Goblin Precinct (Dragon Precinct) (2 page)

ONE

AS USUAL, LIEUTENANT TORIN BAN WYVALD OF THE CLIFF’SEND Castle Guard was late. His half-elf, half-human partner, Lieutenant Danthres Tresyllione, knew he never had a good excuse, and after a decade of partnership, she had ceased trying to come up with bad ones to give Sergeant Jonas. For his part, Jonas didn’t bother waiting for Torin to start the morning rundown. Torin and Danthres were two of six detectives on the day shift of the Guard, and they were tasked with solving the more complex crimes committed within the demesne.

“We’ve had at least three reported Bliss overdoses in Goblin overnight,” Jonas was saying as Danthres stared at Torin’s empty chair. Their desks abutted in the squadroom located at the eastern wing of the Lord and Lady’s castle.

Iaian snorted as he leaned back in his chair. “Only three? They’re slipping.”

His much younger partner, Amilar Grovis, looked disgusted. “It’s a tragedy, is what it is! People dying from ingestion of such foul substances! It’s an affront to Ghandurha!” Grovis then made the hand gestures that devotees of his god tended to make whenever they were appalled by the behavior of nonbelievers. Danthres had seen Grovis make that gesture with tiresome regularity. “Something,” the young lieutenant added, “should be done about it.”

“Like what?” Lieutenant Hawk asked. He was sitting on the side of his partner Lieutenant Dru’s desk, the latter facing him from his chair. “If people want to be killing themselves, why should we stop ’em?”

Iaian nodded. “You try to legislate how people behave, you’re gonna have more criminals than the hole can hold.”

“In any event,” Jonas said, “Goblin’s got a detail taking the bodies to the shop.” Any corpses that were unlikely to be claimed by a relative or friend were taken to the shop, a cave just outside the city-state’s walls where they were disposed of. From what Danthres understood, they’d been backed up, thanks to Bliss’s new prevalence adding to the unwanted dead. “Dru, Hawk, you two are done with the Corvin case, yes?”

Both lieutenants visibly shuddered at that. “Finally, yeah.”

Jonas nodded, shuffling parchments. “Fine, you’re up next, then. We’ve got—”

The door flew open, and Danthres looked over, hoping it would be her partner. Instead, it was one of the guards assigned to the castle. Because of that, his leather armor, like that of Jonas and all the detectives in the room, had a gryphon crest on the chest. His lack of a cloak indicated that he merely held the rank of guard, which, as far as Danthres was concerned, meant she could ignore him as much as possible. She certainly wasn’t about to be bothered enough to learn his name.

“There’s been a robbery, like!” the guard said breathlessly. “One’a th’youth squad just came with a message sayin’ the main branch’a the Cliff’s End Bank’s been robbed, like!”

Grovis rose to his feet, his face twisted into outrage. His father was the president of the bank in question, which was the largest money house in Cliff’s End, with four locations across the city-state. In a just world, Grovis himself would be working under his father, but the elder Grovis wanted his eldest son to join the Castle Guard to “make a man of him.” It was the considered opinion of the other lieutenants in the squadroom—especially Grovis’s long-suffering partner, Iaian—that Grovis didn’t have the materials necessary for such a manufacture.

“
Been
robbed?” Grovis asked. “You mean they’ve gotten away with it?”

The guard nodded, and Danthres asked no one in particular, “That’s the first time the bank’s been successfully robbed, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is,” Grovis said gravely.

Jonas looked over at Dru and Hawk. “You two have it.”

Whirling on the sergeant, Grovis bellowed, “What!? It’s my
father’s
bank! I practically grew up in that building! I
must
be the one to investigate it!”

“Dru and Hawk are up,” Jonas said, “and you’re too close to the investigation to be objective.”

“The hell does being objective matter?” Iaian asked incredulously.

“So you agree with me,” Grovis said triumphantly.

