Jacob shrugged, “I thought it might be something like that but… you know how people talk.”
Tarc said, “You tell them, that when you met me I was on my way to pay Stevenson’s. Even though we didn’t get paid yesterday, my dad said we should pay Stevenson’s so that there wouldn’t be any bad blood between us.”
Jacob said, “I’ll try to get the word out, but you know bad gossip spreads faster than good.”
“Thanks. Do whatever you can do, my family will appreciate it.”
“Did, did you hear about Joe and Denny Smith?”
“No, we haven’t heard anything. With all the soldiers in our place, nobody from town has come by.”
“Well, people from town haven’t been going out much anyway. Especially…” He wavered.
Tarc developed a sense of foreboding. When Jacob had first mentioned Joe and Denny, Tarc had thought that maybe he was going to say that Denny was pregnant. Now he couldn’t believe that he’d thought the news could be anything but terrible. “What happened?!”
“Joe and Denny were going somewhere, nobody’s sure exactly where… But they ran into some soldiers that said some things about Denny. You know Joe, he was kind of a hothead. He said something to the soldiers and one of them ran him through with a sword…”
“Jesus!”
“And then they took turns raping Denny.”
Tarc closed his eyes as horror and hate welled up in him.
The sound of feet tramping in unison became audible. “Oh-oh,” Jacob said, “some of them are coming. I’ve got to get out of here; they don’t like us talking to each other on the street.” He slipped around the corner and was gone.
Tarc scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeve; then stepped out around the corner continuing in the opposite direction from Jacob. The soldiers tramped by and though Tarc didn’t look at them, he thought he could feel their eyes on him.
When he got to Stevenson’s the door was closed and locked again. He knocked but no one answered. He went around back where Stevenson kept a number of animals waiting to butcher at need. When he got there, Stevenson and his wife were just going inside. Tarc had the distinct feeling that Stevenson had been out caring for the animals and she’d come to get him in response to Tarc’s knocking. “Mr. Stevenson!” he called out.
Stevenson stopped in the doorway and turned, “Well, don’t you have a lot of nerve! You come to demand more meat without paying?” Suddenly, he looked nervous. He glanced around, and seeing no one appeared reassured. “Didn’t you bring your bully boys?”
Tarc felt a flash of anger at being addressed this way, but did his best to stay calm. He said, “I’m truly sorry about that Mr. Stevenson. It surely wasn’t our idea. The soldiers had been at our place and hadn’t been paying. When we ran out of meat, we told them we couldn’t buy any more. Instead of paying us, they dragged me down here so they could ‘requisition’ meat from you.”
Stevenson looked a little mollified, but then said, “I’m sure your dad has some money saved up.”
Tarc nodded, “And he told me yesterday to tell you that he’d pay you out of his own funds, but I wasn’t able to pass the message without a soldier hearing me yesterday.” He reached in his pocket, “My dad sent me down here today to pay you.” He held out a handful of coins, “How much was it?”
Stevenson looked a little embarrassed. “Even though he didn’t get paid?”
“Yes sir.”
“Out of his savings?”
“Yes sir.”
“Weren’t his savings in one of the banks?”
“Yes sir, a good part of them.”
Stevenson took a big breath and squared his shoulders, “You tell your Pa… he’s a better man than most and I’m sorry I said some bad things about him yesterday. I’ll split the cost of yesterday’s meat with him.” He leaned forward and selected coins from Tarc’s hand.
Tarc had purchased meat from Stevenson’s enough times in the past that he had a pretty good idea how much yesterday’s meat should have cost. It did seem to Tarc that Stevenson had taken about half the coin he would usually have charged.
Once that business was done, Tarc asked if he could get a side of bacon. Stevenson said, “Sure,” and led Tarc through the house to the front. The butcher lived right on the river, and cold water ran in through a series of little troughs to cool the cabinet Stevenson kept butchered meat in. While he was getting the bacon, Stevenson’s wife filled Tarc in on the news passing through the town’s gossip channels from one woman to another.
