by David Drake
“Foolish,” said Cloutier. “But understandable.” He bent down and picked up one of the pieces of obsidian, the tip of the blade, broken about midway from the hilt.
“Hold her against the wall,” he said. The two guards slammed Mahaut against the stonework, momentarily knocking the breath from her lungs. She attempted to kick out at one of the guard’s legs, but her soft sandals, worn to make the least noise this evening, cushioned the kick, and it did no damage.
The return kick from the guard opened a bleeding gouge along her shin, however.
She didn’t want to cry out but couldn’t help it when a muffled whimper of pain escaped her. At this, Cloutier smiled. “Justice comes in doses small and large, your grace,” he said.
“You don’t know anything about justice.”
“I am the instrument, Zentrum.”
“You’re a piece of Zentrum’s shit.”
Another smile. “Your filthy words don’t matter anymore, and never will again,” he said. He spoke to the guards. “Hold her still.”
They yanked her to attention against the wall, and Cloutier approached, looking down at the obsidian shard. “The best way is to start with something important, something that’s really going to be missed,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I make an example. It shortens the process. There’s no appeal, so don’t try to make one.” He reached her, and she found she was looking down at the man. He was half an elb shorter than she was. “I took an eye from Joab Dashian. From you . . . well, with any woman it might be her womb—but I understand that’s already been done in your case.” He reached down, took a fold of her robe in his hand and slowly lifted it up to expose her pelvis. “That’s a nasty scar, Land-heiress Jacobson.”
“Fuck you.”
He let the robe drop back down. “I suppose I’ll take your face,” he said.
“Please, I—”
With a spasmodic ferocity, his arm shot up and his hand went around her neck.
She gasped, tried to pull back. “Please let me live,” she whispered. “I beg for my life.”
Cloutier shook his head. “Lord Zentrum has charged me to root out all heresy. You’re going to help me with that.”
“I won’t give you anything.”
“Really?” he said with a contemptuous laugh. “Do you know how often I hear that? That’s what the false priest said, as a matter of fact, before he told me the day you set for his escape.”
She didn’t answered. Another whimper escaped her lips. She wanted him to hear this one. It might make things easier.
“At the end, he wanted to tell me more. He begged. But I already had what I needed.”
Cloutier raised the obsidian shard and held it before Mahaut’s eyes, turning it between his thumb and forefinger. It caught the red glint of the torchlight as he did so. The reddish hue blurred in her vision, and she realized she was crying.
He reached over with his other hand, and wiped one of her tears away with his thumb. Then he wiped the wetness on the sleeve of her robe, as if he were removing something unclean from his skin.
He lowered the obsidian shard, shot her another look of pity and contempt, and turned around. He motioned over his shoulder to the guards. “Bring her to interrogation,” he said. “I want to do this properly.”
Mahaut turned to look at the older guard on her right. Their eyes locked. She nodded, and he let go of her arm. In the next instant, he launched a fist into the face of the younger guard. He grunted as his nose split and blood spattered. He released Mahaut and staggered back. The older guard grabbed him by the shoulders, hooked a leg behind the young guard’s ankle, and using the young man’s momentum, sent him toppling backward with the older guard on top of him.
At the sound, Cloutier spun about with the speed of lightning. He took in the situation instantly. He was quick. She’d give him that. With another of his half-smiles he tossed away the obsidian shard still in his hand and reached for the long metal knife whose scabbard was thrust through the belt of his tunic shirt. When he pulled it out, the blade sang. This was exceptional priest-smith steel. Guardian steel.
He advanced toward her. She was taller, but from the way he moved he was clearly muscular and lithe. She’d felt as much when he held her by the throat. She had fought men. She didn’t fool herself into thinking she could wrest the knife from him. If he reached her, he would kill her.
Nevertheless, she felt a wave of relief pass through her. This had been the contested point. Even after days of observation, they had not been able to tell if he carried a personal firearm.
Evidently not, she thought. Or at least, he doesn’t think he needs it down here, the fool.
