At least they hadn’t been singled out. Every tent was spilling men. As soon as they formed up, the sergeant marched them over to stand with their backs to the stockade. Grays ran around with lamps and torches.
Smeds caught a glimpse of Fish in the back rank of the platoon two to his left. The old man had done something to darken his hair.
The sergeant called them to attention.
Three dark riders came from the direction of the gate. A man in black walked beside each. They advanced slowly, studying each platoon. A review. Exile’s men down to give the raggedy-ass militia the once-over …
Smeds stomach sank. They acted more like they were looking for somebody.
But they passed Fish’s platoon without pausing. Maybe it would be all right after all.
The black riders passed the next platoon and started across the face of Smeds’s outfit …
The lead rider halted. One arm thrust out, pointing. Fingers danced. The footman beside the rider pushed in among the men.
Smeds nearly messed himself.
The dark soldier grabbed Green.
Smeds sighed. Green! Of course! The shit had to come down, didn’t it?
He was so turned inward he missed the arm pointing again, did not notice the two footmen coming till they were almost to him.
His blood turned to ice.
They took hold and dragged him out of ranks.
The riders headed for the gate. Smeds trudged along behind Green, a horseman on his left and a foot soldier on his right. After the first overwhelming shock he began to take control. He’d gotten out of a couple tight places already. He just had to stay calm and alert and move fast when his moment came.
A minute after they were in among buildings, masked from watchers in the camp, Green burst out laughing. “You guys got more balls than brains!” He punched one of the riders in the thigh. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. I figured you belonged in there. This was Darling’s idea.”
“Yeah?” Green laughed again. “I’ll remember that when your turn in the barrel comes. Why’d you grab my buddy Ken?”
“She says he’s one of the men who stole the spike.”
Green looked at him. “No shit?”
Smeds clamped down hard. Panic would not get him out of this one.
LXIV
Fish understood what was happening the moment he glimpsed Exile’s soldiers pulling Smeds out of formation. He didn’t really think, he just reacted. Everybody was intent on what the blacks were doing.
He took a few steps back, turned, hoisted himself over the low stockade. A few of his neighbors in the platoon noticed but did not holler. Better, none got the bright idea of joining him.
He dropped to the ground, ran, softly cursing his body for having aged well past the point where this made any sense for him. He was all aches and stiffness from the day’s drills and he doubted if he’d ever loosen up.
But by damn he wasn’t going to give in, to those imperial vampires or to the weakness of his flesh.
He reached the uncleared ruins facing the stockade gate minutes before the riders came out. He crouched in darkness, waiting, and took stock.
He had two knives. Because he had come in as a volunteer the grays had not searched and disarmed him the way they had the conscripts. But two knives weren’t going to be much use against that gang.
Craft was the answer. Like hunting and trapping and surviving in the Great Forest. Craft and stealth and surprise.
There were possibilities he rejected, like doing Smeds the way Smeds had done Tully. Smeds did not deserve that. It would do no good now because they knew who they were looking for anyway. Besides, Smeds was the only one who knew where the damned spike was hidden.
He watched the silhouettes of the blacks come out.
Before they left the cleared area he was sure there was some game running. They weren’t headed toward Exile’s setup in the goddess’s temple uptown. Unless they were planning on going the long way.
What now?
Since he had expected them to streak straight to Exile he was set near their most direct route. He would have to move fast if he wasn’t going to lose them.
He flitted through the ruins like a filthy ghost, making less noise than most haunts. He was very good at sneaking. One worry, not quite facetious, was that his quarry would smell him. For days before volunteering he had been too pressed to clean up and the days in the stockade had just been time to ripen.
In the Great Forest, to survive where the savages prowled, you paid attention to how you smelled.
He caught up quickly, was watching from twenty yards away when a couple of them started congratulating each other.
The key word trumpeted: Darling.
He was thunderstruck.
He hadn’t really expected the White Rose bunch to be scared off by his threats but he hadn’t figured them for so bold they’d take uniforms from Exile’s people so they could ride into the training camp to spring one of their own, either.
This changed a few things. This made time less critical. This meant the odds were not. nearly as bad. There couldn’t be many of them left after the purges that had begun last week. Maybe, once they went to ground, he could pick them off. The big worry would be how aggressively they would press Smeds.
He followed them so closely he might have been an extra shadow, and so carefully none of them got that chill-on-the-neck sense of being watched. And, wonder of wonders, they led him to a place he knew.
He’d only been in and out of the Gartsen stable a few times, back during his flirtation with the Rebel cause. But knowing anything about the lie of the land was better than going in blind.
He had one scare shortly before the Rebels reached their hideout.
A big bird dropped out of nowhere and landed on the shoulder of one of the horsemen. The rider cursed and swatted at it. It laughed and started talking about how Exile was in a tizzy because he couldn’t find some of his guards.
Fish recalled that the White Rose called the Plain of Fear home and talking creatures supposedly infested the place.
His luck was with him still. He had to consider the bird’s advent a good omen.
