Dragon Removal Service Page 4

  "Next stop, Bayadev," Tiktok called, smiling. "Took you long enough to get here, you whiffle-waffle."

  The towboats smoothly pulled Biters out to the center of the river, then dropped the ropes. The familiar drone of sqwatch birds and shine-bugs lessened. It was always so quiet on the river.

  And so far, there was no sign of Brunhild. At least their houseboat was underway.

  "Bayadev? Who told you that?" Gulchima asked.

  Tiktok shrugged, tied off the rope. "Isolde says it’s the place to be. 'Mountains of sugar, rivers of honey, uncounted quantities of near-beer'. It's our next contract. Didn't she tell you?" He smiled again, then mouthed the words to himself quietly, as if savoring them.

  So they were headed to the right place too. But who else knew about the contract?

  "I need you to gather a group of rowers," Gulchima said. "Then grab the oars and set up the rowbox."

  Tiktok looked at her blankly. "Um, you don't need to row downriver. The water just pushes you."

  "The debt collectors are chasing us. If they catch us—"

  "Debt collectors? Isolde said we paid those off."

  "Debts are like flies," Gulchima said. "You kill one and five more come to the funeral. Set up the rowbox and—"

  "Isolde said we float. So we float." He took a small red onion out of his pocket and bit into it.

  "I'm in charge of the Outfit," Gulchima growled.

  Tiktok held up his hands. "Yeah, maybe. But when you're not around—which is most of the time—she's in charge. So you need to talk to her."

  "Okay. Where is she?"

  "On the boat," Tiktok said. He took another bite of his onion. Like many boys, Tiktok thought that not answering questions made him charming.

  "Very. Helpful," Gulchima said. "Do you know where Isolde is, or not?"

  "It's a big boat," Tiktok answered. But his attempt at cleverness melted under Gulchima's glare. He flipped the hair out of his eyes. "Dining hall. Start there."

  "That wasn't an answer," Gulchima said. "Where—"

  "It's the answer I'm giving you." Tiktok walked away from her to gather up the rest of the tow ropes.

  "So yeah, just grab some oars and some friends," Gulchima called after him. "Make sure you get the rowbox set up. Okay? Yes?"

  Tiktok waved his hand behind him, but did not respond.

  "And brush your teeth!" Gulchima yelled.

  ✽✽✽

  Biters was a big boat. Not as big as the Barkers boat, but nearly so. The houseboat was about two-hundred-forty feet long, and maybe sixty feet wide. It wasn't too deep, no river boat could be without scraping the bottom of the river. But they'd built it up, level after level, and now parts of the houseboat were five stories high. It'd be a disaster in the Western Sea. Which was why they kept it to the rivers.

  Gulchima needed to find Isolde and starting at the dining hall made sense. She jogged across the plaza to the dining hall, the lone building near the front of the ship. The smell of fried fish and boiled potatoes greeted her at the door.

  The dining hall was a two story affair with a full kitchen and three rows of Tamme oak tables on the first floor. Dinner was finished, and though there were mountains of eggshells to commemorate Gulchima's success, the gaggle of grimy workers still sitting at the tables seemed not to notice her. Isolde wasn't there.

  Gulchima picked up a boiled egg and cracked it against the small bowl carved into the table. She peeled the egg with a fingernail, then bit into it.

  It needed salt. But at least it wasn't boiled eel.

  "'Strength for working'," Gulchima said to a young cooker-girl, who was sweeping garbage into the drain on the floor.

  "'Strength is needed'," the girl replied in a bored tone, without looking up. She snapped the drain cover closed, then sped back to the kitchen.

  Okay. Not the rousing welcome Gulchima had envisioned. Obviously Isolde wasn't here, and not at the front bow of the houseboat either. Maybe she was with Novvy.

  Gulchima walked out of the dining hall, and crossed the plaza, darting around the potted fruit trees and the derrick. A few of the younger children were playing Blind-Mouse and Tormo, a tubby eastern boy with a pockmarked forehead, crashed into her. He pulled up his blindfold.

  "Sorry Gulch!" Tormo squealed with laughter. The children were Novvy's age and younger, but Novvy wasn't with them. Was he hurt?

  "Have you seen Isolde or Novvy?" Gulchima asked.

