by Gross, Dave
“Not really, Sir. No.”
“That explains why he signed up with this outfit,” said Burns. “He doesn’t know a long shot when he sees one.”
“Stifle it, Burns.” Lister pointed at Dawson. “It’s one thing to keep an eye on the other players. Most decent gamblers can do that without any help from a spotter. But in the bigger gambling halls, and on fancy river boats like this one, you also need to keep an eye on the audience. Some gamblers have partners in the crowd, those who can see the other players’ hands and tip off their player.”
“That’s why you never see Sam pick up her cards,” said Smooth. “She only tips up the corners to take a peek.”
“That’s right. Even so, that’s enough for a sharp-eyed spotter to catch a hand.”
“Didn’t you say Crawley was your spotter?”
“Yes, but only to look for other spotters. He wasn’t there to signal Sam.”
Burns snickered, “If you say so, Lieutenant.”
“I’m starting to think the latrine wasn’t dug deep enough today.”
“You know, maybe I’ll shut up and listen for a while.”
“Good thinking. Now, where was I?”
“Crawley’s spotting,” said Dawson.
“Right. Crawley’s up on the balcony, across from Sam. I’m behind her, ready to grab anybody Creepy fingers as a spotter. Sam’s acting like she doesn’t know either one of us, which is the way they all play it. But everybody knows that half the people watching are there with the players. They’re mostly bodyguards, mistresses, lovers, pickpockets, broke gamblers spying on the competition, rich aristocrats scouting for a player to back, all sorts.
“So the first day cuts the players in half. That night, another half get eliminated. Creepy’s keeping a sharp eye on the audience. He points out a few spotters, but before I have to get involved, the boat guards are already on them. Security is tight. I’m thinking that’s a good sign.
“Second night, the tournament comes down to a single table. Sam’s playing a conservative game. Some of the other players are testing her, trying to make her lose her cool. When they see she won’t be gulled, they adjust their own games. Pretty soon, everybody gets real boring with their bets. Everybody except one guy.”
“Dorenski,” said Dawson.
“That wasn’t the name he was using, but yeah, him. The great-great grandnephew of Grigor Dorenski, former kapitan in the Winter Guard.”
Dawson turned his head to spit, but he stopped himself when he saw no one else was doing the same. He swallowed. He also noticed that the men who slipped away before were now standing just outside the lamp light, along with half a dozen others.
He saw that Sam stood among the audience, hanging back as if to avoid detection. She listened with the others.
“We don’t spit on the Winter Guard,” Lister said. “It was Telyev Zerkova of the regular Khadoran Army who betrayed Dog Company.”
On cue, all of the men in the tent turned their heads and spit, all except for Harrow. Dawson looked around, but no one else gave any indication that they minded his abstention.
“Zerkova, who turned Dog Company against Khador during the Ordic war. He’s the one who hired Dog Company to take Boarsgate, never expecting them to succeed. When the company’s commander, Grigor Dorenski, took the site in a single swift action, he drove the Ordic garrison south, where they fled to Midfast, which was under attack by Zerkova’s own army. The unexpected reinforcements strengthened the city enough to drive away Zerkova’s own army from the city.
“Rather than admit that he himself had caused his own embarrassing defeat, Zerkova refused to honor his contract with the Devil Dogs. After that, Dorenski revised the Company Charter in his own blood. Not if they were the last employer on Caen would they take a single red kuppek. We do the same today, honoring Dorenski’s decision. You know this much, don’t you, Dawson?”
“Yes, Sir,” said Dawson. “But it seems much more vivid to hear you tell it.”
Burns coughed, but everyone distinctly heard him say “Asskisser!”
“Hrumph!” Lister chewed his cigar while his eyes studied Dawson’s face. “Well, of course it’s more vivid when I tell it. I’ve been a Devil Dog longer than anyone but Sam and Creepy.”
“You aren’t going to tell him you were there for the siege of Boarsgate, are you, Lieutenant?” asked Burns.
“You ready to fetch that shovel?”
“No, Sir.”
“Now, where was I?”
