that nobody could understand and shuffled a kettle closer to the

fire. Braden stood as tall as he could, though this still left him two inches short of eye level with his father.

“Foley went there two years ago and now wears a silk-lined cape and carries a sword in the city run-

ners.”

“Ha! Says who? Your cousin barely knew how to tie a sheaf of wheat. Who’d be daft enough to put

a sword in his hands?”

Braden eased up onto his toes, covering the two inches as stealthily as possible. “Still, adventures do

happen.” He hoped his voice sounded firm. “Men do great things, and not just in stories.”

Nan rattled a lid and gum-smacked what might have been approval. His Da uncrossed his arms and

scratched through his beard, more gray than brown in these years after Ma died.

“That they do, son. That they do. But for every gallant who strives his way into the stories, a thou-

sand find themselves turned into swine by witches or inside the bellies of monsters or cut down by bandits on

lonely roads.”

“I know that.”

“No, you don’t.”

He turned and sat at the plank table Braden’s youngest brother Gavin had made during his

first years as apprentice to Midreth the carpenter. Kai could make barrels and fix small tools. Col-

ter had taken up their father’s trade, wheel-making and axle-mending. Only Braden had proved

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unable to stick with any trade, preferring to roam the countryside, climb trees and hills, and dream. It was no

way to make a living in the country.

“But you will.”

Three weeks and no witches, monsters, or bandits, only mountebanks, sneak-thieves, and a single

marketplace conjuror who seemed to specialize in fire-burps.

All night he’d watched the water stain seep across another inch of ceiling. Maglary, in the room

above, must have been in his cups, possibly with company, to judge by the squeaks, scrapes, thumps, some

grunting, a clang, and then a deafening silence that had kept Braden awake.

On the sunny side, not sleeping had given him ample time to brood on the fact that, but for a single

blue-white stone, he was out of money. Even if he wanted to find work, ‘most every trade was organized into

guilds and associations, requiring membership buy-in or long apprenticeship. And speaking of sunny, a

hawker’s squawk of business from up at the street served the rooster’s purpose. It was morning.

He swung his feet off the cot and sat up. The very thought of slinking home after only a few weeks

made him cringe in shame. From his near-empty pouch he fingered the stone and rolled it on his palm. Pret-

ty, even in this dank place. He’d found it in the creek near his home and brought it for a reminder of child-

hood. Foolish, in his current strait. What was it worth? There was that ferrety-looking man near the alley by

the Bear Scramble district; he seemed to trade in trinkets and oddments.

“Stretching the legs, eh?” Apart from Maglary, Garklespar was one of the friendlier people he’d met,

even if his tavern was by reputation the worst the city could offer. For a dwarf with one pop eye and one

squinched--this alone would have marked him for a villain in Nan’s stories--he took an interest in everyone

who stopped by, whether for a drink or a cot. He’d shown Braden all six of the tavern’s rooms when a

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dwindling clutch of coins had forced him from a better establishment near the Dandy’s Fountain to this shab-

by, nameless heap of bricks and chips teetering on the river’s edge, tucked up into the armpit of a tannery,

and entirely too close to the sludgeworks.

“Wasn’t always so rundown,” Garklespar had said, gesturing toward the sagging rope cots and dented

tin basins that made up the first five rooms.  “Once was a lord’s estate, when Hornsbellow was smaller and all

this area was farm and fields. Ain’t but one room left shows any least trace of the fine style.”

He apologized for the “mustiness” of some of the rooms--Braden would have chosen “stench”--before

turning down a long hall lined on one side with bags. The air here was dry. “Sea salt in them bags. Run

through it something fierce, keeping my meats fresh and savory,” he explained, stopping at a doorway be-

tween bags. “Count my bags every day, precautionary, so nobody’s tempted to sell one from under me in the

markets.” He dramatically snorted and with a flourish opened the door.

“Behold, the Laird’s Apartment!”

It was nicer than the other five, but that was like saying a goblin princess was fairest of all goblins.

“Best view in the house,” the dwarf said, touring Braden inside. “And smell that river air.”