Denny hadn’t been the only woman raped. Soldiers had moved into the homes of the men who had been killed in the square or who’d hindered the takeover the night before. Some of the women had moved out and gone to live with their families, but those that hadn’t had been abused in their own homes. It seemed like any man who looked like he might be a threat was being killed. “They’ve been asking around, trying to find out who is good with the sword.” She glanced at Tarc, “You’d best hope they don’t start asking about archers or Daum will be in trouble.”
A bolt of fear shot through Tarc, but just then Stevenson said, “Here’s your bacon.”
Feeling somewhat dazed, Tarc laid out the same amount of money he’d been charged for a side of bacon in the past.
Stevenson looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, “And the soldiers are payin’ for their meals now?”
Tarc nodded.
Stevenson nodded in return, then swept up the coins. “I hope somebody does something about those bastards soon.”
As Tarc left, he wondered just who Stevenson thought might be doing something.
When Tarc got back to the tavern, he told his parents about how they’d been called collaborators. Daum said, “I was afraid of something like that. That’s why I wanted you to tell Stevenson we’d pay. I know you didn’t get a chance, but…”
Eva said, “Surely they’ll figure it out soon.”
Tarc told them that Stevenson had said he would get the word out to the town that the Hyllis’s had been forced to feed the soldiers. But then he had to tell them about Ms. Stevenson’s tales of rapes and killings and how she’d said they might be looking for archers sometime.
His parents glanced at each other in dismay.
Eva raised her hands to her cheeks, “Maybe we should try to flee?”
Daum said, “They aren’t letting anyone out the gate. We’d have to go over the wall and wouldn’t be able to take much with us at all.”
“We’d have our lives!”
“You’d have to leave your healer instruments behind.”
Tarc was horrified to see tears welling up in his mother’s eyes. “Better that,” she said after a moment, “than you dead, Daussie raped, and, and…” she trailed off without saying more.
One of the soldiers leaned in the door to the kitchen and bellowed, “Hey, how ‘bout some service out here?”
As Tarc served the crowds of soldiers at lunch and dinner he couldn’t help but wonder whether any of the men he was feeding might have been involved in killing Joe and raping Denny. Or any of the other townspeople for that matter.
He discovered that feeling that angry and hiding it constantly left him feeling exhausted. As the dinner rush slowed he asked Eva, “Couldn’t we put poison in their food somehow?”
“You don’t think they could put two and two together if they started droppin’ over dead in here?”
“Well yeah, but I was thinking of something slow acting. Then it would do them in late at night, far from here.”
She snorted a small laugh, “If everyone that ate here tonight turned up dead tomorrow, I think even those idiots could figure it out.”
When Tarc went down to check on Pike, the man was somewhat delirious. Tarc gave him some water and sent his ghost in to check for any leaking. He didn’t find a leak, but noticed that the intestine was so swollen in that region that its contents seem to be backed up. He used his ghost to push the contents of the bowel past the narrowed area and the
n tried squeezing the walls of the intestine a little bit. He found he could milk some of the fluid out of the walls making them a little less swollen, but wondered if that was a good or bad thing to do. He decided he’d have to ask Eva.
Pike woke up enough to ask Tarc what was going on in town. When Tarc told him he cursed for a while. “Is Garcia still alive?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard that he’s been killed. Why?”
“‘Cause he’s the only real warrior you’ve got. He might be able to sneak around in the night and kill some of those sons of bitches. He’s really good at throwing knives. A few of those assholes turn up dead in the morning, that’ll put the fear of God in ‘em.”
“What if… what if they take retribution? They might kill a bunch of townspeople… or something.”
“What if? They’re already killin’ ‘em!” He cackled, “I’ll bet if they tried to drag everyone down the square again, this time they’d have a revolt on their hands!” He stared off into the distance for a moment. “Is Garcia still alive?”
