Rather than threaten Daum, however, Krait stalked to the bar, lifted the piece covering the opening and went to the cash drawer. Tarc’s butt cheeks clenched together with fear that Krait would find it full of money. However, he pulled it open and pawed through some of the compartments without turning to accuse Daum of holding out on him. He turned to Daum, “Where do you get your meat?”
Daum looked reluctant, but after a pause said, “Stevenson’s butchery.”
Krait turned to one of the men who’d just finished eating, “Arco, take the boy there,” he nodded at Tarc, “to the butcher’s place and,” he gave an ugly grin, “requisition some meat to feed our troops.”
Muscles bunched with anger at Daum’s jaw, but he stepped to Tarc’s side, saying a little louder than Tarc had expected, “Go to the kitchen and ask Eva what you should get at the butcher’s place.” He pushed Tarc along toward the kitchen, Tarc thinking he already knew what they needed from his many trips in the past. In a low voice Daum said to Tarc, “Tell Stevenson we’ll pay him back when we can.”
Wondering how they would pay if no money was coming in, Tarc went into the kitchen as he’d been instructed. He briefly told Eva what had happened and Eva made some suggestions, but most importantly said to take whatever Stevenson had a lot of.
When they arrived at Stevenson’s, the door was shut and a “Closed” sign hung on it. Tarc shrugged and began to turn away, but Arco stepped up to it and began pounding on the door with the butt of a big knife.
Wondering if Arco couldn’t read, Tarc said, “They’re closed.”
Arco turned to give Tarc a malicious grin. He spoke loudly enough that Tarc understood he intended his voice be heard inside, “Well now, closed or not, if they don’t come to the door in the next minute or so, we’ll just be breakin’ it down, won’t we? I reckon we can pick ourselves out some meat without their help.”
Arco had just told his men to look for something to batter the door with when Stevenson cracked it open. “We’re closed,” he said nervously.
Arco jerked the door out of the butcher’s hand and drawing his sword stalked in to the shop as Stevenson backed away, hands up and eyes wide. “I don’t think you mean that it’s closed to me, do you?” he said in a dangerous tone.
“No, no sir!” Stevenson said, obviously panicked.
“Now, boy,” Arco said, turning to Tarc, “What did the cook say you needed back at the tavern?”
Despite several attempts, Tarc was never able to get close enough to Stevenson to pass Daum’s message that the tavern would pay him later. As they left Arco had slapped the butcher on the shoulder and told him to consider the meat a part of “Sheriff Krait’s new taxes.”
Stevenson glared furiously at Tarc when Arco and his men weren’t looking. Until then he’d assumed that the townspeople would recognize that Krait and his men held the Hyllises in their thrall.
Now he worried, what if the townspeople think of us as collaborators? Not just for driving the wagon to the cemetery, but for feeding the soldiers? Could the Hyllises, somehow, wind up on the wrong side of both groups?
Back at the tavern, Tarc and Daussie unloaded the wagon into the kitchen while Daum and Eva started cooking meats to go with the potatoes and carrots they’d cooked up while Tarc was gone. Daum frowned and closed his eyes in disappointment when Tarc told him that he’d been unable to give Stevenson their promise of repayment.
Then Tarc was out in the big room taking orders and delivering food. Krait had ensconced himself at the biggest table and seemed to be having some kind of council of his men. With dismay he heard them talking about how much money they’d taken when they’d taken down the town’s three banks, Harrison’s among them. Tarc thought of the big jar of coins he’d taken to Harrison’s only a few days ago and wondered how much money his parents might have had on deposit there even before the strangers started to come to town.
Thinking of that made him think of the money in jars in the cellar and that led him to wonder how Captain Pike was doing. Behind him he heard Krait ask, “We got all the deputies?”
Someone grunted affirmatively.
“Did we find Pike and his trainers?”
“We got two of the trainers, both killed. Don’t know what happened to the third one. The team sent to the armory arrested Pike and sent him off to be locked up with the sheriff for the big display today, but he never got there. The three men that took him were some of the ones that got shot in the eye.”