Not so the man it had selected as its perch. He wanted the bird gone. The bird did not want to go. “I’m riding from here,” it said. “I can’t see diddle-shit in the dark.”
Fish recalled the zoo they had been carrying the day he had seen them outside the Skull and Crossbones. There would be that to consider, too.
After they went into the stableyard Fish circled the place once, carefully. He did not spot any sentries but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, hidden from the cold.
It was getting chillier faster. And if that overcast was what he thought, it would snow before morning. A snow cover would make getting around unnoticed a real pain in the ass.
He faded into the shadows and went looking for a crawl-in entrance that used to be around back, where a lean-to junk shed had had the fence as its rear wall.
It was there, still, after all those years, and looked like it hadn’t been used since the olden days. He opened it very carefully. It did not make half the noise he feared but what it did make sent chills scampering along his spine. He went in smoothly as a stalking snake.
Something cat size, that was not, started awake. He reacted first, his hand closing around its throat.
There was another thing, like a mouse or chipmunk, that he stomped as he was stealing toward the main stable, where a ladder nailed outside led to the hayloft. It died without a sound. He went up the ladder like a syrupy shadow.
The loft doors were secured only by a latch inside. He slipped a knife between, lifted it, eased inside. He dropped the latch into place.
There was a little light from below. There were voices down there, too.
And not ten feet from him were a man and woman, bound and gagged. The woman was looking his way but not at him. He eased closer …
By the gods! These people had their
brass! That was Brigadier Wildbrand herself. And that corporal from the Skull and Crossbones. It fell into place. The imperials and these people knew the names but not the faces. That corporal would be about the best witness available.
Down below, somebody started yelling at Smeds. Smeds didn’t say anything back. Somebody else said keep it down or the neighbors would think there was cholera here.
Fish eased forward some more. “Corporal,” he breathed, staying behind a bale. The soldier jumped, then grunted. Wildbrand looked for the source of the whisper. He might have been a ghost for all the luck she had. “You want to get out of here?”
Another grunt, affirmative.
“They’re going to ask you to look at a man and tell them who he is. Tell them his name is Ken something. You stick to that, when they bring you back up here you’re out of this. You don’t stick to it, it’s good-bye, Brigadier.”
The man glanced at his commander. She nodded, do it.
Fish wormed his way into loose straw, out of the way, to wait. He had it all scoped out now.
LXV
Raven and Bomanz ragged my old tentmate Ken and each other. He sat in a chair — the only one we had — and didn’t say nothing. He was totally pissed off, but in a way so stubborn I don’t think they could have got a squeak out of him with a hot poker. He just looked at them like he figured on cutting their throats in about one minute. He even refused a meal.
I didn’t. I stood around stuffing food in my face and wondering what the hell was going on since nobody bothered explaining anything to me.
Darling stomped, got everybody’s attention, signed, “Get the soldier.”
Now what?
Raven and Silent went climbing into the hayloft. In a minute they came back with a Nightstalker who was gagged and, from the way he chafed his wrists, had been tied. They brought him over. He glanced indifferently at Ken. Ken didn’t react at all.
Silent took the gag off. Raven asked, “Do you know the man in the chair?”
“Yeah,” the Nightstalker croaked. He worked some spit back into his throat. “Yeah. Name’s Ken something. He used to come around the place I was billeted sometimes, drink a few beers with us.”
Silent and Raven looked at each other and had a frowning contest. Raven asked, “You sure his name isn’t Smeds Stahl?”
“Nah …”
Silent corked him one up side the head and knocked him down. Raven asked, “You sure? This man here and the woman over there were at Queen’s Bridge. They still have grudges.”
The Nightstalker looked up at him and said, “Man, I’ll call him Tommy Tucker, King Thrushbeard, or Smeds Stahl if that’s going to make you happy. But that ain’t going to turn him into Smeds Stahl.”
“He fits the description.”
The soldier looked at Ken. “Maybe. A little. But Smeds Stahl has got to be at least ten years older than this guy.”
Raven said, “Shit!” I don’t think I ever heard him use the word before.
It was not the right time but I couldn’t help it. “There we was, headed into the last turn in the inside lane, leading by a neck as we headed toward the stretch. And the damned horse pulled up lame.”
They appreciated it. For a second I thought Silent might actually say something. Probably something I didn’t want to hear.
Darling stomped, asked what was going on. She read lips some but could not keep up with all that.
Raven and Silent signed like hell. She made a gesture she hadn’t taught me, probably cussing, then told them to put the Nightstalker back in the loft. Raven and Silent dragged him off like it was his fault things didn’t work out the way they wanted. Darling signed at anybody who would pay attention that it was all her fault for jumping to conclusions about some guys she saw on a porch one day. I didn’t know what the hell she was going on about. When Silent and Raven came back we had us a big woe-is-me session. Bomanz’s buzzard pal damned near got strangled by everybody.
A banging up in the loft broke that up. Everybody went charging up to see what the racket was.
