Free Brown River Queen by Frank Tuttle Page B

up above Rannit, until people and carriages scurried like ants at my feet.  
    I remembered the things the huldra tried to show me—the dark secrets it wanted to reveal to me, if I would just give it a tiny sliver of my soul.
    “I’m never going to be free of that damned thing, am I?”
    I assume your question is rhetorical. Unless you do, in fact, still possess it, or the remains of it?
    “I broke it into pieces. Stomped them into powder. Dumped that into my chamber-pot. Threw that in a sewer.”
    A novel approach to rendering it inert. Novel, but effective. Although you may wish you could wield its power in the days ahead if these attacks continue.
    “You think they will?”
    She shrugged. I cannot say. Perhaps the sorcerer is satisfied you no longer hold the huldra and thus are no longer a threat. Perhaps this was unrelated to the huldra at all and was merely done out of petty spite.
    “I have a hard time believing anyone took the trouble to whip up a pair of those creatures just out of spite.” Evis was watching the white-coats pull the thing’s face off. “When is the last time you know of these bentan appearing?”
    Pre-Kingdom. Prehistoric. They are the stuff of legend, at least until today. But do not ascribe a predominance of rationality to my brethren across the Brown. Most are quite mad by any measure you care to employ.
    “How comforting. So they might be after my head because of the huldra, which I don’t have, or because I once wore brown shoes with a black suit, or because the Corpsemaster snubbed them at a dinner party a thousand years ago. Marvelous.” I wished for a chair but none were in sight. “Do either of you have any sage advice about how I might best live through all this sudden attention?”
    “Look both ways before crossing the street,” said Evis.
    There is a monastery devoted to the brewing of beer some nine hundred miles distant, noted Stitches.
    I sank to my haunches. “Go to Hell, both of you.”
    Stitches laughed again. Evis. Show him the Mark Twos. Markhat. The huldra may be gone, but its reputation remains. Ponder how you might use that to your advantage. She made for the door as the doctors peeled away the dead woman’s hair, leaving her bright blue eyes set in a wet and grinning skull.
    I stood and turned quickly away.
    “I’ve seen enough,” said Evis. Maybe it was the room’s harsh light, but he looked even paler than usual. “Let’s go get you a Mark Two.”
    I didn’t even ask what a Mark Two was. I didn’t care. It could have been a three-headed billy goat with profound incontinence problems, and I’d have hugged it tight to my bosom just to get away from that room with the doctors and the fresh-skinned skull.
    We walked.
    “How’d you get the body, anyway?” I asked after a while. “I can’t believe the Watch just handed it over, even to Avalante.”
    Evis grinned.  
    “Do you have any idea how much city morgue attendants make in a year?”
    “No idea at all.”
    “Neither do I, really. But rumor has it they’ll do almost anything for ten times their annual salary in Old Kingdom coin. Look the other way for a half hour, for instance.”
    I whistled. “Good Captain Holder is going to burst a vein when he finds out.”
    Evis shrugged. “We didn’t get the knife. I wanted that knife, and a sample of whatever was on the blade. Are you sure it never touched you?”
    “Next time I’ll remember to get a flesh wound.”
    We paused to let a parade of black-clad halfdead float by. Each held a long-barreled version of my hand cannon.
    I pretended not to notice. Evis winked and resumed walking as soon as they were past.
    “What’s a Mark Two, anyway, and why isn’t it a beer?”
    “It’s a new revolver. Smaller than that blunderbuss you have but don’t carry. Fires six rounds instead of four, and in half the time. Small enough to conceal in a pocket. More stopping power, too.”
    “Evis, thanks. But I couldn’t have opened up with that hand-cannon