Freda whispers one word. "Curfew?"
I respond with a single nod. Baddock is here. None of his thugs would think to instill a curfew.
"Patrol," whispers Tom, and his black arm raises to point at the far end of the chapel. "Two, like you said, Dane."
"Wait."
The two thugs linger a moment before the steps of the chapel. Their muffled voices carry across the hundred yards of open space to our hiding place in the sparse verge trees. One sits on the steps to the chapel—sitting exactly where Freda stood when we were officially exiled—while the other saunters off in the direction of the houses.
I put a steadying hand on Lupay's shoulder as she fidgets.
The first patrol thug disappears down into the town, turning a corner along the road that leads to Francis Butcher's place. As I predicted, Baddock set them the most efficient route through town to enforce the curfew. He'll sweep past Butcher's house, head down the long stretch to turn left at the Potters' place, and walk all the way out to the beekeeper's house. I never can remember her name.
And the second thug—yes, there he goes. Following the same route, far enough behind to be out of sight of the first, but close enough to handle any trouble the first hits. When he disappears where the first did, I release Lupay's shoulder and say, "Now."
Tom catches my eye. "Good luck," he says.
With a curt nod, I head left through the verge trees, heading for the beekeeper's house. Tom and Freda scoot in the other direction about fifty yards before veering across the open space at a sprint. I grin to myself as we move, admiring how precisely Tom follows my instructions. They won't be seen approaching the front door to the Semper's house. My house.
We move swiftly and silently. I sense Lupay close on my heels but never hear a breath, the snap of a twig, the rustle of a leaf. Freda would have crashed through the brush like... well, like the daughter of a man who makes clothes. Not like a huntress.
The weight of my satchel shifts on my back, and the sheathed knife clings snug against my hip. A mixture of glee and anticipation propels me. I haven't felt this alive, this natural, in three days. It's like any training game, but this time I know Baddock will kill me if I don't win. Maybe it's arrogance, but I have no fear of losing to him tonight. At least if I do, it will be in trying to do the right thing. And it will be with Lupay at my side.
We dash through the trees a little more than a half mile, and the beekeeper's house looms in the starlit shadows. I've never been inside, but my mother has told me it's small and cozy, and the beekeeper herself is a wrinkled, jolly, old thing. She'll be asleep, I'm certain. The windows are dark, and I lead Lupay around to hide beside the dwindling wood pile.
From here, we can watch the long stretch of lonely track that leads to the clump of houses huddled in the village center. We crouch behind the low wall of expertly split pine, catching our breath. A silver sparkle catches my eye; Lupay is examining the hunting knife that Tom gave her. It appears to float in the night, so invisible she is in her black outfit.
I put my hand out and touch her elbow. "Micktuk would be happy to see you holding that right now, I'm guessing." She doesn't seem to react.
A moment later, she says, "You sure this will work? Seems stupid to me."
I grin. Yes, to anyone who doesn't know Baddock, it would seem stupid. "Trust me. Baddock's biggest advantage is that he's smarter than everyone else. And his biggest weakness is that he knows it."
"But if he taught you, won't he know that you've figured out what he'll do?"
For an instant, that familiar knot of uncertainty builds in my stomach, but it disappears just as quickly. "I know him probably better than he knows me. Plus, he thinks Freda and I are dead. His patrols aren't looking for us; they're looking for townsfolk out after curfew. He'll think he's dealing with amateurs."
This draws a tiny grin from Lupay, who tenses. "There."
The first of Baddock's patrol thugs emerges from the darkness of the buildings four hundred yards away and strolls toward us. "Right on time," I breathe. Lupay slips the knife back into its sheath.
The beekeeper was one of my mother's closest friends. Darius will have told Baddock to keep a close eye on her. And he does. The patrol thug comes all the way up to the front door and pauses. With a sigh, he turns our direction and starts walking around the house. When he's within five yards, I tap Lupay's shoulder.
