Maddeningly, the man smiled more broadly and said something Chalmers didn’t understand.
“Fuck you!” Chalmers snarled.
The bastard snorted and, lifting Jackson’s arm at the elbow, slapped Chalmers in the face with one limp, warm hand.
Chalmers surged to his knees, spilling his friend to the ground. “You mother—”
Which is when it dawned on him that Jackson’s limp hand was warm, not cold. And not cooling, either.
“He’s alive?” Chalmers asked, in English.
The man grinned wider still and mimed wiping away tears, then laughed at Chalmers.
“Get your shit together, Warrant,” Chalmers told himself, pressing a shaking hand to the sergeant’s neck. Sure enough, a slow, steady pulse was there.
“What happened?” Chalmers asked.
“She gave him the slap of sleep. Like Kedlak,” the other man said, once he’d stopped laughing. The bastard was wiping actual tears away. When Chalmers clearly had no idea what he was talking about, the man pointed a red-ochre stain on the other side of Jackson’s neck from where he’d taken the pulse.
“Why did Ked have a-a head—bad—” he struggled to find the right word “—a head-hurt then?” Chalmers asked, glad he hadn’t touched the stuff, and angry the man had given no warning.
A careless shrug. “Hit head when he fell.”
Chalmers wanted to choke the smirk off the man’s face, not least because he’d been such an unsympathetic witness to his moment—okay, moments—of weakness.
“When will he wake?”
Another shrug. “Morning.”
“Can we wake him up before?”
“Safer not to. You want help carrying to tent?”
“Yes, please.”
They gathered Jackson up. Chalmers stared at Ked as they carried Jackson past, confirming he was still snoring.
“You put in good word with his sister?” asked the helpful villager.
“What?”
“I like her like you like him,” the man said, nodding at the unconscious Jackson slung between them.
“What?” Chalmers, addled by his evening, simply could not comprehend what he was being told.
“Man like you,” the man waggled one scarred brow, and said very slowly, “with begroag something juices marking his leg, has hard time looking for love, no? That’s why you let begroag something your leg, to show you are ready for love.”
Unsure what the man was talking about, Chalmers looked at his pant leg, noting for the first time the oily, glittery sheen on the fabric from just below the knee to the top of his booted foot. In short, it looked like a glittered-up and oily stripper had humped his lower leg and the top of his foot for an hour.
“What the?” Chalmers cried, dropping Jackson’s arms. The unconscious man’s head thumped hard on the packed earth floor, but Chalmers was too busy trying to figure out how to get the stuff off his leg without touching it to give his friend’s comfort much thought.
“The scales of begroag are pretty when still moist, no?” The man was laughing again.
Furious, fed up, and just a little frightened by how little he knew of this place, these people, and these times, Chalmers stomped around swearing at the top of his lungs for the next little while. The tirade included choice words from four different languages and a couple he made up on the spot to better describe his disgust in the best possible fashion. It didn’t achieve anything other than making him feel better, but that was enough. Eventually he ran out of words, if not steam, and stomped back to the still-unconscious Jackson and the indig.
“All right, Laughing Boy, get his legs.”
“Laughing Boy?” the man asked, all trace of humor gone from his face. “I am a man. Full warrior of the clan. You, who are not a full warrior, do not call me boy.”
Chalmers stared at him, grinding his teeth. Eventually, he threw his hands in the air and said, an edge of hysterical laughter he hated in his voice, “If you would tell me your name, I would not have to give you insult!”
The man cocked his head, considering whether or not to continue taking umbrage. Chalmers let his hand settle on the holstered pistol at his belt, fully ready to shoot anyone who gave him the least bit more shit.
But the man’s good humor returned as he smiled and said, “Artzhimaklid is my name, War Technician.”
“All right, Archie, get his damn legs. Don’t want another begroag to come along and decide to ride him like a pony.”
“Pony? What is pony?”
“Small riding beast.”
Archie chuckled at that. “Watch his head.”