“Not hardly. Dru and Hawk’re up, let them deal with it.” Iaian was only a couple of years from being in the Guard for twenty-five years, thus vesting his pension, and Danthres was of the opinion that his intent was to make as little effort as possible in those final years.

Hawk and Dru had gotten to their feet, and the former put a hand on Grovis’s shoulder. “Don’t you be worrying. We’ll find out who hit Daddy’s bank.”

“I am less than comforted,” Grovis muttered.

“You have a problem with the standard policy of the Castle Guard,” Jonas said pointedly, “you can take it up with Captain Osric.”

Dru and Hawk put on their earth-colored cloaks of office and then followed the guard out the door. Grovis just stood in the middle of the squadroom, looking even more like a fish than usual.

Danthres had to admit to enjoying the sight of Grovis so flustered.

Torin ban Wyvald came ambling into the grand entrance to the castle approximately a quarter-hour past when he was supposed to be there. He had simply not left himself enough time to get ready after waking up—just like most mornings. The notion of getting up earlier had been considered and rejected many times. Torin was always sure that
this
morning, he’d be able to get ready faster.

Ten years of being wrong had yet to cure him of this particular hope.

The castle’s entrance was large enough to fit a troll standing on another troll’s shoulders, and wide enough for two coaches. It also had a metal portcullis and massive wooden double doors that were nigh-impenetrable back in the day. After all, Cliff’s End had once been just the castle, which was located near a valuable port.

Upon entering, Torin heard an uncommon sound: Captain Osric’s laughter.

In the days of the elven wars, Torin had served as a soldier under Osric. When he came to Cliff’s End, Osric was the head of the Castle Guard, and offered Torin a position there as a detective.

To hear the sullen Osric laugh was bizarre to say the least. Having lost an eye in the war, Osric wore a silk eyepatch and cultivated dark stubble on his cheeks, giving him the look of a man who would cut your throat as soon as talk to you. Torin couldn’t even recall the last time Osric had smiled.

He came into view around a corner, headed in the same direction as Torin: toward the eastern wing and the squadroom. With him was an elf wearing battered leather armor, with a scar on one cheek, short dirty blond hair, and a thick blond mustache. Most elves Torin had encountered tried to magic away scars—whether via healing potion or a glamour. The only ones who had facial hair were usually the type who would proudly wear scars.

This was a soldier. And he looked familiar, though Torin couldn’t quite place him.

The captain then said words Torin had never heard him use before in sequence, “Ah, ban Wyvald, glad to see you.”

“Captain.”

“Fanthral, this is Lieutenant Torin ban Wyvald. Once, he was one of my worst soliders, and now he is one of my best detectives. Ban Wyvald, this is General Fanthral—well, just Fanthral, now. Remember him, from the war?”

Torin nodded, his face flushing with an unexpected anger. “Of course. The Midwinter Game.”

Fanthral had been a general in service to the Elf Queen. One midwinter, he and Osric were on opposite ends of the Nemerian Wastes. The snow and ice were vicious, and everyone was huddled in tents that were woefully inadequate to protect them from the elements. Fanthral’s troops were equally frozen, and since fighting was out of the question, the two sides started actually talking. At first it was the expected insults, but it soon modulated into giving each other advice on staying warm. After a day, they started playing games with improvised balls and cards that people had around.

Three months later, when things went badly for the Elf Queen, Fanthral took the side of Olthar lothSirhans’s rebels, and specifically surrendered himself to Osric—he wouldn’t do so to any other human general.

Osric looked at Fanthral. “Torin here was one of the few who was able to buck the troops up. He seemed utterly unaffected by the cold.”

“Two winters previous,” Torin said, “I was alone and armorless in the Forest of Orven.”

Fanthral seemed to actually notice Torin for the first time. “The wastes must have seemed a summer retreat by comparison.”

Torin nodded. “In any event, General, yes, I do remember you. And the condition in which your prisoners were given back to us when we had our exchange.”

The elf’s face darkened. “We had little choice.”

“Really? You were
forced
to cut off fingers and gouge out eyes?”

