Blood River Down

by Lionel Fenn

  Gideon looked at him hard. "Then she isn't?"

  "Of course not." He paused. "I hope not."

  "Then if she isn't, she's..." And he pointed toward the horizon.

  "She better be. I'm not going there if she's not. That would be too much. I mean, that's asking too much, going to Chey if she isn't there." He stared at the horizon, then at Gideon. "But she has to be there, because if she isn't, I don't know where she is. So she's there. Yes. She's there."

  "And the duck."

  "Yes."

  Gideon let himself drop to his buttocks, then pulled up his legs and draped his hands over his knees. It was clear enough that the people of Pholler weren't about to give Tag any assistance, which implied that going to Chey was not altogether a healthy journey, unless the journey was all right and Chey itself was dangerous. Or it could be both. Or Pholler, for all its size, was a basically conservative community, which, having discharged its obligation by taking in the refugees from Kori, didn't want to be involved any further in what was probably a family matter. But if it was just a family matter, why had Glorian resorted to a Bridge in order to get help?

  "God," he muttered.

  And he didn't look up immediately when Tag suddenly scrambled to his feet with a string of his favorite oaths, retrieved his dagger, and raced to the middle of the road. When he did, however, he saw a group of men leaving Pholler toward them; they were armed, making no bones about it, and making it clear they weren't going to parley first before they set about eliminating the last of the Koris, not to mention the Sundays.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  This just isn't going to work, he told himself; if I wanted a riot, I could have stayed at home and watched the damned team lose again, for crying out loud.

  Tag looked over at him then, widened his eyes when he saw Gideon still sitting, and gestured at him angrily before turning around to face the mob.

  Suppose I don't want to? he called silently; suppose I'm a peaceful man who never harmed a fly? Then he took a closer look at the mob and realized none of its members gave a damn what kind of man he was like, as long as he was dead when it was over.

  He pushed himself wearily to his feet and had the bat in his hand before he knew he had touched it. He looked at it in surprise, then moved to stand beside Tag. And when he saw the delegation, he knew without having to question why that he didn't have the stomach for this sort of work. It was one thing laying your padded shoulder into a center or a guard because you knew he was going to get up, one way or another, for the next play because that was what you were being paid for, and it only happened once a week anyway; or, considering that the reverse was usually true in his case, that he was going to get up for the next play, wobbly but alive.

  This, on the other hand, had a definite air of finality about it, and after what he had seen the bat do to Whale's shop, he knew that any man who was struck, no matter where, wasn't going to be going home for dinner that night.

  "Maybe," he said, "we ought to talk to them."

  "I think we ought to cut their throats," Tag countered. "And even that's too good for them."

  There were a dozen or more of them, bunched in the center of the road and holding unnervingly sharp-looking blades of varying lengths in their fighting hands. They did not bear friendly expressions, and the garbled noise that rose from their throats indicated they were working themselves up to the fight they were facing without much conscience for the inevitable results.

  "You don't think talking would do any good?"

  "Only," Tag sneered, "with the point of your sword at their miserable little throats."

  "I don't have a sword, I have a bat."

  "Bats are good, too."

  He shrugged; it figured.

  The advance faltered only once, when Red, growling and snorting as if stoking a fire in his belly, poked his way between Gideon and Tag and pawed furiously at the ground, shaking his head, his eyes already a dead flat black; but when a tall husky man in front spoke a commanding word to those on either side, the hesitation was over.

  "That's Shelt," Tag said in disgust. "He's the head of that miserable place, and he's the one who said they wouldn't do anything."

  "Then why are they doing this? Why don't they just let us go and good riddance?"

  "They're afraid." And he said it so loudly that Shelt, carrying a saber whose blade flared in the sunlight, stopped in his tracks some fifty feet away.

  "Afraid!" Tag yelled, slicing the air with his dagger. "But not so afraid that they can't attack two harmless men!"

  Gideon looked at the dagger, at his bat, at the horns on Red's head, and decided not to quibble.

