D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch Read Free Page A

of the City Watch’s night shift. Night after night, he walked this same route, to this same building. He dealt with the same kinds of scum and solved the same kinds of crime. Or didn’t solve them, as often as not. It was easy for a man to murder in the darker streets, or along the wharves, and disappear in Greyhawk. And it was just as easy to steal in a city where half the politicians were openly members of the Thieves’ Guild.
    Still, someone had to try to keep order. That was his job, to try. Not to solve every crime or catch every criminal. Just to try. Though he was damned to explain why, he bore a strange affection for this cesspool of humanity, this city of his birth, and figured as long as any honest men walked its streets, the gods would let it stand one day longer.
    Sometimes, though, he felt as if he were the last one.
    Four more guards stood duty watch at the Citadel’s entrance. They snapped a smart salute as he approached. He paused to exchange a few words with them. Drawing out his two apples and his dagger, he divided the fruits and gave a half to each man. They relaxed a bit and accepted his offering gratefully.
    “I assume His Lordship Korbian Arthuran has departed?” Garett commented as the four munched their apples.
    “Has the sun gone down?” one of the soldiers rejoined, casting innocent-faced glances over both his shoulders, as if looking for the shining orb.
    Garett didn’t bother to rebuke the man for his mockery. No one cared much for Korbian. The captain-general was never about his post, leaving his duties instead to junior officers. As a minor noble, he considered his title purely ceremonial. Each afternoon, he put in an appearance at the Citadel and hung around until sundown, playing at his office and attempting to “chat the men up,” as he put it, claiming it raised their morale, while in reality every soldier on the watch sniggered behind the old man’s back.
    Maybe it was good for morale after all.
    After a few more pleasantries, two of the soldiers opened the great doors, and Garett passed inside. Torches sputtered in sconces mounted on the walls and poured a black, oily smoke into the air. The main hallways of the Citadel had never been fitted with proper lamps or cressets, and the city was too cheap to pay the Wizards’ Guild for any of the en-sorcelled globes of light that lit the better offices and richer streets of the High Quarter. Thus, the air constantly reeked of burning rags and stale smoke.
    Garett wrinkled his nose. It was always worst when he came in from the outside air, but he knew from experience that his delicate senses would quickly adjust and push any awareness of the foul stench to the back of his mind.
    He made his way to his office, returning without enthusiasm the salutes of soldiers who passed him in the halls. He mounted a set of stairs and climbed them wearily. He just wasn’t in the mood for this place tonight. Its thick walls oppressed him as much as the smell. He seemed to feel their ponderous weight on his shoulders.
    He pushed open the door to his office. At least here the light was better. He paid for new lamps himself, out of his own pocket, and he kept the oil wells filled personally. It was a ritual with him to fill them each night, just as some merchants watered flowers and plants in their shops. He went straight to his desk, opened the bottom drawer, and removed the pot that contained his precious supply of galda oil. It was an expensive luxury. The oil had to be squeezed from the pulp of the fruity galda tree in the Cairn Hills. But it produced a sweet smell that invigorated the otherwise drab atmosphere of his small space.
    “Evenin’, Cap’n.”
    Garett didn’t jump. He knew the voice. Burge spent as much time in his captain’s office as he did his own, no doubt because he, too, preferred the better light. Garett straightened, his pot in hand, and turned toward his lieutenant. Burge was draped languidly over the chair behind the door.