The view took in one of the city’s minor bridges and a crust of rafters’ shacks on the other bank,

though the breeze did have the quality of moving the stink around so that it seemed less aggressive to the

nose. The basin stood on a small table, the bed was an actual bed with an actual mattress, and held high on

the riverfront wall by nails was what Garklespar proudly referred to as an “object of the warlike arts”--a squat

sword that no doubt had served someone well a hundred years ago when it had been less encumbered with

rust and verdigris. Even the nails were rusty. On the floor, a ragged shirt and breeches that Garklespar

kicked under the bed.

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“Goes for three more than the rest of the rooms, but worth it, eh?” The dwarf nudged him in the ribs, and he

obliged with a smile. “Let right now to Maglary ever since he got his old soldier’s money some days ago, but

I like to show it off to all my customers.”

The floor did have the dull sheen of heavily lacquered blackwood, and the walls were green-glazed

tile up to the six or seven foot mark, after which resumed the same knife-scarred boards as the rest of the tav-

ern. The ceiling sported thick, flecked green paint in a design that reminded him of a lake puckered by fish

feeding on waterskimmers, small black dots centered amid ripples. Not bad, but he’d need a much heavier

purse to go three coins more for it.

“Stretching the legs, aye,” Braden said. He was at the tavern door when the dwarf added, “Will you be stay-

ing another night?”

Braden had been paying night-by-night as his funds shrank. “I’m going to see about that now.” He

bounded up the cracked, narrow steps that led to the street.

Ah, fresh air, or something almost like it. Fennel, sage, and other herbs from a stall by the Silver

Moon Shrine, a hint of newly dropped horse dung, the tang of unwashed men, women, children, dwarves, and

even some of those smaller folk known back home as midkins, friendly little curly-tops who only came waist-

high on a tall man. No elves, though, King Robert was no friend to that strange race. He drove them off the

main Rodwen Isle in an ill-fated campaign last year. An occasional ambassador from Amont might be seen

near the government houses, but the rest of the elves were fair game for the Elf Hunters, King Robert’s secret

police.

The streets of Hornsbellow promised excitement every time he walked them, but trees and green-

ery were scarce everywhere except where the genteel folk lived. Here at the warm end of summer,

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they’d be readying to roll up the hay and bring in the corn from farms all around Axle Deep, chores that had

bored him, but great badger’s bones how he missed the woods and fields.

The ferrety man’s stall--more like three boards stacked on and separated by broken bricks--took a

good part of two bells to find.  Today it was situated down a twisty bit of lane that wormed between Upstand-

ing Jon’s--the owner actually had that printed on a plank over his door, and Braden had enough lettering to

parse it out, though he couldn’t tell what was sold within--and what had to be an apothecary’s shop, judging

by the dried plants and resin-smudged bottles heaped behind a barred window.  This last reminded him of the

root-hags and bush priests who were sometimes called in to the houses of Axle Deep, good folk made desper-

ate enough by illness to hope for a cure in the noxious potions and mumbled spirit-prayers.

“Looking to buy wonders of the world for mere alleys?” the ferrety man said in a voice surprisingly uncloud-

ed by any ferment or fume.

When Braden first arrived in Hornsbellow, he hadn’t understood when asked to pay an alley for a

bowl of soup.  Turned out it was the copper oblongs country folk called brontins.  After a week, he figured

out the name--everything in the city cost more than in the country, so copper was mainly useful in the poorer

quarters and in alleyway shops.  Like this one, where the sing-song pitch continued:

“Looking to sell, exchange, barter? Looking to gain, get ahead, improve your lot?”

Though still midday, Braden fingered the hunting knife at his hip, loosening its berth in case he need-

ed it in his hand fast.  With his other hand, he brought out the stone.

“This gem,” he said, hoping it was.

The man snorted.  “Just come in from turnip-land, eh?”

Old Maglary had told him his way of speaking marked him as hinterland chawbacon, and that he

7

could expect to be cheated at every turn until his accent faded and he learned to call things by their proper

city names.  Best advice he’d had since his arrival.

“That’s no gem,” the man went on, nudging the stone with his own grubby finger.  “Why it’s nothing

more than a lump of jaystone.  Almost worthless, though out of pity I’ll give you two alleys.”

Three weeks ago, Braden would have taken the coins and thought himself quite the negotiator.  He’d

since learned to watch and listen.  When he’d revealed the stone, the ferrety man’s hand had started forward a

few inches before stopping and retreating.

