Ring of fire II (assiti shards)

by Eric Flint

  Doggie stepped forward. In a shaky voice the young man volunteered as a wagon driver. Major Stieff looked him over and nodded, then turned back to Reichard. "Go with the wagon, Blucher. See that everyone gets back safely. Then get a good meal and some rest."

  "Yes, sir. I should take Herr O'Reilly's body to his wife. She should know how he died."

  "Yes, yes, by all means!" the major said. "Please extend my condolences to the good lady."

  "A toast to a job well done." Ev Parker lifted his stein. "Your mares are beauties. I don't think I could have done any better myself. Those colts look to grow up into good studs."

  Wilf lifted his stein in response. "Herr Parker, without your guidance-without your friendship, we would still be but a gang of poor mercenaries."

  The other ex-mercenaries nodded in agreement.

  "You have, Herr Parker," Christian said, "given us lives, livelihoods, and a home."

  Wilf refilled the steins. "Nay, good Christian. Not just a home but a home and family. 'Tis not something mercenaries often find at the end of their soldiering." He looked around for a barmaid. It was a quiet time at the Thuringen Gardens, midway between the last of the lunch crowd and the beginnings of the dinner crowd. Most of the staff were taking their well-deserved breaks.

  "Before Grantville's arrival," Wilf continued, "the best we could hope for was to be killed quickly in battle. Else we'd end our days begging for drinking money in some village until death claimed us." One of the barmaids was approaching the table at last.

  "Yes." Reichard picked up the conversation. "Surviving as the village drunk and filling young boys' heads with tales of the loot and glory of a war company. Little wonder some of those boys run off and join the first company they find."

  "Some of us," Christian chimed in, "found ourselves, ah, encouraged to leave home. When one has no home, no family, and no craft, the mercenary companies offer food, companionship, and a craft."

  Wilf noticed the look on the barmaid's face as she came closer. "Methinks we have trouble brewing, boys." He stood and shoved his chair back.

  "Herren," the barmaid whispered. Her face was white with fright. "The men, the no-kraut men, they are looking for you. They say you murdered a man."

  "Damn bunch of rednecked idiots!" Ev swore. "Damn that Sam O'Reilly-still kicking up trouble even when he's dead."

  "I think that trouble wears the name of Doggie this time." Reichard said. "He accused me of murder at the mill."

  "Doggie's dumber than a pail full of rocks," Ev replied. "Unfortunately he's got a overly-healthy imagination fueled by too much beer and weed. He's also got a big mouth on him."

  They were all standing when the front doors slammed open and twenty some men pushed in. Seeing their targets standing calmly the mob halted in confusion. A few taunts were shouted at the ex-mercenaries but more were aimed at getting the mob organized for its attack.

  "Shit, man, get your skinny ass over here and stop trying to bash Win's head in. Save it for the krauts!" shouted a skinny man in a John Deere gimme cap.

  "BB, you dumbass, you poke me once more with that thing and I'll wrap it around your fat neck," a voice yelled over the general uproar.

  Reichard faced toward the mob and the others lined up on either side of him. Wilf leaned over and whispered, "Herr Parker, if you don't mind, it would be better if you moved aside. We'll be the ones these fools are after."

  "I've a mind to join in but it's been fifty years since my last bar fight." Ev grinned briefly.

  Wilf was relieved when the old man moved to the back of the room. He turned his attention to the mob milling around just inside the door. They would have to cross thirty feet to reach his group. Thirty feet full of heavy tables, chairs and benches. Good. They had to either move those tables and chairs out of the way or split up. The sound of wood scraping on wood behind him brought a savage grin. Klaus was moving tables to block anyone trying to get at their backs.

  "Break bones but let's try to avoid killing." Wilf said.

  Christian barked a laugh. "Ah, but their blood is too hot and some of them need a medicinal bloodletting. Look at that one in the red shirt. His face is the same shade."

  Dieter chuckled. "Aye. The one in the green cap also has that look."

  "That's the old way," Reichard stated pontifically. "The new doctors suggest rest. A little tap on the head and he'll go to sleep."

