Nothing to it, really 17
In which a battle happens and matters are resolved.
Slight edit to address little things, continuity, flow, et c.
But it was almost over. Without the Howondalandians to drive them on and no means of escape, the hired thugs were throwing down their weapons and surrendering. The security detail assigned to the Bellamy home ran up the drive of Number Eighteen to find the short, bitter, battle all but finished. Julian Smith-Rhodes was surprised to realise that no more that fifteen minutes, if that, had elapsed since Ruth had fired the first shots out of the bedroom window.
"We realised you must be winning in there when they started running away." The senior Assassin said. "We picked up a couple of runners and got information out of them that they weren't doing so well and they were coming up against heavy opposition. An old-time wizard blasting everything that moves, and some fighting-mad naked black girl guarding the stairs and not letting anyone past, apparently. We guessed about the wizard when we saw the magical fire blasting out of the downstairs window. Made a hell of a mess of the dividing hedge and the neighbour's side wall. As for the naked black girl…."
"Oh, that bit's true." Julian said, cheerfully. "She's utterly insane. Take it from me. Not enough clothes, too!"
The senior Assassin paused, and then hopefully asked
"Err… I don't suppose?"
"Come this way." Julian said. "The last two or three are up on the roof. They've not given in, but they're not really able to get anywhere, either. They're contained."
And then Johanna came home.
As the last standing attackers retreated in disorder from the living room, Eivka bin-Divorah looked down at the still form of her friend, crushed underneath a huge seemingly dead body, smothered in blood, seemingly dead herself. Her face contorted in rage and sorrow, she slipped out of Claude's consoling arm and ran to the wall of weapons. She considered for a moment, then took down one of the strange-looking Kande throwing knives, one in each hand. Then she went out into the corridor, where Julian and Ruth were disarming and marshalling the surrendering attackers, the few who could still more—or-less stand and who hadn't been all that badly hurt.
She nodded down the corridor towards the kitchen.
"He couldn't leave the front door because of goblins." she said. "The blonde one. The Howondalandian. So he ran that way. Towards the kitchen and the door to the garden."
Julian nodded, distracted. He tried to remember how Sergeant Thiejsmann would have done it in the old days. How did it go? Oh yes.
"YOU! UP AGAINST THE WALL NOW! FACE THE BLOODY WALL! HANDS OPEN! SPREAD FINGERS! FEET APART! MOVE IT!"
Ruth threw another cudgel into a growing heap, well away from any prisoner's reach. Although she noted they were too scared and disoriented to show much fight. Now.
Then a small determined figure in a grimy white nightdress was slipping past her. A glint of metal in both hands.
"Oh, hell." she said. "Miss bin-Divorah! You come back here, right now!"
Rivka paused for just long enough to say "No, Miss N'Kweze. With the greatest respect."
And then she was gone.
"Oh, Hell's bells!" Ruth grumbled. "Keep these people covered, Julian. Won't be long."
She walked into the shattered living room. A set of boots stood in the middle of the floor near the door, acrid black smoke curling up from them as a last memory of their departed owner. Her view took in the still body of Mariella, just visible underneath the larger body. Claude was kneeling next to her, trying to lift the heavy body off her. Ponder was just standing there, eyes glazed.
"Ponder?" she said, softly. "Come down to earth, man. Right now you're channelling Dean Henry. And you're two hundred pounds too light for that. Not a good look."
Ponder Stibbons shook his head. He looked at the hole in the wall where the door had been.
"Did I do that?" he mumbled, everyday Ponder again. "Johanna's going to kill me!"
Ruth focused. Ponder needed something to do…
"Help Claude. Get that body off Mariella."
Then she made the warrior salute in front of her deceased uncle's weapons, in his honour. Then she took down assegai, knobkerrie and flat hide shield. She considered the head-dress for a moment. Then decided she had a right. She put it on. The ostrich feathers bobbed.
"Ibutho mthethwa n'UThulwana!" she sang, raising the weapons. Then she turned and ran out after Rivka.