“Back in turnip-land, we know jaystone, and this is no jaystone.”

The man’s smile was shocking--he had most of his teeth and they were whitish-yellow.  “Ah, I see my

mistake.  The light is so dim in these poor halls of trade.  A maring, then.”

From copper to silver in one moment?  The stone must have value, whatever it was.  “A single mar-

ing?  We both know what I have in my hand, and if it’s worth a single coin, that coin ought to have King

Robert’s face on it.”

The man spread his hands and laughed, a sound like a slowly leaking bladder.  “I confess I didn’t

think you knew what you had.  Very well.  Done--a crown for your stone.  But tell no one of your victory or

my haggling days are over.”

A gold crown!  Braden walked an entire bell with its heavy warmth in his fist, hardly register-

ing where he went and narrowly avoiding death by carriage on two occasions.  He’d never held a

crown before, had rarely even seen one in the country, where silver marings were rare enough in the copper

and barter life of turnip-land.

He could buy anything.  Well, in certain quarters he could, though even in the fancy sections,

8

the Promenade and Gentry’s Reach, he could afford pastries and some of the smaller meat pies, perhaps a cup

of Amonti wine.  All day he toured Hornsbellow, ciphering possible purchases with glee.  When he returned

to Garklespar’s, though, he still held the crown.

“Hey now, that’s a different face than the one you took with you this morning.”

Garklespar prodded a mop at the feet of an early-starting or late-lingering drunk.  When the drunk

failed to move the right parts of his body, Garklespar set the mop against the man’s head and with one strong

arm easily pushed him over onto the bench.  Ornery patrons found the dwarf more than their match: he kept a

sawed-off pike behind the bar, a wicked-looking thing tipped with numerous points and blades.

“Yes, and I’ll tell you why.”  Braden sat at the bar and waited for Garklespar to finish swabbing the

sour-sweet floor.  Once the dwarf had climbed the ramp behind the bar and crossed his forearms on the sticky

wood, Braden told the whole story, pausing on the details as Nan would have done.  When it was finished,

Garklespar sucked his teeth.

“What?” Braden said.

“I guess a crown ain’t so badly done.”

“He was going to cheat me with two alleys.”  Braden help up the coin.  “I got a crown.”

“First, don’t be waving gold in a place like this.  Second, sounds like you had yourself a little bit of

bluestar.  Worth ten crowns, easy.”

Still a chawbacon, then.

“Cheer up, though.  The ferrety fellow you describe could only be Smiling Black Daws and

it ain’t an easy thing to pull gold nor silver out of his dark pockets.  Tell you what,” he said, pouring

a hobgoblin’s thumb of malted rye into the tavern’s only unchipped cup, “give you the best room

9

tonight for only two alleys more than what you pay now.  Special offer for the job well done.”

“What about Maglary?”

“Vanished like the fleet.”

Braden frowned. He’d heard that phrase before. It referred to the Vanishing Fleet. The boats that

disappeared when returning the army from western Wheland after driving the elves into the sea. Magic must

have been involved, but no one knew the answer, or if they did no one was telling someone like him what

happened, but that wasn’t what bothered him at the moment.

“Oh.  All right, yes.” he said.

While Garklespar joked about needing to rob the corner pawn just to change a crown, Braden set-

tled his chin on his fist.  Maybe this was how the city was, but he’d liked Maglary, liked his stories and how

they reminded him of Nan and home.  He’d thought they were almost friends, at least good enough acquain-

tances to merit a goodbye.

“Did he say where he was going?”

“Eh?”  Garklespar paused counting out grease- and soot-grimed marings and alleys.  “What?”

“Maglary, did he say where he was going?”

“People don’t tell me that sort of thing, but I assumes they’re leaving the city or going to beg in the

alleys and squat the shambles.”  He finished counting and pulled at his wiry red beard.  “There’re no taverns

below this one, I ain’t too proud to admit.”

The coins filled Braden’s small pouch.  He sat a castle-stamped copper alley on the bar top for a

plate of bread and cheese, the safest items on Garklespar’s brief menu.  The “meats” were too

salty to eat without a horse trough of water at hand. The rye and the day’s excitement combined to

10

drag down his eyelids and weight his arms and legs.  He mumbled good night and climbed the stairs to his

new room with its fresh breeze and view.

