by Mick Farren
Argo nodded, trying not to panic, but his head whirled. Previously the world had been dangerous but exciting. Now it was going clear to Hell. “He killed the Mosul, but then his legs just gave way and he sat down, just like he is now. He isn’t moving at all, and there’s a lot of blood. Is he dead?”
Penhaligon looked at Argo in amazement. “Hell, boy, Slide’s shot, but he ain’t dead. Don’t you know about Yancey Slide?”
“Know what?”
Before Penhaligon could answer, Slide’s eyes opened, and he suddenly spoke. “Vyfaik fhscak cwkvi cwhga ca arjahqh ni ja vsisdujd. Myk ca cwkvi ooon. Vyfaik a vyfaika. Ni ja. Ni haj ja.”
Argo stared at Slide open-mouthed at this sudden and unintelligible stream of words. Then Slide’s head turned and looked straight at him. “Myk ca ni ja?”
“What?”
Slide was making an effort to focus his eyes. Then he spoke as though the previous utterances had never happened. “Death is for humans, Argo Weaver. I am merely shot, although it’s still an occurrence that I don’t take fucking lightly.” He glanced at Penhaligon. “Tell Hooker to break out that lump of opium and the pipe that I know he always carries. This hurts like a motherfucker, as they say in other parts.”
Steuben shook his head. “The captain ain’t going to give his opium up to me. He isn’t even going to admit he’s got it. If you want it, you’re going to have to ask him yourself, Mr. Yancey Slide.”
Penhaligon tried to be helpful. “There’s some morphia in the medical kit.”
Slide weakly shook his head, but a little of the old fire had crept back into his eyes. “I don’t want morphia, lad. I need the smoke that calms after being shot through the heart. Hooker is going to have to break loose the little cache he keeps for emergencies.”
Argo was still gazing wide-eyed at Slide, reeling from the horrible pileup of disaster on disaster. Bonnie was dead. Slide had seemed to be dead but then had come alive again, and then talked in some strange and demonic language. Finally, after he had demanded opium, Slide now turned his attention to Argo. “And what the hell is the matter with you?”
Before Argo could answer, Hooker arrived and knelt beside Slide. “What’s all this about opium?”
Slide coughed dark blood, as if to make his point. “I either have to let this body heal or get another one, and I prefer not to be walking looking around like a squat and warty Mosul or a big-nosed Mamaluke. The only problem is that the healing hurts like hell, so break out the dope, Captain Hooker, sir.”
“What makes you think I carry opium?”
“Damn you, Jeb, I know you do. So don’t mess with me. I’m hurting.”
“Can you move?”
Slide managed to shake his head. “No, I can’t. It takes a little time to restore an exploded chest cavity. I feel like I gave birth to an alien.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Wrong world. Just give me some time and some dope, man.”
“How much time?”
Slide sighed. “Half an hour, twenty minutes minimum.”
“Two shots have been fired, Yancey. Every Mosul unit in earshot is going to be coming this way.”
“I’m well aware of that, friend, but it doesn’t alter my situation, so give me the damned opium and get your boys ready to pull out, possibly under fire. Unless you want to leave me out here to suffer, old buddy, old pal…”
Hooker held up his hands. “Okay, okay.” As Steuben and Penhaligon exchanged glances, he pulled a small oilcloth-wrapped package from inside his tunic and handed it to Slide. Slide unwrapped it, revealing a small brass pipe in the shape of a dragon and a small box of the same alloy. Steuben and Penhaligon seemed set to watch, but Hooker glared at them. “Don’t you two have anything to do right now?”
“Orders, Captain?”
“Okay, get back up the ridge and get the others good to go. I need to talk to Slide. Have the mortar assembled and ready to fire on the run. And Penhaligon?”
“Yes, boss.”
“I want you on the Bergman. A fire point by the heliograph. That’s where any Mosul will most likely be headed.”
Penhaligon nodded. “Covering fire as the others move out?”
“You got it.”
“And then?”
“And then we bring you out under cover of small arms and mortar.”
The Ranger nodded. “By the book, a one-over-one play.”
“You can handle that?”
“That’s what they pay me for.”
