The Banshee's walk

Toadsticker was still warm where it touched my hip and leg. I put conjecture concerning the Corpsemaster aside and grasped at straws instead. Had Evis snuck a major spell into the sword, somehow? I doubted it. A minor charm against the undead wouldn’t raise any hackles anywhere, unless you count any undead I happened to impale. But putting military-grade spellwork into a civilian trinket would be a risk even Avalante seemed unlikely to take. Especially just to protect a small-time finder with offices on Cambrit Street.

And if I put Lady Werewilk out of the ru

I frowned and stomped. Chasing down errant husbands or wandering wives was begi

Gertriss came ru

“Later, oh junior member of the firm,” I said. Lady Werewilk was coming up fast behind us. “Right now we have to get this lot ready for a siege. Lady Werewilk is going to show you something, and tell you part of our plan. Go with her. And listen.”

Gertriss glared. I failed to help matters by returning a jaunty wink.

Behind her, Marlo grimaced and rose, clutching at his side. The bandage wasn’t showing any blood yet.

Lady Werewilk loosed a string of shouted obscenities so virulent Marlo settled back down on the couch.

People stared. She took advantage of the sudden silence and started splitting people into the two escape groups. Gertriss soon found herself surrounded by a wide-eyed gaggle of artists and a handful of equally terrified household staff.

She immediately started prowling among them, adjusting their grip on whatever tool or club they’d managed to arm themselves with.

I gri

Lady Werewilk led Gertriss out, to show her the secret door to the tu

I plopped down on the couch beside the wounded man.

“I didn’t have time to compliment you on your woodcraft before,” I said. “Getting past that crew alive was no small feat.”

He grunted. His wound and fatigue were catching up with him.

“Wouldn’t be too quick on that,” he said. “Don’t think they tried to kill me too hard. Not once I started heading back this way.”

“You sure about that?”

“I ain’t dead. Proof enough for me. Fifty men, more?” Marlo fell into a coughing fit. “They was watching the roads, Finder. They don’t want anybody from here telling tales in town. That’s what they was out to stop. Leastways I hope so.”

I nodded. He might be right, I decided. Because if they did break down the doors with murder on their minds, they’d have to kill thirty of Ra

If what Marlo suspected was true, we’d be safe, at least for a while, as long as we stayed indoors. Long enough, say, for a few hundred men to dig something valuable out of the ground not far from here.

There was only one way to test this theory, though.

I rose.

“Oh Hell no.” Marlo put his calloused hand on my elbow. “I know what you’re thinkin’, Finder. I’m telling you it’s a sui-i-cide.”

I pulled away. “Maybe. Tell Gertriss she ought not to cuss like that, when you tell her what I’ve done. And when she calms down, tell her she needs to drop that blasted sword and find herself a smallish crossbow.”

Marlo shook his head. His bandage was begi

I nodded, made for the door, then veered off toward the kitchen.

“Almost forgot my corn bread,” I said.

Marlo’s only response was a long, loud snore.

I knew the massive cast-iron stove was rigged to move, but even so I nearly had to risk the ire of Gertriss by fetching Lady Werewilk to show me the secret lever.

But I found it, and with a surprisingly small bout of grunting and gasping I managed to pull the hot oven out from the wall, revealing a dark recess beneath it.

I heard female voices, so I felt for a ladder or a stair and found a flight of nice solid stair treads leading down into the dark.

The dark. I hadn’t pla

I hoofed it down the secret stairs. Fifteen steps down-I counted in case I was in the dark coming up-I encountered a complicated set of gears and pulleys. A cable led up beside the stairs, towards the stove and the secret door. Another cable was attached to a trio of hanging barrels, each filled with sand.

I found a lever and pulled. Above me, the stove groaned as it was pulled back into place by the lowering of the heavy barrels.

I gri

The rectangle of light above me winked out as the secret door closed. The barrels hit the earth with a soft thud-thud-thud.

I cranked them back up, hurrying to spare my torch.

That done, I descended the rest of the stairs. It was wide enough for two to walk side by side. It ended on hard-packed earth, in a tu

I waved my torch around. My choice of paths was limited. The tu

Doorless but not empty. Junk of every description was stacked against both walls. Half a dozen torches were among the leaning items. They’d been left ready to light, with pitch already soaked into the rags wrapped around the top.

There was also a pair of bent brass candelabras perched atop a rickety old curio table. The candles showed some use, but had plenty of light left. I chose a torch instead, on the off chance I needed to shove it suddenly into a stranger’s face somewhere down there in the dark.

The ghost of the huldra, of course, came out to play. I heard it begin to whisper its nonsense words, felt it try to show me secret things, hidden things, useful things, all lurking in easy reach, just at the edge of the torchlight, just in the spaces between the tumbling shadows.

I countered the huldra’s unintelligible ramblings by muttering an old Army marching song.

But the truth is, I hadn’t been in a tu

I felt for Petey’s doggy head, remembered where I was, and how long it had been since I buried him in a ditch a thousand miles from home.

The huldra tried to show me how I could raise his shade with a few strange words and an eye-blurring turn of my shaking right hand.

I cussed aloud and lurched ahead, shouting the song in my head.

My new torch sputtered and hissed. Shadows darted and spun at my sides, cast by the irregular mounds of junk that lined both walls. There were old farming implements mixed with hat-racks and odds and ends of lumber and tight-wrapped canvas tents and bits of armor and equine tackle. Rat’s feet scampered amid it all, fleeing my wobbling circle of light.

The huldra whispered to me a word that would send them all away.

I shivered, because for an instant I almost understood it.

I hurried on. A break in the refuse heap on my right revealed a plain wooden door. It was banded with old iron, and showed faint marks from an axe. I decided that Lady Werewilk’s sorcery room lay behind it, which meant only a fool would so much as peep through the key-hole. Bad things happen to those who would trespass a sorcerer’s tool room. Even if the sorcerer wasn’t among the favored in Ra