  "Haven't seen anything 'cause of this blindfold," Tormo said. He grinned and the rest of the children laughed out loud.

  This time Gulchima laughed along with them. It was hard to be cross with someone missing both front teeth. She kept walking.

  "Don't forget, Festival of Rough Peter is coming up!" Tormo said. "That means chocolate!"

  "I won't forget, I'm running it this year." That and everything else.

  Where next? She could check the Trilogy, the three-story living area. But that was a maze of sleeping bodies, cubbyholes, and storage bins. She'd wake up half the boat. The main building was no better. All five levels clanged and thumped as the masons and carpenters geared up for the contract. Gulchima heard the ring of sharpening adzes, the muffled thuds of supplies being sifted. She'd have to talk to Isolde about that too.

  Gulchima climbed up the rope ladder to the walk-walk, a porch that wrapped around the main building. She sidled past a line of bee boxes, then ran straight into Uncle Roog.

  Hello Bad. Let me introduce you to Worse.

  Uncle Roog poked his mass of white hair out from behind the nearest bee box. He scowled at the bees, then scowled at Gulchima.

  "Novvy is hurt, you hedgeborn pumpkin-eater," Uncle Roog barked. "And you can't not tell me about replacing us with undead laborers at the next job." He pointed a sticky finger at Gulchima. "Because I already know!"

  Uncle Roog said things like this when he was grumpy or stressed out. So, basically when he was awake. He was no one's uncle. He'd earned his title because like many uncles, he showed up to events, uninvited, and then criticized whatever you were doing. But like an unpleasant spring snowstorm, you assumed he was necessary for some part of the world to keep working.

  "Uncle Roog, I don't have time for your cloudy disposition," Gulchima said. "Where's Isolde?"

  "Speak up, mumblecrust! Novvy's with the herbalist, not that you care," Uncle Roog said. He looked away. "Haven't you done enough, without bothering him now?"

  "Haven't I done enough? Yes, I have. I saved the Outfit today, with an awesome plan. Now just get—"

  "Stop mumbling! You caused this. If you hadn't, Novvy wouldn't be hurt. Look, I'm not your uncle," Uncle Roog said. "But if I were, I'd tell you what I think."

  Gulchima crossed her arms. "Oh? What's that?"

  "You're a cumberworld. Your head got screwed on backwards by that magic." Uncle Roog wagged his finger in her face. "That's what I would say. And you know what else? You can't replace me with the undead. All that groaning and slobbering about. They can't dig a straight ditch, let alone repair a wall. It's an art form, repairing mortar."

  "What? That's not the plan," Gulchima said. She took a deep breath and looked over Roog's shoulder. Below the porch, at the back of the boat, stood Isolde. She was struggling to move both steering oars at the same time. The idiot.

  Gulchima's attention snapped back to Uncle Roog.

  Uncle Roog grinned. "Yeah, sure that's not the plan. Not anymore."

  Gulchima turned, and walked in the opposite direction. She was shaking with anger, and didn't want to say what she thought. But then she spun around, and did it anyway.

  "No Roog, the actual plan is to replace you with a real dead person. Not undead. Just dead. Or maybe a sack of ox poop. Because either of those things would get just as much work done as you. And without so much complaining."

  Uncle Roog looked confused. He held up a honey encrusted finger.

  Gulchima slid down the rope ladder that led to the stern.

  "And stop stealing our honey!"
<
br />   ✽✽✽

  Isolde stood in the shadow of the curved swan neck, the oversized carving which decorated their stern in the Romaic fashion. A thin tube ran from the stern to the front of the ship and another to the spy atop the houseboat. Both were rattling a warning.

  "Two steering oars, two people," Gulchima said to Isolde. "Or are you trying to crash the boat?"

  She grabbed one of the steering oars and yanked it into position. It was heavy, and moved like molasses. Gulchima could see there were some weeds stuck to it. But together, she and Isolde moved the steering oars into position. The houseboat drifted away from the rocky bank, back to the middle of the river.

  Isolde looked at her, startled, then gave her one of those broad fortifying smiles that melted boys' hearts. Gulchima was immune, but not ignorant. Her thirteen-year-old sister was borderline beautiful, with curly black hair, and light eyes the color of honey. Nobody would compare Gulchima's eyes to anything interesting, unless they knew a lot about soil. Hers were a brown silty-loam.