Vimes and Angua led a detachment of Watchmen running down Spa Lane from Hope Square. On the way they were overtaken by a black coach, one that had a certain quality of sleek and stylish about it. It was moving very quickly.
The criminal Benckel, rattled after the encounter with Ponder and Claude, dropped low underneath the window. He intended to pop up again and take an unexpected snap shot at the wizard. But to his horror, an intense heat erupted just over his head. He felt rather than saw, his eyes shutting down in self-defence. But the intense blast of fire set the hedge to his left on fire. It rolled on and scorched the side of the house next door, leaving a deep black scorch-mark on what had once been plaster painted pink.(1)
Beating out the fire in his hair, Benckel had run, trying to get to the main attack on the front of the house and security in numbers. He slipped and nearly fell on something wet and slippery in the grass. Then realised he'd come across what was left of one of the meat-shields. He'd seen bodies like this in Howondaland, when turned out under heavy guard to dig graves and collect bodies of the ill-fated Matabele infantry. The goblins had got this man. The bloody goblins. They were out here somewhere!
He could see just enough of the corpse in the night. And what he could only guess at was sparking his imagination. He turned and vomited.
He was still careful enough to assess his own route of escape. He registered the group of four black-clad shadowy figures moving cautiously up the drive, making their own assessment of the situation.
Assassins. The Guild, looking after its own. Du Plessis is now doomed. I can run. Leave.
He waited in the shadow of a shrubbery, assessing his moment, terrified the goblins, who had reasons to kill him, were coming for him.
And a panicked man, nerve broken, tried to run out of the shattered front door to freedom. Benckel saw the tiny misshapen dark figures leap on him chittering and squeaking. Metal flashed. The man convulsed and screamed. The dark shapes of the Assassins ran forwards towards the noise.
Seeing his chance, Benckel crossed the garden while the goblins and Assassins were distracted, and once on the street, he ran for it.
Pursuing the criminal Ouistrehaam, Rivka bin-Divorah slipped cautiously out of the open kitchen door into the back garden. She saw a dark figure moving towards the gap in the back hedge that hadn't been there earlier. This was presumably how they'd got in. She moved quietly to within good throwing distance. As the figure moved to the gap in the hedge and was clearly silhouetted against it, Rivka raised the Kande throwing knife-cum-axe in her right hand. She weighed it up, estimated the distance and the arc, and then her arm dropped, decisively…
Johanna got down, unsteadily, from the coach. She took in the shattered front door and counted at least four bodies in the grass and driveway. One was practically on the doorstep and appeared to have no head.
The goblin Op De Veldt Dese Nacht De Loouw Geschickt, also known as Wimowe, ran diffidently to her, as did the Senior Assassin, Piers Verlinden. Piers was normally the Guild's representative in Sto Kerrig, but had returned to the Guild for a postgraduate course. Finding Johanna much changed for the better from the girl he'd trained with, he had happily volunteered for this duty. Even seeing how she'd changed, he was still wary about trying to bar her from access to her own home.
"Friend Piers. What canst thou tell me about what has come to pass here?" she asked. If she really concentrated, Johanna could refine her speech into something almost but not quite pure Kerrigian. It sounded stilted and archaic, though, with all its thees and thous and shalts and passeths. Like the old language her people had taken to Howondaland with them four hundred years ago. Religious texts read in the chapels and kirks on Octeday were in Kerrigian rather than Vondalaans. It added antiquity to the religious discourse. (2)
"Thou shouldst know there has been a big fight…" Verlinden began, uneasily.
"Ja, that I can perceive."
"It is unsafe for thee to enter. Some of the foe are still uncaught and about the premises."
"Thank thee, Piers. But it is still my demesne. I will enter within."
She pushed past him as politely as she could manage. Verlinden might be laid-back and partial to strange tobaccos. But he was basically OK. She allowed him to follow her in. Somebody watching your back is always useful.
She stepped around the corpse on the doorstep, trying not to look too closely, and entered, wincing at the damage. Inside Julian and the other Assassins were marshalling prisoners. She took in the dustcloud, the debris, dropped and scattered weapons, bodily parts, arrows embedded in the wall, and the massive hole where the living room doors should have been, She stepped forward, aware of Julian and Ponder trying to shield her from seeing something. Then she saw it. Her sister's still unmoving body. Drenched in blood.