Tarc had paused in the middle of marking an order and had to scramble to remember and write the rest.
Krait said, “Shot in the eye!?
“I thought you’d heard. We had fifteen casualties last night which isn’t great, but isn’t as bad as it might have been.”
Tarc glanced that way and saw the man lean closer to Krait.
The man quietly said, as if describing something particularly horrible, “But, Captain… eleven of them were shot in the left eye.”
“Call me ‘Sheriff’ goddammit! It’s what these toads are used to.” He paused, then asked in a puzzled though angry tone, “What do you mean ‘shot?’”
“Uh, well some of them had arrows in their heads, either entering or exiting the left eye. Others just had wounds in the eye, maybe an arrow that had been pulled out, maybe a knife.” He paused, “What kind of monster would stab men in the eye like that?”
Tarc wondered if the man had any idea what his Captain/Sheriff had ordered done in the square that day.
Krait said, “I don’t give a shit what kind of person would do it; how did they do it?”
“I don’t know how, but someone killed two more of our guys the same way this afternoon! The men are pretty spooked about it.”
One of the men Tarc had been taking orders from suddenly barked, “That’s it boy, what are you waiting for?”
Tarc jerked his attention back to his order chit and headed for the kitchen again, distress welling up. He hadn’t counted until the man summarized it for him. He’d killed thirteen men?!
When things slowed a little, Eva stopped Tarc, “Pretend like I’ve sent you to the cellar for something. Check up on Captain Pike. Bring up a jar of shine or something when you come back up.”
“Should I take him some food?”
“No! Not with a hole in his gut. He could drink some water; a little at a time so it’s absorbed before it gets to that part of his small intestine. I can’t think of an excuse for you to be taking water down there though.”
Tarc reached up and pulled down one of the little crates that Eva kept her medical supplies in. He pulled out a bunch of the cloth wrapped bundles that held things which had been sterilized. “I’ll put in a couple of jars of water there. If they ask me what this stuff is, I’ll tell them it’s all ‘healer’ stuff.”
Eva shook her head. “I don’t want them knowing I’m a healer. Next thing you know, I’ll be providing that service to those horrible men as well.” She took out more of the wrapped bundles and put in some of her precious little jars of spices and several small pots and pans. “Tell them it’s cooking supplies.”
Tarc filled a couple of big jars with water out of the tank and put them in. “Wish me luck.”
In the event, none of the remaining soldiers even acted as if they noticed as Tarc went through the room and down the cellar stairs. He’d heard that servers sometimes became invisible to customers but hadn’t experienced it before.
When Tarc moved the panel and looked into the hidden compartment he saw that someone had brought some old blankets down. Pike had folded two underneath himself for padding. He huddled under the other one.
The man looked sick.
Tarc pulled out the jars of water and stepped into the compartment. He sent his ghost upstairs to confirm that none of the men had gotten up to follow him down into the cellar. Then he poured some water into one of the small pots and moved to Pike’s side.
“Captain, would you like a few sips of water?” Tarc sent his ghost into Pike’s
abdomen.
“What I’d like…” Pike said, “is for you to stab me in the heart and put me out of my gods be damned misery.”
Tarc twitched at the thought of killing again. Slowly he said, “How about a sip of water instead?” His ghost had found the wound in Pike’s intestine. The tissue around it had thickened and felt hot. A little bit of fluid surrounded the intestines in that area but it didn’t seem to have leaked out of the wound. Instead, Tarc thought it was exuding from the wall of the intestine near the sutures. He suspected that infection was responsible for some of the changes. One of the Hyllis’s books had talked of making a medicine from bread mold that could kill germs. Practical details on how that might be done were sadly lacking though.
Pike lifted his head, so Tarc helped him sit up a little and held the cup to his lips. He asked Tarc what had happened during the day.
Tarc described the scene in the square to him and he closed his eyes and sighed. “Well, we failed.”
