He headed our way. And … Oh. Not good. Something had him spooked. Never a good thing, a sorcerer with the heebie-jeebies.
We were not the cause. He held us in abiding contempt. Still, he kept his bodyguard close. He knew his Company history.
Where was Buzzard Neck now?
Two Dead pointed at me, then Silent. “You two. Come with me.” Shit. We were about to take a dip in the ugly soup. “Bring your gear.”
I always lug a bag. You never know when some idiot will need sewing up.
Two Dead headed for the exit, unable to imagine that we would not follow.
* * *
Silent took two steps out into the street, stopped dead. I banged into his back. “Hey! None of your mime stuff!” He had picked up the hobby recently.
This was not that. This was a response to the weather.
A wind hummed in from the north, flinging snow pellets into our faces.
The chill did not bother Two Dead. Nor had he been drinking. The cold shock had me hungry to piss but Two Dead barked, “Come!”
I came.
Buzz awaited us in full battle gear, including a goofy old-time kite shield. His expression was pinched. He looked like he had serious stomach trouble.
He was a building in boots. Guys like him usually end up being called Tiny or Little Whoever, and are dim, but this walking house was supernaturally quick, monster strong, and was twice as smarter than the creep who employed him.
He was Buzzard Neck because his neck was long and crooked and included an Adam’s apple like an Adam’s melon. The name quickly shrank to Buzz.
He never said much. He was as well-liked as Two Dead was well-loathed. He claimed to have survived some of the shit the Company had, including the Battle at Charm.
Two Dead headed out. We followed, me hoping I would not have to hold it long.
Technically, we could have told Two Dead to go pound sand. He was not in our chain of command. But he was tight with Whisper and Whisper was hungry for excuses to pound on the Company. Also, he might be like a cat underfoot for a long time. Not to mention, I was really curious about what could give the spider wizard the jimjams.
* * *
Aloe sprawls without being big though it is the grandest metropolis for a hundred miles around. Two Dead led us a third of a mile, to the lee of a redbrick box on whitewashed limestone foundations.
“There.” He indicated a mound of brown fur in a dried-out flower patch between the foundation and street edger blocks. Wind stirred the fur and dead plants.
I opined, “It don’t look healthy.”
Silent said nothing. Buzz clutched his gut.
I asked, “What is it?” Not a badger. It was too big and the color was wrong. Not a bear. It was too small and I had yet to hear of native bears.
“I don’t know,” Two Dead said. “It smells of sorcery.”
Silent nodded. Buzz looked desperate to take a squat.
I stepped left, relieved myself at last. Steam rose to meet randomly falling snowflakes. Fat flakes. It must be getting warmer.
I eased closer. The beast was curled up like a pill bug.
Two Dead said, “There were two more. They scooted when we showed up.”
Buzz said, “I didn’t see them.”
Two Dead said, “They ran a few steps and just faded out.” He was nervous all over again. How come?
I asked, “What did they look like?”
“Giant beavers or woodchucks? They were gone too quick to tell.”
Well. Beavers and groundhogs are some less fierce than bears.
This one was not the right shade for a woodchuck. I did not know about giant beavers, though.
I noted a stir not caused by the wind.
Silent offered a sorcery alert.
Two Dead said, “Something magical is about to happen.” He did not mean magical in any wondrous-surprise-for-the-kiddies sort of way.
The moment disappointed. It expired without calamity.
I took a knee, faked veterinary skills.
The animal breathed slow and shallow and had a faint heartbeat. Hibernating? Some bears just drop in place when the sleepy season comes.
It did not waken and shred me. Two Dead took that as license to revert to his normal obnoxious self.
* * *
Silent and I hauled the beast on Buzz’s shield. Buzz was too damned big to help. The downhill end had to carry most of the weight. Plus he was having trouble keeping his trousers clean.
* * *
The beast sprawled on a table in my clinic. Two Dead perched like a spider on a stool close by, manfully keeping his yap shut. The Captain and Candy were there, too. Like Two Dead, they kept quiet while the professional worked. Buzz was off haunting a latrine.
