Twig

by wildbow

  Mabel, now leading the green students, was a keen observer of details, with a good eye for traps, deception, any unrest or resentment, and she was good with biochemistry and pheromones. It was a large part of why the current background project of the Beattle group involved the stuff. That, and Junior was a good hand with the chemistry and biochemistry, owing to his experience producing the drugs as head of the Rank.

  Rudy, Rita and Posie took on different focuses. Rudy was driven, less of a master of one field and more a capable student in many, with a good background in things ranging from the mechanical to farming, and handyman work, and I suspected I could point him in a direction and see him draw it all together to be well above average while still maintaining some breadth. Rita was a listener with a good eye for those who needed listening to, and she was able to adapt and react with the snap of a finger, so to speak. Posie was a mechanic, and she enjoyed building. She was the one supplying our furniture in the main lodge, both the basic log benches and the more refined work.

  I could see myself, were I given a good year to do it, nurturing them all into individual forces. I wanted to bring out their strengths and make them sharp. But in the doing, I had to accept that there were some cases where achieving that was an uphill battle. Gordon Two was good in his particular fields of interest, but only good. I kept him close because he was a good barometer for me when it came to other students, and I used him because I’d kept him close for long enough that I could trust him to do as I needed him to do.

  Possum, in much the same vein, wasn’t an exceptional student, and she didn’t have any particular skills, but I valued her all the same. She was loyal, and nobody seemed to actively dislike her, while a number liked her. My approach to her was more in the realm that I wanted her to come away from all of this happy, not as someone devastating.

  My take on Fang was that he was likely good in a fight and likely bad at a great many things. I wouldn’t tell Bea not to use him, but I didn’t want to give him a great deal of my attention.

  I was constantly watching, looking for signs that any one student should be prioritized or set aside. I took notes now and again, but Jessie was the real repository of the particulars and my sum thoughts. The rest of it was something I played by ear, trusting that each student in a position of any power was someone I’d put there for a good reason.

  Mauer, standing on another rooftop, watching me, the others, and the rebel army in the Little Castle, seemed intent on lingering there, reminding me that it was a house of cards that could and would collapse.

  Or perhaps that was just me, filling in the blanks with thoughts that were lingering just beneath the surface.

  The leader of the contingent of Crown soldiers finished speaking with his subordinates. He gave some final orders, and they signaled their men.

  Of the two hundred soldiers I could see from my vantage point on a rooftop, approximately seventy-five peeled off, moving at a brisk pace as they headed toward another part of the city. Someone who the general had talked to was running off in a perpendicular direction to the main group. I suspected he’d round up more from battle lines I couldn’t see.

  Maybe a hundred soldiers removed from the picture. As part of that, there were holes to fill, people spread thinner, and groups had to be moved.

  Jessie’s group received their new orders. I watched as they obeyed.

  No, not obeying. From the ground, it was hard to see particulars. Even the general was only in a position to see a mere half of the people and barricades within a hundred yards of him, and that was a special case, a location chosen for that much awareness. Others weren’t so fortunate. They could see one or two of the groups to their flanks.

  Such was the nature of the urban battlefield. Buildings, streets, fences, and the same barricades that protected obstructed fields of vision.

  Jessie had clearly used information gleaned from conversations with other groups to sell herself and her squad as a proper member of the local forces. The general then trusted her enough to assign her group a space to fill, and I could see as she walked right past that space.

  She moved along the perimeter, and I shadowed her, as she traveled a half circle around the Little Castle.

  She finally found a good vantage point. She spoke to a squad of soldiers, and sent them off on patrol with something that sounded official. Her squad relieved theirs, settling in.

  Her hand signals consisted of long, right, short, right, long.

  I moved along the rooftop, watching as they traveled a very careful route on their way out, with a clear destination in mind. A straight line on their way out, then a right turn…

  They took the prescribed route, and I signaled confirmation.

  As quickly as they’d settled in, Jessie’s group picked up and moved on.

  Wet snow continued to fall around us. I had to descend to the ground to get to the next building I could climb on top of. By the time I’d arrived, Jessie had already relieved a second unit and was looking skyward as if she was expecting me to show up exactly as I did.

  She signaled, and I glanced back before confirming.

  She had a letter in hand and was tucking it away. I suspected it was a very similar picture to the one she’d painted for the commander. All of this was us sending more and more soldiers to reinforce a location that likely had nothing of substance going on.

  I looked over from the rooftop in the direction the soldiers were going.

  They were moving out in the direction of the water. I wondered if she’d painted a picture of rebels coming from the end of the river with intent to land and attack from the sea. It would be a beautiful way to leave a hundred or two hundred Crown soldiers sitting in the cold at the harbor, watching and waiting for people to show up.

  She moved on to a third group. I worried that she was pushing our collective luck, that this group would make for too many soldiers in total sent to the harbor. I was right on one front.

