“It says right here you’re a child”, the village alderman told her. “You don’t look like no child to me.”
“Not a child”, she tried to explain, her patience quickly evaporating. “A childe. A noble on a quest. A knight errant.”
“You don’t look like no noble either”, he snickered. “Where’s your sword and shining armor, mistress knight?”
The old peasant’s mocking tone was the last straw. He grabbed the scroll from his hands and put it back in her heavy coat’s inner pocket. She was wasting her time here.
As she opened her coat, however, the alderman’s eyes went wide - and not due to her deceptively slender silhouette. From the belts she wore crisscrossed at her hips hung two heavy pistols; they were so bulky they looked like they could shoot down a skyship.
“Wait, wait. You’re the boomlady? Why didn’t you say so from the start?”
Iorva found the man’s reaction equally entertaining and infuriating.
“Yes, I’m the boomlady. And unless you want me to start booming, start talking. A man called Wilhelm, white robes, white eyes, yay tall. Has he passed through?”
“The preacher man. Yes, Lady Boom. Just this morning, he has. You just missed him, but his companions are still at the tavern, methinks.”
Companions? That was new.
“What companions do you speak of, alderman?”
“Three grey ones. Brother, they call each other.” The alderman gulped. “They look like bandits to me, to tell the gods’ honest truth.”
“Oh, I know them”, said Iorva, the corners of her mouth twisting in a feral smile. “All too well, I do.”
They leanest one, the one the others had called Brother Harald, was waiting by the tavern’s door. She could tell thanks to the moth-eaten reddish-brown top hat he was wearing. He was Ghâl - one of the walking dead that rose from the Thenn-swamps of the east.
Iorva walked closer and squinted to see him more clearly. He looked like a corpse left a fortnight in the sun. She could make out the hilt of a sword jutting from behind his back, but no other visible weapons.
The Brothers were scum, she knew, but they were not mindless. With some luck, she would be able to parlay with them.
“Brother Harald”, she called. “Fancy meeting you here!”
The grey one twitched in surprise, his bony hand going for the hilt of his sword.
“Brothers!”, he shouted in a coarse voice, like pebbles grinding on a coffin lid. “She’s here!”
Great. So much for parlay.
Somewhere behind her, a door flew open. Footsteps echoed on the dusty floorboards of the porch of the building she had just walked by - a department store - and she knew she had messed up.
De Vitt would skin her ass raw, if he could see her now.
The grey ones were fast; by the time she half-turned to face them, they were already almost upon her, their murderous knives already in their hands.
Still, she wasn’t slow herself, not by a long shot. In a single fluid motion she had practiced thousands of times, her handgonnes suddenly appeared in her hands, loaded, primed, and ready to spit fiery death.
Time slowed down, and she couldn’t but smile. This was the time she lived for, the time of reckoning; the few fateful seconds that decided who lives and who dies.
The first one to fall was the one closest to her, a knife-wielding Ghâl flanking her from the right. She whipped her handgonne towards his ugly head, pulled the trigger, and - Boom! - turned it into a blast of brains, gore, and bloody bone.
She had no time to admire her morbid handiwork, though. Harald was charging her with a rusty bastard sword raised high above his head, and the third Ghâl was quickly closing in.
Her left-hand handgonne went off, pointing low, and - Boom! - evaporated Harald’s right from under him, bringing his advance to a brutal stop. He crumbled to the dusty ground, wailing in pain and shock. She didn’t pay him any attention.
Hard pressed for time, she turned to face her third assailant, just in time to be shoulder tackled.
The impact was not that strong; the Ghâl was a gaunt creature, with little extra weight to put behind his tackle. Still, it was enough for her to lose her balance and fall on her butt and elbows. Without missing a beat, the Ghâl threw himself on her again and followed up with a vicious swipe aimed at her neck.
The bony remains of his fingertips had been sharpened to resemble claws - a standard practice among many of his kind. Instead of finding her jugular, however, they were met with the thick leather collar of her weathered overcoat.
This was Iorva’s chance; launching her knee upwards to create some distance between herself and the thing’s maw, she let herself fall with her back to the ground, freeing her arms.
For a split second they remained like that; Iorva with her back on the ground, the Ghâl doubled over her like a cadaverous, overeager lover. Then she jammed her handgonnes right below his ribs, and - Boom! Boom! - let their second barrels unleash their fury.
The upper third of the Ghâl, she pushed aside in disgust. His lower third, she kicked off. The middle third was nowhere to be seen, sprayed all over the dry, packed earth.
Iorva pulled herself to her feet, tore the rags the Ghâl wore as a shirt, and tried to wipe the rank-smelling blood and gore from her clothes.
The time of reckoning was now over. The dust was settling down.
They were dead; she was alive.
A few feet away, Harald was clutching at the stump of his leg, trying to stop the bleeding. Any normal person would have fainted or gone into shock. These Ghâl bastards, though? There was hardly anything normal about them.
“Talk, Harald”, she shouted, not bothering to look at him. “Where’s Wilhelm?”
“He’s left!”, rasped the Ghâl. “He’s gone!”
“Where to?”
No response came, only moans of pain.
She walked over to him and put a heavy boot on his sunken chest.
“Where to, Harald? Speak, damn you.”
“Quortain”, he wheezed.“He’s taking the road north, riding for Quortain.”
That was all Iorva needed to know.
Harald shuffled beneath her sole, whimpering. It was an off-putting sight.
She reloaded her handgonnes, thinking to put him out of his misery, but then reconsidered.
Ammo was scarce.
Instead, she scooped the rusty blade from the floor and plunged it down the Ghâl’s throat, looking away. There, end of story.
As she was riding her mare out of the village, taking the road north, she thought of the alderman.
Boomlady, he had called her. Lady Boom.
Iorva smiled. It wasn’t a bad name.
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