“May I present Arm Giselle Debardelaben, Focus Rickenbach-Schuber, her husband and her household,” Shadow said, to the approaching Crows. “From left to right, may I introduce Dynamo, Rook, Thomas the Dreamer, Chevalier, Vizul Lightning, Merlin, Sinclair, Zero and Midgard.”
Nine Crows, ten counting Shadow. Nearly enough to panic Gail, as was the prospect of meeting Chevalier. Yeah right, Crows are skittish and defenseless.
In a group, they were nearly as terrifying as a group of Arms.
She expected Chevalier to be a slavering monster, or at least a villainous monocle-wearing fop, but instead, he turned out to be a distinguished and well-dressed young man, with a twinkle to his eye and a charismatic presence reminding her of Polly and Tonya. The rumors of his demise had been, as Carol once said about herself, merely an exaggeration.
“If I may ask, Shadow,” Chevalier said. He wore an elegant black coat and the gravel of the parking lot didn’t even crunch under his feet.
“Certainly, you may ask,” Shadow said.
“Then I ask, what are an Arm and a Focus doing here?”
“I believe, friend Chevalier, that the Arm is sitting in a wheelchair and the Focus is standing on the ground,” Shadow said.
Oh, my God, Gail thought, it’s the Crow version of Laurel and Hardy. I’m going to laugh. I’m going to laugh hysterically and roll on the ground and ruin everything. No, I’m going use the juice to turn off my ability to laugh, she decided.
She did so.
“Well, that can be seen, of course,” Chevalier said, “but what I’m more interested in, dear Shadow, is why they are here now.”
“I suspect they are here to observe a duel. Are you not, Focus Rickenbach-Schuber?” Shadow said, his hands behind his back, a big smile on his face.
Gail nodded. This was so patently unreal, and so, so…mannered. In a nasty fashion.
“That, I can deduce, as well,” Chevalier said. “But, pray tell, how did they come to this place?”
“By car.”
“Yes, yes, Shadow, by car. Did you invite these two women Major Transforms?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did Gilgamesh invite them?”
“Why, old friend, perhaps you should ask him.”
“He is in seclusion, as is Phobos, which is also well known, my old friend.”
“Then I suspect your curiosity must wait.”
“My curiosity is not at issue, but instead, the potential fairness of the contest. Also, the safety of the duelists and the observers.”
“Neither the Focus nor the Arm brought any weapons, Chevalier.”
“That, too, I can see. Overt weapons, that is. The Arm, although disarmed and dislegged, is still an Arm and could probably take out us Crows with the pocket change she carries in her pants pocket.” Giselle said nothing through her clenched teeth, but did extract the coins from her jeans pocket and toss them at Chevalier’s feet. “And this Focus is a witch Focus, besides. A sorceress charisma master, as well. And continuing along this line, she did bring her entire household with her, a large army of Transforms. And they are armed.”
“You impugn motives where none are evident. I recall no decisions in the past regarding the observation of Crow duels, friend Chevalier, by Focuses and Arms.”
“That too, is the case.”
“Pray tell, then, what is the objection?”
“The objection, dear Shadow, comes about due to the fact that in the past, no Arms or Focuses showed any interest in Crow duels.”
“Perhaps we should have told them about them.”
“But that, dear Shadow, is part of the question to be decided, today. Our long standing customs restrict the information we share with the backstabbing Focuses and the murderous Arms.”
“This is being decided today?” Shadow said.
“But of course. You claim to be a Mentor, all of a sudden, do you not, dear Shadow.”
“I regard this not as a claim but as a fact.”
“Then your facts are being challenged, because we claim Gilgamesh is not a Guru.”
“I fail to see the connection.”
“A Mentor is one who trains Gurus, dear Shadow. It is elementary.”
“If this is so elementary, old friend, perhaps you had best explain,” Shadow said, “For I am not seeing your point.”
“Twaddle. Even the fools who gawk at my artwork before the true connoisseurs purchase it could see this.”
“Nevertheless.”