  These soldiers were skeptical. I could catch the tone of argument, and see Jessie’s hand signal as she requested possible assistance. I was only partway to them when things escalated. In a moment, Jessie and the other Beattle rebels had pulled their weapons on the soldiers at the barricade. Fang and Rudy knocked two people to the ground, Fang hooking a bayonet blade against the one soldier’s air hose, Rudy pressing his bayonet blade against a soldier’s neck.

  Jessie took weapons from each of the soldiers.

  I finished my approach.

  “Sorry,” Jessie said.

  “Sorry?”

  “I didn’t leave any for you,” she said.

  “Well, it’s the thought that counts,” I said.

  “Coast should be clear. Nobody’s watching this corner of the building now. Group further down won’t see because of barricade, groups further down the road can’t see because of the faint bend in the road or because of how they’re positioned.”

  “I’m wondering if they realize,” I said. I glanced at the windows. “If they’re discreet about it, they can just leave.”

  “They should realize,” Jessie said.

  “Then they have a reason for staying,” I said. I sighed.

  “A reason?” Gordon Two asked.

  “Stalemates within stalemates,” I said. “They’re stuck. They should have been in and out, but something kept them from making a hasty exit. The ones at the window look pretty calm, all things considered, so it’s not a hostile party.”

  “A stubborn one,” Rudy said.

  “Crown can’t attack because the rebels have a hostage. Rebels can’t exit because… they have a hostage,” I said. “One that’s proving difficult, I imagine.”

  “I don’t get a feeling of urgency from them,” Jessie said. “The general was waiting out the clock. Then he gets to leave, the city burns, and his men don’t die. He’d rather this didn’t go anywhere. This is about continuing the testing of the Tender Mercy project and putting in a token effort. He’s wanting to reach out and try to open negotiations
, but there’s a swathe of no man’s land between Crown forces and the Little Castle. Nobody wants to cross it.”

  “Which leads back to playing it safe,” I said.

  “The clock is running out. We don’t have a lot of time. People are going to notice that logistics are off and positions aren’t defended,” Jessie said.

  “Noted,” I said. “I don’t suppose any of you are particularly keen to lose the suits and come with?”

  Nobody was particularly keen. Jessie raised her hand.

  “Not you. I don’t want to cut the plague out of you a second time. The rest of you cover my back,” I said. “I’ll go in alone, then. Where is the bag with the suit?”

  Rudy pulled off his bag. The bag with the suit and mask inside was strapped to the top, a separate bag. He unstrapped it, then handed it to me. I slung it over my shoulder, wearing it as I might a satchel.

  “Do you want to take more suits?” Jessie asked.

  I glanced down at the soldiers that were lying face down on the ground, hands on heads.

  “Don’t want to burden myself too much,” I said.

  What was the best way to do this?

  Murder was the easiest, but…

  “Crown soldiers,” I said, and I lowered my voice rather than raise it, to seem more dangerous, and to ensure they were listening. “I’m going to give you two options. That gives you three, because the third option is one you’re already aware of and debating. You can fight us, struggle, try to make noise, and we’ll execute you all in very painful ways. I have traps, and the people you’ve alerted will trip them. They’ll die in painful ways. People will notice. All hell will break loose, the Crown will start fighting, the Rebels will start fighting, people will die, and far too many people don’t get to go home to their families tonight.”

  “That would be option one,” Rudy supplied, in a voice that was very good at sounding dangerous. He was a big, scary fellow when he wanted to be and oftentimes when he didn’t. He pulled it off effortlessly.

  “Option one, yes, well, the option you’re currently debating. The options I’m providing are simple ones. We can execute you all quietly, and you can all go out with as little pain as anyone can hope for. If you believe in something after death, however much the Crown tries to suppress those beliefs, then you can look forward to that. Otherwise, it’s quiet oblivion. I want to see some nodding heads, to be sure you all understand me.”

  I saw some nodding heads.

  “Option three is that you’re all going to give me your masks. We’ll stick you somewhere the air is very still, the risk of transmission at its minimum, you all stay quiet and we’ll give the masks back soon after that.”

  “You want us to break quarantine?” one of the soldiers asked.

  I took a rifle from Jessie and put a bayonet blade to the soldier’s neck.

  “A possible horrible death or a sure clean death,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  His gloved hands moved behind his head, fumbling with straps.

  “Let’s move you somewhere out of the way, where the air isn’t moving as much,” I told him.

  He nodded, hands moving away.

  We put him in the dark recess beneath a tall set of wooden stairs, by a stack of firewood beneath one house. Stairs and firewood provided some shelter from the wind.

  He pulled the mask off, disconnected the hose, and pressed the hose against his lower face, breathing through it.

  The seven others followed his lead, moving to spaces next to him, but only one other brought the hose to his mouth.

  I collected the masks, walked over to the barricade that they’d erected, and half-climbed the barricade.

  I stuck the mask over, past the spikes that lined the top of the barricade, and braced myself for a possible gunshot hitting the thing.

  None came.

  I moved the mask as a puppeteer might move a puppet, bobbing it as if it was walking, over, over, over, then stopping at my leftmost corner of the wall.