“Um, I don’t know.” Tarc said, beginning to think that Pike had lost touch.
“Garcia’s really good at throwing knives you know. Tell him for me, he should go around at night killin’ those sons of bitches. Play hell with the bastard’s morale…” He said this last with a distant tone.
“Capt. Pike?”
Pike didn’t respond. For a moment Tarc thought he might have died, but a quick check with his ghost showed the man’s heart still beat, though its pace was rapid and his breathing was shallow.
Not knowing what else to do, Tarc went upstairs and reported Pike’s status to his mother. It turned out his mother had no idea whether massaging the fluid out of the walls of Pike’s intestine was a good idea or not.
That evening Tarc was coming out of the outhouse in the stable yard when he saw a couple of the soldiers who’d been staying at the tavern walking toward the stable itself. With a sense of foreboding, he walked quietly over to the side of the stable hoping that Daussie was in her hide.
As soon as his ghost could reach into the stable, he saw with dismay that she was down stairs carrying a bucket of something to the horses.
When the door of the stable creaked open, she stopped, frozen in place, bucket still in hand. At first the men didn’t appear to notice her, but she was standing right in front of the stall that one of them headed toward.
When he did notice her, he seemed startled, then said, “Hey, it’s the gimp.”
The other soldiers seemed startled as well, but then said, “Damn, I forgot about him.” He grinned and turned back to Daussie, “Boy, saddle up our horses for us. They’re the ones in those two stalls,” he said, pointing.
Tarc’s heart pounded in his chest. He didn’t think Daussie was strong enough to saddle a horse. She might not even know how. It was hard to tell an emotional state with his ghost, but Daussie appeared to be frozen in place with panic. He coughed and pushed the door to the stable open. When he stepped inside, the soldiers had their hands on the hilts of their swords. “Oh, excuse me. Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yeah, you can saddle one of our horses, while the gimp there does the other.”
“Oh, sorry, Dodge there is pretty retarded. Feedin’ and waterin’ the horses is about as good as he can do. But I’ll be happy to saddle your horses while he does that other stuff.” He walked over to the stall Daussie stood in front of and said, “This one here?”
The first man grunted affirmatively and Tarc took the saddle off its stand. Daussie still hadn’t moved, so Tarc said, “Dodge!” He glanced down into the bucket and saw that it was full of water, “go ahead and water the other horses.”
This startled her out of her inaction. Tarc was horrified to see however, that she took her first two steps without a limp. Looking down he saw that she was barefoot. Without the sock stuffed in the heel of her shoe to throw her off balance she’d evidently forgotten she was supposed to have a lamp. She rose up on her toes after that first couple of steps, but Tarc feared it was too late.
As he threw the saddle on the horse’s back, Tarc looked over the horse to see the two soldier’s eyes following Daussie. They looked suspicious. Heart sinking, but doing his best to distract them, Tarc said, “You guys on night watch tonight?”
“Yeah,” the man said, his eyes tracking Daussie as she came back the other way. “Hey, you know what? I think your cripple here has been faking it.” He reached out and grabbed Daussie by the shoulder, spinning her around. “In fact…” he reached out and lifted her chin, “I think this is a girl, pretending to be a crippled boy.” His eyes searched Daussie’s face. He barked a laugh, “This,” he reached up and ripped open Daussie’s shirt to expose the windings around her chest, “is that beautiful little bitch everybody’s been hankering after.” He grabbed Daussie by the wrist, “And I’m gonna be firs…”
The man’s speech cut off when Tarc’s knife buried itself in his eye socket.
The second man had started forward. His eye widened and he started to duck. A look of dismay was his final expression as the second knife curved after his eye.
Tarc ran out of the stall, afraid Daussie might start shrieking and he’d have to clap a hand over her mouth. Instead, she kicked the body of the soldier closest to her. “Assholes!” she said.
