Perdition

by Scott McKay

  As Adelaide approached Strongstead from the south, what Baker could see looking upon its stone walls didn’t look a whole lot different from what he’d seen five weeks earlier when he was last here, with one major exception. The fort looked the same, but the enemy had far, far more troops on site than Ardenia ever did. To the east and west of the fort along the coastline there were tents and campfires almost as far as the eye could see, signs of a vast, overwhelming army.

  “By the Saints,” Baker’s First Mate Captain Jack Rawer, who joined the commander on the ship’s bridge, muttered as they drew near to the pier. “How many do you make that, Commander?”

  “Two hundred thousand,” Baker guessed. “Bloody well could be more.”

  “And all headed for Dunnan’s Claim,” Rawer said. “We should stay around after the exchange and pound them until the ammunition stores are empty. Even the odds a little.”

  “Remember, that’s the intended effect of the exchange itself,” Baker said. The ship’s officers had been briefed on the strategy.

  “Hope it works,” Rawer said.

  “I do too, Jack. I do too.”

  Adelaide didn’t sail all the way to the pier. Baker had the ship stop short by three hundred yards and put lifeboats in the water for the rest of the journey. Ago’an was brought up from the brig by four Marines who Baker silently prayed wouldn’t be infected and who would be quarantined in a stateroom for the rest of the mission as a precaution. Baker took Lieutenant Joseph Broadham, the ship’s translator, with him onto the lifeboat not containing the Udar.

  The Marines rowed the two lifeboats within twenty yards of the pier, and Broadham then announced loudly in Udar that they’d go no further.

  “You will bring our people to us from here,” he said, “and you will claim your man in the exchange as your vessel comes alongside us.”

  The Udar headman at the pier nodded, and Baker could see seven half-naked living skeletons brought up to the edge of the pier. They were prodded down the ladder leading down to a large rowboat manned by a dozen Udar, and then the enemy embarked to where the two Ardenian lifeboats floated. As the boat came between the two Ardenian vessels, Ago’an was handed over from one boat as the prisoners of the Udar clambered aboard the other. Their obviously unhealthy condition appalled Baker.

  The last of the Strongstead prisoners, especially, looked to be in terrible shape. He was rail-thin, wearing only the remnants of an Army uniform shirt, covered with dark bruises and cuts, and it appeared he was missing part of his right ear. As he weakly attempted to climb from the Udar boat to the lifeboat and safety, one of the Udar shoved him from behind. The prisoner didn’t lose his balance, though, and turned on the Udar, throwing a surprisingly hard punch which sent his tormentor over the edge into the drink. He then leaped into the lifeboat as the Udar warriors exploded in laughter and fished their fuming colleague from Leopold Bay.

  Baker signaled to the Marines that it was time to make a hasty exit, and the two lifeboats pushed off and began rowing back to Adelaide. Broadham reached down to the last prisoner, who had fallen face down into the rowboat’s hull, and helped him to his feet.

  “I’m Captain Matthew Stuart of the Strongstead Guards,” the prisoner swaggered. “Who’s in charge of this outfit?”

  “That would be me, Captain,” Baker answered. “Commander Patrick Baker of the ANS Adelaide. Welcome back to civilization.”

  SIXTEEN

  Strongstead, Tenthmonth Fifteenth, 1843rd Year Supernal

  There could be no question that Private Ted Shaffer was a pain in the ass. But for all his whining and insubordination and negative attitude at the first sign of adversity, which drove everyone serving with him crazy, Ted did have a rare gift.

  Which was that while the Benchford Armory R-4 sniper rifle was a notoriously substandard weapon, for some strange reason, Ted was a consummate marksman with one in his hands. Practically every other cavalryman serving in the Ardenian Army would swear that even the best would have trouble hitting a precise target beyond one hundred yards with the lousy rifle, but Ted was a crack shot with one, practically no matter how far he was shooting from.