“Okay.”
Penhaligon and Steuben climbed swiftly back up the rise, and once they were out of earshot, Hooker scowled at Slide. His tone was less than encouraging. “This is a mess.”
Slide extracted a dark brown ball of opium about the size of a pea from the copper box, rolled it between his fingers, and inserted it in the pipe. “Everyone was careless. We should have checked for the fourth man, but what’s done is done.”
Hooker nodded. “I have to get my boys away from here in one piece, and then try to go on with the mission.”
Slide kindled a flame at the end of his finger. It guttered as though there was no power left in him. “So we’re going to have to split up here. You and your boys do what you can, and Weaver and I will slip away in the confusion. I just need time to mend a bit.”
This was the last thing that Argo had expected. He thought they were set to stand or fall with the Rangers. “What?”
Slide sucked on the pipe and then exhaled. “This would be a good time to keep quiet, boy.”
Hooker rose to his feet. “You’ll get all the time and all the confusion I can give you, Yance.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Where do we rendezvous?”
Slide did not seem concerned. “In the Mosul camp, if we both make it. If you’re there, I’ll find you.”
Hooker nodded. “Oh, yeah, Yance, you’ll find me. Probably in the middle of some unholy shit-storm, if history means anything.” He shook his head resignedly and turned to join his men.
Although Slide had told him to keep quiet, Argo felt he had a right to know what this separation would mean. “We’re going into the Mosul camp? Just you and me?”
“That’s right. Just you and me.” Slide winced, and his voice grew nasty. “Just you and fucking me, and we’re going to find Lady Cordelia Blakeney, and the Four will be united, and we’ll win the fucking war and both be heroes. Now shut up and let me smoke this pipe.”
“And what about Bonnie?”
Slide was growing irritable. “What about Bonnie?”
“Are we just going to leave her here?”
“The Rangers will bury her if they can. If they can’t, her body will be left for the Mosul.”
Argo was dumbfounded. “No!”
“What would you do, boy? This is war. In the early days, the Rangers made a whole big deal about never leaving anyone behind, until whole companies were being wiped out trying to bring home the dead. They had to face reality, just as you are going to have to face it. The dead are dead, and beyond our help, and the living can all too easily join them if they embrace romantic but fucking silly ideas.”
The statement stopped Argo in his tracks, and a long interval passed before he spoke again. When he did, his voice was smaller, and he was not thinking about what his rights were anymore. “So it’s just you and me?”
Slide dragged on the pipe again and nodded with total finality. “And all of the gods help the both of us.”
That the Rangers did not immediately depart was not just an extreme favor to Slide. Slide would later explain it to Argo. “Hooker also needed some time and confusion for himself. He needed to know where the first Mosul detachment was going to come from, so, while Penhaligon held them off with the Bergman gun, the rest of the Rangers could move around behind them, grease the whole bunch, then melt into the landscape before any more could arrive. With dead all over the place, and the hillside chewed up by mortar shells, it was going to take the next bunch of Mosul a while to figure
out what exactly had happened. And they’d be moving up very slowly.”
Thus Argo sat silently with Slide while the Rangers peered into the darkness and readied themselves for a seemingly inevitable firefight and Slide made his unbelievable and inhuman recovery. Twenty minutes passed in this way before Slide gestured to Argo. “Give me my sword, will you, boy?”
Argo retrieved the oriental sword from the grass, and before he handed it to Slide, he felt an odd tingle as he held it. He noted the oddly shaped blade and fanciful, batwing guard. Slide took the sword and used it as a support as he attempted to climb to his feet.
“Do you need me to help you?”
“No, I have to do this myself.”
Slide groaned a little but managed to stand, and, after taking a number of deep breaths, he started up the rise to where the Rangers waited, wheezing as he climbed. Once at the top, Slide returned Hooker’s brass pipe and box, rewrapped in their oilskin. The two men embraced, and Hooker seemed about to say something when Madden hissed a warning and Penhaligon tightened his grip on the stock of the Bergman. “Sounds like we got company, Captain.”