The wood above the tile line had a scrubbed look, almost up to the ceiling.  Maybe that was as far

as a dwarf with a brush could reach.  He laughed and tumbled bedward.  After the ropey cot, the husk mat-

tress felt like mounded fleece.  The silver half moon slanted in at a sharp angle, illuminating mere inches of

the riverfront wall, gleaming on the sword fastened there, on the sparkling tin basin in the corner, at the foot

of the bed.  He still thought of the moon as silver, everyone did, even though in the ten years since it had ap-

peared in the sky--god business, Nan had muttered at the time--it had turned almost as white as the one it had

replaced.  When the moonlight touched metal--the basin, the sword’s edge—the effect was like liquid silver.

His eyelids went down and up, the duration between them lengthening.  He smiled.  No water stain

on this ceiling.  He followed the circles on the ceiling, the ripples flowing into one another, their black cen-

ters.  Soothing.  So much more tired than he’d thought.  A soft whistling of wind sounded, perhaps from the

open window.  He listened.  Annoying.  He forced himself up, staggered over, hauled it shut.  Back in bed, he

slept.

When he awoke, the moon’s silver stretched over the foot of the bed and across most of the floor.

 Asleep, he’d been puzzling over something and a scraping noise had woken him and now he couldn’t re-

member what he’d been dreaming.  He sat up.  Wind whistled its low tune.  The basin and sword were now in

shadow, no longer gleaming.

He muzzily stared at the moonlight on the floor and listened to the wind’s constant hum.  The sword

and basin no longer gleamed.  He stood up, rocked forward, and caught the edge of the bed to

keep from falling.  A large thumb of rye, but still, to be this tipsy?  He shook his head.

11

Well, back home it was all ale and beer, nothing like the strong liquors of Hornsbellow.  He’d get

used to it, with time.

That’s right, with time.  He had money.  He no longer had to slink back home, at least not yet.  He

chuckled, swaying.  What had he been thinking about just now?

Gleaming.  He walked to the sword.  Why had a crusty thing like that been gleaming?  He peered at

it, bringing his face within inches of the metal.  It had been scoured of rust, of mildew and verdigris, every

particle gone.  Garklespar must have cleaned it, but such a task would have taken most of a day.  He could

just make out a design and possibly words etched in the blade, but, in trying to take it down, discovered its

supporting nails had been bent tightly around the pommel and broad tip.  In the morning, he’d take a closer

look.

He was back in bed only a few moments when he remembered something else.  The wind, hum-

ming, even though he’d shut the blasted window.  Again he sat up, listened.  The ceiling?  Standing on the

bed, one hand stretched up, he felt a soft stream of air.  The “fish puckers” were actual holes, designed no

doubt to provide extra cooling to these upper rooms.  He’d rather the room be warm and silent, and would tell

Garklespar so tomorrow.  For now, he had to make the best of it and settled back, wrapping his shirt around

his head and over his ears to muffle the drone.

He was almost asleep when a drop of water hit his cheek, at the edge of his mouth.  He

struggled wearily to his elbows and in utter despair said, “By the black hammer, is there no sleep to

be had?”

Or so he meant to say, but it came out as, “Buhblukammerishairnuhsluptuhbad?”

His face, where the water had hit, felt strange, stiff.  He explored with a finger and felt a substance

12

slicker than water, more like a spongy oil.  The tip of his finger tingled.  Another drop hit his shoul-

der and he felt coldly stung.  Within moments, the shoulder went a bit numb.

And now it was raining inside his room, from the door to halfway across the room, an odd rain that

fell from the ceiling holes not in droplets but in strings and glistened where it mixed with the moonlight.  He

tugged his shirt from around his head and swiped at both shoulder and cheek. In scrambling up, he fell into

the space between bed and riverfront wall. He eased his head up, peering over the bed to gape at the sight of

fully half the room filling with--with--

--an aspic. It was the only comparison he could find, those quivery meat jellies made by Nan dur-

ing festivals. Whatever it was, he wanted no part of it. His boots, pouch, and knife were on the basin table.

Get them and get out the window, it was steep but he was the best climber Axle Deep had ever seen. And

yet, all he could do was stare, like a bird fascinated by a snake. Adventure had found him and was less fabu-

lous than the stories said, none of which ever mentioned, for example, the stark horror of it.

