Dragon Removal Service Read online

  The carpenter treaded water, bobbing in a thoughtful circle. "Am I fired?" she asked. She looked over at Brunhild, warily.

  Gulchima thought about it. The carpenter, Anya, would be forced to join the King's army if they fired her now. That wasn't right to do. Anya had young children. They sometimes played with Gulchima's little brother, Novvy.

  "She's not fired," Gulchima said, patiently. "But no eggs for her."

  "Fired? Wha' for? Being afraid of magic?" Uncle Rattbone yelled. "You're not fired Anya from the Black Sea. But you're eating eels tonight, if you won't help us." He tossed a rope to the carpenter, and she pulled herself to shore.

  "A two-percent reduction in debt, for that carpenter," Brunhild boomed. "The Soldier-King has need for skilled—"

  "You'll get your money faster if you shut your mouth," Gulchima yelled. "She works for me."

  Both young soldiers smirked, nodding their approval. Brunhild scowled.

  "That's three that have outright refused," Uncle Rattbone said quietly. "The rest of them are grumbling and doing halfway-to-nothing. I'm not sure the bad-troll/worse-troll routine is working either. You sure about this Gulch?"

  Was she?

  Gulchima sighed. "To be honest, no. But it’s the best plan I could come up with."

  "That's how it goes usually," Uncle Rattbone said. He smiled. "If the plan works, everyone will say they agreed with you. If it fails, everyone will say they told you so."

  Gulchima was too nervous to listen to his pep talk. She walked away from Uncle Rattbone to make one final inspection.

  The thatchers had laid tar across the bridge, and swabbed it underneath too. The smell of the sticky tar burned her nose and eyes. That was step one.

  The carpenters had been busy constructing a false bridge, though some had walked off the job once they realized why. The false bridge, little more than several prefabricated walls tied with rope, floated about fifty yards away. It stretched from one bank of the river to the other. Right now, the carpenters were pegging together an apex, so the false bridge at least appeared to be above the water. The apex was just two walls raised up and leaning into an A-frame, with support boards underneath.

  Behind the bridge were the skin-boats, ready to tug the false bridge away. Her younger/older sister Isolde, and Uncle Roog headed that part of the operation. Moving the false bridge was step three.

  And step two? Moving the lunkers? Gulchima had saved that for herself.

  Gulchima breathed in deeply, then yelled, hands cupped around her mouth. Her four-year-old brother Novvy stood on the riverbank, at one edge of the false bridge, acting as a human repeater. She had to give him something to do. Uncle Roog was in one of the closer boats, and Isolde was in a boat farthest away.

  "Ready for ignition," Gulchima yelled.

  "Steady hold that pigeon," Novvy said.

  "What about religion?" Uncle Roog asked. He really was hard of hearing. Novvy was just being a goose.

  "Cheddar in position," Isolde confirmed. Hopefully she thought cheddar was just a codeword for the false bridge. Isolde didn't like the plan. Isolde didn't like anything Gulchima did. Ever. That was normal. They were sisters.

  But the five year jump had altered their dynamic. Gulchima was still eleven, and her magical accident meant that, for her, no time had passed. She'd just appeared five years later, in the same spot she had been walking. The wipeberries in her basket were still fresh.

  For the rest of the world, however, five years had gone by. Wars had ended. Children had been born (including her brother Novvy). Her younger sister Isolde had been eight-years-old, but was now thirteen. They were sisters. It was weird.

  Isolde insisted on acting like her older sister now, and Gulchima let her. But the Outfit was Gulchima's to run. Her parents were in prison, and since Gulchima was legally sixteen, and legally the oldest, she was the boss. Isolde was angry about that too. She'd been training for the job.

  Her younger brother, Novvy was now four, and had been . . . well, nothing. He hadn't existed. Gulchima was surprised by how little this bothered her about Novvy. Was it because he looked like her father? Maybe. But maybe some people were lights that made the rest of the world seem brighter. Novvy was a torch.

  Isolde waited a beat, and then yelled, "This is stupid."

  "Missing cupid?" asked Uncle Roog.

  "I'm a new kid," said Novvy.

  "Red to goop it," Gulchima confirmed. She smiled at the puzzled look of Uncle Rattbone. "That's just slang. 'Goop it' means, uh, 'to go quickly'."