"I'm so sorry, Johanna…" Ponder said. Julian looked grave and sorrowful.
"Where is he, Ponder?" she asked, her voice full of ice and fire. "Du Plessis. I want him!"
Matron Igorina bustled in behind her, clutching her black bag. She passed, almost unheeded, into the shattered room and knelt beside Mariella.
"He ran upstairs, Johanna. We think he went up to the roof to attack the clacks tower and the goblins there." Julian said.
Johanna breathed out, hard.
"He's mine." she said. Then she turned on her heel and started walking upstairs, drawing her machete. There was an immense dignity in her movement. Nobody tried to stop her or talk her out of it.
"He is dead, is he not?" Piers Verlinden said.
"Very probably." Julian agreed.
"And the irony is, she isn't dead." Igorina commented.
Julian and Piers turned together.
"Just knocked cold. Some bruising, but concussion. Maybe a cracked rib. I'd still get her to the Lady Sybil, though."
Claude the butler smiled an enormous relieved smile. He had not failed the Family, then.
Vimes and the watchmen were slightly hindered by the residents of Spa Lane, who all seemed to have turned out of their beds to find out what the noise was. One neighbour was making completely out-of-touch complaints about a bloody noisy party at Number Eighteen, and tried to beard Vimes about it. Vimes sighed, and assessed who he could spare for crowd control.
And then the wanted man ran out of the gates of Number Eighteen, saw the Watchmen, and turned right, running in the opposite direction.
"You! Stop, in the name of the Law!" Vimes shouted, pushing away the man complaining about a rowdy party, and led his Watchmen in hot pursuit. Behind him he heard
"Somebody gather up my things, please? And no pervy comments about my underwear, this time!"
There were a series of clunks and clangs. Then a large golden-haired wolf was bounding down Spa Lane, in hot pursuit of Benckel.
Ouistrehaam was nearly at the hedge. Soon he'd be out in Shallow Valley and running for freedom. The attack had failed, he knew it. De Koenig was dead, that red-haired missie had somehow managed to spit him on a spear. He'd seen it. What did they teach kids at that school? And given the ferocity of the defence, he was sure Benckel and even duPlessis would also soon be dead. Practically all the hired meat-shields had gone down. He could run now. Get away… behind him, he heard what he took to be a spooked bird whirring into the air. The whirring of its wings grew nearer…. And then his right shoulder erupted in pain and he staggered forwards. He tried to get a hold with his right hand to push himself up, get up, continue running… he wondered for an instant why his right hand seemed not to be able to grip anything. Then he saw his right arm. Some distance away. Ouistrehaam realised, feeling the blood pump into empty air. And he screamed. Running feet behind him caught up with him.
Benckel realised. That was the fabled Watch werewolf. And she was coming for him. He ran on, groping in his left pocket for the bottle. A methodical and relatively intelligent man, he'd picked up an insurance policy against werewolves during the raid on Trawlers'. There'd been a whisper that silver nitrate really took care of werecreatures. It sounded logical. He'd therefore added several bottles to the haul. He just needed to undo the bottle, and spray the contents over the verdammte thing.
Running, he bowled over several curious neighbours who were getting too close, threatening others with his machete. Then he saw her.
The Quirmian woman. Standing there in the street with another hugely pregnant female, a blonder, mummy type. He grinned with hatred. Very heavily pregnant. This might be my last chance for vengeance. She's hardly able to move with that bump sticking out in front. One good swing. Take her in the neck. Pay her back for that guillotine talk. See how she likes it.
He reflected that the bloody clever Igors were said to be able to rescue unborn babies from heavily pregnant women who came to grief. He didn't want a child with vengeance on its mind coming after him in twenty years. Better gut her, too.
He ran towards the two women, who didn't seem to have noticed. This would be so easy…
He lifted the machete to swing at her neck. And then the Quirmian woman wasn't there any more… Benckel felt something smash against the back of his legs. He fell over backwards. A massive shock of pain radiated up his sword-arm. The machete fell and clanged on the road.
