Deep Sounding by Brandon Carbaugh

Author:Brandon Carbaugh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0
Publisher: Publisher
Published: 2014-07-02T16:00:00+00:00

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The mint was a feeding frenzy: two thousand dwarfs all screaming and fighting to cram into a hall not meant to hold five hundred. With the holidays here, everyone was looking to cash their tags and get paid. There were presents and booze to buy.

“Back!” screamed the Mint Chief, standing atop a service counter and whipping the crowd below with a length of chain. “Get back, you beasts! Everybody wait their turn!” A hand grabbed hold of the counter. The chain lashed out. The hand disappeared, with a howl and a curse.

“I can take somebody over here,” a mint-employee at a counter down the line started to say, then screamed, “AUGH,” as the bench was overrun.

“Petey!” the Mint chief roared. “Petey, fall back to the second barricade!” Leaping down off the counter, she unhooked two grenades off her belt, and hurled them into the crowd, crying, “HOLD YOUR BREATH NOW, PETEY, I'M GONNA SMOKE 'EM OFF YA!”

Petey replied, “AAAAH”

The smoke-grenades burst, expelling red clouds that set the pile of dwarfs all to coughing. The Chief went wading into the press of bodies, lashing her whip and screaming, “That's right! Breath it in, you clods! You wanna get paid, tough guy? I got your pay right here!”

Silva came into all this sidelong, not looking to enter the combat. “Chief Dodson!” she called.

“AYE!” the Chief hollered, dragging dwarfs off the pile and whipping them into submission.

“Happy Deepsound,” said Silva.

“Happy—” the Chief began, until somebody bit her on the hip. She punched him in the face, threw him aside, brushed the teeth off her belt, and said, “—Deepsound! What can I do for you today?!”

Silva came up behind the Chief, holding her dress in curtsy-fingers, to keep it off the floor and out of the violence. “I'm here to cash our pay-tags ma'am.”

“Sure thing,” said the Chief. The dwarfs in the pile had seized hold of her leg, and were trying to tear it off. Somewhere inside, poor Petey was sobbing. “But here,” the Chief said, and thrust her whip into Silva's hands, “keep 'em off me half a moment.”

“I'd rather not,” Silva muttered.

“No no, it's easy,” said the Chief, “one good flick, it's all in the wrist.” She gave a demonstration, then shielded her face to block the spray of blood.

Silva daintily took the whip, while the Chief leaned backwards on one leg and grabbed her account book off the rack beneath the counter. The dwarf “book” was a necklace of stone beads, on a simple chain – the “pages” were spherical beads, with the text scratched vertically along their face. The Chief turned each bead between thumb and forefinger, reading the lines. As she finished each page, she flicked it up the strand, and moved to the next. “That's 'Ruck', right? With an 'uck' ?”

Silva said, “Yes,” and noticed that a particularly fat fellow was trying to pry the Chief's shoe off, ostensibly to do something sinister to the foot inside. Silva whipped him as politely as possible, until he stopped.

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