Chevalier sighed. “Then I shall explain.”
Shadow blinked, and waited.
After a long pause, Chevalier continued. “If Gilgamesh is proven not to be a Guru you are not a Mentor, because no Gurus look to you.”
“Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Still, what does this have to do with Focuses and Arms?”
“Your position, as Mentor, is to espouse the cooperation of Major Transforms with each other, including cooperation with the younger Focuses and the non-psychotic Arms. Dear Shadow, cooperation with the Focuses and Arms must include passing of information to said Focuses and Arms, which would be a change in the established customs of the Crows. A change open to challenge.”
“I cede your point. It is a change, and is open to challenge.”
“You cede it, but will not stop?”
“Of course not, friend Chevalier, for I have no reason to stop.”
“I can give a reason.”
“Pray tell, then, what is the reason?”
“The reason being that Gilgamesh is not a Guru.”
“Not yet proven. You also discount the possibility that others who follow me may already be Gurus.”
“None that I know of,” Chevalier said, tapping his foot on the ground.
“I speak in the hypothetical, because two of my charges have a distinct possibility of finishing their proving quests today.”
“The day is almost over, dear Shadow.”
“Perhaps I had best amend that statement to ‘tonight’,” Shadow said.
Van bit his knuckles nearly hard enough to draw blood. His chest quivered with repressed laughter.
“You speak of Pittsburgh?”
“Yes.”
“Most hypothetical,” Chevalier said. “Risk in combat is high; and simple survival in a conflict is not enough to prove one is a Guru. Success is required, and active participation, for Gurus who seek to prove themselves in such a fashion.”
“I agree, and await word, myself.”
“I shall, also. Shall we send the Focus and Arm away until that is decided?”
“I shall not,” Shadow said. He put his hands behind his back, and kicked idly at the gravel at his feet. “For until and unless Gilgamesh fails to prove himself a Guru, he is a Guru, by custom. Many Gurus have never been challenged, in this way or any other.”
Chevalier stopped, and Gail took a deep breath. She had thought Focus politics were Byzantine. Crow politics were more than Byzantine. Crow politics were insane.
“Thomas?” Chevalier said.
Thomas the Dreamer wore a white cloak, surrounded by protections that reminded Gail of Sky. Where Chevalier was flamboyant, Thomas was indistinct. Easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention. Gail couldn’t get a good feel for how tall he was, or his appearance, even though he stood less than six feet away from her.
“I see your objections regarding armaments, and have a remedy,” Thomas said.
“I await, friend Thomas, to hear your remedy,” Chevalier said.
“The most common entourage of a Focus, for her protection, numbers four. We should allow Focus Rickenbach-Schuber her four armed bodyguards. The others can observe, unarmed.”
All eyes turned to Gail.
“I, um, I find that acceptable,” Gail said. She hoped she had said this correctly in ‘Crow’.
All eyes turned to Chevalier. “I must object on principle, but will lodge no further protests on the matter.”
“So be it,” Thomas said. “On the other subject, if the Focus allow
s, I can limit her abilities to her and her household.”
All eyes turned to Gail, again. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“What Thomas is proposing,” Shadow said, “is that you accept a dross construct that temporarily limits your ability to use your charisma and your juice manipulation capabilities to those within your household.”
“I fail to see how this is relevant,” Gail said, after she quickly reworded what she had been about to say: you’re out of your mind!
“Friend Chevalier fears you might interfere in the duel, and that your capabilities would cause consternation among some of the younger Crow viewers of the duel.”
Interesting. One Focus might cause that amount of fear? “I would hate to be without an ability to defend myself.”
“You see, dear Shadow, the problem,” Chevalier said. “Focuses are all alike, in this regard. They see treachery around them, for they are treacherous, themselves.”
This Crow’s elegant manners didn’t hide his hateful heart at all, Gail decided.
“Did I mention defending myself against Crows?” Gail said, letting her anger show through. “My enemies include other Focuses and Arms. The Hunters are enemies of us all. I will not be made defenseless against my true enemies.”
