Then he heard a heavy clanking thud and turned to see that the second guard had leapt off the wagon, revenge apparently on his mind as he snarled with rage.
Tarc thought that surely he could outrun the man, but found that he couldn’t bear the feeling that he had a target on his back. Reaching back, he grabbed the hilt of his second knife.
Spinning, he flung it; then turned forward as he continued to run. His ghost didn’t need his eyes to guide the knife after all.
Again, his talent sent the knife right into an eye socket. Going for the eye seemed to work well and he didn’t have to worry about whether they were wearing mail.
The guard crashed to the street, his body twitching and thrashing as it skidded in the dirt.
Tarc cupped his hands and called after his father as quietly as he thought he could and still be heard. He turned and trotted back to get his knives.
He’d just worked the second blade free and wiped it on the guard’s clothes when Garcia trotted by, “What the hell happened to those guys?!” he called out.
Tarc shrugged, holding the knives out of sight, but Garcia had already gone by after the wagon.
Daum picked up the man’s bow and arrow. He nudged Tarc, then drew. Daum sent the arrow after the wagon, now going about as fast as old Shogun could pull it. Tarc’s ghost flew with the arrow, guiding it just over the man’s hunched shoulders and into his head. Though he hadn’t intended it, the arrow exploded out through the man’s eye.
With a grunt the man fell forward, tangling in the traces and pulling Shogun to a halt.
“Amazing shot!” Garcia yelled back, as he climbed onto the wagon.
Daum put one hand on Tarc’s shoulder as the other held the neck of Tarc’s shirt open for him to slip his knives back into their sheaths. With a croak in his voice he said, “Thank you son. You saved my life there.”
Not knowing what to say, Tarc merely nodded. He felt embarrassed to be credited, when actually he’d been saving his own life.
By the time Daum and Tarc caught up to the wagon themselves, Garcia had thrown the driver off and started Shogun going again. “Untie the Captain,” he said, “In case we run into more of the invaders I want us to be farther from the dead guards so we could claim we just found the horse pulling the wagon through the streets.”
Daum vaulted into the back of the wagon and bent over Pike, cutting his bonds. Tarc jumped on a moment later. Looking down he saw that the other objects the men had piled in beside Pike were weapons from the Armory.
Garcia turned in the driver’s seat. To Daum he said, “After seeing that shot I can understand why they call you ‘the Archer.’ Did you figure out what happened to those other two guards?”
Daum shrugged. Pike’s arms were free and Daum started cutting at his ankle bonds. “Captain,” he began. “It’s those strangers I talked to you about. The ones that looked like they’d been soldiers in the past. Some of them stayed in the tavern last night. Then in the middle of the night they all left. They killed the deputies at Smith’s Station and I suspect the ones at the main gate. They must have opened the main gate because troops came up the street from there.”
The Captain was sitting up now. “I told Walters not to let very many of those bastards in town at a time. But, ‘Oh no, we’ve got them in control. They’re good customers, so we’d just be shooting ourselves in the foot.’ Shit!” He looked around, “Well, too late for recriminations now. Has anyone rung the alarm?”
Daum shrugged again, “We rang the one at the Smith’s Station for a while, but then four of the invaders came so we had to stop.”
“How many of them are there?”
“The troop we saw riding down Main had about fifty. But I think there are others. Quite a few were already in town when those came in.”
Pike rubbed his ankles as he thought. “We’ll need weapons. They’ve got the ones in the armory, but maybe they don’t know about the ones kept in the wall towers.”
Garcia turned the wagon toward the wall as Pike peppered them with more questions. They didn’t know the answers to most of them, so Tarc began to feel as if he’d been singularly oblivious as they’d gone about the town that night.
When they got to the tower they found its weapons cache broken open and empty.
They tried another but it had been rifled as well.
Daum said, “We should get to the blacksmith’s shops. They should have some weapons in stock.”
Pike nodded and they headed that direction. They had to wake each of the blacksmiths up. When they did, they found to their dismay that over the past couple of weeks the strangers had bought all the swords that any of the smith’s had had in stock.