  And that skill had been especially useful here on Bristol Ridge, because while the rest of the platoon was in chaos as Milton was screaming at Butch to cut the throat of his female Udar prisoner, and Bill was struggling to bind her hands so they could leave her there in time to flee from the two Udar warriors hustling to their position from nine hundred yards away along the ridge, Ted calmly unshouldered his rifle, dropped to one knee, and blasted holes in the skulls of the approaching savages in quick succession.

  The reports of the rifle sounded along the ridge, but for now they were alone again.

  Milton, Butch, Bill and the Udar woman, who had been pleading for her life as the troopers panicked, all stared at Ted. He stood, dusted off his knee, slung his rifle back over his shoulder, and noticed he was the center of attention.

  “What?” he drawled.

  Milton, who was nominally in charge of this platoon but had exercised very little control of it so far, shrugged. “Well, I guess that settles that.”

  “We need to bury Grubbs,” said Bill. “We can’t leave him out here. The Udar will come and eat him.”

  “I don’t think they eat people,” Butch said.

  “You know that for a fact, Butch?” asked Bill.

  “Nope. I don’t. Ask her, Milton.”

  Milton did. She shook her head.

  “Ask her what kind of leather her pants are made out of,” Bill said.

  “We don’t have time for that, man,” Butch said.

  “Go ahead, Milton,” he said. “Ask her.”

  Milton did. He grimaced at the answer.

  “What did she say?” Ted asked.

  “People,” Milton said. “It seems the Udar keep the skins when their people die. They burn the rest.”

  “Damn savages,” said Bill. “We need to bury Grubbs so’s the next one of these southmen Ted shoots ain’t wearin’ his feet for boots.”

  Bill hogtied the woman, and the four of them took out their trenching shovels and dug a hole deep enough to keep Grubbs from detection. They stashed the other woman, whom Grubbs had killed before succumbing himself, behind a pile of boulders off the ridge. Nobody would see her, though they’d undoubtedly begin to smell her soon enough as nature took its course with her.

  “We’ve gotta get out of here,” Milton said. “And I think we need to split up. Somebody needs to hurry back to Fort Harrow and let them know Strongstead has fallen. Captain James is going to want to evacuate when he knows he’s surrounded, and the sooner he knows that, the more likely he can save those men before the Udar storm the fort. I’ll go; I’m probably the best hiker of the four of us.”

  “What do the rest of us do?” Ted said.

  “Butch, I’ll leave you in charge,” said Milton. “You did a good job getting us to Fort Harrow as an advance scout. Maybe you can pick your way to Fort Claire, or maybe you can sneak through the Udar lines and get back across the Tweade.”

  “What we might do is find a safe, defensible spot and let Ted pick Udar off with his Benchford,” Butch said.

  “That’s actually a pretty good idea,” Milton said. “Make out some headmen and blow them away like Dees’ snipers in the old days.”

  “Yeahhhh,” Ted said. “That kind of shit is what I signed up for.”

  “All right,” Milton said. “I’m off. If you decide to hang around, scratch a big “X” into this rock here, and if I come back with the guys from Fort Harrow, we’ll know to look for you.”

  They shook hands, and then the corporal took off at a trot along the ridge to the southwest.

  “What are we going to do with this bitch?” Ted said. “Maybe Milton was right--you should have cut her throat.”

  “Would be murder,” Butch said, shaking his head. “I’m not doing it.”

  “So what?” Bill asked. “Leave her here?”

  “Take her with u
s, I guess,” Butch said. “Maybe we can trade her for safe passage through, if we have to.”

  She could tell they were deciding her fate, and she gave Butch a pleading look.

  “Yes, you’re comin’ with us,” he said, nodding while speaking exceptionally clearly. “Give me trouble and I’ll cut you with this.” He pulled his C-1 out of his scabbard, and mimed drawing it across his neck. “You understand?”

  She nodded, enthusiastically. “Muyar canqua dohay,” she said. “Abolo swaddee etu…”

  “All right, all right,” Butch said. “Shut up. You’re giving me a headache.” She went quiet.

  Ted took out his knife and scratched the “X” in the rock Milton had suggested, as he expected he’d win the argument for sticking around Strongstead and playing sniper for a while, and then the four of them departed the scene.

