Sweet Silver Blues gf-1

by Glen Cook

  "I don't know and I don't think I want to know. All I'm interested in now is moving myself from this godforsaken here to there where I can sit down to my first healthy meal in a month. But I suppose we have to protect ourselves. You think we rescued him?"

  "There's a chance."

  "Which one?"

  "Take your pick."

  "Not the women?"

  "No. One would know the other had changed. I'd vote for someone about his size."

  "Always assuming he's still with us."

  "Always assuming that."

  We were pleasantly surprised to find our camp as we had left it, unplundered and the horses uneaten and patiently waiting. Morley sent Marsha off for a load of moist earth. He assumed the job of sentinel. The rest of us doctored one another. When I was satisfied that I wouldn't succumb to the disease through my wounds, I hunted for Dotes. He was perched on a boulder contemplating the desert between our camp and the mesa. He said, "You haven't said a word to her."

  "I'll talk to her when she wants to talk. For now I'm satisfied with her letting me bring her out after what you did to Clement. It's time you explained the latest moves in Morley's Game."

  "I suppose. Otherwise you'll badger me incessantly. You knew that six years ago the kingpin's number one walked with half his plunder."

  "Old news. I also heard that he and his brother ran off to Full Harbor."

  "It took them a couple of years to find that out. The kingpin sent some men down. They must have stirred things up the same way we did. Something happened to them. They only got one report back. It said Valentine wasn't in Full Harbor anymore, and that after a fast romance, his brother had married a local girl named Kronk. She had gone off with her husband when he followed his brother wherever."

  "Then you knew all along who she married."

  "Yeah. But telling you wouldn't have helped you find her. His trail was already covered."

  I controlled my anger. "So the kingpin sent you down here."

  "Not exactly. I volunteered. When you asked me to join up with you, it was like the answer to a virgin's prayer. An honest-to-god miracle. The kingpin was ready to list my name with those sleeping among the fishes. It was an out. I went and told him the story and said I would get Valentine if we could call it even. He bought it. He wants Valentine a lot worse than he ever wanted me. So I went ahead and hooked up with you, betting the longest odds I ever played, hoping you could find the woman and she would have lasted longer with Clement than she did with you or your buddy."

  For a while we stared at the desert. Shapes moved there, but none came our way. They didn't have the fully developed senses of their masters. Finally, Morley started talking again.

  "I didn't have the foggiest where it was going till we walked into that place of Zeck Zack's and found those vampires waiting. Then it clicked. The evidence was there all along. I knew Valentine back when. He was dying a slow death and he had no more conscience than a shark. For him it was the logical way to dodge death. He probably took the money in case he needed to buy his way in. Knowing him, he probably figured on being bloodmaster within fifty years."

  "So. The loose ends begin to come together. But there's still one big one hanging out. Who were the people on that ship with the striped sail? What were they doing? Why were they interested in us?"

  I had an idea and I thought Morley's confessions lent it strong circumstantial support. But I meant to reserve that. It might prove useful. I wasn't convinced that those people were out of the game.

  "Why take Valentine back?" I asked.

  "For the kingpin's peace of mind. And mine. I don't want him doubting for a minute."

  I glanced out at the desert. "What are they doing?" Those who had come out of the nest behind us were scampering around like blind mice.

  "I don't know. But I'll give you another loose end. Zeck Zack."

  "Not much we can do about him."

  "I should have cut his throat.'"

  "And you criticize me for what red meat does to me?"

  "Marsha's back. Let's pack our prizes."

  "What are we going to feed them?"

  "Let them get hungry. They'll eat what we give them." He dropped off his boulder. "Where do we go now?"

  "Back to Full Harbor. Take a peek through the centaur's tunnel. See how much excitement there is about us. I hate to leave our stuff if we don't have to. Buying new would stretch the budget too far."

  "That innkeeper probably sold everything already."