“This is one ugly gob of snot,” the professional said. Stretched out, it looked more like a baboon than a beaver. Its face was a fright mask of scarlet skin. It had teeth fit for a crocodile. Its eyes were snakelike. Each foot included semi-retractable claws and a stubby but opposed thumb.
It was nothing anyone had seen before.
“It’s starting to smell like a vulture’s breath,” Candy observed.
Its heart rate was rising, too. “The cold must have laid it down.” Our vile weather might not be all bad.
The Captain jiggered the flue on my heating stove.
“Then these things shouldn’t be dangerous till the weather changes.” It would, local boy Corey had promised. We would see one more springlike week before winter came to stay.
Candy, our Company number three, prodded, “Croaker?” There was work to do. Critical work. He and the Old Man were here their own selves.
Did they know something? Two Dead certainly wondered.
The Old Man seldom says much. He was all fired up curious, now, and almost chatty. “It’s supernatural, right? What kind? Where from? Was it summoned? Is it invasive? Somebody talk to me.” He was sure that Two Dead was to blame.
Two Dead shook his head. “I promise, it’s new to me, too.”
“Where are Goblin and One-Eye? Anybody know?”
Candy said, “They haven’t been seen for days.”
I reminded, “The Colonel says there were more of these things. Better find the others while it’s still cold.” I was sure the critters were not our friends.
Candy mused, “Warfare by elliptical means?”
“When is the battlefield not a battlefield?”
Two Dead frowned, at a loss.
We had decimated the Rebel in the region, a success that troubled some “friends.” Vast incompetence and corruption had been turned up, which the guilty resented. Whisper’s own discomfort was probably why we had Two Dead as our guest.
I had hoped the Rebel survivors would slink away to recruit, to train, to collect weapons and supplies, and to wait for us to be transferred. With no external threats, hatreds endemic to the Lady’s forces fester quickly.
Informants told us the quiet season would never come. Senior Rebels wanted Aloe back. The Port of Shadows might be hidden here.
Most Aloens did not understand that echo out of deep time. Rebel insiders did. The honest ones sometimes got so scared they came over to our side.
* * *
I read a lot. I root around in folklore, legend, and local history. Port of Shadows references a plot to resurrect the Dominator, lord of the old Domination, who remains a demigod to some. The Port of Shadows is a gateway he can use to escape his tomb.
Some Rebel chieftains are closet Resurrectionists. The Lady has been plagued by their efforts practically from the moment she escaped her own grave, leaving her husband behind.
The Company’s Aloen interlude, supposedly taking us out of the line to decompress, has been anything but relaxing. We are playing a role in some obscure maneuver by our empress. And the Port of Shadows thing smells more unsettled by the day.
The Old Man and his cronies are worried but they do not confide in the Annalist. The Annalist writes things down. What has been
recorded gets damnably hard to deny.
Could this monster be a Resurrectionist tool? Our enemies had not yet gone supernaturally asymmetric. Sneaking lethal paranormal uglies into an enemy camp is more like something we would do.
The Captain leaned in, tempting the beast. He asked Silent, “Have Croaker cut it up to look at its insides? Or cage it and wait?”
Silent shrugged. He was out of his element.
The Captain asked Two Dead, “Suggestions, Colonel?” while looking for some subtle tell.
The beast had been the sorcerer’s discovery.
Two Dead remained unperturbed. He had come to us suspect. That would never change. “Let it live but keep it cold. Find the others. Examine a healthy one.” He eyed Silent.
Silent shrugged again, stubbornly frugal with his opinions.
* * *
I bent close, combed fur, hunting vermin. Fleas, ticks, lice all tell tales. “This thing is getting warmer…” I reeled back, shoved by Silent. He pointed. Flakes of obsidian ash had puffed out of a nostril. “Hand me a sample bottle.” Then, “Make that a bunch.”
A black beetle stomped into the light, as shiny as the flakes. It glared around, measuring the world for conquest.
The Old Man asked, “That some kind of scarab?”