  "And 'Red' means 'ready'," Uncle Rattbone said. "I'm no foozle. I still know what's cool." He waved at one of the nearby thatchers. "Light 'em up boys. Red to goop it, as they say." He winked at Gulchima.

  Just then, the Egg-Meister strode across the bridge. The man had a gift for bad timing. He had removed his boots, but one of his sockums stuck to the tar, and he came up barefoot.

  "I demand to know what is going on," he said. "When will you repair this bridge?"

  "As soon as we put the fire out," Gulchima said.

  "As soon as you . . . ow!" The Egg-Meister examined the new splinter in his naked foot, then looked up, wide-eyed. "What fire?"

  "That one." Gulchima pointed at the river.

  Uncle Rattbone floated in a skin-boat just below the bridge. A thatcher manned the oars. Uncle Rattbone ran his torch against the underside, and it whooshed into flame. At the same time, a thatcher's apprentice ran along the top of the bridge, dragging his torch, and lit that as well.

  Lunkers plopped into the water, splashing at the flames. But it was too strong for them. The plan was working.

  "What? Fire?" the Egg-Meister asked again.

  Uncle Rattbone's skin-boat paddled backwards, then ignited a length of greased rope stretched across the width of the river. He pushed it with an oar, and the flaming rope floated across the water, towards the bobbing lunkers

  "It's working Gulch!" Uncle Rattbone yelled. "They're panicking. That'll clean them out!"

  The burning rope herded the floating lunkers toward the false bridge. They wouldn't leave the real bridge normally, but maybe she could trick them into latching onto the false bridge, then transport them. That was the plan.

  "Fire! What—" the Egg-Meister squeaked.

  Gulchima looked up and saw the Egg-Meister dancing across the burning bridge. His other sockum had tar stuck to it, and now it was ignited too.

  "Stop!" Gulchima yelled, but the Egg-Meister refused to listen to her. She was just a kid after all. What did she know?

  The lunkers started to bob about, confused. On the one hand, their bridge home was burning. They could see safe planks of wood from the false bridge, and that was inviting. A few lunkers had climbed up and were roosting in the A-frame of the false bridge.

  But the Egg-Meister's clomping drew them back. The idiot. She had a mind to pull out the other half of his mustache.

  If the lunkers knew the real bridge was safe, they'd come back. It would all be lost. Even now, the flames sputtered. The fire was just tar burning off, not the wood of the bridge. Not yet anyway.

  The lunkers started to swim back to the first bridge, a mass of soggy mottled brown lumps. The Egg-Meister had ruined her plans. Adults! Didn't they ever listen?

  "We gotta get someone up on the false bridge. Make some noise on that one," Uncle Rattbone said. He picked up an oar and threw it like a spear, hitting the Egg-Meister in the middle of his back. The man fell into the water, which doused the flames.

  "Surrounded by water and he couldn't figure that out?" Gulchima asked.

  Uncle Rattbone shrugged.

  Gulchima turned to yell out more orders, but stopped. Her little brother Novvy was already in motion.

  He carried several eggs in his tunic, which he kilted up to make a basket. Novvy straddled the apex and said, "I just sure hope no one makes me break these eggs." He jumped up and down, almost fell off, but steadied himself. "Yes, that would be a turrible shame to lost my eggs on this see-ka-ritt br
idge. The one them lunkers don't know about."

  Novvy jumped again, then ran to one side, dumping the eggs into a pile of leaves and needles.

  "Novvy, stop!" both Gulchima and Isolde yelled. But his distraction worked. A mass of humped shapes moved through the water, toward the false bridge.

  Gulchima waved for the thatchers to start extinguishing the fire on the real bridge. A line of buckets started on the top, and put out most of the flames. The tar had burned off easily. A second line of buckets worked on the underside of the bridge, which had a lot more tar applied to it.

  From her position on shore, Gulchima lit another large rope with her torch, then pushed it toward the lunkers, in case any were having doubts.

  None were. They clambered around the false bridge now, exploring it.

  Novvy ran to the opposite end, and picked up another load of eggs. Lunker hands snatched at him, but did not find a purchase.