“The final table,” said Dawson. “Dorenski’s great-great grandnephew.”
“Right. He didn’t call himself Dorenski, but that wasn’t unusual. Most of the noble gamblers traveled under assumed identities to spare their families disgrace when they lost and notoriety when they won. Of course, it was no great trick to ferret out a gambler’s true identity. I knew who it was sitting across the table from Sam, and so did she.”
“Did she know he’d bet the Dog Company charter?”
“Which one of us is telling this story? You or me?”
“You are, Lieutenant.”
“I’m starting to think Burns has been a bad influence on you.”
“Truer words,” said Smooth.
Burns raised a fist to slug him in the arm, but Smooth stopped him with a warning finger.
“Ah, I’ll save it for when your leg heals.”
“I’ll beat you unconscious with this bad leg. Just like that warjack and his arm.”
“Boys,” warned Lister.
“Sir,” said Burns and Smooth in unison.
Lister plucked the cigar out of his mouth and pointed once again at Dawson. “Yes, Sam knew Dorenski owned the Devil Dogs charter. Everybody did. It was the one thing he was known for. Every once in a while someone would offer him two kuppeks for it.”
“Why?” said Dawson.
“You see, Dog Company had been inactive for so long, nobody thought it was worth two copper coins. It didn’t matter that Dorenski said he wouldn’t sell it for a hundred thousand koltinas. For him, the Devil Dogs’ charter was a matter of family honor. For everybody else, it had become a bad joke.
“The only one who didn’t think so was Sam.” Lister took a long pull on his cigar, as if it were lit and he were drawing smoke deeply into his lungs. When he released the breath, his eyes focused on a point far beyond the men or warjacks in front of him. Then with no prompting from anyone else, he resumed his story.
“Eventually the game came down to three players, Sam, Dorenski, and a snake-eyed little Ryn, no taller than Creepy.” Lister relaxed his eyelids in imitation of a reptile’s slitted gaze. “Sam was still playing it cautious. Dorenski and the Ryn took turns shoving big wagers at each other. It got to the point where they were dropping five or ten times the ante on their opening bets.
“They took turns calling each other’s bluff, too. Each of the men was only about half-good at reading the other. Every time one of them was on the verge of bust, the other one would push a hand too far. Now and then Sam would take a bite out of one or the other, but neither one of them pushed back when she had a good hand.
“I was getting suspicious, but every time I looked up at Creepy he shook his head. If there was any funny business going on, I couldn’t spot it either. But then it didn’t matter. Dorenski went all-in, and the Ryn called his bet. Dorenski went bust.”
“But how did Sam win the charter if he was out of the game?” said Dawson.
Burns rolled his eyes toward the canvas roof. The dripping from the runoff grew louder than the dying rain.
“The house declared an hour’s intermission. I went to the bar to have a word with Sam. Creepy had the same idea, but she never showed up. She stayed at the table talking to Dorenski. By the time the rest of us got back, they’d cut a deal.
“Sam split her chips to keep him in the game. The Ryn didn’t like that one bit, but the house backed the arrangement; there was nothing in their rules against it. If the Ryn didn’t like it, he could forfeit the re
st of his chips. Needless to say, he didn’t like that idea any better. He stayed in. But from that point on, it was a completely different game.
“I expected Dorenski and Sam to work together, but it didn’t look like that’s what they had in mind. When he had a strong hand, Dorenski went after Sam as hard as he did the Ryn. The difference was that the Ryn didn’t learn until too late that Dorenski had changed his game. Before he knew it, Dorenski had cleaned him out.
“That’s when Dorenski pulled out the charter and laid it beside his chips. It was only then that we understood the deal Sam had made with him. She had agreed to back him on one condition: if she beat him in the end, she’d win the charter as well as his money.”
“But if he wouldn’t sell it at any price, why would he gamble it away?”
Lister shrugged. “That’s where a lot of folks go wrong when they tell the story. It could be that gambling with his family honor gave him a thrill. Some think he saw something in Sam that made him want to lose it to her. Others say he never thought he’d lose. Maybe he’d just had too much brandy. The truth is, only Dorenski knows.”