The aspic was five feet high and still rising, mostly boxed by the walls of the room. The unboxed

side, facing him, pulsed with un-aspic-like movement. He squeezed his shoulder, massaging warmth back

into it. His skin all over prickled with the knowledge that this stuff was in some way alive--it hadn’t just

seeped all over the floor but was trading breadth for height, assembling itself before him. And just like one of

Nan’s aspics, there were objects suspended in the jellied mass, things small enough to pass through the ceil-

ing holes.

One of these objects, close to the surface and whitely glowing in the light, was a

human finger bone, and this recognition galvanized him. He leapt for the basin and had one boot on when the

unfestive aspic proved beyond any doubt that it was alive.

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A--thing--like a snail’s pliable feeler stretched forth, questing in his direction. He went still as any

mouse in the passing shadow of a hawk. The feeler inched and stretched here and there, and whether by luck

or some unnatural sense, drew within an inch of his leg. Unable to stand the thought of it touching him, he

kicked it with his booted foot and felt its surprising weight and density.

Pure reflexes saved him, ducking his head to avoid the aspic tentacle that shot his way, wetly

smacking the wall behind him. He clawed for his knife and got the basin instead, bringing it around just in

time to stop a second tentacle in its curved surface, though the force of the blow wrenched the metal rim from

his hand and smashed the basin against his face. One-booted, pain-stars shooting across his eyes, but with

knife at last in hand, he dove back where he’d been and flipped the bed on its side. Meaty thumps drummed

against the mattress.

He was never going to gain the window. Over the top edge of the upturned bed, he could see that

the thing now stretched wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and was oozing forward, a wide swath illuminated by

moonlight, and could now make out more of the small objects, cockroaches and mice, creatures flushed from

the crawlspace above. Fur, skin, and carapace alike were blistered and dissolving. The thing was one mon-

strous stomach and it wanted him as well.

He had only moments of life remaining. The fear-sweat coming off him, acrid and nauseating, was

one of only a hundred sensations he noted: creak of the lacquered floorboards as it took the monster’s weight,

the thing’s own sour reek. He seemed able to grasp everything at once, his mind working at astonishing

speed, his body taut as the greatest hunter’s bowstring.

The bed. If he was to survive, the bed had to be his armor, and immediately he brought it back

down and slid it forward until it struck the thing and stopped. The monster came on, up onto the

14

bed, lashing with tentacles, and he dropped, shimmying beneath and pressing close to the board slats he found

there, pulling them to prevent the monster’s weight from tipping the bed back over and exposing him like a

grub beneath a rock.

The bed seemed ready to crack when the monster oozed down the side of the bed where he had just

been, leaving an opening now on the side nearest the door. He rolled out, shoulder and back tingling and go-

ing numb from the slime so encountered, leaped up, and landed almost at the far wall on his single, booted

foot.

The thing had utterly engulfed the bed now, surging beneath for its prize, seeming not yet to have

detected his new location. That would no doubt change when he started the series of one-legged hops needed

to get to the door, unless he wanted to put his bare foot in the stuff and have it, possibly his entire leg, go stiff.

For eternal seconds they remained so, he on one leg and the monster searching with feelers along

the basin, the table. And then the door opened and he beheld the lovely sight of pop-eyed Garklespar and his

sawed-off pike.

“Thank the stars,” Braden said, bending deep and swinging his arms back for a mighty leap even as

the creature began surging back the way it had come, extending three quick tentacles toward the door.

“What? Still alive,” Garklespar said to Braden. Swatting away a tentacle with the pike, he added,

“Lump of jelly’s done grown some I see.”

So fatally different was this from anything Braden had been expecting to hear that he was

thrown off balance. His bare foot smacked the floor, tingled, and went dead as a club. When a tenta-

cle shot toward him, he nicked it with his knife, and watched it recoil into the great wall of aspic that was

coming nearer.

15

Garklespar kept the door partially closed for a shield but stepped a pace inside to jab his pike at

Braden. “Get in there, turnip.”

Braden threw his weight back and slid out of skewering range on his booted foot. He was able to

wipe the sole of his foot on his breeches, while keeping his knife up and on guard for more tentacles.