Tarc skidded to a stop beside her, astonished by the change. She was calmly buttoning her shirt back up. Where had his timid sister suddenly gone? “Um,” he said, brilliantly.
Daussie looked up at him. “What are we gonna do with the bodies?” she asked.
“I’ll load them onto their horses and take them a long way from here.”
She frowned, “What if we run into some other soldiers?
“I won’t.” Tarc said. He waited a moment for her to ask him how he could be sure of that.
Instead, she bent over and pulled the knife out of the first man’s eye socket. Wiping it on the man’s sleeve, she said curiously, “Where’d you learn to throw a knife?!”
“I, uh, I’ve been practicing.” She didn’t seem to be surprised by his accuracy, but perhaps she thought anyone could throw that well.
“I’ll clean your knives, while you’re saddling the horses.”
Tarc had just put the saddle on the second horse when Daussie came into the stall where he was working. “Here are your knives,” she said, handing them to him. She watched as he put them away, then said, “Hah, I’d just started wondering where you were keeping them.” She glanced down, “I think I know how to do the straps, if you want to put the first guy on his horse.”
“Okaaay,” Tarc said still wondering what had happened to his previously faint-hearted sister. He considered asking her, but this seemed like a bad time. He didn’t want to scare this new person away. “I’ll try it with the smaller guy, but I might need help.”
“Okay,” she shrugged, “just call me if you do.”
Tarc dragged the man into the stall. As he had feared, lifting the floppy body onto the horse by himself proved nearly impossible. He called Daussie, and without complaint, while he held the man up by the waist, she took his hands and guided his upper body up and over the saddle. Once in place the man’s body seemed fairly stable. They did the same with the second man, then Tarc checked to make sure the horses were tacked correctly. He wanted whoever found them to think they had ridden out of the stable and been killed somewhere else.
Tarc wiped up a little blood off the floor and checked outside the stable with his ghost to make sure the way was clear. “Okay, I’ve got this now.”
Daussie shook her head, “I think I’d better go with you. I can help you make sure these guys don’t fall off, and if they do, you’ll surely need help putting them back on.”
That made eminent sense, though Tarc couldn’t believe she didn’t want to cower in her hideout. He shrugged and said, “Thanks, that would be great.” He led the first horse out and Daussie followed behind. Casting ahead with his ghost, he led them down f
irst one street and another, staying away from streets Tarc could tell were populated by warm bodies. Though it was slow going, despite the turning back and forth they gradually got farther and farther from the tavern. He wished he’d known where the soldiers had been assigned. It would be better if they were found somewhere between the tavern and their assignment as if they’d been attacked in route.
Once, when Tarc had them double back, Daussie asked, “Why are we turning around?”
“There are some people up around that corner.” Tarc waited for her to ask why he thought that, but she didn’t. Her ready acceptance of his leadership kind of freaked him out. Years of having her argue with him on every detail of their lives made this sudden acquiescence difficult to comprehend. He kept wanting to ask her about her sudden change, but feared that the mere question might bring the old Daussie back. What if she was merely displaying some kind of shock? She might recover, but he really didn’t want her to.
Eventually, about ten blocks from the tavern, he led one horse into an alley. He went back out, pointed the horse Daussie had been leading the other direction, and slapped it smartly on the backside. It took off at a startled trot, though it soon slowed. To Tarc’s relief the soldier’s body stayed across the horse’s back. He wanted them to be found a long way from the tavern, but also wanted their death to strike fear into Krait’s men. He thought that finding them belly down across the saddle would be more frightening than finding them on the ground.
For a minute, Tarc pondered going somewhere else in the town to try to kill another soldier. It would be less suspicious for the tavern if another of their men, one completely unrelated to the tavern, died that night as well. However, he would have to travel across town with Daussie, which would put her at risk as well. He turned back toward the tavern.
They had gone two blocks when Tarc felt one of Krait’s patrols coming their way. He turned left and they hurried a block to be sure that they could be around the corner before the patrol came into view.
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