Navigating the narrow passage, the pair carried the unconscious man into the hetman’s home and placed him on the bedding Jackson and Chalmers had set up there before the stakeout. Kenla and the hetman were still asleep. Something about her victory over the man had made them all a guest of his for however long her wounds required to heal.
Speaking of which…Chalmers checked and saw that Kenla had not stirred from the makeshift bed in which the healer had treated her. Wishing there was someone he could talk to other than Archie, Chalmers led the way back outside and returned to the storehouse.
It wasn’t until they had Ked laid out in his own bedroll that Chalmers realized just how weird the whole situation was. Within barely twelve hours, Clarthu’s four visitors had killed the hetman’s son, stabbed the hetman near to death, and shot their healer. Oh, and said healer was clearly reporting their movements to the enemy while the son of the hetman had either sold something or, more alarmingly, been bought to the tune of an anti-armor weapon and ammunition.
Something was wrong. No, so many things were wrong that Chalmers couldn’t sort out just what he should focus on.
* * * * *
Chapter Forty-One
R’Bak
Jackson grunted roughly as he sat bolt upright, then shouted, “Whotoleyoutoputhathere!”
Chalmers snorted. “You having crazy butt sex in your sleep again, Jackson?”
“Only with yo momma,” Jackson muttered, scrubbing his face with his hands. “Wait, what the hell? Did I kill someone last night?”
“No, Kemosabe, you did not. Not for lack of trying, though.”
“I missed? He was so close.”
Despite the absence of the young man who knew the full story, Chalmers decided not to lie and instead took the high road and said, “Nope. You tagged them. Right in the chest.”
Just because Chalmers wasn’t lying didn’t mean he had to admit to Jackson that he had missed so badly as to endanger them both with the ricochet, or that he didn’t want to distract him from the impact of shooting someone, something Jackson had only had to do once before, if Chalmers recalled correctly. And that hadn’t been a woman. Not that it should matter when you are threatened with deadly force, but some folks needed reassurance they wore the white hats, even when they were entirely within their rights to defend themselves. And some guys, Chalmers included, had a hard time reconciling harming a woman with being the good guy.
“In the chest? And he ain’t dead?”
“Not yet,” Chalmers said with a shrug. “And if the way these freakish villagers are acting is any indication, she’s likely to live.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Chalmers answered, glad Jackson had missed his gender slip.
“How?”
“A couple of followers—I think they’re apprentices or something—took charge and have been working on her ever since.”
“Surgery?”
Chalmers shrugged. “I guess. I had to drag you in here while you were sleeping on the job.”
“Wait…her? I shot some chick?”
Cursing inwardly, Chalmers qualified his partner’s statement. “No, you shot an attacker, thinking they were about to kill you.”
“The healer?”
“The healer,” Chalmers confirmed.
Jackson shook his head in confusion. “So, the villagers weren’t pissed?”
> “I know, right?” Chalmers asked with feeling. He’d sat up all night spinning his wheels between concern for Jackson and wondering when someone would come to kill them both.
“But one of our party offs the hetman’s kid and then I shoot their healer?”
“Yeah, it’s starting to make me think there is something seriously wrong with these people.”
“Starting?”
“Jacks, I am freaked out. Haven’t slept all night.”
“Wait…what did she knock me out with? I don’t feel like I was cracked in the head,” Jackson said, hands investigating his shaved skull.
“She used some kind of drug on you.”
Jackson looked more confused, not less. “Bullshit. That kinda shit only happens in movies.”
“What’s that, you getting knocked out by a woman? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure there was tha—”
Jackson interrupted him. “Naw, man, a drug knocking someone out that quick.” The smaller man stood up and cracked his neck by the simple expedient of grabbing his head in both hands and twisting one way and then the other.
“I don’t know; doesn’t chloroform work that way?”
“Sure, but it’s risky as hell. Killed a lot of people even when used by doctors.” Jackson pulled his pistol, press-checked it, and popped the magazine. “I don’t feel any the worse for wear.”