  "We'll see. Keep a watch on our friends. Just in case the major is with us." I had a couple tricks up my sleeve yet, one of which would probably give me the major, but I didn't want to use them if I didn't have to. Magics of the sort I had gotten from the Old Witch were too precious to squander.

  We packed our prizes, as Morley dubbed them, in the earth Marsha brought, wet them down, bundled them up, and loaded them on the wagon. Tired though we were, I wanted to be traveling with first light.

  Before I folded my blanket over Kayean's face, she met my gaze directly for the first time and rewarded me with a feeble smile.

  The nineteen-year-old Marine was still alive. He could be touched.

  50

  Vasco and Saucerhead also went into the wagon, with a moderately carved-up soldier on the driver's seat. Doris insisted he was capable of helping Marsha pull. Fine. Let him if he wanted. Let him bleed to death. I wasn't his mother.

  Mrs. Garrett taught her boys never to argue with grolls.

  We put the women on horseback. Everyone else would walk, like it or not.

  We were ready to head out when Morley summoned me to his boulder. "Bring the spyglass."

  When I got there I heard it. It came from the direction of the cave. I trained the glass. There was barely enough light. "The ones who came out can't get back inside."

  "Oh, my. Isn't that sad." Then he muttered something else, and pointed.

  "Oh, my twice or thrice," I said. "I guess this means we slip out the back door."

  "Yep. Papa's coming home. Jodie goes out the window and keeps moving fast. It won't take him long to figure we got out again."

  I could hear them now as well as see them. "I never saw so many in one mob before. He must have rounded up his whole tribe." I guessed there were at least five hundred centaurs. Their advance was a movement of precision to be envied by any cavalry commander. They changed directions and formations as easily and quickly as a flock of birds, and with no more apparent signaling.

  "Let's not sit here talking about it while they just prance up and grab us."

  "Good thinking." We got moving.

  Zeck Zack and his people didn't interfere with us at all, though I'm certain their scouts knew where we were. We hastened eastward as fast as we could hoof it, with me sort of hanging around the rear, staring at backs, wondering which, if any, was the major.

  News of Glory Mooncalled's adventure had reached every cranny of the Cantard. The land was coming to life. Three times we went into hiding while soldiers passed. They were all headed south. The smallest lot were Venageti rangers. No telling what they were up to when they heard and decided to head home. I didn't care as long as they didn't want to include me in their game of kings.

  Morley and I both watched our companions more closely than we did the rangers. The major, if he was with us, didn't give himself away. Not that I expected him to, but I wasn't missing any chances.

  We kept on until everyone was stumbling, and kept on still. What Zeck Zack might want to do with us we had no idea, but he had no cause to be friendly. And there were the other perils of the Cantard, which Glory Mooncalled had conjured to life like a shower livens the plants of the desert. It seemed we couldn't go five miles without some sort of alarm. The nights were more friendly than the days.

  We reached the abandoned mill without falling into misfortune. I began to feel optimistic. "We'll rest here a day or two," I announced.

  Some of my comrades by circumstance wanted to argue. I told them, "Take it up wi
th the grolls. If you can whip them, go do what you want." I wasn't feeling a bit democratic.

  The only would-be sneak-off was Rose.

  I had to give the little witch credit for being stubborn and determined. No matter what, she was going to keep after Denny's legacy until she got it. She worked on Morley, but he had reached a state where he had nothing on his mind but watercress sandwiches. She worked on Saucerhead, but he had signed on with my squad and the gods themselves couldn't have moved him until I released him. She worked on Vasco, but he was completely introspective, interested only in going home. She worked on Spiney Prevallet, but he said he'd had his fill of pie in the sky by and by and told her to go to hell.

  She decided to take the future by the horns herself.

  I caught her with a sharpened piece of firewood trying to decide the best place to stick it into the bundle containing Kayean. I'm afraid I lost my temper. I sprawled her across my lap and applied the stick to her posterior.

  Morley said, "You should have left her with her spiritual family."

  She gave him a look to sear steel.