Immobile as statues, the Rangers listened. Sounds of movement were coming from somewhere in the distance, the slight rattles and footfalls of soldiers on the move, but Argo could not tell exactly where they might be. Hooker whispered a warning to Penhaligon. “Don’t fire until you’ve acquired.”
Penhaligon all but chided his commander. “I’ve done this before, boss.”
A moment after he had spoken, a flare burst above them. The Rangers all did their best to be invisible, hugging the ground to appear as nothing more than hummocks in the grass. The flare burned briefly and then dropped into the darkness at some midpoint between them and the advancing sounds. Hooker gestured to his men, indicating they should move out fast along the ridgeline, just below the crest, to outflank the enemy unit. Only Penhaligon stayed to hold what had previously been their position. Slide indicated to Argo that they should follow. “But when they turn, we keep on going straight.”
The Bergman gun opened up with the characteristic single-second, chugging reports of its revolving multiple barrels.
“They must be coming up the far side of the hill.”
Penhaligon fired in three- and four-shot bursts, husbanding his ammunition, confident that the Mosul had nothing to match his firepower.
Hooker gestured silently to move.
The other Rangers were running, crouched low, already swinging round, using the terrain to outflank the Mosul.
“Ready the mortar.”
Argo could have remained and watched, but a seemingly reinvigorated Slide took him by the arm. “Let’s go, boy.”
Keeping the firing at their backs, Slide and Argo moved quickly into the darkness. The Bergman gun chopped on relentlessly, and shouts and two different sets of screams came from the Mosul attackers. Then, after a couple more minutes, they heard the muffled sound of a mortar being fired. Both Argo and Slide paused at the sound and waited the five seconds or so until the explosion of the detonating shell followed. The sound of the lone Bergman was replaced by the chatter of carbine fire and the bark of repeating shotguns. The cracks of the Mosul breechloaders sounded as though they were being overwhelmed by the superior firepower of the Rangers.
“Let’s move, Argo Weaver. It sounds like our boys have the upper hand. We have ourselves to worry about.”
The pair hurried on, making for the cover of a small copse at the foot of the hill. A second and third mortar shell exploded somewhere behind them. Once among the trees, Slide paused, leaning on a trunk for support. Argo stared at him anxiously. “Are you alright?”
Slide nodded. “Yes. Give me a moment. I was on the move a little too quickly, that’s all.”
Finally Slide straightened up. A final flash and one more mortar detonation brought about a cessation of the unseen firefight. After a short interval, three sharp reports that sounded like pistol shots provide the last punctuation. Slide raised his head. “Hooker and his boys seem to have done what they set out to do. By now they’ll be doing the melt-away.”
Argo was having trouble keeping up with what was endlessly unfolding all around him. “Those last shots?”
Slide looked hard at him. “This is not a time to be taking prisoners.” He turned and sniffed the air. “And it seems that our Rangers may well be away in the nick of time.”
“Is something coming?”
“You don’t sense it?”
Argo listened and peered into the dark. “No, I don’t. What do you hear?”
Slide stared at him again. “I don’t have time to train you, boy.”
Argo did not like the sound of this at all. “Train me for what?”
“You’re going to have to start using your abilities if you’re going to survive what’s in front of us. Focus, damn it.”
Argo noted that Slide had said “if you’re going to survive.” Slide seemed instantly to know the direction of his thoughts. “Don’t worry about me, Weaver. I’m the demon Slide. I will survive, but I can’t carry you on my back through the next round. Can’t you feel it through the very earth?”
But Argo still felt nothing, and shook his head.
“Cavalry, Argo Weaver. A squadron of heavy cavalry, if I’m not mistaken.”
Now Argo could feel the faint drumming of hooves through the ground under his feet. “I think I feel it, if the feeling’s not just suggestion.”
“You feel it. It’s no suggestion. If I wanted to suggest something, it would be more than just a vibration under your toes. Focus on the sensation and how much it’s able to tell you.”
The very first faint hint of dawn was imperceptibly lightening the eastern sky. Somewhere out over the great Northern Ocean, it was already day.
“They’re coming from the west, from the Continental Highway, riding into the start of the dawn.”
For the first time that he could recall, Argo heard Yancey Slide sound encouraging. “That’s good. You’re getting it. Can you see them?”