“A point to the Focus,” Thomas said. “I can arrange my dross construct such that you may switch it off, Focus Rickenbach-Schuber, but in such a way that when it is switched off, all here will know.”
“I would find such a dross pattern acceptable,” Gail said.
“I will reluctantly accept this compromise,” Chevalier said. “In the interest of harmony, only. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go and settle my mind.” With that, he bowed, turned and walked away. Rook and Dynamo followed.
Very pointedly, Thomas the Dreamer stayed. Gail sensed Thomas examining her.
“You bring with you a strong argument for your position, Shadow,” Thomas said. “Many Transform women of her household wear maternity clothes, and invite further examination, which for those of us with trained eyes, immediately shows the obvious. The steadiness of the Focus here invites a change in her nickname among my people. She is no longer a clumsy angel.” Thomas turned to Gail. “Angel, you give us both hope that the many differences between the Crows and the Focuses can be worked out, and fear, that if many young high-potential Focuses like yourself are similarly trained, the world could turn into a dark place for Crows indeed. I must think on this.” With that, Thomas left, along with Vizul Lightning and Merlin. Thomas had most pointedly not acknowledged Giselle’s existence. The Arm stayed calm, clearly telling herself to keep her composure, that this was proper punishment for losing an arm and a leg in a fight. Gail had already tried to figuratively throttle Carol over the idea that Giselle needed to be punished, but gave up when her impromptu poll of the other Arms revealed that to them, this was an obvious punishment situation. As Amy put it, punishment was often the greatest reward for heroism.
The Arms were clearly as insane as the Crows.
“Clumsy Angel?” Gail said, turning to Shadow. Great. Just great.
“Alas, yes,” he said, at least feigning embarrassment. “When you first transformed, the only Crows in Detroit worth mentioning followed Thomas and his Gurus. By the time Whisper began to follow my lead, and Gilgamesh began to do his thing, your name among us was already established.”
Gail didn’t want to go any further into Crow nicknames. Time for a subject change. “So, Shadow, where is this duel going to be held, anyway? Where are we supposed to sit?”
Dolores Sokolnik:
“No, those ammo boxes are supposed to go to group two, not four,” the Commander said. She barely looked at Del, too engrossed in a metasense scan of the area around the rumbling bus.
“Yes, ma’am,” Del answered, moving down the aisle as the Commander spoke, long before her conscious mind registered the order.
Based on what Ma’am Keaton had written about the Commander in her notebooks, and Del’s experienced during the Commander’s visits, she had underestimated the Commander by a lot. Which appalled her. While working for the Commander as an aide she had almost no free will. She had never imagined such a thing was even possible. Nothing she had experienced as an Arm, even in her darkest and weakest days as a student Arm, had prepared her for this.
The ammo boxes moved to the correct pile in the back of the bus, Del returned to the Commander for her next assignment. Their staging area and source of the offending ammo boxes was in the town of Butler, less than an hour north of Pittsburgh. The Commander’s logistics people, a specially trained group of normals, had been caching supplies in Butler since the call went out for people to gather at the Adirondacks camp. Why separate the supplies from the people? The advanced metasense skills, such as the Dreaming talents, located Transforms far too easily, and also could often pick up on what the Transforms carried with them.
If that was the only preparation trick being used, Del wouldn’t have felt thrown. It was, however, just one of dozens. For another, nothing Ma’am Keaton had taught prepared her for the Commander’s 100 plus pages on initial battle order.
The plan was deceptively simple. They would ring Patterson’s compound with troops and charge in, the tried and true method for attacking a Focus’s household with an eye on preventing her from fleeing. The Commander had set up four attack groups, the largest, group three, would enter approximately through the compound’s formal entrance. The smallest, group two, would go over the wall at the wall’s closest point to Patterson’s warehouse home. The Commander’s personal entourage and mercenary army, group one, would enter the compound near where Keaton’s attack breached the compound’s walls, at the freight entrance in back. The reserve group, group four, would follow group one unless something drastic happened before they went in. Before they entered the compound group four had the responsibility to cover the largest length of compound wall, preventing breakouts.
