“Black Kats?” Milo muttered as they rounded the corner of the building, pitching his voice so only Ambrose could hear.
“Fits, I suppose.” Ambrose shrugged. “Hate to tell you this, Magus, but you haven’t exactly been a good luck charm.”
“It’s not like you…” Milo paused, realizing with a sinking feeling in his stomach that his claim would have been wholly untrue.
The entrance to the tent had two more guards stationed outside it. Without invitation, Beck stepped forward to make their introductions.
“Exactly.” Ambrose grunted softly as Beck spoke to the guards. “Three times in nearly a hundred and twenty years, then inside a month of meeting you, I’m up to four, and not without a few close calls.”
Milo spluttered and then watched as one guard stepped inside to get clearance for their entry.
“What’s going on?” Imrah hissed as she slid up next to both men. “What is taking so long?”
“When we met with your father, we had to wait to be introduced,” Milo said as both men looked over their shoulders at her. “Hardly seems worth getting jumpy about.”
“My father,” Imrah sniffed, “is the most powerful ghul in the entire Underworld. Your commanding officer is part of an organization named after a creature little better than the vermin it eats.”
“KAT doesn’t—” Ambrose began before Milo cut him off.
“You’re just bent out of shape because of all the humans,” he grumbled. “Oh, how the tables have turned.”
Imrah choked back a snarl and leaned forward so she was practically whispering in their ears.
“If they had even an inkling of what I am, they’d be piling on logs for the fire,” she hissed. “I think I have every right to be nervous.”
“Whereas in Ifreedahm, they kept trying to eat us,” Ambrose remarked with a dry chuckle. “Right?”
“Hard to argue with,” Milo agreed with a nod.
Imrah made to argue but snapped her mouth shut with a click and took a step back to sulk properly. Ambrose turned back to the tent, but Milo watched her for a moment longer. With her chin outthrust and her nose in the air, she was a haughty figure, but he couldn’t pretend that with the sun shining on her olive skin, she wasn’t rather fetching.
Fetching in her stolen skin, he reminded himself with a shake of his head. Whatever she looks like now, remember her beauty is literally only skin-deep.
Milo turned back to watch for the tent guard’s return. Ambrose was muttering to himself.
“Probably not very tactful to be needling my instructor like that.”
Ambrose gave him a wry grin as the tent entrance flapped open.
“Bah, builds the relationship,” the bodyguard said as the guard beckoned them forward.
“Let’s hope,” Milo said out the side of his mouth as they moved into the tent. “If I get extra homework, you're pitching in.”
Inside the tent, several collapsible desks had been arranged into a miniature typing pool where two men and three women in uniform hammered away without looking up. Beyond them, four square tables had been arranged into an even larger square, and a map had been spread out. At the farthest corner of this table, another typewriter sat alongside piled accordion files and a bottle of schnapps. Looming over the table was Captain Lokkemand, his cheeks stubbled with the beginnings of a fiery beard.
He looked up as the tent flap closed behind the trio, motioning impatiently for them to join him at the map table. They acquiesced, moving around the intent typists to stand across the table from the brooding officer. The map showed both Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. There were many markers around Bamyan, with a few trailing north and west. They might have been troop dispositions, but it wasn’t clear, and the little paper notes under each marker were of no help, having been written in scribbled shorthand.
“Captain?” Milo said tentatively after they had waited for several minutes.
“What are you doing here?” Lokkemand drawled, not looking up from the map he was glowering at. “You were supposed to be in training. You can’t possibly be done already?”
“The situation has changed,” Milo began carefully. “I was sent here by my instructors.”
Lokkemand looked up fleetingly, his eyes cutting sharply across the three of them before returning to the map.
“Don’t tell me you failed already,” Lokkemand said, heaving a heavy sigh. “It would win my bet with the colonel, but it would create a good deal more work than the bottle of aquavit I am going to get.”
“No, sir,” Milo said, fighting to keep his tone level after the revelation of the bet. “My studies were progressing exceptionally.”
Imrah made a sound in the back of her throat, but Milo ignored her.
“The change occurred when zeppelins began flying over a certain mountain,” Milo continued, looking at the map to find the mountain under which Ifreedahm sat. “When our allies saw German zeppelins over it, they became nervous. They insisted I come personally to sort things out.”
Lokkemand looked up from the map and met Milo’s gaze for the first time since entering the tent. His eyes were haggard, his skin was pale almost to looking gray, and his cheeks were on the verge of gaunt. Apparently life in Afghanistan did not sit well with the formerly handsome and strapping captain.
“What do they want?” he asked stiffly.
“They want reassurances that the arrangements made with them still stand,” Milo replied, fighting the urge to cross his arms irritably. “The plans, which I know nothing about, even though they are the entire operation.”
“The situation necessitates your ignorance,” Lokkemand said flatly, then reached for the schnapps. “Trust me, Volkohne, you're better off not knowing these sorts of things.”
After a hearty pull on the bottle, a little color returned to Lokkemand’s face, and his eyes sharpened enough for him to realize he didn’t recognize one of the members of the assembled company.
“Who is she?” he grunted, eyeing Imrah appraising, Milo found himself not appreciating it.