She pounces out from behind the wood pile, and I charge around the other side of it. Before the thug has even noticed movement, she leaps onto his back and cinches her arm around his throat. I have two thoughts at the same time. The first is, "Good God she's fast." The second is, "Good girl. No killing. Yet."
The thug staggers sideways under the unexpected weight and crashes into the side of the house. As he tries to reach around behind, Lupay clings tight. I rush to them and with a simple sweep crack him in the back of his knee. He crumples to the dirt with a whump of breath and dust, and as Lupay holds him down, I lash his ankles together.
His struggles subside as Lupay cinches consciousness out of him. So far, so good.
"Let's get him out onto the path," I whisper.
"Why don't we just do the same with the second one?"
"No," I answer. "That will make Baddock too nervous, unpredictable. We need him to know what's happened."
"You're the boss," she says with a shake of her head.
We drag the thug out in front of the house and stand over him. As an afterthought, I go through his pockets. Nothing much, and only two big knives. But the act serves its purpose. Lupay leans down and says, "The other one just saw us and ran away."
I stand. "Good. He'll be back in about ten minutes."
"Alone?"
"Alone."
"And he'll give himself up?"
"Not exactly. First he'll see if this one's dead. When he's sure he won't be killed, he'll allow himself to get captured."
Lupay cocks her head to the side. "Why? That's stupid."
We have some time, and as we reposition our captive nearer to the house like clumsily placed bait, I explain. It gives me a chance to go over the plan again in my mind anyway, which is never a bad thing.
"Baddock still thinks we're regular townsfolk. Untrained but lucky. He wants us to think we still have surprise on our side. He wants to build our confidence so we'll get careless."
"And he does this by sacrificing his own?"
"Believe me. Against regular Southshawans it would work."
She shrugs and goes back to waiting in silence. I know I'm right. I can feel it all through me. I have no doubt, and that's what makes me nervous as we wait. Five minutes pass, then eight... the other of Baddock's thugs should be back any second.
Lupay's elbow pokes my ribs, and she points down the street. The second thug is walking fast, almost jogging, up the path from the village. As he gets close, he slows to a regular walk. He's trying to act casual, but we can hear his hard breathing from where we are.
He's looking for something, and then he sees the first body lying in the dirt, hands and feet bound. He runs to the body and crouches next to it, glancing around the entire time. I hold Lupay back with my hand on her shoulder. We need to wait until he's sure of the situation.
His shoulders relax the tiniest amount, and together we spring from our hiding place. We're on him and have him down before he can react. I tie his hands and feet while Lupay stuffs a cloth in his mouth. We drag the two of them behind the wood pile, out of sight.
The one we just captured quivers in fear, his eyes wide. I tell him we're not going to kill him, that we'll leave them both here until later, that the one we want is Baddock, that we'll let them go after we get him. That for our plan to work, we need them totally hidden. So we'll put our black outfits on them.
When Lupay pulls off her mask, he starts sputtering into his rag. Anger or terror, I can't exactly tell—perhaps a mixture of the two. It pleases Lupay as much as me, and I relish the moment as I slowly pull my mask off as well. This is
one of the thugs who captured us in the woods, by the ancient house. One of the ones that voted to kill us.
Her knife slips out of its sheath and hovers in the air a few inches from his nose. "I remember you," she hisses. "Yanking the rope, dragging me miles through the dust and horse shit." The tip of the knife caresses his cheek, and he draws back as much as he can. "I could see it in your eyes," she whispers. "You wanted me. Like the others, you think I'm some kind of mutant or whatever. But I know. You want me." The knife traces along his ear, down his neck, hovers directly over his heart.
"You can't have me," she says. Then she stands up and pulls off her black sweater. Where the bulky sweater disguised her shape, the flimsy, pale brown shirt underneath accentuates her curves and captivates me for a moment. She balls the sweater up and throws it hard into the face of the gagged man. Without looking at me, she says, "Dane, pull yourself together and get him changed." She holds out her mask to me, and I snatch it away.