  "Oh, you didn't get my message?" Isolde asked. She flapped her eyelashes like a poisonous butterfly. "We're leaving. What took you so long?"

  "Must have been busy saving the Outfit and running away from . . . ."

  In the distance, Gulchima saw Brunhild's longboat, loaded with soldiers, their oars slicing through the water like knives through pork fat. The carving on the prow wasn't a dragon's head. It was Brunhild's own face, carved large and laughing. She was gaining on them.

  Brunhild stood at the prow, resting her arms on the carving of her own face. She spoke calmly, yet somehow her words boomed across the water. "The chase builds my hunger, lemon-drop." Brunhild laid her head on the carving. "It grows vaster than empires. Vaster than stars and seas."

  " . . . from her," Gulchima finished.

  "She looks like a nightmare my bad dreams once had," Isolde said. The steering oar tore from her hand, and the boat started to drift. "Sweet Sorcerer, these weeds!"

  "Almost forgot!" Gulchima reached into her pocket and pulled out thirty-seven kroons. She tossed the seven lumpy coins into the water.

  "You're wasting money," Isolde said.

  "Can't journey without luck," Gulchima said, with a shrug. "Dad always did it."

  "Well you're not Dad," Isolde said. "Moreover, after three journeys, that's a full thaler. You could buy a loaf of bread with a thaler."

  "Moreover, if you act poor, then that's how the world will treat you," Gulchima said. That was another of Dad's sayings.

  "So what about this letter? A new contract? Bayadev?" Isolde asked. "Were you going to tell anyone?"

  "Oh you didn't get my message?" Gulchima parroted back to her. She flapped her eyelashes, mocking her sister. This time the oar slapped out of her hands, and smacked into the boat's side. Below her the weeds had thickened. Worse—since they were weeds and technically shouldn't be able to do this—the weeds started climbing up the boat.

  "Do plants normally climb?" Isolde asked.

  Gulchima looked down. "I don’t know. Do they normally have a face?"

  Weed covered hands gripped the top rail. Gulchima stepped back, suddenly afraid. Was there a word for worser than worse? If so, this was it.

  But then, the singing started. Gulchima felt stuck in place, calm, at peace. The music was beautiful. So were the singers.

  There were no weeds once they climbed aboard. That was silly. Twelve of the most beautiful women Gulchima had ever seen now stood on the deck. Their song was amazing, uplifting, inspirational. They were guardians of the river, they sang. They would help her fight Brunhild. Gulchima's gift of money to the river had sealed the deal.

  "So that's what was slowing us down," Isolde said. "But . . . I don't mind somehow."

  From the porch above, they heard Uncle Roog stomping around. He threw a bag of potatoes at their feet.

  "I'm not your uncle, and it's none of my business," Uncle Roog called down to them. "But those river-hags clambering up the side of the boat got my attention." He clanked down his load of potatoes and iron.

  Uncle Roog stuffed a dirty brown potato into the wide bore of a pitted iron tube, then picked up a candle.

  "They're helping us!" Isolde and Gulchima yelled simultaneously. "Don't shoot them with your—"

  Uncle Roog grinned evilly as he held up his pitted iron hand-cannon. "Cover your ears, girls."

  He lit the fuse, then pointed the hand-cannon at the closest beautiful singer.

  "It's about to get loud."

  Chapter 8: Hubward Gets Out of the Tree

  The three remaining wolves growled at Hubward. That was silly. Why give away their position like that?

  He strode over to them. The wolves backed to the edge of the sinkhole. Now which one was the meanest? Not the biggest one. Its tail was down between its legs.

  Hubward belched. "Can any of you talk?" he asked the wolves.

  They said nothing. How boring. Magically enhanced intelligence, and they still couldn't talk. What was the point?

  The three wolves were cornered. Their brethren's yips and howls of pain echoed from the bear den just below them. The bearded bears in the sinkhole weren't magic. They didn't have to be. They were bears. And they were grumpy. The wolves falling into their den had woken them up.

  A rock whizzed near the trio of wolves, but did not hit them.

  "No, not like that," Hubward yelled at the thinnest of his seven shadows. "I told you, they can't see you. Or smell you. Stop sneaking and hurry up."

  A leaf fluttered to the ground.