“No shit?” Chalmers asked.
“No shit.” He looked a question at Chalmers, who gestured at the pack behind the bedroll Jackson had been lying on.
“Okay, but why is it important?”
Jackson shrugged as he rummaged in the pack for the box of ammunition. He palmed a cartridge and closed his pack up. “Aside from my mouth tasting a bit of ass, I don’t feel any real side effects, and any medic who can do that for our wounded would be worth their weight in gold.”
Chalmers nodded. “I see. Well, guess we oughta hope you didn’t kill her then?”
The question elicited another shrug from Jackson as he slid the fat .45 cartridge into the magazine. “Street rules: come at me, I go at you. Happened before, will happen again. Street rules.” He slid the magazine into the well and tapped it with the heel of his left hand to make sure it was properly seated, then holstered up.
“Copy that,” Chalmers said, wondering again what kind of life Jackson had come to the Army from.
Jackson crossed his arms over his chest then said, “Besides, her doctor’s bag probably has enough of whatever she used on me and maybe even more useful stuff. We can take samples back to the major.”
“And then what?” Chalmers asked. “The SpinDogs aren’t as advanced as the freakshows that brought us here, and I didn’t see anything that would let us synthesize tea like on the Enterprise.”
Jackson shook his head. “Your momma never accused you a thinkin’ too far ahead, did she? I want to make it past this shit show and somehow make a life. To do that, I think we gonna need everything we can get: ideas, dope, weapons, allies, whatever. Every damn thing we can get. When you up against it, street rules apply.”
“Makes sense,” Chalmers said, unsure he still wanted to know what Jackson’s childhood had been like. He’d always known the sergeant was smarter, a little more ruthless, a better planner, and simply a better man than he himself was, but the hard edge to Jackson’s voice made Chalmers shiver. And neither the tone nor content of Jackson’s statement had been directed at him, but rather at an uncaring universe. It seemed to Chalmers at that moment that it was just possible Jackson could bend that universe to his will.
Maybe.
* * *
Grinning like a wild man, a villager trotted toward the partners, a bottle in one hand.
The partners had walked the village from one end to the other. Ostensibly searching for Ked—who they’d left near Clarthu’s main gate—but they were both hoping for some clue to leap up and tell them just what the hell was going on.
As the running local approached, Chalmers smiled, asked “For us?” and reached toward the bottle.
The villager swerved to avoid the warrant officer, shooting him a dirty look as he trotted the rest of the way to the gate, where he immediately handed the flask to Ked. Their guide had a leather strap holding a bandage to the wound on his head from the previous night’s misadventures.
“Was that the good stuff?” Chalmers asked absently, watching their guide talk easily, casually to the newcomer and a couple of the villagers guarding the main drag into town. The young nomad took a deep swig from the bottle.
“Is it the good stuff? Good stuff?” Jackson’s laugh was a derisive bark. “There’s no good stuff. Not here.”
“You know what I mean,” Chalmers said. He gestured at Ked. “What the hell is going on here, you think?”
Jackson shook his head. “I ain’t sure. Something stinks, though.”
Ked’s smiling face was suddenly painted a bright, wet red.
“Holy—” Chalmers shouted, gaping at the man that had been standing next to Ked. A good part of the man’s face was gone, or at least mangled beyond all recognition.
Chalmers blinked, his brain catching up even as the sound of the shot reached his ears: a large caliber bullet had entered the back of the man’s head blasting out a spray of skull, teeth, and skin. It was his blood, not paint, that had splashed all over Ked.
* * * * *
Chapter Forty-Two
R’Bak
“Down!” Jackson bellowed, already yanking Chalmers into a crouch beside him.
That part of his brain not reeling from the sudden violence and death in front of them was amazed at how fast Jackson’s reflexes were. His partner was already kneeling beside the front wall of the hetman’s place, scanning for the shooter.