  "You have a big voice for a Kori rump," Shelt yelled back, and was poked by his friends in approval.

  "And you have a lot of friends for just two men," Tag told him with a sneer.

  "The man has a Whale club," Shelt said.

  "Hell, he probably doesn't even know how to use it without breaking his own arm," Tag said with a mocking laugh. "He's from across a Bridge, you know that."

  "Hey, Tag," Gideon said, smiling at the mob.

  "He'll probably kill himself before he kills one of you."

  "Tag, what the hell are you doing?" he muttered from the side of his mouth.

  "Better two men such as you lot than what you'll bring down on us all if you go there," Shelt replied, pointing his sword toward the horizon.

  "Oh, yeah?"

  "Tag, for god's sake," Gideon whispered harshly.

  "Yeah!" Shelt snapped.

  "Well, my sister is a better man than the whole bunch of you put together," the lad spat, "and you didn't see her hiding behind a bunch of cowards and snivelers."

  "Tag, what the hell are you trying to do, you idiot!" Gideon said, feeling his smile crack holes in his cheeks.

  "Get them mad."

  "I think they already are."

  "But not mad enough. If they get really mad, they'll do something stupid, like attack us."

  "That doesn't sound stupid to me."

  "But then they'll be so mad they won't fight right and we'll get the whole damned lot of them." He took a strutting step forward and turned sideways to them arrogantly. The mob grumbled. Tag wriggled his buttocks. The mob grumbled more darkly. Tag kissed one finger and touched the tip of his nose. The mob surged forward without moving a step. "C'mon, Shelt, for crying out loud. Gideon and I have work to do. We don't have time to waste on Pholler scum."

  Shelt's broad face reddened, the men behind him began pushing and shoving to get into position, and Tag laughed in delight as he jumped back to put Red at his side. "That got them," he whispered as he swished his dagger back and forth. "Now we'll see what they're made of."

  "I know what they're made of," Gideon said miserably.

  "That's the spirit," Tag declared with a good-fellow slap to his shoulder.

  Tension from the Pholler was almost as visible as the dust they raised beneath their feet.

  "Tag, I don't think this is a good idea."

  The boy bounced lightly on his toes. "Why not? We'll take care of them and then go on to Chey."

  "But you were right."

  Tag looked at him. "About what?"

  Gideon lifted the bat. "This."

  "You... you can't use it?"

  "Not against that lot, I don't think."

  "You mean, you don't... you're not... that isn't..."

  "I've never hit anyone in my life, if that's what you're asking."

  "Oh, shit," Tag said.

  Then Shelt yelled something Gideon didn't understand, and the mob swept forward again, its sudden silence more threatening than the voice of its rage. Red bared his teeth with a toss of his head, dug at the cobbles until sparks flew, and Gideon decided resignedly he could have a worse ally. At least the lorra could charge into them, scatter them, and give him and Tag better odds in the short run.

  "All right, Red," he said tensely, "let's get to it."

  The lorra reared impressively, opened its mouth, a
nd let go a roar that would have defoliated a jungle. In its wake the mob fell back several paces; then Red roared again and charged them with head down and horns well aimed, stopped halfway to the mark, and turned to run back.

  Gideon gaped at him. "That's it?"

  Red bobbed his head and wandered off to the grass, where he began to graze.

  "Hey, that's it?"

  A yell made him turn and hold the bat up, his mouth dry and his stomach looking for someplace else to reside. Another yell, one of astonished pain, and he saw someone on the outside of the advancing men leap into the air and come down with one hand rubbing a buttock and the other brandishing a sword. Behind him was Ivy, who showed the man her dagger, made a tight circle with it as she spoke to him, and the man's free hand wavered unconsciously toward his groin. She wrinkled her nose at him and moved, oblivious to Shelt's shrill demands that she get back to the village where she belonged.

  "You need help?" she asked when she reached Gideon.

  "I won't turn it down," he told her gratefully.

  She looked at him in mild surprise. "But I'm a woman."

  "I noticed. I also noticed that you can use that thing."