  "Keep the bloodletting down." Wilf growled. "We don't want a massacre."

  The men took notice that the mob was armed mostly with baseball bats. A couple of them had lengths of motorcycle drive chain and one fellow sported a golf club. Two men at the back had ropes in their hands-ropes with hangman's nooses tied in them.

  "They're looking for a lynching," Dieter said. "Do you think that they believe we will quietly cooperate with their plans?"

  The mob had finally sorted itself out and began its charge. Their tight group split up as they wove between tables and chairs. The first man to reach them planted himself and swung a length of chain at Wilf's head.

  Wilf grinned, ducked and slammed his fist into the chain wielder's stomach. Things got a bit busy then. Wilf caught occasional glimpses of his friends. He saw Reichard pluck a baseball bat out of a man's hands and slam it back into that man's ribs.

  Wilf braced himself for the next attacker. The man in the green cap pushed forward, swinging his golf club. Wilf stepped inside the swing and swept the man's feet out from under him. When the man was on the floor, Wilf stomped on his hand. A blow took him across the back and he turned to deal with it.

  A high-pitched scream cut above the general noise. Wilf risked a glance. One of the mob was clutching his stomach with both hands, trying to keep his intestines in. At his feet lay a rusty machete. The sight of serious blood gave the mob pause. Six other combatants lay on the floor, two writhing in pain from broken bones.

  Most of the mob turned and fled. Four did not. The man in the red shirt screamed, "You fucker! You fucker! You killed him!" and pulled a pistol from his waistband. His hand shaking with fury, he pointed it at Christian. "I'm going to blow your fucking brains out!"

  Christian's Bowie knife swept up, knocked the pistol aside and almost separated the man's hand from his arm.

  A shot deafened them all. Wilf's attention snapped back to the remaining attackers. One was down; his body completely limp, head resting at an impossible angle. The dead man's hand was wrapped around a revolver. Reichard stood over him, blood seeping from his forearm. The last two attackers looked at each other in horror and ran for the door.

  "I'm not out here to arrest anyone, Ev," Dan Frost explained. "I just need to finish my paperwork on that brawl."

  "The boys," Ev Parker replied, "have already paid the Gardens for cleaning up and the broken furniture. Which was generous of them, I'd say. Especially as they only defended themselves. Reichard's arm is busted, Klaus has cracked ribs, Dieter's got broken toes and a couple of broken fingers, and Wilf's probably got a cracked shoulder blade. Christian needed some stitches in his thigh."

  Dan snorted. "I've got Austin O'Meara dead. The doctors had BB Baldwin in surgery for eight hours and they're not giving him good odds to last the week. Winston Beattie's got a fractured skull to go with having his right hand nearly amputated. His odds aren't great, either. The other injuries run to broken ribs and arms with lots of cuts and bruises mixed in. One sorry specimen may be singing tenor. He's hospitalized and, for once in his life, praying mightily."

  "Yeah, heard about him." Ev grinned. "I also hear that his wife is praying his voice change is permanent."

  "There aren't going to be any charges pressed against any of your 'boys.' We've got plenty of witnesses for self defense." Frost leaned back in his chair. He sat silently for a minute, sipping his coffee and thinking.

  "You know, Ev, everything considered, I'm kind of surprised that only one man is dead. Even if BB and Winston die, that's not the result I'd have expected. Your boys pulled their punches. It wasn't a fair fight. M
ore like a bunch of junkyard dogs trying to take on a pack of wolves. No, that isn't quite right."

  It was Ev's turn to snort. "Twenty drunken amateurs going up against five professional soldiers. Try 'a bunch of junkyard dogs taking on five grizzlies.' "

  "Now that sounds right, Ev."

  Second Issue?

  Bradley H. Sinor

  The back door of the Grantville Times printing plant flew open with a bang. An icy blast of January air came rushing in, whipping the flames of several candles placed around Paul Kindred's work table, scattering the numerous sheets of paper that he had spread out on it.

  He muttered a comment about idiots, in this case himself, who forgot to lock doors at night. The middle of January, especially in northern Germany in the year of our Lord 1633, was not the time you left a door standing wide open.