Then the Quirmian woman was smiling down at him. The point of her sword was at his throat. He felt it penetrate just far enough, and sensed a trickle of warm blood on his neck.
"Attention, espece de salaud." she said. "You are fortunate you are not the one who sought to murder a student in my care. Or I would not currently be debating with myself whether to allow you to carry on living your miserable life. Alive, you are worth a fifteen-thousand-dollar bounty to me. I consider you also owe me for a lost bet last week when you disrupted a running race, upon which I had staked serious money."
She scowled suddenly.
"Should I elect to present the Guild and the City authorities with your lifeless cold corpse, I would lose ten thousand dollars. At this moment, I might consider ten thousand to be a small price to pay for a degree of job satisfaction. For creatures like you make the world cleaner in their passing."
The werewolf had arrived and was just sitting there, listening and not interfering. Benckel had another moment of cold gut-opening terror.
"My friend and colleague Doctor Bellamy stabbed you in the arm to make you drop your weapon. Therefore, I am forced to share the bounty with her, as good manners dictate. I think: two and a half thousand each is not much. But seven and a half each is better. And we both have coming children to pay for."
"That's right!" the cheerful mumsy blonde agreed. She had been the one who had kicked his legs from under him whilst Emannuelle side-stepped and drew her sword.
"Thus I declare this contract completed. I hand you over to the City Watch for due internment and lawful process. And may there be a God who is forgiving enough to take mercy on your soul. Angua, chère amie, he is yours."
The werewolf padded forward, regarded him, and growled. Benckel felt cold wet terror pass over him, and gave up.
Johanna arrived on the servant floor. She saw the wounded man lying there, still holding a weapon, a spreading pool of blood around his leg.
Her whip cracked out and lashed his arm. He shrieked, dropping the crude sword. She stepped forward and kicked it away.
"You made me break a promise there." she said, in a voice radiating menace and rage. It wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. "I swore never to use a whip in enger near my domestic servants. End I could kill you for intruding on my house. I em minded to do so. But there is a bigger hyena to hunt. Where is he?"
The terrified thug pointed shakily at the ladder. Fresh blood welled up from the whip-cut.
She nodded, hearing distant cursing and crashing.
"Gut. Try to stem your blood-loss. People will find you soon. There is an Igorina here who will treat you. Not out of kindness. But to keep you alive for your trial."
Johanna considered the ladder. But du Plessis was at the top of it. She remembered there was another way to the roof. She chose a door and hammered on it.
"Blessing1 Eve! This is Madam. You recognise my voice. I em in control here. Open the bloody door end let me in!"
There was a dormer window in the attic room shared by the two maids, she recalled. She could discreetly let herself onto the roof and approach du Plessis from behind whilst he was taking out his rage on the clacks tower. She fervently hoped she could do this. At least it hadn't been raining and the tiles were not likely to be slippery.
Ouistrehaam almost whimpered at the sight of the terrifying girl in a soiled white nightdress who was holding a native throwing axe in her hand and showing she knew exactly how to use it. He now knew what had chopped his arm off. And her eyes radiated an absolute lack of anything even remotely close to pity, mercy or compassion.
"Please!" he said. "I'm bleeding to death here!"
The girl considered this. Then she said "good." in a flat, final voice. And then Ouistrehaam saw who – or what – else was running over the grass at him and nearly fainted with fear. He wondered if this was a hallucination brought about by pain and blood loss. For there was a Zulu warrior in a proud ostrich head-dress running at him, assegai raised to stab. The illusion was dented slightly when she skidded on something in the grass and nearly fell over. But she righted herself and bounded up, ululating a war-cry.
Ouistrehaam raised his remaining arm in abject surrender. The Zulu warrior-woman, who he saw was wearing incongruous white frilly knickers, scrutinised him. Then she said
"We need to stop the bleeding. Or else we're delivering a corpse. And that means your fee drops by ten thousand, Miss bin-Divorah."
The Zulu pointed her assegai at his groin.