“In fact, Lieutenant, we were. The Elf Queen was very specific with her standing orders in how to treat human prisoners—and how those who did not follow those orders were to be punished. Both had the same result.”

Relenting a bit, Torin said, “I suppose.” But he recalled in particular one of his dearest friends, Ellek, who died shortly after Fanthral returned him. The once ebullient and charming young man was silent and depressed when he was brought back, and died quietly soon after.

Not wishing to dwell on this subject, Torin asked, “What brings you to Cliff’s End now, sir?”

Fanthral started to answer, but Osric cut him off. “Let’s continue to the squadroom—everyone needs to hear this.” The captain’s smile had fallen and he was back to his trademark scowl.

Torin didn’t find that, or his words, particularly comforting.

Glancing back at the large entrance as they proceeded, Fanthral asked, “When was the last time the castle doors were shut?”

Osric also turned to look at them briefly before they went on. “Not since I came here, certainly. Even in winter, they’re left open to the elements—the interior doors keep the castle warmed.”

“The portcullis and doors,” Torin said, “are an artifact of the days when this castle was regularly attacked. That is no longer the case.”

Fanthral snorted. “All the more reason to be prepared. The portcullis is no doubt rusted and pitted, and I suspect the same to be true of the doors’ hinges. If you were to be invaded now—”

“We would see them coming,” Torin said. “When the gate was in use, sir, invading armies came under cover of the Forest of Nimvale. As Cliff’s End has grown, the border of that forest has moved considerably back from right upon the castle, and there are also half-a-dozen wide pathways that have been cleared to allow easy access to the city-state.”

Now Osric smirked. “Remember when I said that ban Wyvald was one of my worst soldiers? It was because he thought far too much. But it’s also why I count him among my two finest detectives.”

“Good,” Fanthral said gravely, causing Torin to again wonder what this was all about.

The three of them entered the squadroom just as Dru and Hawk were leaving.

“Cap’n,” Dru said. “Someone robbed the Cliff’s End Bank.”

Osric nodded. “Get to it.”

Torin followed the captain and the elf into the squadroom. Grovis was standing in the center of the room looking piscine as usual, Jonas standing nearby shuffling parchments, while Iaian and Danthres were seated at their desks.

“About time you got here,” Danthres said playfully to Torin. A small smile formed on her oddly constructed face, which combined the less fortunate elements of her dual heritage. “We were about to send the hounds.”

Allowing a grin to show through his thick red beard, Torin said, “Don’t be absurd. You don’t even notice that I’m not here until half an hour past the start of shift.”

“True.” Danthres’s smile fell. “Who’s your friend?”

Osric answered her question. “This is Fanthral, a representative of the Elven Consortium.”

Iaian snorted. “Is
that
what they’re callin’ the latest buncha ne’er-do-wells tryin’ to keep the elves under control?”

Archly, Fanthral said, “The Consortium is currently engaged in war trials against those who supported the Elf Queen.”

“A dozen years, and they’re just now getting to the trials?” Iaian shook his head, his arms folded across the gryphon symbol on his armor’s chestplate.

Now Fanthral smiled mirthlessly. “My people do not leap headlong into things.”

Torin found himself unable to resist. “That would explain why you took so long to renounce the Elf Queen after fighting for her cause for so long.”

Fanthral glared at Torin, and Osric scowled. Torin pointedly ignored both looks, choosing instead to focus on Danthres’s approving gaze. Indeed, it was the sort of thing Danthres might have said, and Torin found himself reminded, not for the first time, of how much his partner was rubbing off on him.

“I have been deputized by the Consortium,” Fanthral said after another moment of glaring, “to seek out Elthor lothSerra, who was a member of the Elf Queen’s court.” Reaching into a pouch on his belt, he pulled out a dark blue gem. “This gem allowed me to track him to Cliff’s End, but after my arrival within these walls, the gem went dark. Within the region that Osric tells me is Goblin Precinct, I was able to determine that an elf matching lothSerra’s description was found dead.”