  She looked to Tag, who was concentrating on the mob, and smiled broadly. "I'll be."

  "If we live long enough."

  Shelt looked at the trio facing him and his men, shook his head, and started toward them again. "You'll die, Ivy," he warned in a booming voice.

  Ivy merely flipped the dagger in the air, caught it by the hilt, and smiled.

  Suddenly there was an anguished shout from someone at the back, and Shelt, groaning at yet another interruption of his expedition, held up a hand, halted the advance, and waited, though he did not take his gaze from Tag, who was bouncing from side to side, taunting him, gesturing at him, showing him all angles of the weapon he carried.

  It was Whale.

  He pushed and bulled his way through the mob until he reached Shelt. The village leader glowered at him and stabbed a finger toward Gideon and Ivy before turning the finger toward Whale's chest. The armorer ignored it, turning the arm easily aside, and whispered something in his ear. Shelt leaned away from him and stared, his mouth slightly agape. Whale nodded. Shelt glared. Whale said something else, and Shelt punched his shoulder, hard. The thin man fell back a pace but did not lose his balance; instead, in the abrupt hush that silenced the men, he took a deep breath, exhaled it loudly, and turned his back on the village.

  Shelt yelled a command at him, but Whale ignored it, his face granite as he strode away from the silent mob, his arms swinging purposefully at his sides. When he reached the others, he smiled humorlessly at Tag, nodded to Ivy, and pulled to his front a deep pouch on his belt.

  "They're fools," he said with a rueful sigh. "They do, on occasion, forget who I am. Long memories were never strong with the Pholler. Never. Sad, don't you think? Doomed to forgetting is what keeps them stupid."

  "Look, Whale," Gideon started, and was stopped with a look from Ivy.

  With a sharp glance over his shoulder, Whale reached into the pouch and showed Gideon what appeared to be a small black ball four inches in diameter.

  He took it and closed his fingers around it. It felt warm and smooth, almost like the wood his bat was made from, though its weight belied its size.

  "What is it?"

  "Can you throw?" Whale asked.

  Shelt ordered his men forward, and they moved with a single yell, no longer willing to be put off by distractions.

  "Sure. But don't ask me to hit anything."

  Whale seemed puzzled, but he suggested strongly, now that Shelt and his men were running, that Gideon take the black ball and throw it toward Pholler as far as he could.

  "That far?"

  "This is not a time for boasting," Whale scolded.

  Gideon, puzzled but pleased he wasn't expected to put the ball between someone's eyes like an overgrown David with a multiheaded Goliath, handed him the bat, drew back his arm, paused to check for windage, and hoped he was as good with this thing as he had been with the Hail Marys.

  He was.

  The ball sailed in a perfect arc over the mob's collective head, and that collective head turned to watch it, ignoring Shelt's demand that they stop making fools of themselves and get on with the slaughter.

  They watched.

  Ivy and Tag watched while Whale looked astounded at the distance the missile covered.

  Gideon watched with a gratified smile at his lips and said, "Jesus H.," when the ball landed a hundred yards beyond the mob and exploded into a fan-shaped gout of flame, earth, and burning shards of grass.

  The mob threw up its arms and jumped into the air, looked over its shoulder at Gideon and the others, and scattered, leaving Shelt red-faced and alone in the middle of the road, bellowing for their return or else, until Whale handed over another ball; then the big man made one last, indescribably rude gesture and took off across the field.

  Ivy applauded and hugged Tag, less in jubilation than to prevent him from tearing off after the nearest attackers.

  Whale took back the second ball and placed it delicately into his pouch.

  Gideon brushed dirt and grass from his hair, dusted off his shirt and jeans, and put the bat back into its holster. Then he started up the road, whistling for Red, who fell in beside him.

  "Wait!" Tag called, and raced after him.

  Ivy looked regretfully to the village, to the men running in terrified circles in the fields, and took Whale's arm. Whale sighed and walked.

  "Hey," Tag said, "what's going on?"