She reached between the folds at the top of her robe. The wrap crossed between her breasts, seemingly to leave a bit of cleavage exposed. It also served a much more utilitarian purpose: to give her easy access to the two-shot derringer holstered under her left arm.
She pulled it free. It was already loaded and capped, with its two hammers cocked back.
When he was two paces away, Cloutier realized his error. His eyes widened.
And I’ve knocked the thrice-damned smile from his face, too, she thought.
She aimed for the lower torso and pulled one of the two triggers of the derringer. The first shot jumped up and hit him mid-chest. The minié balls were 469-grain caliber, and the shot opened up a substantial flower of blood, torn fabric, and brutalized flesh.
The wound hissed and spewed for a moment until he slapped a hand over it. She’d pierced a lung.
He continued to move forward, still gripping his knife at his side, ready for an upward stab. His face was filled with anger and determination.
He must be so disappointed in himself, she thought.
She pulled the other trigger.
Another blast to the chest. The echo of a ricochet in the tunnel told her the ball had passed straight through.
Cloutier stood still. He trembled violently for a moment, as if trying to gather himself for a final attack. But it was an attack that would never come. With an odd whine—it issued from his lung—he dropped the knife and fell to one side. He hit the floor hard and his legs kicked violently as he bled out upon the flagstones.
Marone rose from atop the younger guard, who lay moaning.
“Did you have to hit him so hard?” Mahaut asked.
“Maybe not, your grace,” he answered. “But I thought I might knock some sense into him about the whore.”
The young guard pulled himself to a knee. “You promised!” He turned to Mahaut, pleading in his eyes. The light from the four torches in the room’s corners played off his handsome features. “You promised to get her a position in service, your grace!”
“Of course we will,” Mahaut said. “I think Mr. Marone was joking with you, Corporal.”
The young man rubbed his bruised jaw. “Cursed hard way to have his fun, if you ask me.”
“Mr. Marone is a hard man,” she said. “But you need to look as if you had the shit kicked out of you, if you’ll pardon my coarseness of tongue.”
“I don’t mind that, but he’s wrong about Zadie! She’s got a good heart! She’s bearing my child.”
Or somebody’s.
She smiled, touched his shoulder. “Your Zadie will get her service position, and you can marry without shame for the child. But at the moment it would be best if you let Marone tie you up good and tight. And maybe give you a final kick or two for luck.”
The young man looked at her in resignation. “I suppose the kick should be someplace that’ll show.”
“Not a problem, lad,” Marone said.
“But first let’s get those keys,” Mahaut said.
“Nishterlaub,” said the young guard with a shudder. “I wouldn’t handle them if I were you, Land-heiress. And that man, he is . . . inhuman.”
“Can’t be helped.” She motioned the muzzle of her pistol toward Cloutier. “Marone, please make sure that one is truly dead while I reload. I’ll take the keys mys
elf.”
“Will do, your grace. A double-tap should do it. Then I’d just as soon not touch those keys, either.”
* * *
Joab was instantly alert when his cell door opened.
When Marone held up the torch and she saw Joab’s ruined right eye, Mahaut couldn’t help herself. She cried out and hurried to him and hugged him. “Oh, Colonel Dashian, I’m so sorry we couldn’t get here sooner.”
“I’ll settle for you getting here at all, Land-heiress Jacobson,” Joab croaked. Oh! He needed water, and she hadn’t brought any!
Then Marone reached around her and offered him a small porcelain bottle. Joab drank its contents in one gulp. A ruby red drop trickled down his chin.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, handing the bottle back to Marone.
“My pleasure, Commander,” Marone answered. “I see they left you with one eye, sir.”
“Yes,” said Joab. “Their mistake.”
Prelate Zilkovsky was not so easily roused from his nearby cell. Cloutier had obviously been telling the truth about torturing the man. A portion of his arm was red from having his skin peeled. He seemed bewildered and not in the present, first loudly cursing the name of Zentrum, and then speaking to another priest, perhaps an assistant, who was, of course, not there. For a moment Mahaut believed the prelate might have to be abandoned to his fate in the dungeon. But after a quiet talk with Joab, Zilkovsky calmed down.