Tarc wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by failed. “At least we got you free.”
“No, I meant the town’s leaders. We failed to keep the barbarians outside the gate.”
“Oh. But we could still push them back outside the walls, couldn’t we?”
Pike shrugged listlessly, “I don’t know how. Everyone with any military training is dead.”
“That’s not true! You’ve trained every man in this town, at least a little. The soldiers are pretty upset about how many of their own got killed last night.”
Pike frowned, “How many did they lose?”
Tarc thought to himself, they’d said fifteen last night, plus two today… “Seventeen so far. Do you think killing them a few at a time will help?”
Pike grunted a sad little laugh, “Sure, if we had someone who could do it. Having a few men dropping dead every day destroys morale. But, I doubt we can kill very many of them, they aren’t going to just walk up and say, ‘slay me next,’ you know. From what Krait said in the square they’re trained soldiers.”
Tarc pondered this a moment, then said, “I’d better get back upstairs before they start wondering what I’m doing. I’m sure Eva will come check on you before she goes to bed.”
Tarc left the jars of water with Pike and closed up the wall. He started back up the stairs carrying a bottle of moonshine.
Most of the soldiers had left by the time Tarc got back upstairs. However, Daum told him that six of them were staying in the rooms upstairs. “Daussie’s going to sleep in the hayloft. She doesn’t want to stay over here if there are soldiers sleeping in our rooms. Eva thinks we should empty her room so they don’t wonder who lives there.”
“What if some of them sleep in the stable again?”
“I asked them if any were going to do that and they said ‘no.’” Daum shrugged, “They killed quite a few people… I think they’re sleeping in their homes. Also in the drill center, and Robinson’s hotel.”
Tarc’s eyes widened, “But they only killed the men! What about the wives that lived in those homes?”
Daum gazed at his son for a moment, then said, “I don’t think we want to know…”
Tarc had been wondering whether he could bring himself to kill any of the soldiers in cold blood rather than self-defense. Now, his own blood running cold, he decided that surely he could. “Capt. Pike said that killing a few of them each night would destroy their morale.”
Daum had been turning away, but his eyes jerked back to his son. “Don’t even think it! We got very, very lucky last night.”
“But I was thinking…”
“Well, don’t!” Daum sighed, “Sorry, I shouldn’t bark at you. But, I don’t want to lose you either. It would be good if you could move the stuff out of Daussie’s room. You can tell what the soldiers upstairs are doing before you move anything, so you’re less likely to run into one of them carrying stuff out of her room.”
Tarc nodded, much as he didn’t want to do it, it would be safer for him. He headed upstairs where he moved Daussie’s feminine things in amongst his mother’s stuff. Things that seemed gender free he moved into his own room. The man in the room next to Daussie’s was sound asleep and not disturbed by Tarc moving around. Each time, before he left Daussie’s room, Tarc checked the hall to make sure it was empty. Daussie didn’t have much so it only took a few trips and Tarc was able to carry out the move completely unobserved.
Still worried about Daussie, he decided to go out and check on her. Perhaps she needed something from her room?
Once in the stable, Tarc checked on Shogun who seemed fine. There were six horses in the stalls of the stable. Tarc wondered if the soldiers would pay for the upkeep of the horses. If not the tavern could run out of the hay Daussie was hiding behind. He could feel her with his ghost, hidden on the other side of the stack of hay bales.
Tarc climbed the ladder up to the loft. When he reached the top and turned his attention back to Daussie, he saw that she had shifted position, now crouched rather than lying down. Her pose looked very tense. For a moment he wondered what she was doing, “Daussie?”
She relaxed. “Tarc!” she whispered, “Tell me it’s you if you come out here!”
“Oh… sorry.” Tarc moved around to the other side of the stack of bales. Daussie held one of the small kitchen knives in her hand. Despite being extremely cramped, the little crevice of the end of the stacks of bales that Daussie had appropriated wasn’t really very well hidden. “Uh, I think we can make you a better hiding spot.”