  Before he could get out of his chair, Paul caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of someone coming through that door. Who he saw was enough to know that this was no chance gust of wind, even though Paul realized he definitely hadn't locked the door.

  "Yuri Andreovich, would you shut that damn door!"

  When Yuri Andreovich Kuryakin heard Paul's voice he turned with a start, looking around for the source of the voice. With his small frame and twitchy on-the-move manner, he gave the impression of being younger than his twenty some years, not to mention of being frightened by his own shadow.

  "Oh, there you are, Paul," the young Russian said, letting a small sigh escape. "I'm glad to find you working late."

  "Never mind that, just shut the damn door; in case you haven't looked at the calendar, it's January!"

  "I know it's January!" he replied. "Just wait until it gets really cold, like in Mother Russia!"

  "Unless you have a cord of wood with you, shut the damn door!"

  Yuri made a big show of checking the pockets of his down jacket and thick leather chaps, in the processes of which he managed to push the door closed.

  "Nope, no extra wood here," he said with a grin.

  It wasn't that he was stupid, far from it. That much Paul had realized within five minutes of meeting Yuri. He just tended to be so enthusiastic that when he got an idea it pushed everything else, including common sense, out the back door.

  This was not the first time Yuri had shown up unexpectedly. It had become a regular habit since he had come striding into the Times' office and asked for a job as a reporter. He claimed to have worked for several "local papers" in other parts of Germany, Russia and farther south in the Balkans.

  Paul's father hadn't been that enthusiastic about hiring him, but Paul had convinced him to hire the young Russian anyway. As his father's chief of staff, and managing editor of the Times, he had some say in who was on the staff. There was something in Yuri's intensity, his willingness to follow a story no matter what, that reminded Paul of himself just a few years ago.

  Though there were moments, like this one, where he would have cheerfully strangled Yuri or taken a two-by-four to him, depending on what was handiest.

  "So why the late night visit?" asked Paul, picking up the papers from his table. They showed designs for a fountain pen that local craftsman could make. Paul shoved them into a box and guessed he wouldn't get any more work done on them tonight. He was a newspaperman at heart, but it never hurt to have several money-making enterprises going.

  Yuri began to pace back and forth, occasionally glancing toward the windows as if expecting someone to be looking back at him.

  "I've got a story, a big one. Okay, this goes back a few weeks," he said, "to the Christmas party at the high school."

  That party had been a brilliant stroke, if Paul did say so himself. It had helped improve the morale of all of Grantville; some of the up-timers had been having major problems coming to terms with their "new reality."

  "Yeah, Nina and I were there."

  "I saw you." Yuri grinned. He stopped, again, staring out the window. "But I also saw something else that apparently you missed entirely."

  "Such as?"

  Yuri turned to face Paul, the smile on his face a little too self-satisfied for the older man's liking. "How about General Pappenheim himself there in the school."

  "Gottfried Heinrich Pappenheim? You've got to be joking."

  "I wish I was. When that man shows up there is trouble. It was him, of that I'm sure; the birthmark on his face marks him. Besides, I stood a dozen feet away from him a couple of years ago and got a good look at the man," said Yuri.

  "Wallenstein's chief general, here? Now that might just be a story."

  "It gets better. I spotted him going into the, what do you call it, men's room. He came out dressed all in red. Julie Mackay made him start giving out presents to everyone."

  Santa? Pappenheim had been Santa? Try as he might, Paul couldn't recall the man's face; that red suit dominated everything.

  "Remember when 'Santa' disappeared down the hallway? I was in one of the classrooms and saw what happened. There was some altercation involving two men and a barrel of gunpowder. A few minutes later, I saw Pappenheim talking to Julie Mackay and President Stearns. I couldn't hear worth a damn, but I saw everything. I would swear on my mother's grave that the two of them knew who he was."

  This story sounded so fantastic that Paul wasn't sure if he should kick Yuri out or take him seriously. Not that Paul trusted the government. Oh, Mike Stearns and the rest, individually, were good men and he had no doubt that they were working for the general good. They were still politicians and that meant you had to keep your eye on them.