“So that was you, after all? The tapping?”
“It was, Hiram.”
“And I wasn’t just hearing things?”
“It was real. This is real, Prelate.”
Though in the flickering torchlight Zilkovsky still looked battered and frightened, he did begin to obey orders.
Others in the dungeon had realized that something was happening. Some began to shout for food and water. Some begged for release.
“The cursed bastards,” Joab said. “It could as well be me. I want to help them.”
Marone caught Mahaut’s eyes, shook his head. Even so, Mahaut had to steel herself to keep from opening all the cell doors. But this was primarily a prison for criminals, very bad men, as well as political prisoners. She had no way of knowing who or what she would be setting free. Besides, there was no time.
“We must get out of here, Colonel,” she said. “I’m afraid a general release will have to wait. You see, the night isn’t close to being over, and you and the prelate need to be on your way north by morning.”
2
Hestinga
Treville District
Corporal Markus Koolhaas was a dejected man. Ten years in service to the Land. Ten years training, fighting, guarding the people. All of that blown to pieces, like wheat chaff in the wind.
Koolhaas shuffled around the main practice yard of the Treville Regulars supposedly on policing duty. He’d swept up what dont shit there was a half watch ago, and there was no loose garbage. Hardly a clod of dirt out of order. Afternoon P.T. had been called off, again, by the powers that be. It was another punishment for Edict violation.
Some fool had banged his thumb or stubbed his toe or cut off a finger or something and had begun to swear like . . . well, like a soldier. Somewhere in that sea of oaths and imprecations, he’d dropped the cursed name of the commander, the Abbot, and Zentrum himself.
It wouldn’t have mattered if one of the new officers, the pretty boys sent up from Lindron after the colonel . . . well, he didn’t like to think of what might have happened to the colonel. Anyway, one of those dontdicks had heard the man’s curses and so all nightly leaves were cancelled and the compound put on lockdown. Only groundskeepers and guards to be outside barracks. Those boys keeping the gates closed weren’t any happier about this than Koolhaas, or the men stuck in the barracks, but they had their orders.
It was only midafternoon and the place already felt like a thrice-damned morgue at midnight.
Oh, what was the use?
Not so long ago, Koolhaas had been proud to hold his head high as a foot soldier of the Treville District Regulars. No longer. The Blaskoye had broken through. It was unbelievable. Disgusting. After all the years standing watch, holding the border when other districts leaked like sieves. After all that careful work, blood, heartbreak . . . to fall like sticks in a child’s game of Tumbledown. Eight years before, he had been in on the victory, the absolute slaughter of five thousand Blaskoye riders in the rice paddies between Garangipore and Hestinga. Even last year he’d believed there was nothing he could not do, nothing he would not do for his commander.
And then one morning that commander was gone, replaced by somebody—really nobody—some functionary hastily sent from Lindron. It was like losing a father. It was like losing his own heart.
For Koolhaas, there would never be a greater soldier than Joab Dashian. The old man had held Treville together for so long, he seemed as solid as stone. As durable. As permanent.
Koolhaas had been so bewildered, then despondent when he learned that his commander had been removed and replaced. There was no word as to where Dashian might be, but it was telling that the district prelate, Zilkosky, had disappeared along with him.
Accusations of treason were spoken among the new command staff.
Dakshit.
There were other whispers going around that they’d stolen barter chits and run away to the coastlands. Others claimed they’d crossed into the Redlands with a wagon train of gunpowder to sell. It was true that there was gunpowder and ammunition missing from the armory. Whether this was coincidence or connected to the disappearances in some way no one could say.
Then the Blaskoye had swarmed down the southern Escarpment. At any other time, the commander would have marshaled a mighty force and marched off to destroy the interlopers. Or anticipated and stopped them in the first place.