  Gideon looked at him. "Two things," he said when he thought he could speak without bellowing. "One—in a little while those idiots out there are going to stop panicking, figure out what happened, and come after us again, this time with more men and, if possible, more weapons. It would not be advisable to wait to see what they have in mind after that."

  "And the other thing?" Tag asked when Gideon paused.

  "I could have killed someone back there," he said bitterly. "I could have knocked someone's brains all over Sallamin, or I could have blown someone to bits."

  The lad was perplexed. "But that's what you do when you fight!"

  "I know that. I'm a fast learner, no matter what you think. But," he added when the boy started to protest, "Tag, I have never killed anyone in my life. Never. Not accidentally, and certainly not deliberately. Those men back there, they're real."

  "Sure they are."

  "Believe me, Tag, that's easier for you to say than me.

  "I don't understand."

  "That makes two of us."

  And he put his arm around the lad's shoulder and hurried him on, saying nothing, seeing nothing, feeling only Tag under his arm and the reassuring silken hair of Red's neck on his left as he stroked it, seeking to calm himself, hoping he wouldn't have to stop in the middle of the road and start screaming.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Shelt and his men did not regroup but spent their energies racing through the high grass until, at some unheard command, they wandered back to the village.

  Gideon paused long enough to watch them go, fearing his explanation to Tag was more correct than he wished. He decided, however, that his mother had not brought him up to be a diplomat and so discarded before it was completely formed the notion that he return to Pholler and attempt a healing of the wounds his actions had caused.

  Instead, he walked at a steady, swift pace until his legs adamantly refused to take another step and the adrenaline stopped feeding fuel to his muscles. With a weary groan and a look back that showed him nothing but the plain, he dropped on the roadside and waited for Whale and Ivy to catch up. When they did, their silence respectful of the expression he held, Ivy produced from a pouch at her side foot-long lengths of what tasted like dried beef with a tang, and Whale found a stream from which he brought them water in makeshift cups he had woven from wide leaves.

  Tag sat apart, clearly working for a reason why the man his sister ha
d found was acting so peculiarly.

  Twenty minutes later, Gideon, apologizing for seeming ungrateful because he certainly wasn't, asked why Whale had taken their side against the people he lived with, especially now that it appeared as if he'd not be able to return.

  "Dignity," the thin man answered, sprawled on his back with his hands behind his head. A wink and a nod. "Oh yes, don't look so surprised. Dignity. That's terribly important, you know, much more than a few coins lost toward one's guaranteed poverty-laden retirement. Not that I'm trying to make you feel guilty, you understand. Not at all. Just a little, to ease your conscience.

  "But it is not dignified to abrogate an obligation just because you are afraid of the consequences. Once you accept one—an obligation, that is—you just see it through to the end because that's what an obligation is, isn't it. And Pholler did not behave in a dignified manner when it sent out those men to stop you. They should have questioned you further, they should have accepted your reasons for going to Chey, and they should have done all they could to assist you in your quest."

  Then he winked once, and closed his eyes.

  "Besides," he whispered so the others couldn't hear, "my shop collapsed after you knocked down the post. Shoddy builders, the Pholler. No sense of permanence. Lost everything. Why stay?"

  Gideon smiled, though he knew the man couldn't see him, and chewed thoughtfully on the last bit of meat. When Whale's breathing deepened into what was unmistakably a rhythmic snoring, he stood and walked into the field, looking up at a sky still alien to him, wondering if he really felt better for what Whale had said or if he was only trying to keep himself from slitting his own throat. A few minutes later he sensed but didn't hear Ivy join him until she slipped a hand around his waist, pinched him lightly, and withdrew.

  "Thanks," he said softly.

  "Don't mention it. Besides, I did it for Tag and Glorian," she said as if she threatened immediate, and most likely expert, castration every day of her life. "I was one of the first to see them when they came from Kori after it... after. I like her more often than not. She's a little bitch sometimes, but I like her. Those idiots, though... well, it wasn't right, what they did." She stopped, forcing him to halt as well and face her. "But they didn't mean any harm."