The loft doors, where they hoisted the hay bales up and brought them inside, were banging in the wind. The Nightstalker and Brigadier Wildbrand, that they hadn’t told me about before, were gone. Silent and Raven looked at the discarded ropes and gags and got into it over whose fault it was the Nightstalker didn’t get tied up tight enough.
I dropped back down and told Darling. She had me yell at them to knock off the crap and get out there and catch them. They came, still bickering. She started giving orders aimed at stopping the Nightstalkers before they could get back to their own. “Paddlefoot stays here. He is in no shape.” The Torque was crapped out in one of the horse stalls and had been since I’d come in. “Case. You stay and keep track of our guest.”
That went over big. Raven and Silent gave me their famous deadly looks, like maybe I’d arranged the whole damned thing just so I could get her alone. Hell. After three days in that camp I didn’t feel like doing anything anyway.
We were in a spot. From what Darling signed I gathered we was out of places to run. We couldn’t even go back to the temple because Wildbrand and the corporal probably heard them talk about how we hid out right in Exile’s pocket.
Even that buzzard got out to do some aerial scouting. I was glad. He hadn’t started in on me yet but I was up to my ears with him nagging Bomanz. The old boy was all right.
I never saw Darling rattled before. She paced and stomped and made incomplete gestures and signed at me without ever finishing a thought. She wasn’t afraid, just worried about what would become of the rest of us and the movement if the guys didn’t catch the Nightstalkers in time.
I don’t know what I thought we might get up to but at the time it seemed a good idea to tie old Ken up. Then I stood behind his chair, conversing with Darling, like I suddenly needed something to hide behind.
I don’t know how much later it was, probably only a couple minutes, when I saw somebody move behind Darling and thought it was Paddlefoot Torque finally waking up. I went to work on me for being too damned chicken-shit to have grabbed an opportunity when it was there …
That wasn’t Torque! That was somebody else …
The second I realized that, before I could give her any warning, the guy laid a knife across her throat. “Turn him loose,” he told me. And when I just stood there gawking he drew a little blood. “Do it!”
I started fumbling with knots.
Torque did decide to wake up then.
I don’t think the poor silly sack ever knew what was going on. He stumbled out rubbing his eyes and mumbling. The guy holding Darling turned around and stuck him with a knife he had in his left hand, came back and got Darling in the side with the same knife as she was turning toward him, and in almost the same motion threw the knife with which he had threatened her.
It hit me in the hip. I felt it go deep and hit bone. Then the grungy stable floor opened its arms and jumped up to meet me. The guy yanked his knife out of Darling and bounced over to cut our guest loose. Then he got set to cut my throat.
“Hey!” our guest yelled. “Knock it off! They weren’t going to croak me.”
“This is the second time they shoved their faces in our business. They want to clean us out. I warned them last time …”
“Let’s just find my pack and get the hell out before the rest of them come back.”
I could have kissed him if I could have done anything at all. I wasn’t too spry right then.
The other one looked down at me. “You tell the bitch this was her last free chance. Next time, skitchl” He flashed his bloody knife past his throat. Then Ken found the pack I’d found in that alley. He put it on and they went away.
When the stable door closed behind them I ground my teeth and yanked the damned knife out of me. I didn’t bleed to death on the spot, so I knew it didn’t get any big veins. I crawled over to Darling. She was pale and she was hurting but she wanted me to check on Torque first.
He was st
ill alive but I didn’t think there was a whole lot that could be done to keep him that way. I told Darling. She signed we had to do something.
Of course we did. But I didn’t know the hell what.
Raven busted in. “We caught them! We’re safe for … What the hell happened, Case?”
By then they were all inside, recaptured prisoners included. I told it. While I was, one of our little spies came in from the temple to report that Exile had ordered an all-out search for Brigadier Wildbrand and persons unknown masquerading as his guards.
Bomanz and Silent did what they could for us casualties, then everybody that could hit the street again. It was starting to snow out there.
“Some fun, eh?” I asked the Nightstalkers. They didn’t see the humor.
Frankly, neither did I.
LXVI
“What the shit are we going to do?” Smeds growled at Fish when they stopped running to catch their breaths. “There ain’t no safe places left.”
Fish said, “I don’t know. I used up all my ideas just getting you out.”
“They know our names, Fish. And that bunch knows our faces.”
“You’re the one wouldn’t let me take them out. You end up paying for that, don’t whine at me.”
“There’s been enough killing and hurting. All I want is out.” He tried to get his pack settled more comfortably. “I don’t even give a damn about selling the spike anymore. I just want to wake up from the nightmare.”
Snowflakes had begun to swirl around them. Fish grumbled about leaving tracks, then asked, “You know of anywhere to lay up even for a little while? Twelve hours would do. Twenty-four would be better. The Limper would be here and there wouldn’t be any more ducking and slinking because the soldiers would be busy.”
The only thing Smeds could think of was a drainage system that had been built when he was a kid, to carry water away from the neighborhood when it rained. Before the system there’d always been little local floods when it stormed. Some of the ditching was covered over. They had played and hidden out in there. But he hadn’t paid any attention in ten years. Public works which did not serve the rich and powerful had a way of dying of neglect.