Free Treachery of Kings by Neal Barrett Jr Page B

heard it sing, heard it whine like a hornet as it struck the wall over his head and showered him with dusty bits of stone.
    Luck, chance, instinct or what, made him duck, veer to the right, as the second blinding flare came quickly on the heels of the first.
    The missile drilled the empty air, directly where he'd been—that was enough for Finn. He tucked the clock to his chest, went to ground and rolled, felt his hands and knees scrape the rough stone, smelled the foul odors of the street, odors that could trace their families back for years.
    The Bullie shouted, somewhere to his left, words Finn couldn't hear. He came to his knees, scrambled to his feet. Heard the yap, heard the bark, heard the irritating howl. Looked up and saw them, not a dozen yards away, big Bowsers, little Bowsers, straw-hatted Bowsers short and tall, five of the brutes in all.
    Two carried muskets, old-fashioned arms with barrels flared like silver hunting horns. Heinz-Erlichnok.47s, Finn guessed, relics of the Love Wars, eighty years past. Old, but awfully good for maiming, laming, tearing off a limb.
    The others carried blades, loping ahead, while the gunners charged their weapons again.
    All this, Finn perceived in the barest snip of a second. Scarcely time to blink, time enough to spare,time enough to rise, slide his hand in a practiced fashion to his left, grasp the hilt of his sword and take the proper stance.
    Or, as it happened, grasp empty air, and wonder if his blade was on the roof of the fellow with the pumpkin-sized head, shattered in the basket, or possibly among the dead and wounded fowl…

 

SIXTEEN
     
    T HIS CAN'T BE,” FINN SHOUTED, STANDING HIS ground, staring at his foes. “Where is it written I shall be shot and skewered by Bowsers in a dark and fetid street? I can't accept this at all!”
    “Zhooot ‘im, zhooot ‘im in zuh haid! Zhoot dis perzon ded!”
    “No you don't, fellow. I'm not armed, can't you see that? It's simply not the thing to do—”
    An ancient weapon blossomed with a tongue of scarlet fire, with a stink of black powder, with a horrible din. For an instant, a dark plume of smoke obscured the Bowsers, sending them into choking fits.
    “Valor delayed is courage yet to come,” Finn said, and turned on his heels and ran. “Someone said that, I can't remember who.”
    He chose the first alley to his left, praying it went somewhere, anywhere at all. It did, but only to a narrow, twisted maze of sewers, sumps, garbage bins and dumps. Somehow, he'd stumbled on the septic tank of the city, found it all alone, without the aid of a map.
    Left, right, it didn't greatly matter. It was nearly pitch-black. He could barely see his hand in front of his face.
    “I could smell my way out, if I knew where one odor stopped and the other one began”
    Light, a pale reflection off a grimy brick wall. A torch, and the throaty yelp of Finn's foes.
    “Zere, zere ‘e izt! Komen vit ze Svord, Zhep!”
    “You getz ‘im, Mahx. Izt schmellin’ in zere.”
    “You gotz ze Svord. I beze shtayin’ here!”
    Finn searched about in the dark, setting the damnable clock aside. Soot, smut, broken bottles and pots. Things he hoped never to touch again. No fine blades, no weapon of any sort. His hand found something round, something short: the broken handle of a shovel or a hoe.
    A head appeared out of shadow. Finn could see very little, but the white straw boater floated like an apparition in the dark. The Bowser went down without a sound. The crown of his hat collapsed atop his head, while the brim formed a collar about his neck.
    “What a witless thing to do,” Finn said to himself, “blundering in without a torch. Why didn't the idiot wait for his friend?”
    No need to hang around for an answer. He scrambled about, looking for the fellow's blade—
    —found it, hefted it in his hand. More like a bludgeon than a blade. Short, heavy, dull as the opera “Bob” Letitia had dragged him to.
    Still, a blade for all of that, one