  Yuri pulled out several sheets of paper and passed them to Paul. "I've got it all written up. It can go in the next edition!"

  One thing you could say about Yuri, he did have easily read handwriting and knew how to put an article together. The story covered everything he had seen, plus a lot of speculation.

  "No, Yuri Andreovich. We can't run this story, not as it stands now," Paul said. "You cannot accuse the government of a secret conspiracy without proof."

  "I've spent the last week asking questions! All it's gotten me is a lot of blank stares and denials. Though I think Lefferts suspects something; I've been followed everywhere I go." Lefferts was Captain Harry Lefferts; he was part of the army but he also functioned as the head of Mike Stearns' special security unit that was directly under the President's authority.

  "I didn't say we wouldn't publish it, but before I will-Proof, we will need proof before we could even consider going to press with this," said Paul.

  Yuri stared at Paul for a long time. "Very well, I will get proof." His voice suggested that his idea of getting proof would look something akin to a bull in a china shop. Yuri pulled his jacket tight about him and headed out the door without a word. A moment later he opened it again and leaned part way in.

  "My byline, above the fold. Da?"

  "Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way."

  Yuri would not wait long, that much Paul knew. While the reporter was long on talent, he was at times short on patience, and Paul had a gut feeling that this could very well be one of those times.

  Pappenheim playing Santa at the Christmas party was just so bizarre that it could have happened. Now if Yuri had suggested it had been Wallenstein, that would have been too much. It wasn't that Stearns wasn't capable of making a deal with Pappenheim, Paul was fairly certain he would, if it were necessary. Like all the other up-timers, Stearns had been forced to adapt to political realities in the seventeenth century.

  Paul needed information, fast.

  That meant Mirari Sesma.

  Mirari was Basque. She had turned up in Grantville three months after the Ring of Fire. Just exactly why she had left the Pyrenees was a bit unclear; a few dropped hints suggested something about a vendetta, but she had never been forthcoming with details.

  Mirari had taken over one of the empty buildings in town and had set up a small cafe that turned out to be extremely popular. People came, they ate, they drank, they talked, and, most import
antly, Mirari listened. Her dark hair and dark eyes gave her an exotic appearance, but her manner was such that people just trusted her. It wasn't long before Mirari seemed to know everything that was going on in town, and if she didn't know it, she could find it out.

  Paul found her in the back of her shop, just after closing at midnight. She was pouring a dark liquid into a cup. Before he could say anything she offered it to him and poured herself another.

  "Chocolate?" he asked, savoring the familiar taste.

  "I just got a supply in. I'll be saving it for special occasions," answered Mirari. "How is Nina?"

  "She's almost over the cold. That herb tea you left certainly helped." Mirari and Nina, Paul's wife, had met weeks before he had been introduced to her. By that time the two of them were like long lost sisters.

  "Besides drinking up my chocolate, what brings you out and about this late at night?"

  "You always did know how to cut to the point." Paul wrapped his hands around the cup, enjoying the warmth. "I've picked up a rumor that General Pappenheim has been seen in the area, the night of the Christmas party?"

  Mirari was hard pressed to keep from laughing. "You've got to be joking. He's not stupid enough to come anywhere near here, not without a very large army at his back. Have you seen the reward for his head?"

  Paul was very familiar with the reward. The Times had bid on and gotten the job of printing wanted posters of both Pappenheim and Wallenstein.

  "And you're serious about this?" asked Mirari.

  "Just see what you can find out, as soon as possible."

  "There is something going on," said Mirari. She had shown up at Paul's front door just after six the next evening. She seemed more than a bit unhappy. "Since noon I've had the feeling I was being followed, though I saw no one. It's not a feeling that I like."

  Nina had been as pleased to see her as Paul was. The two women hugged and began talking about a half a dozen different subjects as the three of them sat down on the couch.

  Among other things that Paul discovered in the next few minutes was that Nina and Mirari were working on setting up some new classes at the high school and were even talking about going into business together. This was the first time that he had heard anything about that.