Cook, Glen - Garrett Files 05 - Dread Brass Shadows by Cook Glen

Author:Cook, Glen [Cook, Glen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Fiction, Fantasy - General, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction - Fantasy, Mystery & Detective, Fantastic fiction, Garrett (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 9780451450081
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2010-01-22T05:02:11+00:00

25

We’d hardly begun walking. Suddenly people started running around cackling at each other like the world’s biggest chicken herd. They didn’t act scared, they just wanted to know what was happening. Me too, you bet. I got no sense from the confusion till everybody stopped, faced the same way, and pointed.

The shadows came first, rippling over us. Then came the monsters, out of the morning sun, a good dozen of them. Instead of drifting way up high, they were down at rooftop level, wing tip to wing tip, necks snaky and heads darting around. They screeched as they went over. MorCartha appeared from nowhere, diving for safety below.

Nobody panicked. There ‘was no cause. Those things were big but not massive. They couldn’t carry anyone off. Maybe a cat or small dog. They didn’t have the wing power to go flapping away with anything heavier.

Somebody nearby observed, “They’re cleaning out the pigeons.” Which was why their heads were darting around. “One comes along ahead of the others and flushes those feathered rats, then the rest get them on the fly.”

Somebody else said, “I hear they’s a bunch of the big meat-eaters in the hills up north.”

Grimmer news, that. Some of those critters stand thirty feet tall, weigh a dozen tons, and snack on mammoths. The farmers would be in for some excitement. I told Winger, “There you go, you want to make money. I know a guy pays prime rates for thunder-lizard hides.” Willard Tate used thunder-lizard leather for the soles of army boots.

Winger spat. “Easier money here.” Like I’d made a serious suggestion. Not subtle, friend Winger.

We started moving again When we hit a quiet stretch, she said, “I didn’t know you had those things around here.”

“We don’t. Usually Something must be pushing them south. They don’t like it down here. Too cold and unfriendly.”

Which sparked a thought. If there were big carnivores rampaging through the hills, they wouldn’t last. One chilly night and that would be that. The farmers would sneak around and feed them a few hundred pounds of poisoned steel while they were too sluggish to protect themselves Then Old Man Tate would find himself with more hides than he could handle.

One reason thunder-lizards stay away from the sapient races is they always get the dirty end They’re pretty dim, but they’ve learned that Teeth and claws and mass are only so much use against brains and sorcery and sharp, poisoned steel.

Which is another reason we didn’t see much fear. Not to mention the fact that TunFaire is surrounded by a wall no thunder-lizard could climb.

The excitement made it difficult to tell if we were being tailed, by Fido’s boys or Chodo’s. I took it for granted we had company. I worried more about Easterman’s clowns than Chodo’s troops. The latter would be pros. They’d be predictable. All I knew about the brunos was that they could be deadly.

As we walked I hammered away at Winger, trying to get through. She couldn’t believe things were as black as I claimed.

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