Pike turned to them, “Those bastards have been scouting us now for quite a while. They know who we are, and have evaluated our fighting ability as evidenced by the fact that they cleaned out the armories, killed the deputies, and tried to imprison me. I suspect they’re going to try to control the town by terror and force of arms. Our best bet is guerilla warfare against them. They have almost all the weapons, so these here in the wagon are incredibly valuable. Any ideas where we can hide them?”
Daum grunted, “We have a hidden panel in the cellar of the tavern.”
Tarc blinked, We do?
They started for the tavern. Tarc drove the wagon with Daum riding in the back, an arrow nocked in his bow. Pike and Garcia scouted ahead. After they’d been rolling a few minutes, Daum set a bow and quiver on the seat next to Tarc.
Tarc had begun to hope they’d make it without meeting resistance, but when they were in the block before the tavern, Pike and Garcia suddenly stopped. They’d just looked around a corner. They stepped back and hid in doorways, motioning Tarc over to the side.
Tarc pulled over against the buildings and stopped.
Daum hissed, “Get down!”
Tarc slid off the seat with his bow and quiver, pulling out an arrow and nocking it. He reached out to extreme range with his ghost. He could faintly feel six men who were about to come around the corner. Quietly he said, “Six men coming around the corner. Armed, so probably invaders.”
The men came around the corner in three ranks of two and Daum said, “Don’t shoot yet.”
Tarc noticed that his dad sounded nervous. It made him feel better about the way his own heart had started trip-hammering again.
Suddenly, one of the men in the third rank turned to his right, evidently having noticed Sgt. Garcia in the doorway. “Now!” Daum said, the cart shaking as he stood.
Tarc pushed out his bow and sent an arrow on its way. He looked down for another arrow as his ghost guided first his own arrow, and then Daum’s, then his own again. Daum’s had been aimed much better to begin with. Tarc had to push his own about eighteen inches to the left. The two arrows struck home, each one driving into its target’s head through the left eye.
Tarc pushed out his bow to send another on its way.
Daum had already shot a second arrow. Tarc reached out to guide Daum’s even before he loosed his own, but this caused Tarc to aim his own arrow poorly. It was so far off that he abandoned his arrow. He wouldn’t have been able to put it on target even riding it hard with his ghost the entire way.
Daum’s arrow fell toward a man from the second rank. The man turned towards Daum and Tarc when one of the men they’d shot in the first rank fell against his leg. Tarc guided another arrow home into a man’s eye.
Daum shot another. Rather than trying to shoot his own, Tarc guided Daum’s. Garcia had one of the soldiers backing away, but the other two were both closing around Pike. Daum’s arrow, guided by Tarc, struck one of Pike’s assailants. It had been aimed too low for Tarc to lift it to the man’s head so Tarc was forced to bring it home on the man’s side. As Tarc had feared, the man had mail or something on. He stumbled to a knee when the arrow punched into him, but the arrow bounced away. The man rose and turned, looking for the source of the arrows. He shouted, pointed and started toward the wagon at a dead run, hoping
to get to them before they could get off another arrow. Unfortunately for him, Daum had already shot another, this one high enough for Tarc to send it into the man’s eye.
Tarc looked back to the others. Garcia had vanquished the man he’d been fighting and now ran toward Pike and his opponent. Pike’s man, realizing he stood alone, turned to run.
Tarc gasped a huge sigh of relief, but Daum said, “We can’t let him get away, he’ll bring the rest down on us!” and loosed another arrow. Again it was too low for Tarc to lift it to the man’s head. Fearing some kind of armor again, Tarc pulled it low and sent it into the man’s thigh.
The man fell and struggled on the ground. At first Tarc worried that he would be called upon to bring another arrow into the man even after he’d fallen, but then Pike was there to cut the man’s throat.
Daum said, “Sorry, I should aim higher so you can hit them in the head, huh?”
Tarc nodded as he leapt off the wagon. Pike sagged back in the doorway, holding his side and Tarc ran to him.