I can't help but grin as I go to work. Lupay keeps her knife out and her eyes on the thug, who doesn't struggle as I pull the sweater over his head and shove the mask down over his face. After a few minutes, Lupay and I have transformed the two men into masked unknowns. The night is chilly, and I wish I had kept a shirt on under the scratchy sweater. Now I have only the boots and black pants, but the excitement and fever of the hunt is keeping me warm enough.
Lupay slaps the unconscious one a few times to wake him. "Not as satisfying with that damn mask on his head," she mumbles, but his eyes open white and confused through the holes in the mask.
We drag them next to each other, lean them up to sit back against the wood pile. Lupay stuffs a cloth into the one that's no longer knocked out. I stand over them, trying not to think about how scrawny and pale I must look. "Now," I say, and I'm pleased with how my voice commands their attention. "Baddock is running things here while Darius is away, right?"
Neither one moves or responds until Lupay kicks the gagged one hard in the hip. He groans, then looks at me with hatred in his eyes. He nods.
"Good boy," Lupay croons.
"Okay," I continue. "He told you to give yourself up, didn't he?" I address the gagged one. He hesitates but nods again after a moment. "Don't worry, we won't hurt you."
Lupay kicks him hard again in his hip. "Much," she hisses.
I nod. "Much," I agree. "But here's the thing," I tell him. "He thinks he's dealing with simple townsfolk. He doesn't know I'm out here. So he's expecting us to rush him now." For effect, I pace back and forth in front of them to make it look like I'm thinking this all through for the first time.
"After all, the other guards are asleep, and since we captured both patrol men, Baddock has no warning." I stop, hold up my finger as if coming to an epiphany. "But I know Baddock and already know you told him about your partner's failure." I point to the other one, who is still confused. I wonder if he's just stupid, or if Lupay hit him too hard.
As Lupay turns the knife over in her hands and watches it glint in the starlight, I continue with my lesson. "When you don't return, he'll expect a frontal assault. And he'll be prepared for it. He's already got the trap set, I'm guessing."
Lupay plays along, looking nervous for effect. But I can tell she's impatient. She'd rather just kill these two and be done with it. But they will be useful for a little while longer.
"And of course being Semper, I know the secret ways into the chapel where he's hiding out." I no longer ask them if these things are true. I know them already, and the more they understand that, the more believable they'll be.
"But we can't have you coming back to warn him. So we'll just hide you here behind this woodpile, out of sight. We'll come back in the morning for you."
I look at Lupay, and we nod at each other. She turns and sprints off around the beekeeper's house, silent as the stars. I whisper to the two thugs, "Don't worry, I'm sure this wood pile doesn't have any black widows." I smile inside as their eyes go wide, and they try to scramble away from the pile. They roll away into the grass a few feet away, trying to gasp through their gags with the exertion.
I run around the other side of the beekeeper's house and meet Lupay on the far side.
"You're sure of this, are you?" Lupay's whisper is barbed with uncertainty.
"I know these guys," I say. "Well, not these two specifically. I think one's named Filmont, or Filbert, or something. Anyway, I know Baddock and his men. Don't worry."
"I don't know," she says as we flit along through the trees, back toward the chapel. "They don't seem smart enough to figure out their ankles aren't really tied up."
"Oh, they'll figure it out. You did do up their wrists good, though, right?"
"Don't doubt me, cabron," she threatens, but there's humor in her voice. She's enjoying the hunt, too.
As we approach the clearing before the church, I slow us up. We stop fifty yards from the edge of the trees, farther back than we were before. The clearing is empty and still, and it seems nothing's changed in the chapel. But I know Baddock is in there, watching.
No longer clad in all black, we need to hold back in the trees. For now. I point to the left and right, where, just hidden in the trees, two of Baddock's men crouch. I make the motion of drawing back a bow and loosing an arrow, and Lupay nods. She can see that my predictions are all right so far.
We wait only three or four minutes before two big figures lumber up the road from the village. They run lopsided, with their arms strangely tight against their sides. They wear black sweaters and have their heads covered in black masks. Lupay gives me a big grin.