  Hubward turned to another shadow, lugging a small boulder. "Yes I know you’re hungry. There's pumpkins ahead." He rattled his parchment. "I have a map right here. Okay? Pumpkins, yum."

  The wolves cowered, trying to appear small. Their growls were angry, confused. They couldn't see what exactly was hurting them. Hard to bite a hand you can't see.

  A beetle landed on a blade of grass.

  "Well I suppose that might work," Hubward said to the roundest of the shadows. "But that's a tricky bit of logic. Wolves eat rabbits, and rabbits eat pumpkins. So you could eat wolves and thereby—Just be patient, all right? Pumpkins are coming. I promise."

  The wind swirled, pelting him with sand.

  "I double promise then," Hubward said. He sighed.

  The wolves crouched down, ready for a final attack. Hubward reminded himself to be careful. He couldn't do any magic right now. He'd been drinking butter.

  The meanest wolf—which was always the middle-sized one because it had to fight wolves of both sizes—leapt at him. It slammed into a tree branch it couldn't see, then fell back dazed.

  "Okay, now go ahead and drop the rock on that one," Hubward said. "Don't kill it, just injure it a bit."

  The boulder appeared, and bowled into the wolf, knocking it back down.

  "We'll need some more whining, before it falls into the sinkhole," Hubward said. "Those bears can't be that hungry anymore." He held his fingers up to the horizon, measured the height of the sun. Three hours left. This was taking a long time.

  A mouse nibbled a berry.

  "I said I'll get the pumpkins! Geeze!" Hubward yelled. "Just hurry up would you? I have a job interview in Bayadev in three hours."

  "The one thing I learned about being immortal? Take care of your teeth."

  -The Collected Lies of Gulchima Brixby

  (0/100: Impossible, Illogical, and FALSE)

  Chapter 9: Gulchima Has Strong Feelings About Potatoes

  Buh-Boom!

  Uncle Roog's first shot missed entirely. The potato sailed over the side of the houseboat before plopping into the water.

  "Roog! We don't use magic in this Outfit," Isolde yelled.

  "It's not magic, it's potatoes!" Uncle Roog replied. He speedily reloaded the cannon. "And a spoonful of fire medicine." He poured several handfuls of the explosive powder into a compartment on the cannon.

  Gulchima was glad he hadn't interrupted the women's song. It was a beautiful lullaby fr
om her childhood, one half remembered. Gulchima's hand loosened on the steering oar. Let Isolde steer. She could do it with just one oar. And it had been so long since she'd heard that song. Gulchima wanted to listen.

  One of the twelve beautiful singers climbed up to Uncle Roog, a patient smile on her face. She gestured for him to put down his weapon.

  "Oh what a pretty maiden," Uncle Roog said, sarcastically. "Want to sing me a lullaby do you? Well guess what?"

  Roog pointed the potato-cannon at the singer's face. "I'm deaf in that ear!"

  Buh-boom!

  The potato slammed into the singer's forehead. The creature flashed a lightning-bright blue, and then flipped backwards, screaming, into the water. Its mask fell, and Gulchima saw the warts, the swampweed hair, the marsh black eyes, oily and rolling.

  Those weren't swan maidens on her boat! They were river-hags!

  The river-hags' spell was broken, at least for Gulchima.

  Near one of the rope ties, Tiktok was kissing another river-hag, pushing away the other boys on the boat, so as not to be interrupted. Gulchima could see the slime dripping from the river-hag's lips. It was like kissing an eel.

  "Roog, there!" Gulchima yelled.

  Uncle Roog whirled. "Let's give them a spread of small red." He grinned as he loaded two pounds of small red potatoes.

  Roog fired his cannon. The potatoes thwacked into the river-hag and the boys surrounding it. But while the small red potatoes left welts on the back of Tiktok's head, the river-hag fell as if stabbed by hot iron.

  Tiktok looked at the river-hag, horrified. The beautiful young woman he had been kissing was replaced by a hideous slime beast. He wiped at his mouth frantically, but the slime had congealed, almost sealed it shut.

  He screamed. Or tried to.

  Boom. Buh-Boom. The concussion echoed off of the trees lining the river. With each blast a river-hag fell. Some of the girls from the dining hall ran over to Roog with more ammunition from the kitchen.