“Where?”
“In the middle of the bales, rather than at the end here.” Tarc started restacking the bales of the second row from the end.
“How are you seeing to do that?!”
Tarc realized that he had been mostly using his ghost. “Um, I see pretty well in the dark compared to most people.”
“I’ll say,” she said, sounding a little dubious.
Tarc couldn’t really evaluate the expression on her face with his ghost, having not had much experience trying to do that. He hoped that she had believed him about just seeing well, though he didn’t know what else she might suspect. Soon, he had left the back part of the second row only two bales high. The front of the stack was full height to hide the fact that the stack was incomplete behind it. Daussie could climb around behind the entire stack of bales and spread her blankets on top of the two bales in the partially empty slot. This left her surrounded by bales everywhere except at the back wall.
Once he’d guided Daussie back and let her feel around so that she understood what Tarc had done with his re-stacking, she thanked him with evident feeling. After an uncomfortable pause, she gave him a little hug.
Tarc couldn’t remember ever getting a hug from his sister. Or giving her one for that matter. After years of thinking he despised his sibling, he realized that being her ally of late felt much better. He said, “Uh, I’ll get you a better knife too.”
When Tarc came back out with a bigger knife and his old sheath, he sent out his ghost to be absolutely sure no one else was in the stable, then said, “Daussie, it’s me.”
He brought a lamp and asked her to climb down from the loft. Taking the lamp up near the hay would be dangerous. Down in the light, he showed her how to strap the sheath on and position it where the knife would be easy to reach.
Tarc started to leave, but Daussie said, “Uh, I don’t really know how to use a knife. I mean, in a fight. Can you… teach me anything from your training?”
Tarc thought about telling her that the drill center didn’t teach knife fighting, but decided that the last thing she needed to know now was that he didn’t know how to fight with a knife either. “The heart is right here,” he said, pointing to his left chest. “But, if you stab right at it, you might be stopped by a rib, so it’s a better, if you can, to stab up under the ribs.”
Daussie looked a little puzzled, “How do you mean?”
Pretending he had a knife in his fist, Tarc showed her how he thought you might plunge a kni
fe up under the ribs and into the heart. He suspected that he knew the anatomy better than any of the soldiers out there, even if he’d never done it.
Daussie put her new knife back in the sheath and practiced stabbing at Tarc with her closed fist a couple of times. “I’d have to get really close for this to work!” she said. “I don’t think I could get past one of their swords to do that.”
Tarc felt his own cheeks heating, “Yeah. No one wants to take a knife to a sword fight. If you’re fighting a sword, there’s probably no way you can win. I’m thinking more… if one of them figures out… that… you’re a girl and gets really close on his own…” Tarc rushed through the last few words.
“Oh… Yeah,” Daussie said sadly. “Thanks,” she said in a very small voice.
Tarc stayed, holding the lamp up while Daussie climbed back up to her hiding place. When he went back into the tavern, he felt somehow that he’d let his sister down.
Chapter Eight
The next morning’s breakfast rush was enormous again, but Krait had apparently told his men to start paying for their meals so at least the tavern had income again. Once the rush slowed, Daum sent Tarc out to pay Stevenson for yesterday’s meat. The streets were fairly empty. Tarc had the impression that people only went out on absolutely necessary errands. No more “shopping” as a form of social activity.
To his surprise he saw Jacob coming his way on the other side of the street. He crossed over, desperate to talk to someone outside his own family. To his dismay, Jacob looked both ways as if embarrassed to be seen with Tarc. Then he stepped into a small alley.
Tarc followed him in to the alley, “What’s the matter?”
“People are saying you’re ‘collaborators.’ They say the tavern’s the only place in town doing a booming business. And, they say you showed up at Stevenson’s with a bunch of soldiers and just took their meat without paying.”
“That ‘booming business’ is all soldiers! None of them paid us yesterday! When we ran out of meat, they took me to Stevenson’s and they took the meat not me!”
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