A second bug marched out, bumped into the first. Number one was in a bad mood. Bam! No threat display. No ritual dance. The bugs started trying to murder one another with ridiculous bear-trap jaws.
I whined, “Anybody got any idea what the hell?”
Nope. Two Dead, though, did snag my biggest glass jar, which he shoved over the beast’s head. He packed the gaps with handy rags.
Candy took off in a big hurry, leaving the door halfway open. Snow blew in before Silent shut it.
Black flakes presaged the emergence of more beetles. These were not immediate bugacidal maniacs. They just wanted to leave. The jar frustrated their ambitions.
Then they went berserk. “What a racket.” The Captain was rattled, something you seldom see.
The host animal began to deflate. Two Dead stuffed more bandages. A few beetles, struck brilliant, snipped cloth chunks with those nasty jaws.
They did get distracted when they banged into one another.
“We need a container big enough for the whole thing,” Two Dead said. “Maybe a pickle barrel.”
Bam! Candy came back lugging a big tin box with a latch-down top that hailed from the commissary, where it kept grain and flour free of vermin.
“Perfect,” Two Dead declared, nonplussed. This was too-quick thinking by people he wanted to be too dull to notice him nudging them onto a hangman’s trap.
Candy said, “Push it in, glass and all.” He positioned the tin so Two Dead could shove the beast inside.
Two Dead held his paws up like a dog begging. He should soil his delicate fingies?
“Really?” the Old Man barked. “Push the damned thing!”
A particularly formidable beetle chose the moment to make his getaway via the beast’s nether orifice. A Two Dead finger was nearby. It took a bite. Two Dead howled, “Oh, shit! Gods damn, that hurts!”
An even studlier bug tromped forth as the beast flopped forward. It had even more ridiculous jaws and a back end like a long, thin funnel. It flew at Two Dead, literally, wing cases flung high, ladybug style. It landed on the back of his left hand, grabbed hold, took a hearty bite. Then it stood on its nose, curled its tail down, dipped its tip in the wound.
All that took only an eyeblink to happen. Two Dead shrieked again.
Silent crunched the bug.
Candy pounded the lid onto the can. The monster left several wriggling grubs on the table. The Old Man chased escaped beetles. Silent and I wrestled Two Dead into a chair. He began to shake. Shock? The bites did not look that bad. Could they be poison?
Silent signed, “It laid eggs.”
The sealed tin sang like a metal roof in a hailstorm.
The Old Man killed one last fugitive bug, turned on the grubs. “Candy, take the can to the trash pit. Then get every swinging dick out there looking for the other two animals. Hire tracking dogs.” He moved over to watch me dig almost invisibly small cream-colored beads out of Two Dead’s hand.
Sergeant Elmo busted in out of the cold. “Look what I found sneaking around with a sack full of stolen bread and bacon.” He had our apprentice sorcerer, the Third, by the scruff of the neck.
Candy left with the singing biscuit tin. Silent had to close the door behind him again.
The Third was not a happy kid. Truth be, he had had few shots at happiness since he got tangled up with Goblin and One-Eye. Falling into hot water was nothing new.
The Old Man settled into a chair, leaned back, considered the Third. He put on his “I’m eager to hear how you’ll try to bullshit me on this” face.
Silent passed me a jar of carbolic. I put bug eggs in, then dribbled liquid onto Two Dead’s wounds. He squealed.
The Third volunteered, “One-Eye sent me to fetch food.”
Really? That little shit is not big on bacon. On the other hand, the Third would devour it by the hog side.
I worked on Two Dead. Silent watched grubs in a jar. They behaved no better than adults. The Old Man glared at the Third. The level of noise outside rose. Candy had relayed the Captain’s orders.
Buzz stumbled in looking like death warmed over. His sojourn in the latrine had not helped much.
The Third said, “I was getting stuff for me. Sergeant Elmo spotted me before I started on One-Eye’s stuff.”
I observed, “The kid has his priorities straight.”
Two Dead managed a ghost smile. His shakes continued.
The Old Man grumped, “Watch the Colonel till you’re sure he’ll be all right. We don’t hand Whisper any fresh excuses. You.” He poked the Third. “Come with me.”