Garklespar was shutting the door. There was no reason for him to come in. All he had to do was

shut the door and wait. Braden stabbed another looping tentacle, put his numb foot in the ooze on purpose,

and leaped for the top of the door, catching it with his left hand, planting his booted foot on the latch as a kind

of step, and letting the weight of his moving body swing the door back toward the wall. Garklespar, hand

still on the outer latch, was yanked into the room.

“Damn you, turnip!” Though his boots protected his feet, Garklespar had to keep his pike on guard

against the advancing creature, which now sent tentacles by sixes and sevens. Braden clung to the door,

keeping it between himself and Garklespar. When the owner of what was indisputably the worst tavern in

Hornsbellow shuffled his feet to back out of the room, Braden pushed against the wall and swung the door

shut, riding it out so that it deposited him scant feet from the dwarf.

Braden grabbed for the haft and Garklespar swung the pike out of reach, but also out of its defen-

sive position against the creature. Tentacles hit Braden on his boot and Garklespar on his shirted pike-arm.

Wincey cloth did not give the same protection as leather: the dwarf flinched and Braden tore the pike from

him with ease. In the same motion, he slammed its blades into the floor and used the haft as support and le-

verage for a vault, a swinging kick that knocked Garklespar deeper into the room.

Garklespar understood the danger, that was clear. Even his squinch eye widened as the

first tentacles struck, sticking to his back, arms, legs, and head. He took a half step and managed

16

to slur a few pleading words before being reeled into the monster. Braden saw him as through

thick, watery green glass.

Right leg numb from the knee down, left bicep frozen, he couldn’t yank the pike from the floor.

His knife glimmered in the ooze. As heroically as possible he shoved open the door and fell out of the room.

He laid there, chest heaving. In the stories, armored men fought from dawn ‘til noon, whacking

each other or fell beasts with great, heavy swords and maces. How? He was done for after perhaps one, sin-

gle, tiny sand-glass worth of time. Inside the room, he watched Garklespar’s hair, eyes, and clothes gradually

dissolve, and hoped the dwarf, treacherous though he was, could feel nothing of what was happening. The

skin had started to peel away from the bone, though it looked as though the boots would hold up for a good

while longer.

He sat up, grabbed the latch, and was closing the door when he felt several moist jolts from the oth-

er side. The door stopped closing, tug though he would. He released the latch and the door crashed against

the wall. Not satisfied with one rather small meal, the monster now wanted seconds and was moving forward

again.

Braden scrabbled backward on one good arm and leg each, but a long tentacle arrowed through the

doorway, stuck to his bad leg, and began to retract. He was pulled several inches forward, thought the crea-

ture didn’t seem to have a firm grip on him and kept slipping off and flailing to reattach.

Frantically seeking in the dark hallway for anything to hold onto, he found the answer: salt. The air

out here was utterly leached of moisture. His good hand grabbed one of the bags.This was how

Garklespar kept the thing--this awful, skinless slug--from pushing its way into the rest of the tavern,

17

which would be terrible for business. Braden didn’t struggle as the thing latched on again and pulled, only

heaved the bag over his head and into the room.

It burst, and a good ten pounds of coarse salt scattered along the monster’s leading edge. Instantly,

the whole surging wave of it recoiled, releasing Braden and compressing itself against the back wall, breaking

the window with its bulk. In no time at all, it had withdrawn, taking the body of Garklespar through the win-

dow with it. Braden hopped into the room, freed the pike by leaning on it, and used it as a crutch. He took

care when peering through the ragged hole that had been the window.

The thing had already moved along the wall of the tavern, having flattened itself to a width of three

feet, crossed the tannery, and was making for the sludgeworks. Doubtless there were any number of passages

connecting the three buildings, though only a fiend like Garklespar would think of a way to lure such a mon-

ster from its dwelling place to murder poor travelers for their bits of silver.

His other boot and money pouch had had enough contact with the thing’s insides to be tattered, but

his money was still here, scattered on the floor and sparkling clean, scoured of grime. He looked at the

sword. Eaten clean by that horror. Poor Maglary.

He used one of the thicker spikes on Garklespar’s pike and pried down the nails, enough to free the

sword. With the salt sack, he wiped its blade and pommel. The sword might be old, but it felt marvelous in

his hand. He had money for a good leather sheath, new clothes and boots, and better lodgings. He wouldn’t

be going home just yet.