  "Goop it!" Novvy cried. He pranced to the center of the false bridge, at the very highest point. But instead of climbing down, he started dancing and juggling the eggs.

  The crowd, wagon-drivers and workers alike, erupted into cheers and chants of "Goop-it! Goop-it!"

  They were cheering. Uncle Rattbone had been right. They were cheering for Novvy, for the plan, and though they didn't know it, they were cheering for Gulchima.

  "Okay now!" Gulchima yelled. The skin-boats tugged the false bridge, drifting it farther and farther from the real bridge. "Take it to that far point, and leave it there."

  The sudden tug was enough to jolt Novvy from his perch. His arms pin wheeled. The crowd cheered louder, thinking he was playacting. But the cheers turned to groans when Novvy slipped, and then fell backwards into the water.

  Had he hit his head?

  Five eggs plopped into the water where he had sunk. Gulchima waited a few breathless seconds. But nothing surfaced.

  Gulchima ran through the underbrush along the river, thorns tearing at her legs, her face. She didn't care. At last she reached the edge of the false bridge.

  Novvy still had not surfaced. A pack of lunkers boiled around in the water, as if searching for something. Gulchima started to cross the false bridge. The wood jostled her forward and she almost lost her footing.

  Without warning, Isolde's boat slammed into the bridge, then rebounded off. She speared her arms into the water. Isolde cried out, one arm grasping something, the other slapping at a lunker. She pulled back hard, and Gulchima saw a flash of sandy brown hair, a coughing face.

  Novvy! She'd saved him.

  "Are you okay?" Gulchima called from shore. But Isolde waved her off, flashed her a dirty look. They'd talk about this. Later.

  Isolde shoved off the bridge and launched her boat away to safety. She had Novvy, and he seemed okay. Trembling, but that was probably from the cold.

  The ropes resumed their work, towing the false bridge, now laden with lunkers, to the far point. The crowd cheered again, though this time it was more subdued.

  The real bridge was clear of lunkers, and already the egg-wagons were trundling across it.

  She saw Uncle Rattbone and the Egg-Meister talking, exchanging paperwork. It was done. She'd done it.

  There'd be no eels tonight for dinner. All the carpenters and thatchers and boatmen would say they'd helped. And she'd let them. Because who cares. She'd come up with a good plan, and it worked. Everyone would recognize that. And Novvy seemed all right. Sure Isolde had saved him, but everyone knew it was Gulchima's plan. That was obvious.

  They could eat all the eggs they wanted. She'd feed them all—both houseboats—and then tell them about the next contract. There was a lot of bad magic at Bayadev. A lot that needed fixing. They'd listen now.

  Brunhild stalked across the bridge. As she approached, Gulchima saw Brunhild's eyes were a dark gray tinged with purple, like bruised storm clouds. Brunhild was gibbering, laughing, slapping her own face. She headed for Gulchima.

  Suddenly, Gulchima remembered: The debt, the threat.

  Brunhild was coming for them. Gulchima started to run.

  Chapter 6: Hubward Drinks the Butter

  It was his birthday, so Hubward drank a mug of melted butter. Now that he was eleven, Hubward had decided on a change of approach. He couldn't be solely saving the world with sugary shenanigans every single second.

  Wasn't that a mouthful? Almost as much of a mouthful, as the thick sizzling bacon, which he dipped in his mug of melted butter. Bacon in butter? Why not? It was his birthday, after all.

  Ten had not been a kind age for Hubward. He wanted to forget all about ten. The confusion with the molten marshmallows and the underwear had been a momentous mistake. And so many pumpkin mishaps. Worst of all, he'd failed a third time in his quest to trap the creature. It was time to try something else.

  So with a new approach, came a new outlook on diet. Adults certainly claimed a new diet would solve all of their problems. "If only I ate this, instead of that," adults always said. "Then I would be happy."

  He'd try that. Eat food he liked, food he could keep down without going to the toilet every ten minutes. He wouldn't be able to do magic if he wasn't scrawny, but at Bayadev the best camouflage of all would be an utter inability to do magic. He'd be undetectable.

  So Hubward sat in a birch tree, drinking his butter, and eating his bacon. The enchanted pig from two towns ago, had oinked its last warning. He'd purchased it, then brought it to a butcher. That was a nice present to himself. Very thoughtful. They said revenge was a dish best served cold. But this excluded pork products.