The complexity in the plan lay in the details. The four groups differed greatly in numbers, strengths and specialties, and an excessive amount of work had gone into masking their true power. Nor were they simultaneously attacking, as Del expected. The Commander was clearly playing with the minds of the defenders, putting them in a position where they learned about their attackers in a specific manner, the information sequence making all their choices bad.
The fringes of Patterson’s compound came into Del’s metasense range as she stood waiting for orders and she shivered. From what the others had said, and what Ma’am Keaton’s notes had intimated, Patterson’s compound radiated hunger for a mile or two around it. Not to Del. Five miles out, it radiated pain and insanity, not hungry darkness. Every hundred yards closer, even from inside the bus, the compound’s intensity increased.
The plan’s subtext disturbed Del. Patterson had a hidden secret trick, the one used to take out Ma’am Keaton’s attackers with ease. She would use this to take out at least one of the four attacking groups; the Commander was counting on the trick not being good enough to take them all out. By entering the compound in four groups, each differently defended, the Commander was upping the odds that one of the groups would be properly prepared to stop the unknown trick, or give the groups not hit enough information to stop the trick from being used on them. In essence, the Commander had consigned a quarter of the attackers to defeat. Which of the four groups would take the hit she left to Patterson’s choice, but logic said the hammer would fall hardest on the oversized group three as they entered the compound first.
“In battle, logic is nearly always wrong,” the Commander said, reading Del’s mind as she analyzed the Commander’s battle order. They were now within the Commander’s metasense range of Patterson’s compound, and she had visibly tensed. “Any of the four groups must be mentally prepared to exploit Patterson’s choices, charge on her HQ, and destroy her.” The Commander’s battle order had one lack that Del found disturbing – nothing for after the fight started beyond ‘charge at Patterson’ and
‘kill the enemy’. Yes, she had a positioning timetable, but the ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’ aphorism appeared to be correct even for Major Transforms.
The bus slowed to a stop, and, ever silent, Del followed the Commander out of the bus and into the fringes of an artificial inky blackness that filled Patterson’s compound. Here, Del metasensed the dark hunger of the place, but the dark hunger wasn’t enough to mask out the howls of pain and the onslaught of random insane thoughts that assailed her quiet pools.
She licked her lips, nervous, ready for her first battle, looking forward to the fighting and the mayhem.
She also wondered if she had any chance of surviving this.
Henry Zielinski:
“Doc, I doubt I’m the person you want to be standing next to,” the Crow named Nameless said. “I’ve never been in a battle of this size, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to hold it together when they start shooting at us.”
Sporadic gunfire spat noise up ahead, in the direction of Carol’s group, group one. The pops were joined by a lot of roaring and hissing, the Terror calls of the Nobles. A thin misty rain fell on him in the cold December air. Night darkened the sky, chasing off the gray twilight and hiding their approach from mundane passersby. They stood on the edge of Patterson’s large compound, which took up an entire Pittsburgh neighborhood. Small urban houses surrounded them, with small lawns and overgrown bushes.
Zielinski chuckled as he and the Crow ambled down a cracked sidewalk like ordinary strollers through the neighborhood. The rest of group four ranged across the nearby adjacent lawn, the sidewalk, and partway into the street in an obvious military posture. “As a normal – hell, as an old man – I can appreciate that. The Arms trust me enough to be their field medic, though. They don’t trust any of the other doctors in this mess.” Of which there were two. He stuck by the Crow anyway. Nameless was a gnomish fellow, about five three, almost portly, with close cropped frizzy black hair. He was one of the Canadians, a black man, originally from Toronto, and one of Haggerty’s companions on the Eskimo Spear quest. He spoke with a Jamaican accent. Zielinski was attracted to him because Nameless had a reputation as a mystical Crow. Whatever that meant. Zielinski had been attempting to figure that one out for years.
The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) Page 31