The Mister Trophy Read Free Page B

War trophy, finds it gone. Say Haverlock finds out that the finder Markhat is still walking around with his head and all his limbs attached. Won’t the Haverlock fly into a snit and send less contemplative boys back around my door, late one night?”
    Liam’s dry eyes narrowed. “Haverlock will no longer be a threat to you, Finder,” he said. “Or to anyone else.”
    “Time for a change in top-level management?” I asked.
    “Yes.”
    “And we all live happily ever after.”
    Liam hesitated, mulling that one over. “Yes. We live.”
    I stood. “I’ll ask my Troll. We’ll see. When will you be back?”
    “Later,” it said, turning and grasping the doorknob.
    “Watch your step out there,” I said. “Gets rough in the neighborhood, after Curfew.”
    It turned in the doorway and grinned.
    “Especially tonight,” it said.
    The door shut.
    I hit the chair seat and fought back the first case of the shakes I’d had since the War.
    Mister Smith’s heavy treads sounded at my door. “Come on in,” I yelled. “We’re always open.”
    The Troll squeezed inside.
    “I heard all,” said Mister Smith. He loomed over my desk, a mountain of fangs and fur, but he blinked and breathed and looked downright friendly compared to the Liam-thing. “You were brave in the presence of death,” said the Troll. “Your spirit is strong.”
    “My spirit is scared,” I replied. “My spirit hopes and prays you can just take your cousin’s head and let bygones be bygones.”
    “He said he would apologize, did he not?”
    “He said so.”
    “And does he speak for the clan Haverlock?”
    I hesitated. “He speaks for those among clan Haverlock who think their master insane. He speaks for those who would remove the eldest Haverlock as leader, and put another in his place. Will that do?”
    Mister Smith crouched down and got comfortable while his translator gargled and barked. He grumbled back at it a few times—asking, I suppose, for clarifications of weird human concepts like removing and replacing clan leaders.
    “If we receive the head of our cousin and an apology from clan Haverlock,” he said at last, “We will be satisfied.”
    “Who must give you the apology?” I asked.
    “Clan Haverlock,” said his translator. “He who speaks for the clan,” it added, before I could ask again.
    “That won’t be the same guy that actually stole the head,” I said. “I want to make sure you understand that.”
    Mister Smith blinked and burped. “Naturally not,” spoke the translator. “It will no longer be possible for him to do so.”
    I took in a deep breath. “I knew this was going too well,” I muttered. “Too easy.”
    The translator started sloshing that out. “What I meant,” I said, “was that I’ve missed something here. Tell me—why don’t you expect old man Haverlock to apologize?”
    Mister Smith chuckled. “Because,” he said, “part of the apology is the balance of insults. Haverlock kept the bones of my cousin these twenty summers. We will keep his bones for the same span. Honor will be restored, both to our clan and his. Is this not the way of all thinking beings?”
    “So I have to give you old man Haverlock’s bones.”
    “We’ll go and fetch them, if necessary.”
    I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. “I bet you would.” I said. “But they’ll be waiting and even the three of you wouldn’t make it off the Hill tonight.”
    “We might.”
    “You’d die,” I said. “And that would be my fault and who would balance my honor?”
    Mister Smith’s brow furrowed. “You have no clan?”
    “Nope,” I said. “Clanless Markhat, that’s what they call me. No one to wash my socks.” I stood and stretched.
    Something heavy hit the wall outside. Plaster cracked by my doorframe. There was a muffled thud, a squeal like a stepped-on puppy, and a wet tearing sound.
    A Troll voice came from the street. Mister Smith growled back.
    “One of what you call the half-dead approached,” said