  With all the bacon and butter, who had time for candy? Not him. So no magic for a while. Big deal. Hubward was a Gaunt, a magical assassin. But why did the world require all Gaunts to be the same? To look the same? He liked magic, and there was plenty left over, waiting around for him. He'd just have to pick some up along the way.

  Take the pack of enchanted wolves snapping and growling a few feet below him, for instance. They were magic, right? With the glowing green eyes and crafty intelligence to prove it. And they were waiting for him. Well, waiting to eat him anyway.

  Yes, during the War of the Ribs, magic had ruined the world (well Baltica anyway). But only because it was used incorrectly. The Sorcerer had screwed up . . . .

  Hubward chewed a fatty piece of bacon, then threw the remainder below him. The wolves fought over it, with yips and growls and so on. Maybe "incorrectly" was not the right word. Magic used incorrectly, resulted in death.

  What Hubward meant—he took a sip of butter—was that the magic was used inappropriately. But now the current king of Baltica had banned all magic. Magic was evil, the current king said.

  Evil! That was like saying that since fire had once burned your hand, you should never cook anything again. Hubward sighed. Such small minds.

  You had to cook bacon, and that meant fire. Hubward smiled, then threw down another piece of bacon. Even the pack of magical wolves (or was it wolfs) below him would agree to that.

  Yes you had to cook bacon, otherwise it was just cold pork. And so, you had to use magic, otherwise, umm . . . well . . . His point was, you had to use magic sometimes. Because if you didn't use it, somebody else would.

  Hubward looked down at the wolves. He wondered about them, about how they had chased him, all of a sudden. Quite a coincidence. Anyway, he knew what to do next.

  Hubward whispered to one of the seven shadows perched in the birch tree beside him. The branch bent under the weight, as the largest shadow leaned forward to listen.

  After a long discussion, and much gesturing, the shadow leaned back.

  "So that's how we'll do it," Hubward said. He slurped the last of his butter from the mug. "Do you understand?"

  The largest shadow paused, and in a dry dusty voice, it said:

  "Pumpkin?"

  "Okay I admit the apostrophes story isn't true. Really, what happened was that I went to this distant land where they said magic was dangerous, but they sure seemed to use it a lot.
r />   I mean every five minutes they would disappear in a puff of smoke. Good guys had white smoke, bad guys had red. They'd have a showdown, insult one another, and then . . . puff of smoke. How did they keep anything down? I mean was there a rule? Like you had to wait one hour after eating before you dissipate?"

  -The Collected Lies of Gulchima Brixby

  (13/100: Another False Story. Insulting!)

  Chapter 7: Gulchima Rides the Houseboat

  When Gulchima arrived back at the dock, one of the houseboats was already missing. The half-moon peeked over the water, and Gulchima could see the lamps from Barkers, the larger houseboat, downriver. They were moving fast.

  The Biters houseboat, the one she lived on with the rest of the apprentices and junior craftsmen, was one rope away from departure. Four towboats were roped on, oars in the air, waiting to pull them to the center of the river. Someone on the houseboat waved at her frantically.

  What was going on? Where was the Barkers houseboat headed? Did Uncle Rattbone warn them about Brunhild and her soldiers? Or were they just running away, in a blind panic?

  Gulchima was exhausted. She had leaves and brambles stuck to her hair, and raised red scrapes on her stomach from escaping through the needle-brush. But tired could wait. She had work to do.

  Brunhild would have a boat too. That woman wouldn't give up easily. She wouldn't give up, period. If Brunhild caught them on the river, without a valid contract, she could put them all in debtors' prison. Or worse.

  So simply drifting down the river wouldn't be enough. Gulchima had to warn Isolde and the others. Convince them to start rowing. Downriver.

  More work. Won't that be popular.

  Gulchima jumped onto the houseboat, just as one of the mud-boys—a mason's apprentice—loosened the last rope from the dock. What was his name? Wentick? Wartok? Tiktok? Something like that. He was about thirteen-years-old. He wasn't bad looking, but his breath could clean rust off the anchors. Underwater.

  Gulchima pulled a few of the larger leaves from her hair. It still looked like a cobweb, but she felt presentable.