  I think his remark hurt her more than the spanking, though a person of her temperament was the sort to turn the thrashing into a grudge worth nursing for years. It sent her off to sit alone and reweave her skein of self-justification. Come the next night, while we were waiting for Dojango to come back with a report on our standing in the city, she decided to go her own way.

  Morley reported her defection. "Shall we let her go?"

  "I guess not. Chances are she'd get herself enslaved or killed, and I have an obligation to her family. We know she won't learn from experience, so there's no point letting her suffer for education's sake. And if she did get through, she'd just set us up for something unpleasant."

  Tinnie was sitting beside me, her shoulder half an inch from mine. We'd been rehashing those things men and women talk about when they have other things on their minds.

  "You really ought to ditch her, Garrett." Morley sighed.

  Tinnie said, "His conscience wouldn't let him. And neither would yours, Morley Dotes."

  He laughed. "Conscience? What conscience? I'm too sophisticated to have one and Garrett is too simple."

  I said, "Go get her, Morley. And put hobbles on her."

  Once he had gone, Tinnie asked, "Would he really let her... ?"

  "Pay him no nevermind, Red. We talk that way. But it's just talk."

  Rose was not fighting when Marsha lugged her back into the circle of light cast by our fire. The fight was out of her. Morley came to report, "She ran into something out there. We scared it off. She won't say what it was, but you might consider a double watch and maybe a prayer for Dojango."

  "Right." I took care of it and resumed my seat, considering Rose across the fire, feeling moody.

  Tinnie touched my arm and said, "Garrett, when we get home... "

  "If we get home is soon enough to talk about when we get home." It came out more curt than I'd intended. She fell into a silence as sullen as my own.

  51

  Dojango waited until afternoon to return. His report was exactly what I wanted to hear. Nobody in Full Harbor was the least interested in a band of nosies from TunFaire. Nothing unusual had taken place while we were away. All the talk was about Glory Mooncalled and the epic dust-up taking shape down south. Our things were still at the inn, being preserved by an innkeeper who felt kindly disposed because we had left him the clothing and possessions of those thugs we'd thrown into the streets mother-naked.

  "Or so he says," Dojango editorialized. "Actually."

  "We'll watch him. Let's get it packed up. I want to hit that tunnel as soon after dark as we can. Did you make the other arrangements?"

  "No trouble. They'll be delivered to the back door of the inn. They should be waiting when we get there."

  "What about shipping complications?"

  "Shouldn't be any, actually. It's done all the time. Every ship headed north carries a few for families that can afford it. Strictly routine, actually."

  "Good. Morley. One problem left, and tonight would be the time for it to make itself apparent." We wandered away from the others slowly, keeping our backs toward them.

  "You have any candidate in mind?" he asked.

  "Pressed, I'd have to call Vasco's name. But he's the only one I know well enough to know he's not acting normal. And he's got good enough reasons."

  "You have a move in mind? A test?"

  "Right after we come out of the tunnel. I want Dojango, Marsha, and Saucerhead to go through first. You and me and Doris will bring up the rear. If we load the rest down with what has to be carried, they'll be surrounded and have their hands full when it happens."

  "You could go to work for the kingpin, scheming like that."

  "I've got to bring it off before it's any good. This isn't some stupid kid we can pluck like some ripe pear. He's going to have moves and plans of his own."

  "We wouldn't have it any other way, would we?"

  We ventured back. During the afternoon's course we passed the word on the night's festivities. Though some were not pleased with my dispositions, they were all realistic enough to understand that I would put people I trusted most where they would do the most good.

  That was the disposition we assumed when we broke camp, except for having the grolls take turns pulling the wagon. I told Saucerhead he could ride until we neared the wall, but he insisted that he had healed enough to hike. Vasco and the wounded soldier also hoofed it, saying they wanted to keep loose. Morley and I trudged along eating everybody's dust.