When the two figures close in on the church steps, their voices shout out. But it's too late for them, we can both see that. The two hidden bowmen in the trees stand up in unison and nock an arrow. I tap Lupay's shoulder, and we both slip our knives from their sheathes and spring forward.
My speed creates a breeze that ruffles through my hair and tickles my bare chest and arms, and my heart races with every step I take. In all my training I've learned dozens of ways to kill a man, but I've never done it before. The knife feels light and eager in my fingers. I sprint now, closing the distance in a few short breaths.
As I run, the two of Baddock's men that we captured reach the church steps. The bowmen in the woods loose their arrows, which whine through the air and strike their marks with impressive precision and soft, sickening thumps. As the one I'm approaching lowers his bow, celebrating his aim, I leap and plunge the knife directly into the middle of his back, between his shoulder blades. Under my flying weight, the steel penetrates his flesh, crushes bone. His body goes limp and lifeless instantly, and I ride him to the ground and roll us both into the underbrush.
I lie still for a moment, hidden from the church by trees, darkness, and blackberry bramble. In the silence, I marvel that I feel no remorse at what I've done. I expected to feel sadness, pain, some sense of loss... but there's nothing. Nothing but the thrill of the hunt, and the thrill of knowing that Baddock still waits inside. Only now his force is cut in half.
A light shuffle in the brush behind me snaps my mind alert, and I silently withdraw the knife from the dead man's back. His dark blood keeps the blade from reflecting the moon that has climbed directly overhead. I hold my breath as a shadow approaches, crouched, keeping to the tree trunks and mostly out of sight. I exhale when I see Lupay's long, black hair and then recognize her figure.
"That felt good," she whispers, and I grin in reply. "Put on his shirt. You look like one of those underground people."
She's right. My skin is so pallid that I almost look like I'm glowing. His shirt is soaked with blood now, so I can't wear that. I grimace as I try to think how I could retrieve my black sweater from the other dead man on the church steps. Then I imagine myself struggling to pull it off his body with the arrow sticking through it, grappling ferociously with a dead man while Baddock schemes inside. Nope, no good.
A sudden creak of hinges freezes us both, and Lupay pushes me down into the dirt behind
the man I've killed. She lies on top of me, and I welcome the warmth of her soft weight. "Shh. The door. It's opening."
I want to say I know that. It's my own church, after all. Don't I know the sounds of my own doors, the ones I've grown up with all my life?
"Two," she whispers in my ear. "Bending down. Masks off. They're looking to the woods." She pauses several seconds, and I admit to myself that I'm impressed. Her breathing is shallow and even, as if she's sleeping. Not nervous at all. "They don't see."
She pops up and says, "Come on. Where now?"
I lift my head and peer through the shadows at the church to see and hear the door closing. There's no one there but the two bodies. Looking up at Lupay, I say, "Follow me," then spring forward and charge through the brush, between the young trees.
The chapel is dark, and we race around the corner of the building and cut across the open space exactly where Tom and Freda had, not so long ago. We reach the side door of the stables and keep running, less concerned with silence than with speed now. We pass the stables, and reach the corner of my house. Windows glow into the night, casting long, orange fingers into the darkness.
We duck past one, then another, and stop at the big door. Light flickers through the crack at its foot. Someone is moving inside, but we can't hear through the thick oak. The light dims and then blacks out, and I pounce to the door and pull it open. Lupay dashes through, and I follow. She goes left—good girl, you were paying attention—and runs silently down the hall toward the Semper's bedroom.
I follow, allowing my thoughts to replay my last trip down this hall, in the other direction, with Chiliss and Freda on the way to our wedding. I slow and stop at the door to the bedroom next to Lupay, who is already holding the latch. Her eyes are wide with exertion and excitement. "Ready?"
A lantern's glow fills the foyer behind us. I want to continue through and find Baddock, but we can't have any of his guards following us. He may know about the secret hall to the chapel.
Semper (New Eden) Page 24