"You can see where I'm going to stab you if you try anything, don't you? Good. Right, Miss bin-Divorah. A practical lesson in field surgery. We need something to use as a tourniquet. The object is to stabilise him, so as to get him to the Igors for full treatment…"
Igorina transferred her attention to de Koenig.
"This one's alive, but barely." she said. "The lance went right through his lung. Missed the heart. Sorry, but I've got to do what I can. Code of the Igors. If we all stopped to work out the moral worthiness of patients first, we'd get nothing done."
Julian nodded.
"Best we keep them alive now. So they can hang later." he said. "President van Baalsteuwel wants a trial. So does Vetinari. And you can't try dead men."
He turned to Mariella. She had been laid on a long sofa and a blanket had been found to cover her. Her breathing was good enough to satisfy Igorina, who had deftly re-closed and rebandaged her leg wound, muttering something about wasting her breath and the younger sister being exactly like the elder. The Watch Igor had arrived and was treating other wounded, who were now under guard. Word had come in that Benckel had been detained on the street outside. This now only left two. Claude had gone to the kitchen, with a Watch escort to mind his back, and was preparing hot drinks. There was no word from the roof. Outside, Commander Vimes was shouting into an imp-magnified bullhorn that du Plessis was surrounded. There was no way out. Better he came in and surrendered.
Then word came in that a third had been caught in the garden. An Igor or Igorina was needed. Ouistrehaam, this time.
Which only left one.
Johanna manoeuvred herself carefully out of the window. It was easy edificeering, barely rating an E0.2 on the scale. She cautiously looked up over the roof ridge. Yes. The bulky figure of duPlessis and his last remaining henchman, taking out their rage and frustration on the clacks tower, which was fairly nearly shattered. He was also demanding the bloody little bastard vermin goblins show themselves for a quick death.
Johanna considered. Then her whip lashed out, winding itself round the henchman's neck. He gurgled and raised his hands to his throat, dropping the axe. It clattered off the rooftiles and over the side, bouncing on the ground. An amplified mechanical voice called "Very clever, du Plessis! I've got Dwarfs down here who can throw axes far better than that. This is almost your last chance to surrender!"
"I egree." Johanna said, and twitched the whip in a particular way, flexing it along its length. As the henchman fell from the roof, it recoiled and returned to her hand. Du Plessis turned and registered her presence. She stared back, without fear.
"I'm the one you want." she said, in Vondalaans. "Why not come at me, now, and settle this?"
She got a secure footing, one foot either side of the roof-ridge. She noted on one side it was a straight drop to ground level. On the other, there was a drop of perhaps one storey to the flat roof of the unused mews, a garage for a coach and up to two horses. She owned neither. She remembered, irrelevantly, that Davinia had demolished hers to make way for more garden space.
The bulky thug screamed hate and rushed at her. Johanna tried to time her defensive swing just so. She felt disappointed to use his own momentum against him to send him on the short drop onto the mews roof, not the long drop on the other side. But she considered, sheathed her machete, then allowed herself to follow him: in a controlled Emergency Drop that left her still standing, more or less, on the flat roof, although the impact on her feet jolted her. She felt it doing something to her system and winced. Something felt like it had just snapped, or ruptured, or gone ping!, inside her. She put a horrible thought out of her mind, as there was nothing she could do about it. Best to resolve the fight first…
She made herself rush towards the still prone body, thinking "This is too easy…"
Du Plessis rose in a fast easy way, his machete coming up to slash. She blocked it, knowing herself to be the better fighter, but knowing him to be strong and powerful. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something white and bird-like in the sky.
Pegasus, she thought. Might be Mr Vimes' way of getting more people up here.
Tiring, and aware of the other things that were happening, she hoped they'd hurry. Or she might see the angle for the lucky blow. She half-registered a second Pegasus. The two fighters circled warily, occasionally clashing machetes.
Then the contractions hit Johanna's gut again, stronger than ever.
Oh Gods, it hurts! Not NOW!
She found herself doubling over. Du Plessis laughed.
"Winded, little lady? The baby kicking? We can soon fix that!"
She tried to defend against the killing blow. But it didn't come.