Zilkovsky would have ensured militia and civilian support, and would have made certain supplies followed Dashian’s Regulars wherever they went.
This time there were not hours but days delay in moving out to meet the challenge. Then, on the first day out, the quartermaster discovered that the provision wagons had been unaccountably diverted to Garangipore. The word was they were taking the Road to the south, since overland travel might tear their wheels and axles apart.
What complete dakshit.
Koolhaas knew it. Every enlisted man knew it.
Yet there was not a thing to do about it. They must halt. And by the time the supplies arrived, the Blaskoye had swarmed into Ingres, leaving only trampled fields of grain in their wake. Then, instead of giving chase, the new commander had halted at the district border. He’d actually claimed he did not have the authority to march them across!
And this with a horde of killers headed like the point of a spear straight toward the capital. How many? Who knew? The majority of the Scouts had been sent into the northern Redlands on a meaningless chase days before the horde made its move. Only a skeleton unit, tracking the huge Blaskoye movement, was there to witness the invasion at all. They had been too busy saving their asses to count Redland devils. All agreed it was a far greater mass of men and donts than the horde at the Battle of the Canal had numbered, maybe ten thousand, maybe more. The Blaskoye bone horns had blown continuously for two entire watches as rider after rider charged down the Southern Defile and into the arrowhead at the junctions of Treville, Ingres, and Lindron districts.
And now here they were, the Regulars, confined to barracks in Hestinga. Allegedly under a cloud of suspicion down in the capital.
It was enough to make a grown man fall down and sob. Not that tears would do any good. What the men needed was the one thing they didn’t have.
Backbone. Resolve.
Some portion of their honor back.
An enemy to fight.
If only—
“You lower those muskets, you dumb pieces of dakshit, before I yank them out of your hands and stuff them up your sorry asses!”
This threatening stream of words was punctuated by a great
, bellowing laugh.
Sounded like . . .
Nah, couldn’t be.
Koolhaas turned toward the noise.
The guards had indeed lowered their muskets, but to parade rest. They were standing smartly to either side of the garrison entrance archway. Koolhaas hadn’t seen them put that much enthusiasm into their duties for many months now.
“That’s better, boys,” said the voice. “Guess I’m not going to have to have your sergeants flogged and your captains hung today. But be careful of tomorrow, that’s all I’m saying.”
Amazingly, the gate guards were smiling.
In through the archway rode two men. They both looked like they’d gotten in a fight with a dust devil and lost. What was more, both of them were riding big, lumbering daks. Not donts, daks.
“Don’t look at me that way. We had a wagon, but it broke down out in the southern flax fields somewhere or another—we couldn’t take the Road, you understand—and so we had to cut these beasts free and ride them the rest of the way. Does that offend your thrice-damned delicate soldierly sensibilities, boys?”
“No, sir,” answered the guards, one smartly, the other after he’d gotten his laughter under control.
The daks trundled into the yard. Both had makeshift rope halters fixed around their collars and lower jaws. Koolhaas stumbled forward to see more clearly.
That voice . . .
“Well, Corporal Koolhaas, don’t just stand there like some green trooper staring at his first naked whore,” said the dirt-man. “Take these reins so the Prelate and I can get down. We’re both half sawn in two. Daks are definitely not made for riding long distances.”
He knows my name.
Koolhaas grabbed the ropes and held the daks steady. The other man, a man with the saggy skin of one who had recently lost a great deal of body fat, gingerly slid off. He grunted, obviously in some pain. The other jumped down and landed neatly in front of Koolhaas.
“Koolhaas, you son of a Delta whore’s maid! How many of your flogging offenses have these idiots in charge overlooked since I’ve been gone, eh?”
Koolhaas knew he should recognize the man, knew he’d maybe better recognize the man, but it wasn’t coming to him. All he had really noticed was the patch over the right eye. It looked like a piece of dak leather suspended on a string and tied behind the man’s head. But the eyepatch, also, was dusty brown. Despite the dust on his face, he was clean-shaven.