Imrah looked archly at Milo and nodded.
“This is Imrah Marid, a high-ranking member of the allies' command structure,” Milo explained. “She’s here to continue my education, as well as to ensure the interests of our allies are seen to.”
“Really?” the captain asked, then took another drink before sizing her up once more. He turned back to Milo with a questioning look. “Do they all look so...mundane?”
“It is a disguise, you inebriated slab of meat,” Imrah replied scornfully, her fingers curling reflexively. “Now, are things still in place for the arrangements you made with my father or not?”
Lokkemand seemed to be surprised she could talk more than anything else, his eyes darting from the seething Imrah to the bemused Milo and back.
“Father?” he murmured, then his eyes moved toward the map again. “The situation may require that we renegotiate the particulars of the service we’re to render.”
Milo imagined the look Imrah gave the captain would set a lesser man ablaze.
“What did you say?” she asked, her voice on the brittle edge of dangerous.
To his credit, Lokkemand met the disguised ghul’s glare evenly. It probably helped that disguise made her look far less threatening.
“Please look at the map,” he said coolly as he picked up a measuring stick that was leaning against the table.
Imrah complied, but the look on her face was all the warning any of them needed. This had better be good.
“This is where the battleline was previously,” Lokkemand said, using the ruler as a pointer to indicate a dotted line on the map. The line started in a place called Chaghcharān and ran down a jagged path along the cusp of a mountain range designated B. Turkistan before terminating in a place called Sarpol.
“Our forces have been gridlocked along this line for nearly a decade,” the captain continued. “At first we sent only exploratory forces. They met hard resistance, but the coalitio
n of Italian, British, and local forces were too disjointed to launch an effective counterattack. The assumption was this country was going to be a skirmishing buffer between us and the British holdings farther south and east.”
Here he indicated Pakistan and the north arm of India.
“But after the victories against the Italians in Isonzo and the subsequent annexation of Greece by the Austro-Hungarians, eyes turned toward pushing the boundaries here,” Lokkemand explained as he again pointed to the dotted battle line. “But it was no use, until within the last three months the enemy line seemed to crumble. First the Afghans, then the Italians, and finally the British abandoned their positions.”
Lokkemand sighed and stepped back to drain the schnapps.
“Command couldn’t understand what was happening, and the intelligence reports they were receiving weren’t making any sense. Entire regiments routed overnight, sometimes with both men and materiel going missing. It was assumed it was preparation for a flanking maneuver, or maybe some sort of ploy to attempt to draw committed forces out of position. Orders were to hold position and wait for intelligence to thoroughly assess the situation.”
“But they didn’t count on the White Rider,” Milo said, seeing the story unfold in his mind’s eye. “Epp seized the opportunity despite his orders.”
“I see you’ve already heard about the Bavarian,” Lokkemand said, massaging his temples. “Yes, Major Franz Ritter von Epp threw his regiment at the open lines like a hungry dog on a bone. If the enemy had been baiting the hook, it would have caught in his greedy throat. As it was, he became a hero.”
Ambrose shuffled a little and crossed his arms, a look of consternation on his face.
“You have something to say?” the captain asked sharply.
Ambrose looked at Lokkemand coolly, but then after staring for a second, his gaze softened, and the look he gave the fraying officer was one of pity.
“I’ve never known general staff or any military command to celebrate anyone who takes to ignoring orders. Why does this Epp get a pass, much less a pat on the back?”
Lokkemand, who looked ready to rally for a fight with Ambrose, wilted and started looking around for something. A chair, one sized to better accommodate his stature, was a few steps away, and he sank into it with a groan before continuing. Perspiration had begun to bead on his brow.
“Because Epp wasn’t a nobody to begin with.” Lokkemand grunted as he wrenched at his collar. “He’s Ritter von Epp because he won the Grand Cross earlier in the war, along with the Pour le Mérite for his work in Isonzo. Epp’s star was rising some time ago, and the general staff sent him down here to stall his advancement.”
Lokkemand finally pulled his uniform collar open, but his face was already flushed in a blotchy pattern.
“Are you all right, Captain?” Milo asked, noting that his commanding officer’s face shone with sweat. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” Lokkemand wheezed in an unconvincing manner as he slumped against his chair. “Someone get me something to drink.”
“Water for the captain!” Ambrose barked, and one of the typists sprang to the task.
“I said something to drink,” the officer spat weakly, his arms dropping bonelessly into his lap. “Do I look like a fish?”
“You look unwell,” Milo said. “Have you been checked out by a doctor?”
“I said I’m fine,” Lokkemand replied icily, his gaze sharpening to fix Milo with a warning look before he lolled his head against the back of his chair. “Now, where is that damned drink?”
“Why would they want Epp’s career to stall?” Ambrose asked as the typist arrived with a canteen and an unlabeled brown bottle sealed with a cork.
“It’s all I could find,” she said apologetically as she laid them on the map table.
“He’s drunk everything else,” the typist whispered to Milo as she withdrew.
“They want Epp to stall,” said Lokkemand before he knocked the canteen aside with a clumsy swing. “Because he’s part of a growing number in the ranks who are developing rather radical ideas.”