Dawson nodded, realized his mouth was open, and closed it. “What happened next?”
“You know what happened. Sam beat him.”
Dawson stared, an expectant expression on his face, but Lister shrugged and chewed his cigar.
“But isn’t there more to the story?”
“Sure, but you already know that part. Sam invested the money she’d won in warjacks, slug guns, nets, all the top-quality gear you Dogs enjoy humping across gods-forsaken territories like the Wythmoor. Two years later, the Devil Dogs were once more a respected mercenary company, although by the looks of you lot I can understand why some might think our standards are slipping.”
“But didn’t you ask her why she staked Dorenski instead of just challenging him to a game over the contract?”
Lister removed his cigar, inspected the wet end, and stuck it back in his mouth. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
“What did she say?”
“She said Dorenski needed a reason to put that contract on the table, so she gave him one.”
Lister stood and stretched his back as he looked around at his audience. Nearly half the company had gathered around the ’jack tent. “Now I know Sergeant Crawley must be looking for some of you. You’d better report before I point him in your direction. The rest of you, get some sack time. Now that the rain’s gone, we’ll move out.”
The gathering disintegrated as Lister walked away. Harrow handed Smooth his crutch, and the two big men walked out together.
Dawson thought he was the last to leave, but as he stepped out of the tent he heard the captain’s voice. “Nice job, Dawson.”
“Captain?” His brows met in a question.
“You got Lister to tell one of his favorite old stories. There’s nothing like it for cheering the Dogs after a black day.”
“I didn’t mean to pry,” he said.
“What, about the story of the card game?”
“It’s just that before we left Tarna, Corporals Burns and Harrow told me…I mean, it’s more like they suggested…that is, they implied that maybe I shouldn’t be so curious.”
Sam smiled. “But you were curious enough to ask about the game.”
“Well, I’d heard a different version, and somebody mentioned I might like to hear the Lieutenant’s.”
“Now that you’ve heard it, which one do you think is true?”
Dawson hesitated, thinking it over. He shrugged. “I figure they’re both true, as far as it goes.”
“As far as it goes?”
“Everybody sees things from a different angle. For a little while, in the depot, Burns and I saw the back of that new warjack. And we saw the iron lich before anybody else. You saw whatever was on the roof, but only through the glass. And then there was the fire, and all the smoke, and then the rain. Everybody saw the fight from a different angle, some of us better than others, some of us worse. And there were lots of things nobody saw at all.”
Sam’s smile faded. She looked hard into Dawson’s face, turning her head as if she were trying to see him from a new angle. “Is there something you want to ask me about the game, Dawson?”
“Were you afraid?” he said at once. “Whatever it was you arranged with Dorenski, was it something that made you afraid of losing?”
Sam blinked, apparently surprised at the question. Her smile gradually returned, and she said, “You know what, Dawson, I was scared half to death. You want to know something else?”
“Yes’m.”
“That’s how I knew I was going to win.”
Sergeant Crawley’s whistle roused the camp long before dawn. “Get moving, Dogs! We’ve got ourselves a hot trail.”
The entire Company leaped into action. There was none of the usual grousing and chatter as they broke camp and assembled in their assigned units. Two men in every unit carried a lantern rather than return it to the supply wagon. Harrow was already waiting to lead the way toward the path he had discovered.
The strange warjack’s tracks followed the Slayer’s clawed prints along a path of trampled brush and scarred trees. Just over a mile through the southern Wythmoor, the Dogs encountered the end result of that pursuit.
No one needed a flare from Harrow to see the steaming Cryx light oozing away from the helljack’s ruined body. Its chimney had long since ceased chuffing smoke, and no steam rose from the cold necrotite engine. A pair of gleaming saw blades protruded from the bulky Slayer’s rear chassis, but Crawley pointed their attention to a wavy line burned through the thick black iron of the helljack’s front.
“What on Caen could do that sort of damage?”
Sam frowned. “I’ve seen lightning burn that hot, but not in such a regular line.”