Buzz wanted to fuss over his boss. Two Dead growled, “You look like a man with the drizzling shits, Tesch. Smell like one, too.” He poked me with his unbitten hand. “I’ll live. Help him.”
I thought Buzz must have drunk some bad water. He ought to know better. I loaded him with liquids and orders not to stray far from the latrine. He was unhappy about not being able to stick close to Two Dead.
“Yet here you are alive and recuperating,” I observed after Two Dead suggested that the Company might have rigged all this for his personal inconvenience. “You probably conjured those animals yourself and just accidentally got the bad end.”
That was plain chin music, ridiculousness in exchange for absurdity, but Two Dead found something worrisome there. Like was he maybe supposed to get it with the rest of us?
I was tempted to pin a target on Whisper’s back. The more discord at HQ the less time those people would have to harass us favorites of the Lady.
I reiterated the common remark: “When is the battlefield not a battlefield?”
Two Dead eyed me. “An intriguing question, physician. Worth considering here, in these troubled times.” He cocked his head, listened. I caught a vague hint of distant wind chimes. That rattled me. It tied into my recurrent nightmare somehow. “I’m going to lie down and brood on it.” Two Dead indicated a cot.
* * *
I was snuggled into a cot and blankets myself, and had been for a while. The Captain poked me. “What’s wrong with him?” Head jerk toward Two Dead, on his back, on his cot. Drool glistened on his ugly cheek. Snot hung from the nostril on that side. Dead sexy.
“What time is it?”
“Nighttime. We got the other beasts. What about Chodroze?”
“He was his old ugly self when I laid down.” I set feet on the cold dirt floor, rose with a groan, toddled over. Our chatter had not awakened Two Dead.
I felt the heat before I touched him.
The Captain said, “The dogs found them, unconscious from the cold. The men tinned them up and threw them in the fire pit. No beetles got away.”
“We need to pack Two Dead with snow. He’s burning up.”
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“Whatever. Just keep him healthy.”
Two Dead had a weak, fast, irregular pulse and a dangerous fever. “I’ll need help cooling him down.” I started stripping him. That did not waken him, either. “What did the Third have to say?”
The Old Man looked like he had bitten into a chunk of alum candy.
Goblin and One-Eye were up to something. And he might not entirely disapprove.
Dead fierce, he snagged a bucket and headed outside, where the weather had turned enthusiastically blizzardy.
He returned with a pail of muddy snow.
I indicated Two Dead’s wounded arm. Scarlet threads ran up it from the uglier wound.
“Blood poisoning?”
“Some kind of poisoning. Blood poisoning isn’t usually this aggressive.”
Skin flexed near Two Dead’s worst wound. I had not gotten every egg.
“Help me get him on the table. I’ll clear the wound. You pack him with snow. Start with his head and throat. We need to cool his brain.”
Move made. Snow packed and melting onto the floor to make mud. I dug with a scalpel. The Old Man hauled more snow.
* * *
“How about we just dump him in a snowdrift?”
“I need light to work. And you told me to save his blessed ass.” I had excised two thin grubs. They writhed in an alcohol bath. I was after what I hoped was the last.
“Those bitty things caused the blood poisoning?”
“Their shit is probably toxic.”
“Ugly.”
“Life is.” In some forms, ugly for lots of us.
I fit puzzle pieces while I worked, hoping I was fooling myself but afraid I was looking chaos in the crimson, googly eye.
“How come the tourniquet?”
“Keeping the poison contained. To avoid amputation if I can.”
“That wouldn’t be good.”
No. “I should ask what he wants, worst case, but he won’t wake up.”
“We need more hands. Maybe Silent can get to him.”
“I can’t go. Where the hell is Buzz?”
“Buzz is in his rack, down and out and soaked in shit. He’d be dead if you hadn’t given him that tea. Poor Corey and Minkus are babysitting.” Minkus Scudd would be my current apprentice, mostly a waste of air. “I’ll get another bucket, then head out on a recruiting tour.”