Tarc helped Pike into the back of the wagon. He had a large slash in his side. Worse, it had cut into a loop of bowel. Tarc held the opening in the intestine shut with his ghost, but some of its contents had already spilled into Pike’s abdomen. Tarc wondered whether it was worth the effort. He knew that a bowel wound like that would almost certainly give the man a lingering death from peritonitis.
Still, he thought, maybe Eva would know something to do?
Daum drove the wagon while Garcia scouted ahead and Tarc sat with Pike who groaned and said, “Shit! I’m done for.”
Tarc thought of denying it, but knew Pike wouldn’t believe a kid his age. Pike probably didn’t even know Tarc was in training to be a healer.
The wagon pulled into the yard behind the tavern. Daum leapt down and gathered an armful of weapons out of the back, saying, “Captain, can you make it down the stairs into our cellar with Tarc’s help?”
The Captain nodded. Though he grunted and murmured, “Fat lot of good it’ll do,” he put his left arm over Tarc’s shoulder and kept his right hand across his abdomen and over his wound.
By the time Tarc and the Captain got down the stairs into the cellar, Daum had a lamp set up and had moved a number of crates away from one of the walls of the cellar. He then stood jiggling a wooden panel. Tarc sent out his own ghost for a brief second and realized that the panel was pegged at its four corners with hidden pegs that Daum was moving with his own ghost. Jiggling the panel took pressure off of them momentarily so they could be moved. Tarc felt surprise as he considered that Daum couldn’t tell where he was pushing if he couldn’t see what he was pushing on. He realized that his father must be pushing blind, presumably where he knew the pegs were. The panel came free and a large unfinished cavity behind it was revealed.
Daum picked up the weapons he’d brought down and took them in, laying them on the floor. “Tarc,” he said, giving his son a knowing look, “you stay with the Captain, I’ll go get Eva.” He turned and headed back up the stairs.
Though the space had a dirt floor, there were four crates along one wall. Tarc guided Pike over to it and helped him lie down on the crates. At first Pike tried to lie with his left side toward the wall but Tarc turned him. “You need to be this way so my mother will be able to see your wound.” Once Pike had groaned into place Tarc urged him to roll up a little on his side. “On your side… stuff will drain out of you better.”
“Won’t help,” Pike grunted, “I’m a dead man.”
Once he was up on his side, Tarc, still holding the edges of the laceration in Pike’s bowel together, began using his ghost to push the spilled intestinal contents down and out of the wound.
A few minutes later Eva came down the stairs. Pike grunted and rolled back on his back so she could look at the wound. She held her lamp up near the wound even though Tarc knew she was really examining it with her own ghost. She could have done it in the dark, but didn’t want to have to explain. She sat back on her heels and said, “It nicked your intestine. For you to have any chance, we’ll have to wash the wound out.”
Pike sighed, “Not worth your time. No one survives wounds to the bowel.”
“Not true. The opening is very small. There’s some chance… if we do everything right.” Eva handed him a bottle of the syrup she condensed from poppy seed pod tea, “Take a couple of swigs of this.”
He sighed and did so.
She stood, “Tarc will stay with you. Just let me give him some instructions.”
“Don’t waste his time.” Pike said in a depressed tone, “Let me give Garcia some advice, then just put me out of my misery. I’ve seen too many men die of gut wounds to want to go that way.”
Eva ignored him. Leaning close to Tarc’s ear she whispered, “You won’t be able to hold that shut long enough for it to heal. We’ll have to put sutures in it. I’ll bring you sutures and a drawing of how to pass the needle…”
Tarc had seen Eva put a couple of sutures in someone’s skin before and been nauseated. He drew back in horror then leaned to Eva’s ear, “No!” he whispered vehemently, “I, I couldn’t. I don’t know how! You do it!”
Eva sighed as she leaned back to Tarc’s ear, “We’d have to pull the wound open wide for me to put instruments in there and suture. He’d have too much pain. You can do it with your talent, just sending in the needle and its thread.”