  They marched her northeast along the Bristol Ridge toward the doomed Ardenian stronghold, and saw as they got closer that all along the beach, half a mile east and below their position, the Udar had made a massive camp. There was what looked like rather languid activity in the late morning, less than they would have expected, particularly after the two gunshots Ted had fired. But there was little evidence anyone at the camp had heard anything, nor was there much attention paid to protect the grounds.

  “How many Udar is that down on the beach?” Ted said. “A hundred thousand?”

  “More,” said Bill. He pointed to the coast, which extended beyond the fortress as it curved eastward. “That’s a hundred thousand too.”

  “We need to find a place to hole up where we can’t be seen,” Butch said. “At least until it’s night. I don’t want to move by day.”

  “Agreed,” said Bill.

  They hustled forward, trying to stay outside of visual range of anyone who might be on the walls of the fortress, by hiking along the left shoulder of the ridge. About six hundred yards north of the fort, Butch found a well-hidden passage off the ridge to a small cave whose opening faced Strongstead but dog-legged to the right as it led into the cliff. That gave them cover from any observers on the fort’s walls or the beach below. They hid there for the rest of the day, Butch sharing water from his canteen with the Udar woman as they did their best to conserve their meager rations.

  That night, Ted kept a lookout, using his field glasses to spy into the fort. Bill relieved him for a shift, but when it was Butch’s turn Ted told him not to bother.

  “I’ll do it,” he said. “Too wired to sleep anyway.”

  That was fine with Butch, who was bone tired.

  Just after sunup, Ted woke Butch and Bill. “Come see this,” he whispered as he shook them.

  As they peeked out of the cave’s opening and looked beyond Strongstead to Leopold Bay, they saw signs of civilization. Three Ardenian Navy frigates were in the bay just off the pier.

  “Gonna see some shelling, maybe,” Bill said. “Hope they don’t hit us.”

  But instead of firing their guns, one of the frigates sailed close to the pier, and then launched a pair of lifeboats toward the far end. The Udar standing on the pier then boarded a small rowboat of their own, and marched seven disheveled and half-naked figures down the pier and onto the boat. They then rowed the short distance to where the Ardenians were.

  “What is that?” said Ted.

  “It looks like a prisoner exchange,” said Butch. “I didn’t know you could do prisoner exchanges with the southmen.”

  “Turns out you made a good decision keeping her,” Bill said, nudging a thumb in the direction of their captive Udar who was lying still on the floor of the cave. “Maybe we really can buy our way out of here with her.”

  Butch shrugged as he kept watching the exchange. The marines on the Ardenian lifeboat passed a husky-looking Udar headman across to the Udar boat, and then one by one the Udar shoved their prisoners into the Ardenian lifeboat. The last one didn’t take kindly to his treatment, wheeling on his captor and decking him with a right hook. The Udar fell into the water, as his comrades laughed derisively. The Ardenian then leapt into the lifeboat, which shoved off quickly while the Udar fished their sore-jawed pal out of Leopold Bay.

  “That guy’s a badass,” Bill said.

  “I like his style,” Butch agreed.

  Butch could see that the released Udar prisoner was an important man, and not just because they’d given up seven Ardenians to get him. As he walked along the pier back toward the fortress, he was given embraces and other greetings by what looked like a sizable assemblage along a seventy-yard-long boardwalk.

  “Their men kiss each other on the mouth?” Bill asked. “That’s disgusting, boy.”

  “I ain’t gonna be no Udar,” Ted drawled.

  There were women along the path, and their reception to the headman was even friendlier. It was clear this man’s homecoming celebration was going to be an adult affair.

  “Hell, on second thought,” Ted said, “maybe we’re missin’ out.”

  After a bit, the headman and the assemblage on the pier had moved to the beach. The hidden observers could see him make his way to a tent set up just east from the fortress, which Butch figured had to be the headquarters, maybe two hundred yards from their position. There were lots of women gathered around outside of the tent, and through the men’s field glasses they could see the flaps of the tent were tied off, affording a view directly in from their vantage.