Preet du Plessis was backing away, looking at something behind her, his eyes filled with wonder and surprise. She heard a horse neigh, nearby. He was out of weapons range. She risked a look.
There was a Pegasus.
She recognised Irena Politek by her carriage. She was dismounted, standing by the head of her mount, loudly preventing Buggy Swires from joining the fight. The Feegle was petulantly protesting.
But the passenger who'd dismounted. Who was unhurriedly divesting himself of the long cloak he'd worn as protection against the cold. His size. His bulk. His way of carrying himself.
Ag! Taking him on the pillion is one big demand on a poor working Pegasus! she thought, over the waves of steady pain. She forced herself upright as the huge man stepped forward.
"Du Plessis!" he roared, his voice carrying. "Looks like I got here in time, you pathetic, squalid, little gogga!" he roared, in Vondalaans.
With a shout of anger, du Plessis roared at the big man. Who didn't even bother do draw a machete. He sidestepped with a nimbleness that belied his size and age, and delivered a devastating punch. The machete dropped with a clang. Preet du Plessis staggered back, but did not fall.
"That was for my friend Pieter van der Graaf." The big man said, almost conversationally. "Also my wife's brother. She was distressed to hear you shot him and put him in the hospital. And when somebody distresses Agnetha…"
The big man stepped forward, and punched again. Du Plessis stumbled back further this time.
"…it distresses me. And that is for the hurt you have caused to my daughter Johanna, at what should be a happy time in her life!"
Andreas Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes stepped forward again. He contemplated du Plessis.
"You should have hanged those thirty years ago. It would have saved a lot of people a lot of grief. What, still standing? I must be losing my touch with old age."
There was a third punch. This time du Plessis went down.
"And that one is for my other daughter Mariella! Just a child, but you still shot her!"
Barbarossa reached down and picked up the inert body. He moved to the edge of the roof.
"People down there want to talk to you, Preet." he said, in a softer voice. "This looks like the fastest way down."
Johanna intervened, staggering over.
"Vatti, please don't." she said. "not out of kindness. But because he should stand trial for his crimes. Also, he is worth fifteen thousand dollars to me in bounty."
Barbarossa whistled. He dropped the unresisting body onto the flat roof.
"That much? Well, Preet, the daughter you sought to kill is pleading with me not to kill you. She has every reason to see you dead. But she isn't you. Because I raised her to be better than that. This is your lucky night, it seems. A man can't say no to his little girl, can he?"
He stood back. Johanna placed a booted foot on the shoulder of the enemy who'd dogged her life for months.
"Preet du Plessis. In completion of a legal contract form the Guild of Assassins of Ankh-Morpork. I am taking you into custody until such time as you may be released to the care of lawful representatives of the city for incarceration, trial and punishment. My witnesses are my father, Andreas Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes, and Officer Irena Politek of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch."
She quickly repeated the necessary form of words in Morporkian, and asked Irena if she was carrying any handcuffs.
And then she rushed to her father and hugged him close.
"Nine hundred and ninety times out of a thousand, your grown-up daughters are big girls who don't need you around any more." he said. "But on the thousandth time, a man had better be there for his girl, because she really will need him."
"Good." Johanna said, feeling five or six again.
"Mother's here. She's downstairs." her father remarked. "Couldn't keep her away. Fortunately, there were two flying horses."
Johanna stiffened with horror. She remembered Mariella, silent, still, dead… What her mother could be walking into downstairs… She was distantly aware of Irena having a shouted conversation with the ground. Then Irena shouted over
"Johanna! Your sister's alive!"
The older daughter relaxed.
Then she said
"Irena. In the middle of all that excitement I think my waters broke." she said. "How quickly cen you get me to the Lady Sybil?"
(1) Spa Lane was that sort of suburban street. Johanna preferred white for her house exterior. Others used the full range of exterior house paint schemes. Green, yellow, and pink were favourite colours. The neighbours at number sixteen now had pink with an abstract scheme of sooty black.
(2) apparently this is really how Dutch sounds to Afrikaaners used to speaking a simplified dialect. It's like a throwback to the 1600's. Apparently.