“See them? No. It’s too dark.”
“Not with your eyes. See them with your mind. Follow the hoofbeats, make a picture to go with the vibrations.”
Argo closed his eyes and concentrated. Nothing happened, much as he had expected, but Slide was not finished. “Just relax. Don’t try so damned hard.”
Argo blanked his mind as best he was able, and, to his amazement, he saw. Shadowy forms of horsemen, seen in his mind, a full minute before they appeared on the crest of the next rise in the open, undulating country. They turned out to be impractically flamboyant Mamaluke Lancers, with white capes streaming, and they were coming at the gallop. Guidons and pennants flapped below the tips of the traditional lances, although, as a concession to modern times, half of them were carrying carbines. They had not, however, abandoned the high and fearsome, winged and plumed helmets for the contemporary protection of camouflage, and steel cuirasses gleamed beneath the long riding cloaks that made them look like ghost riders in the Virginia dawn.
Argo turned urgently to Slide. “So what do we do? Stay put here and try to blend in to the shadows?”
“We can do better that. We can become invisible.”
“Like the Rangers?”
Slide shook his head. “No, really invisible.”
If the situation had not been so serious, Argo would have laughed. “Maybe you can, but…”
“Just now you thought you couldn’t see the Mamalukes.”
“But invisible? That’s not real.”
“And what exactly, Argo Weaver, is fucking real?”
“Invisible isn’t real. Whatever way you look at it.”
“Shut up and stop getting in your own way. If one of them comes too close, just will yourself out and up. Just out and up. That’s all you need think to take yourself out of the picture that their eyes are receiving.”
“I…”
Slide was suddenly stern and towering. “I ordered you not to speak, boy. Will you
still demand reasons even now that the bloody Mamalukes are all but on us?”
The lancers had plainly been steeplechasing to the firefight, following the sound of combat, but, now the guns had stopped, they were directionless. They wheeled to a halt, uncomfortably close to the copse that concealed Argo and Slide, and seemed set to remain there until they knew more. Four troopers were dispatched at speed to scout the high ground in front of them, the rise that Argo and Slide had just descended. Almost as an afterthought, the troop commander ordered two more of his horsemen to take a look under the trees. The two moved out from the body of the troop, and Slide whispered four words before lowering himself into the cover of the undergrowth. “Up and out, boy.”
Up and out. How could anything so impossible be stated so simply? The two Mamalukes were still negotiating the outer low branches of the copse, and Argo had to fight down a panic that screamed that he should run. The brace of enemy smelled of horse and sweat and leather. They were close enough for him to hear the harnesses creaking and see the steel of the buckles, spurs, and stirrups gleam. The riders’ lances were held in gauntlets that extended to their elbows, and they had to duck low to peer into the darkness of the copse. Seeing that they would not be able to negotiate the trees and the undergrowth while still mounted, one of the Mamalukes handed his lance and reins to his companion. Drawing a saber from the scabbard behind his sheepskin-covered saddle, he swung down from the horse. First removing his high, winged and plumed helmet, revealing himself as hawk-nosed, shaved-headed, and with a full drooping mustache, he pulled a revolver from a holster on his belt, and, with sword in one hand and pistol in the other, he advanced towards where Slide and Argo crouched motionless.
Argo took a deep breath and did as Slide had ordered. Up and out. Again the miraculous seemed to occur. Argo was suddenly seeing the scene in the copse from two separate points of view. One was his normal perspective and the other was a more colorful and hallucinatory vision with bright rainbow shimmers along and around the edges of anything on which he tried to focus. The point of view of this strange new way of seeing also appeared to be rising, floating up to a place where the intruder did not threaten. Up and out. Argo floated half in the world that he had always known and half in somewhere new. Up and out. With what he now found himself thinking of as his earthly vision, he saw the lancer coming closer and closer. He could hear his breathing and feel the tightness of the Mamaluke’s grip on his weapons. He could smell the tobacco on the man’s breath and found himself staring at the high, over-the-knee tops of his heavy and highly polished riding boots. He all but felt the slight tug as the rider’s cape snagged a bush.