  And for the rest of the day and into the night they watched as this Udar, whoever he was, held court for the most brazen and vigorous sexual bacchanal they could have ever imagined. Going into and out of that tent must have been hundreds of women and some men as well, and the headman was involved in practically nonstop copulation with them in every imaginable position and combination. It went on all day and all night, and when Bill, Ted and Butch retired, taking turns sleeping and keeping lookout, it hadn’t let up.

  Nor did it let up the next morning.

  “One hell of a party,” Butch said, a little before noon as the orgy continued. “That’s all these guys do, huh? Fornicate and fight.”

  “Kinda like you all on the beach in Azuria,” Ted said.

  “Maaaan, I wish. Never seen anything in this league.”

  Bill had taken a shot at trying to communicate with the woman, and he reported with a half-confident surety that her name was Leleza. Beyond that he’d made little progress, other than that it was quite clear in her current circumstances she was willing to behave in a cooperative manner. He’d suggested loosening the ropes binding her wrists and ankles, to which Butch and Ted categorically objected.

  All that day the orgy raged on with new characters replacing the older ones, but something interesting happened as dusk approached. They could see the tent clear out to an extent, and the females began to gather outside. The headman, still inside, was loudly vomiting onto the woven rug floor of the tent, as a few of them were attending to him.

  There was obvious concern. An elderly female had been summoned and rushed quickly in to see him.

  They watched as she brought jugs of water and continued making him drink from them, almost as if the more he drank the better he’d feel. That absolutely didn’t work, because he was puking almost constantly. Finally, he waved her away, and slunk back onto his sleeping pallet, demanding, it appeared, to be left alone. The other Udar were standing around with worried looks on their faces.

  And Butch noticed that one by one the women wandered off to other tents, and Butch could hear noises sounding an awful lot like sex continuing in the camp. The headman falling ill didn’t put much of a dent in their lifestyle, that was clear.

  “These guys are unbelievable,” Ted said.

  Bill had been trying to describe the scene to Leleza. He told them that from what he could gather from her, this activity wasn’t unusual.

  “I think they call this kayesthu,” he said. “It seems like maybe this is what they do when one of them returns from a long absence or something.”

  “Big boy must have bee
n gone a long time then,” Ted said.

  “They wore him out,” Butch noted. “Damn near killed him with wine and women.”

  The old woman the headman had shooed away returned to the tent, bringing a torch which burned very smokily, and she laid it next to where the man was sleeping. She looked at him carefully and seemed to be massaging his chest while examining his face and shoulders.

  “He’s not just worn out,” said Ted. “Something ain’t right with him. That ol’ crone looks scared all to hell.”

  “Yeah, she does,” said Butch.

  Two men came hustling into the tent, and the old woman stood and spoke with them in an agitated manner. One laughed and walked off. The other was listening intently. She continued talking to him and made him kneel close to the headman. They could see the woman was pointing to something on his chest and shoulders, and just then the headman started with a loud wail and began writhing. He then puked violently, coating the man kneeling next to him. The man got up, cursing, and stomped out of the tent wiping vomit from his face as several other men nearby laughed at his predicament.

  “These guys are not sympathetic,” said Butch. “I get sick like that and you all treat me like they do their people, and I’m gonna come from the grave and pull your toes while you sleep.”

  “We’d deserve it,” said Ted, transfixed by the drama.

  The headman then got up, and he staggered out of the tent. Then they could see what was so interesting about his upper body the old woman had been examining.

  He was covered in blue splotches that looked like little welts, all around a long horizontal scar that went from armpit to armpit. The splotches had migrated up his neck. He dropped to his knees wailing, and a pair of women rushed to help him back into the tent.

  “That guy is touched by the Saints,” Bill said, as he’d joined his comrades in viewing the action.

  “What do you think is wrong with him?” Ted said. “Looks pretty bad.”

  “I bet that’s the Blue Pox,” Butch said. He’d read a chapter in a book about the disease when he’d briefly thought, as a kid, he might want to become a physician.