Tarc sat back wide eyed, trying to think how to protest. When he’d seen Eva suture before she’d used some kind of funny silvery tool to hold the needle. She said it had been passed down from her ancestors. She’d also used a tweezers in her other hand. Her tools were kept in a little pot that she baked in the oven between uses. It would indeed be hard to work in Pike’s narrow wound with tools like that, but surely Eva didn’t have to use the tools?! He pictured her holding the needle with her fingers and realized they were even bigger and would require an even larger opening to work through. Besides, fingers had germs all over them and would bring even more infection.
He was Pike’s only chance he realized with a flip-flopping sensation in his abdomen.
Eva had already gone upstairs.
Glad he’d already emptied his stomach, Tarc turned back to Pike and, suddenly worried, checked to see if his ghost had kept the hole in the bowel closed. He felt gratified to realize that, even talking to Eva, he’d managed to keep it together. If anything had leaked, it had only been a tiny bit.
Pike grunted and said, “You don’t need to sit with me boy.”
“I’m happy to sir.”
“Leave me to my God damned misery! I don’t want you here watching me die.”
For a moment taken aback, Tarc wondered if he should do as the Captain demanded. Then he remembered his mother telling him that, “when bad things happen, people lash out. They have to be angry at someone because something horrible has happened and they take it out on you.”
Tarc didn’t know how to smooth the waters though, so he just sat there.
Pike said, “Go, dammit!”
Trying not to sound surly, Tarc said the only thing he could think of, “My mother told me to stay.” He wondered if he could move around the corner and still hold Pike’s bowel wound closed. Remembering how he’d gotten a headache keeping Jacob from bleeding to death and thinking about how it became more difficult to do things with his ghost over a distance, he decided to stay.
Pike said nothing more. Tarc sat by his side until Eva came back. Daum and Daussie came with her carrying several of the large bottles with the sterile saltwater.
Pike looked up at Daum, “Where’s Garcia?”
“He’s taking the wagon back out and leaving it several streets away.”
“With Shogun?!” Tarc asked.
Daum nodded then turned and started up the stairs.
“Why?!”
“The soldiers took him. We don’t want them wondering how we got him back.”
While Tarc had been talking to his father Eva had been bossing a surprisingly doc
ile Pike. She had him lying on his back at the edge of the crates so his wound was accessible. She unfolded a scrap of paper on which she’d drawn the wound in Pike’s intestine and diagrammed the stitch to close it.
Daussie leaned over to look at it, “How in the world are you going to do that!?” she whispered. “You didn’t even bring your needle grabber!”
Tarc realized that Daussie must mean the tool Eva used for suturing people’s cuts. Then he wondered how they would suture Pike without Daussie learning about his talent. Eva turned to Daussie and said, “You find your Dad and tell him to cut your hair.”
“My hair!?” Daussie exclaimed, her hand involuntarily going to her head.
“Yes, your hair. Those strangers are going to be everywhere tomorrow and you don’t want them recognizing you as…”
“Why can’t you cut it?” Daussie interrupted plaintively.
“Because,” Eva said impatiently, “You’re going to ask your dad to cut it like he cuts Tarc’s”
“Like Tarc’s!” Daussie exclaimed with horror.
“Yes! Like a boy’s. The worse it looks the better. Then we’ll bind your breasts and wind cloth around your waist to thicken it. We want people to think you’re a boy!”
“What?” Daussie said, aghast.
“Daussie,” Eva sighed, “those men are going to be raping pretty girls. Do you want to be one of them?”
“But, but… the deputies…the…” Daussie stuttered to a stop, angst writ large on her face.
“The deputies are either dead, or will be soon. Ask your dad about it while he’s cutting your hair. Now, git!” Eva pointed up the stairs, then turned back to Pike and unwrapped a small cloth package with trembling hands. It had a curved needle with some odd kind of thread on it.
Tarc looked over at his mother and saw tears pouring down the face of the woman he’d always thought of as unflappable. Her chest made a little gasping motion and he realized that she was sobbing. Despite the brave front she’d shown Daussie, his mother was terrified too. With a tremendous shock Tarc abruptly recognized that his mother was an attractive woman in her own right. Thinking of her only as his mother, he’d never considered the possibility that she might also be subject to a sexual attack by these invaders.
Hyllis Family Story 1: Telekinetic Page 16