  I did much the same with the second mask, hanging it by the strap to one spike, next to the first, and carried on.

  Once all eight masks were mounted, I dared to peek out around the side, raising my binoculars to search the windows.

  The windows with gunmen were fairly easy to see. Most were cracked open so the shooters would have a clear shot. The one that caught my eye was open, but with cloth wedged in the two sides. Enough room for the gun’s nozzle to move a little, but the cloth would keep the cold from flowing indoors.

  The gunman was talking to buddies, who were peering out the window, looking at my display.

  I ventured out a little further. Nobody shot me.

  Arms spread, I crossed out into the street. I watched out to either side as I did, verifying that Jessie’s observations had been correct. There weren’t any other Crown soldiers situated near us who could really see me and take a clear shot at me.

  As I approached the door, I heard it unlatch. It opened.

  Guns were already pointed at me as I passed through the doorway and stepped inside. A dozen soldiers in one room, so cramped I doubt any single soldier had a clear shot that wouldn’t potentially put a friendly at risk. They were all young, none older than twenty-five, and all men. Their clothing looked more rural, and many of them wore long jackets with a military cut that were made with substandard leather with coarse stitching.

  Rebels, but they’d all come from a place very like Sedge, where we were camped, if I was guessing right.

  “Sylvester Lambsbridge,” one of them said.

  “My reputation precedes me,” I said.

  “Not so much. You have a friend upstairs,” he said.

  I nodded. Shirley?

  “She’s a pretty girl,” he said.

  “That she is,” I said, staying calm. Shirley.

  I wasn’t sure what the statement meant. He was probing me, but I wasn’t sure what for or why. Was it interest in Shirley, or was it an implication?

  Either way, staying cool and calm in the moment was what was important.

  He looked past me and out the door, his pistol still pointed at me. “You just walked over. How?”

  “Take me to my friend,” I said. “I’ll explain.”

  “Bag,” he said.

  I handed over the bag with the extra quarantine suit.

  He motioned with the gun. I brushed past several people as I made my way through the overcrowded room. I could have done something clever like pilfer something from a pocket, but I didn’t want to try my luck, and Shirley had informed them of who I was.

  The place was nice, but it had more of a lodge feel than a palace feel. The walls were stone up to the halfway point and then oiled wood up to the ceiling. Pictures hung on walls, with family crests and portraits of nobles and important people. Each hallway had a strip of carpet running down it.

  The bulk of the rebels were here. In this room, more of them were older, tending toward the thirty to thirty-five range. There was a hierarchy, and the older ones wore more facial hair, beards and muttonchops, while sitting a little more comfortably. They led because they were elders. The younger ones were doing the legwork.

  I spotted Shirley in the crowd. Four men stood next to her, two had weapons drawn, and one of those two was holding her wrist in an iron grip.

  I saw Otis and his men off to one side, sitting against the wall, wrists bound and resting on a knee or in laps. Otis held a bloody rag to his face. Archie stood in a corner with some of his men, wrists similarly bound, though he didn’t sit.

  The man I’d talked to tossed the bag to a man I presumed to be the one in charge. I couldn’t tell if he was blond with a shock of dark hair running through it or dark haired and going prematurely gray. He slouched in a chair.

  The man opened the bag and pulled the contents free. He didn’t react any as he saw what it was, and simply let the mask and outfit fall so it draped across his lap and the arm of his chair. He looked me up and down.

  “Sho
rter than they made you out to be,” the leader drawled.

  “They talked about my height?” I asked.

  “No, but they talked about you like you were capable of moving mountains, boy,” the leader said. “And you look a little small to be pulling any of that off.”

  There was a look in his eyes that made me think that he was a very dangerous man. Something approximating the weariness I’d seen in Mauer, or the lack of light I’d seen in Avis’ eyes when I’d seen her in the dungeon, but I suspected the light had died in him long ago, if it had ever been kindled. Dark eyes, heavily lined by fatigue, and a kind of casual resignation in posture and expression that suggested that I could draw a gun, open fire on the room, and he wouldn’t care.

  He wouldn’t care, but he would draw and do his level best to gun me down. Then, if I happened to lie bleeding on the floor after, he wouldn’t act much different than if our positions were reversed.

  This was the leader of this particular group of rebels. A man who had given up long ago, who expected nothing but a battle that he’d inevitably lose.

  “He walked across no man’s land. Not a whisper, no gunshots, no nonsense,” the one who’d met me downstairs said.

  “Did he now?”

  I didn’t answer or justify. Better to let him take away what he wanted to take away from it.

  “Do we have a way out?” the leader asked his subordinate.

  “Depends on a lot of things,” I answered, as if he’d asked me directly.

  “Like?”

  “I know Shirley over there is a particularly dangerous one. Four young, able bodied men restraining her like that. Did they treat you well, Shirley? No trouble?”

  I gestured as I asked. Question.

  Two of the men stepped a little away from Shirley as I addressed her.