He lunged forward to wrap both hands around the brown bottle as though it were his only security in the midst of a wracking storm.
“Is he seriously about to become even more drunk?” Imrah asked, staring at Lokkemand with shocked, bulging eyes. “While on duty?”
Milo fought back the urge to comment on her father’s predilections and settled for shushing her with a wave of his hand
“Radical ideas?” Milo asked, his brow furrowing even as he felt Imrah’s gaze boring into his back. “Like what?”
The cork was wrenched free, and he got a potent whiff of something whose smell was between alcohol and gasoline vapors.
“Like this war should be won already,” Lokkemand said, grimacing as he put the bottle to his lips. “Like our great and glorious Empire would be victorious by now if not for certain impure elements holding it back. If only the honest and true patriots, good Germans, rose up, we’d have a Reich like none before, a Reich with no end.”
Milo felt a chill run up his spine and twist in his gut. As a Russian born orphan in Dresden, he could hear the silent sirens as keenly as any.
Lokkemand threw his head back and sucked down two mouthfuls of the noxious liquor before coming up for air. The smell of the stuff on his hot, panting breath was not much better than the fumes emerging from the bottle. After the drink, Lokkemand curled in on himself as though bracing under the effects of the liquor.
“They do know that before the Russians fell, the war was almost lost, don’t they?” Ambrose asked, sharp incredulity knitting his features. “The fact that the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians are still fighting is some kind of evil miracle.”
Lokkemand took a few small sips, wincing after each one, before he answered.
“All these bastards know is that they are tired of fighting but can’t stand losing,” the captain muttered, his words beginning to slur. “They can’t admit defeat, but they know thingz don’t look like they’re winning. Zo they cry and beat their cheztz for reform with one hand and work mizchief with the other.”
“If things fail, it’s because the status quo held them back.” Milo nodded, seeing the low cunning of the position. “If things succeed, they’ll claim it is because they defied orders and did what they had to.”
The bottle took several more draining hits as Milo pieced things together, and like a stupefying potion, the bitter tension began to leak out of Lokkemand. He settled deeper into his chair, the bottled-clutching hand resting in his lap while the other hung limp in the air.
“Ekzactly.” Lokkemand coughed, noxious spittle on his chin. “And who do they keep courting, eh? What branch of zervice zitz just outzide normal command ztructurez, with a reputation for zecretz and conzpiraciez?”
Ambrose and Milo exchanged looks, neither needing to say the obvious: Non-Conventional Application of Tactics. These radicals were sniffing around Nicht-KAT.
“What does Colonel Jorge say?” Milo asked, feeling the urge to look over his shoulder. “He has to know, and Nicht-KAT is everything to him. He doesn’t seem like the type to take this sort of thing lying down.”
Lokkemand snorted, then laughed sloppily.
“You really think Nicht-KAT means anything to him?” Lokkemand asked with a giggle as he leaned precariously toward Milo. “Anything compared to you?”
Milo lurched back from the drunken captain, only partly to avoid his reeking breath.
“What does that mean?” Milo snapped.
Lokkemand slouched back into his chair, both arms dangling now, the brown bottle in nerveless, sweaty fingers.
“Maybe we should see about getting the captain to his bunk?” Ambrose suggested, gently placing his hand on Milo’s shoulder. “He’s not feeling well.”
Milo shook off the hand, knowing it was only because Ambrose let him as he moved to stand over the captain.
“Damn your eyes, Lokkemand!” Milo snarled lou
d enough that every typewriter in the tent fell silent. “What does that mean?”
Lokkemand looked up at Milo, his face splitting into a wide, despairing imitation of a grin.
“It means my instructions are to play the whore with these wolves and cooperate in any way I can, as long as it keeps your operation free.”
Lokkemand let the bottle drop as one long hand snaked forward with viperish speed to snare Milo by the front of his coat. Before Milo knew what was happening, he was dragged down so the captain’s voice hissed directly into his ear.
“He’s betting everything, everything, on you,” Lokkemand gurgled. “Even it means my damned soul!”
Ambrose hauled Milo back as Lokkemand looked on with bright, unfocused eyes, his features stretched into a hideous smile.
“So there it is, Volkohne.” He giggled maniacally. “Welcome back to the world of manmade monsters!”
19
An Understanding
“I still don’t get it,” Milo muttered as he paced the room, boots scuffing the bare floor. “How does any of this make sense?”
They’d been given respectably-sized but utilitarian quarters not far from the main road. The furnishings were spartan or so unfamiliar as to be useless, but none of them was going to complain. It was the largest structure in what amounted to an abandoned neighborhood, functionally sequestering them from the rest of the town and the army. This, combined with a large basement beneath the house, made it the ideal location for Milo’s training to continue.
True to form, Ambrose had begun to take stock of what could be done in regards to preparing something to eat. Imrah had scuttled to the basement to make “preparations,” leaving Milo with his reading. He couldn’t bring himself to fish out the codices just yet.
“Is that rhetorical?” Ambrose called from the other room.
“Yes,” Milo shouted back irritably, but then thought better of it. “Well, maybe. Do you have something useful to share?”
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