Ked was also in a crouch and moving to cover even as something raised a puff of brick dust against the wall beside him.
This time the sound of the sniper’s shot was drowned out as Jackson opened up right next to him. The four fast rounds from his M-14 made Chalmers jump. The warrant officer knew his hearing wouldn’t be the same after a few more close shots, but couldn’t care less, so long as Jackson kept the sniper from shooting again.
Chalmers risked a quick look over the wall at the area Jackson was firing upon. A largish stand of the tree-like grasses he’d almost hit on the way in lined a juncture of two of the irrigation canals about a hundred and fifty yards from the village. It wasn’t much as cover, but it had obviously provided great concealment up until the moment the sniper had fired. Now, though, a thin, whitish cloud of smoke marked the sniper’s hide.
Another puff of smoke. Chalmers ducked. Someone yelped off to the left and the sound of the gunshot rolled in a heartbeat later.
Chalmers risked another look as Jackson returned fire again. A sapling-sized blade of the tree-grass fell a yard or so above the smoke. Jackson was shooting straight.
He ducked back down as another puff of smoke erupted, this one from a few yards to the right of the earlier, slowly-dissipating ones. Either there were multiple shooters, or the sniper had displaced a few yards.
Chalmers had no idea where the round went because he was busy flogging his brain for an approach to the stand that wouldn’t get him shot. One of the canals ran parallel to the low stone wall surrounding the village, flowing from the millrace that powered the village’s mill.
Ked and a couple of the villagers with him thumped backs-first into the wall to the left of the partners. One raised his rifle—no, musket—and fired. A flash in the pan, then nothing. The man cursed and lowered his weapon, which decided to discharge at that very moment. Thankfully the round didn’t hit anyone, just buried itself in the mud brick in front of him, but the misfire did throw the gun out of the frightened villager’s grip.
“Jesus,” Chalmers grunted.
Ked’s breechloader proved more reliable as the grinning nomad banged a round downrange at the enemy and dropped back to reload.
“Who’s shooting at us?” Chalmers shouted.
; “Enemy,” Ked shouted back.
Rather unhelpful, Chalmers thought. “Try and leapfrog up to them?” Chalmers asked Jackson, hoping the answer wasn’t yes.
“Don’t like the odds without a better base of fire and some grenades,” Jackson said, far more calmly than Chalmers felt. The sergeant displaced a couple yards along the wall, popped up, and fired another fast semi-auto flurry before ducking back behind cover.
“What you want me to do?”
“Fuck if I—” A ragged clatter of gunfire from the far end of the village cut him off.
“What the hell!” Chalmers blurted, swinging his head that way.
A flat CRUMP came next, scaring the shit out of him.
“Mortar!” he shouted, unnecessarily.
“Get the buggy under cover!” Jacks shouted, his cheek still along the receiver of the M-14 as he laid down fire.
“Cover? Cover? There is no fucking cover!” Chalmers screamed even as he started toward the vehicle. It seemed to require far too much time in the open to cover the ground between buggy and wall, though that was probably because of the insufficient air wheezing through his fear-constricted windpipe and the fact that he couldn’t seem to stand up straight.
CRUMP! Another explosion threatened to deafen him. Dust and smoke. Still on the far side of the village, thankfully.
“Jesus!” Chalmers screamed, jumping the last few yards to the buggy. He dropped the key trying to get it out, get in, and get the vehicle started all in one go. He bent, retrieved the key, and jammed it in, starting the motor.
Jackson dropped into the passenger seat. “Jesus!” Chalmers screamed; the sound startled from his lips.
“Not Jesus! Just drive!” Jacks shouted.
CRUMP!
The engine revved high before Chalmers remembered to slam it into gear. They shuddered into motion.
An absurd feeling of relief struck Chalmers. Moving targets were harder to hit, and they could always simply get the hell out of Dodge if push came to shove.
“They must have only the one tube,” Jackson shouted. “Get us out of town.”
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