  A time or two I moved up to make sure Kayean's wrappings were holding. After the second check I dropped back and said, "I've noticed you haven't done anything to keep your prize from starving."

  Kayean threw up almost everything I gave her. When I unwrapped her, I had to make certain her hands and feet were bound. I had clipped her claws first chance after we had come out of the nest. She still had her teeth and the hunger was upon her, though when she was rational she was game enough in battling the disease.

  "You also notice he's gone into the long sleep that gets them when they're starving. He'll last till we make TunFaire. And that's all I need."

  Much as I disliked the deed itself, I now suspected that Morley had done the best thing by killing Clement. Clement's death had freed Kayean.

  Without a word having been exchanged I somehow understood that she had marched through the doorway to hell only because that was the pathway her husband had taken and she was a wither-thou-goest kind of lady. For his part, I think Clement made his move sixty percent out of conscience and remorse, forty percent out of spite. Kayean wasn't wearing white because she was his bride. One of the masters had taken her from him.

  I hoped she hadn't been forced to bear one of their soulless brats. I didn't believe any woman could recover from that.

  It all went perfectly, with rescuees carrying our prizes into the tunnel. It was spacious enough for the wagon, but I didn't want to be found roaming the streets with army property I couldn't explain having. We could hire something on the other side.

  Morley and I were fifty feet from the tunnel's end, with Doris behind us, when it happened.

  Up ahead Marsha started booming his lungs out.

  "Damn it!" Morley swore. He translated, "Ambush. Nine men, one woman. Striped-sail bunch. They must have made Dojango while he was in town."

  "I wanted to hold on to this forever," I said, dipping into a boot. "Grab on to me. Tell Doris, too."

  Beyond the tunnel's end Rose started yelling. "Garrett! Help! Morley!"

  Morley muttered, "Shut up, you stupid bitch."

  "Stupid? She figures she just solved her whole problem for nothing."

  Rose's yelling stopped with a smack so loud we heard it back in the tunnel.

  "Against the wall," I said. They held onto me. I ripped the paper spell open. Two seconds later four guys with swords galloped into the tunnel, ready for anything. They looked around an
d didn't find it.

  One yelled, "Ain't nothing in here."

  I didn't hear the reply. They withdrew.

  "What now?" Morley breathed.

  "As long as we move slowly and don't make any noise or any sudden moves, they won't see us or know where we are. We'll slide out and see what's going on."

  What was going on was that the two thugs I knew from the striped-sail ship, with a woman who appeared to be in charge, and seven other men, had my folks lined up against a wall in the storage basement where the tunnel began. Marsha they kept contained with a ballista almost as heavy as a field piece.

  In half a minute their questions made it obvious they were after a specific person, but didn't mind trampling a few others along the way. My folks just looked at them, baffled, except Rose, who put on a great crying act. I gathered that Tinnie's was the hand that had reddened her cheek.

  "Well?" Morley whispered. "We can take them if Doris gets that ballista."

  "We don't need any blood in it. We'll bluff. You go over there and yell for everybody to freeze when Doris busts up the ballista. I'll put a knife to the lady's throat. Take these." I gave him a couple of throwing stars from my collection of un-Garrett-like weapons.

  He needed no further explanation. He told Doris what to do. We parted. I drifted toward the lady commander, no doubt the woman about whom Master Arbanos had been so dubious. Dojango had begun yammering at her, explaining that everyone else in the several parties that had gone out of the city had been killed by unicorns or vampires.

  "What the hell was that?" asked one of the men at the ballista, whirling around. "Skipper, is this place haunted?"

  A ballista went up in the air and shattered against the joists supporting the floor above.

  Morley yelled, "Everybody freeze!"

  I laid the edge of my knife on the woman's throat and whispered, "This is your friendly spook. Don't even breathe fast. Good. Now, I suggest you have your boys put down their tools."

  Doris pounded three or four men out of sheer youthful exuberance. Morley tripped and head-kicked Ugly One when he took a notion to turn on me.