“Here’s another one,” said Burns. He pointed to a deep dent just under one of the Slayer’s shoulder joints. “It looks like an impact, but there’s the same deep burn.”
Sam let one hand drop to her sword hilt. “If I were a betting woman, I’d wager whatever hit the Slayer there gave its cortex one hell of a shock. It doesn’t look like the blast came from the warjack we fought in the depot.”
“No,” said Crawley. “It must be from its marshal.”
“Or warcaster,” countered Sam. “Let’s face it, from what little we’ve seen, we’re looking at something that can fly. You can’t tell me there isn’t magic in that.”
No one contradicted her.
“What interests me is what we don’t see here,” said Lister.
“The arm,” Sam agreed. “The other warjack chased down this one to get its arm back.”
Burns whistled. “That’s one tough bastard of a warjack.”
Crawley pointed at Harrow, who signaled from a spot fifty yards farther south. “He’s found something else.”
The lich overseer lay in a tangle, burned and battered by the same weapon that had helped bring down the Slayer. Two of its three skulls had been shattered to bone chips. The third stared blankly at the gray sky.
McBride came running back from his turn as forward scout. “Found the warjack. Quarter mile ahead. And it’s not alone.”
“Did you see its warcaster?”
McBride shook his head. “No, but it’s standing in some kind of lighted metal structure. There’s a smaller ’jack that looks like it’s repairing the big one.”
“Repairing it?” said Crawley.
“That’s what it looks like, yes, Sergeant.”
Sam ordered the big lugs topped off with coal and water. “We’ll leave the supply wagon here,” she said. “Crawley, have the other two wagons follow us, keeping about a hundred yards behind. I don’t want our target to see them before we’re ready to say hello, but I want them to move in as soon as they see us make contact.”
“Yes’m.” He pointed at the driver’s seat of Gully’s wagon. “Smooth, welcome to management. Don’t get comfortable.”
The big man squ
eezed in between the two drivers, grinning as he hugged them in a powerful grip. “This’ll be fun.”
“Douse lanterns,” said Sam. “Leave them in the wagon.”
By the diffused moonlight, Sam divided the remaining Devil Dogs into three units. The first included Burns, Dawson, Morris, and Fraser. They followed her as she marched Gully and Foyle in the direction McBride had indicated. Lister and Crawley took the others.
“I want you two to pinch the flanks, left and right,” she pointed to Lister and Crawley in turn. “Principal target is the one we’ve seen before, but if the little one tries to escape, stop it. I’m sending Foyle and Gully in hard. We know there’s no point trying to knock it down, so I’m going to try to keep it stalled. Let’s take a lesson from the Cryx and take out its arms.”
“What if its controller shows up?”
Sam nodded. “In that case, we change targets. If we move fast, we’ll have the warjack inoperative before we need to worry about reinforcements. Any other questions?”
There were none.
“All right, Dogs. Let’s collect our prize and get out of this damned swamp.”
Sam led the way up the middle. At her sides, Gully and Foyle trampled the brush flat. From the south, distant thunder echoed their heavy footsteps. Sam reined in Foyle to keep the warjacks moving in pace with each other, just fast enough to bend the black towers of their exhaust behind them.
As the Dogs moved forward, a flash of lightning from the south cast the hill in silhouette. Another peal of thunder struck, far closer than the previous one. After blinking away the dazzling effect of the lightning, the Dogs saw what McBride had spotted earlier.
The structure stood about thirty yards below the crest of a hill, sheltered to the east, west, and south by stands of ash and oak. Light from the structure limned the branches and the scant remaining leaves of the trees in silver. Two moving lights and occasional flurries of sparks added a sense of industry to an otherwise lonely haunt.
With a base no more than ten feet in diameter, the building rested on a circular foundation of what appeared to be polished steel. Every surface was inlaid with a darker metal, its true color obscured by the blue-white lights. Four graceful braces supported an arrangement of bi-metal beams which in turn held up a weird, four-lobed cupola about fifteen feet above the ground.