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With luck, the effect would be eerie enough to give his enemies pause. More importantly, the elves would see the glowing lines on his face, the top-hat-feathers-and-scarf, and the necklace of skulls, but they wouldn't see him. Once he wiped off the makeup and ditched the uniform, he would be anonymous again. He could walk the streets above without fearing arrest.
"I'll just need just one last thing," he said when he was done. "A motorcycle."
Two days later, the Army of Night's outposts came ru
"Or else you'll be dead.''
"Tell me something, Whisperer. I never hear anybody else talking directly to you. Why is that?"
"Because you're the only one who can hear me." The whisper was soft and intimate, with a mocking edge to it. "Only you, sweet Will."
"Who are you?"
Silence. The Whisperer was gone.
Will waited in a niche behind a pillar at the lower end of the cistern. For the longest time there was no noise other than the grumble of distant trains. Then, faintly, he heard drunken elven laughter. He watched as the decoys ran past his station like two furtive shadows. The voices grew more boisterous and then suddenly boomed as the Breakneck Boys emerged from a doorway near the ceiling at the upper end of the cistern.
They began to descend a long brick stairway along the far wall.
They glimmered in the dark, did the elves, like starlight. They carried Maglites and aluminum bats. Some wore camouflage suits. Some had night goggles. They were nine in number, and unca
Will waited until they were off the stairs and had clambered over the water main and started across the cistern floor. Then he kick started the motorcycle. It was a stripped-down Kawasaki three cylinder two-stroke, easy to handle and loud as hell. Pulling out of the niche, Will cranked the machine hard left and opened it up. The vault ceiling bouncing the engine's roar back at him, he charged at the elf-pack like a banshee with her ass on fire.
It felt great to be on a cycle again! Puck Berrysnatcher, back when he and Will were best friends, had owned a dirt bike and they'd practiced on it, turn on turn, until they'd both mastered such stunts as young males thought important.
Will popped a wheelie and came to a stop not ten yards from the astonished elves.
Throttling down the engine so he could be heard, he cried, "I challenge thee by the holmgangulog, if thou hast honor! I am the captain and the rightwise defender of my folk. Present your champion that we may contest at deeds of arms."
A disbelieving look, followed by low, mean laughter passed among the elves. "So you know the politesse of challenge, Master Scarecrow," said the foremost of them. Whatever else he might be, he was no coward. "Very well. I hight Florian of House L'Inco
"Captain Jack Riddle," Will said, choosing the nom de guerre almost at random. "High explosives at close quarters."
The elf-brat nibbed his chin, as if amused. "Your proposal is scarce workable." Casually, his hand crept downward between the lapels of his jacket. Doubtless he had a gun there in a shoulder harness. "For. you see, I have no explosives with me."
"Tough titty, Will said.
With a muttered word, he detonated the bomb that earlier he had very carefully placed for maximum effect.
The water main, which was directly behind the Breaknecks, blew open.
A great wave of water struck the Breakneck Boys from behind, knocking them over and tumbling them helplessly before it. But not — and this was the crucial part of Will's plan —killing any of them.
Will, meanwhile, had spun around his bike and opened the throttle wide. He raced downslope ahead of the cascading water, cut a right so sharp he almost lost control, and was out of the cistern and roaring up a narrow electric conduit access tu
He would have liked to have seen the Breaknecks gather themselves together after the water washed them down to the bottom of the cistern. It would have been worth much to have heard their curses and witnessed their dismay as they pulled themselves up and began the long and soggy journey back aboveground. But you couldn't have everything.
Anyway, he was sure to hear of it. There was a slit-gallery near the top of the cistern that had been used for inspections, which was thronged with silent watchers, soldiers from the Army of Night and potential recruits from Nilfheim and possibly even Hjördis herself. They'd have seen and heard everything. They'd have witnessed how he had routed their enemies without the least injury to himself. They'd want a share in his glory. They'd boast of his prowess. No longer was he merely their champion. He was their hero now.
That evening the johatsu migrated several miles deeper into the tu
"Dockweed," Will said. A hudkin snapped to attention. "Take a couple of likely lads and scout out a good location for latrines. Not too close to the encampment. That's unsanitary." He caught Lord Weary looking at him, and hastily added. "If that's all right with you, sir."
Lord Weary waved a hand, endorsing everything. Then, placing an arm over Will's shoulder, so that it would be ostentatiously obvious to all that they two were conferring with perfect confidence, he murmured. "Dearer art thou to me, alter your little escapade today, than meat and drink to a starving man. Stand by me and I shall raise you higher than you can imagine, so that my empire rests upon your shoulders. But if you ever again give orders in my presence without first deferring to me, I'll have you gutted and chained to the bedrock for the rats to eat alive. Do you understand?"
Will swallowed. "Sir."
"I would regret it, of course. But discipline knows no favorites." He released Will. "Tell me something. What exactly have we accomplished today? Other than raising morale, I mean. In a day or three, the main will be rebuilt. The Breakneck Boys are still alive. By now they're probably fast asleep in their feather beds."
"We've cut off an entire neighborhood from water for however long the repairs last. They'll take that seriously up above. If their in vestigations turn up the Breaknecks' involvement, it will be a political embarrassment for their parents. If not, the Breakneck Boys will still know what a close call it was. The smarter among them will realize they were given a warning. That I could as easily have killed them. We won't be seeing them back again."
"There'll be others."
Will gri