Chapter Five #2
Certainly fucking is.
He walked the rest of the way to Crumley it’s how they fight.
They’ll get a wisp or a bog siren to lure you in, and then jump you as soon as the brush thickens up.
There’s a reason I had you cut down the barrel on the McCulloch.
How tight you can turn and fire is life and death in there. ”
“Could still come down to knife work, though, am I right? You seen that trench knife our American cousins brought out just before Armistice?”
Duncan skinned a grin. “Already got a knife, Crumb.”
“Talking about that sgian dubh of yours?” Crumley snorted. “That’s barely four inches of steel, man. What’s a woodsman going to do with that in a tight spot?”
“Pray you never have to find out. But at least it doesn’t have a triangular blade that’ll snap as soon as you look at it. Fucking trench knives, they can’t be used to slash worth a damn either.”
Crumley snapped his fingers, stabbed a triumphant index at Duncan. “Hah! And there you go! Not talking about the old M1918. This is something else, and you’re going to fall in love with it just like you did the McCulloch. Come on down, have a gander.”
Duncan looked from one man to the other. Kegg twinkled at him. He sighed.
“Aye, all right then,” he said. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
—
The workshop at the back of the emporium was long and low, furnished with a single row of workbenches under a pitched roof of glass panels designed to let the maximal amount of daylight in from above.
It also boasted a pricey set of patent Claude Neon Company tube lights, suspended one over each bench for when work ran late.
Crumley and Kegg were nothing if not enthusiastic where any new technology was concerned.
It was to one of the workbenches that Crumley now led Duncan.
“Take a look at that,” he said proudly.
Laid out on the scarred wooden surface was a black trench knife with a double-edged blade six or seven inches long and a grip featuring a knuckle-duster wrap.
It looked a lot like weapons he’d seen French soldiers carrying toward the end of the war.
But when he picked the weapon up and examined it, he saw the legend US 1918 stamped into the grip.
“American, you say?” Elaborately casual.
Crumley grinned like a shark. He knew when he had a customer hooked.
“That’s right. Modeled on the French Vengeur 1916.
Yanks made about a million of them, and then the war ended and they never got issued.
Got these off a Yank quartermaster at a show down in Birmingham last year. Practically giving them away, he was.”
“Good. I guess that’ll reflect in the price you give me.” Duncan held the knife up to the light. “This isn’t tarnish, right? Tell me that much.”
“Tarnish?” Crumley’s grin broadened. “You’re going to stand there and insult me in my own shop?
That, my friend, is a black oxide finish on the blade to stop it glimmering in moonlight.
And chemical blackening on the grip to match.
Grip’s bronze, I’m afraid. But bronze or not, you punch one of your Forest playmates with that, they won’t be getting up again in a hurry. ”
Duncan slipped his fingers into the guard loops, hefted the weapon.
It wasn’t especially well balanced, but there was no denying the weight.
Each knuckle bow came with a blunt spike cast into the bronze, and there was a brutal-looking six-sided conical nut screwed to the end of the hilt, which presumably held the blade in place. This, at least, seemed to be steel.
“Bronze grip, though,” he said. “I mean…”
“We’ll do you a good price,” said Kegg hurriedly. “Could always put it on your tab.”
“The tab I’m just about to clear, you mean.”
“Exactly!” Crumley, beaming. “We know you’re good for it. Come on, that’s a six-point-eight-inch blade there. Go right through a greatcoat and still have more than half left over.”
“Huldu don’t wear greatcoats. They don’t wear much of anything at all.”
“You know what I mean! We’re not talking about a bloody sgian dubh here. This is a killing knife, man. Built as such. Combat science in action, right there. It’s the shape of things to come.”
Duncan grimaced. “If you say so.”
But all three of them knew by now he was going to take the trench knife, so why pretend? He sighed and slipped his hand back out of the grip, put the weapon down.
“All right, then,” he said.
Crumley clapped his hands. “Good man. Oh, and while you’re down here, speaking of combat science, see what you think about this. Something else we’ve been playing around with.”
He gestured at the last bench in the row.
On one side were the buck and bird cartridges he’d been loading, with all the associated mess of powder, balls, and crimping tools.
But on the side opposite stood a row of what looked at first glance like big onions with the skin off and just starting to sprout.
Wonky, irregular, squashed looking, more like something grown in a garden than a weapon machined in a workshop.
“We’re calling them Fae-fuckers.” Kegg, proud as a new mother of twins. “What’d you reckon?”
Duncan crouched and peered at the packages curiously. “I reckon if you’re applying for a patent, you’re going to need another name.”
“You don’t say,” drawled Crumley. “Call it the Kegg bomb if you like—it was his idea.”
Kegg made modest huffing noises, but you could see he was pleased.
He picked up one of the devices, held it out to Duncan.
“Here, take a look—triple-wrapped muslin, iron filing load, all wrapped around a low-yield powder charge with a sprung pin and detonator. Tight grip here—or you can use your teeth, it’s leather—pull out the cord, hard, you got six seconds to chuck it and make sure your eyes are closed. ”
Duncan took the device, weighed it in the palm of his hand. It was a hefty, pleasing fit.
“Like the Mills bomb,” he said.
“Where we got the idea,” agreed Crumley.
“Same basic principle, but there’s not enough force in the charge to harm anything human.
Just throws a thick cloud. Like I said, you need to watch your eyes, but apart from that—shouldn’t hurt any worse than sand on a windy beach. Your Forest pals, on the other hand…”
“Aye.”
—
He ordered a crate of twenty-five.
A little premature, as it turned out. Crumley had only built eighteen Fae-fuckers—or Kegg bombs—so far, including the ones on the workbench. And they used one of those in the yard out back, for a demonstration Duncan pretty much insisted on before he signed the order.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the two armorers—their small grape load had saved his life in the Forest more times than he liked to look back and count.
But both men were inveterate tinkerers at heart, overloaded on the kind of forward-leaping faith that abounds in both scientists and entrepreneurs, and the fact they believed in one of their inventions 100 percent was no kind of guarantee it would actually work, come the crunch.
And ho-hum back to the drawing board isn’t much of a consolation when you’re knee deep in the suck of a Forest swamp, hemmed in on all sides by creeper and brush in the dark, and the rustling, sharp-fanged Bright Folk are drawing near…
Anyway, the Kegg bomb worked admirably, at least under test conditions, so Duncan took the leap, added his order to the cost of the trench knife and the fresh half gross of shells plus delivery of everything first thing tomorrow morning without fail.
He paid off his outstanding account, then left the emporium approximately as indebted to Crumley and Kegg as he had been when he walked in the door. Some things never seemed to change.
Right.
Time to see the witch.