by James Axler
“Chilling enemies is one thing,” J.B. said from just behind Ryan. “Chilling mad dogs is another.”
Cody’s handsome, aristocratic face twisted in brief pain. He didn’t seem to care to hear members of his class characterized that way. Especially not by a passel of blasters for hire.
The companions were gathered in the parlor of Baron Al’s big house. It belonged to a middle-aged pair named the Lenkmans, who apparently had been roughly treated by the Protectors before the Uplanders recaptured their estate. Now they stayed on, insisting on acting as servants to the baron and his army staff.
No matter how genteel, the room smelled mostly of unwashed bodies and clothes stiff with dried, stale sweat. It still managed a Victorian stuffiness that reminded Mildred of old ladies who were too fond of tea, lavender and cats. The baron’s chair even had a lacy antimacassar, mostly white, thrown over the back of it. If Mildred remembered the word right.
Also the house smelled of cinnamon, for some unknown reason.
Though Ryan, who was of a generally restless nature, preferred to stand, most of the group was seated, either on the sofa, chairs, or in Ricky’s and Jak’s case, perched on an ottoman.
Cody and a small and ever-shifting swarm of staff officers and aides came in and out of the sitting room. Fortunately it was spacious, what Mildred thought was called a great room, open for two stories up to a pitched roof, with a gallery for the second floor over one end.
“Tell me again,” Cody said, “what exactly was the purpose of burning the Clark house in the first place.”
Mrs. Lenkman ghosted in, wearing an apron and carrying a plate of cookies. “Here,” she said listlessly, “I made these for you.”
“Thanks, Maisie,” Al said. “Put ’em anyplace. The boys—and, uh, girls—will help themselves.”
She smiled wanly at him and went out again. From her funereal silence and the fact her worn long black skirt hid the motions of her feet she appeared to travel by levitating and gliding above the polished wood floors and threadbare throw rugs.
“Sad case,” Al said, shaking his head when the lady of the house went out.
Cody nodded. “That it is.”
He looked sharply at Ryan. “You were saying?”
“Wasn’t,” Ryan said, “but I will. The Protectors got it all over you in manpower, firepower, pretty much any kind of numbers you want to put a name to. You’ve managed to hold them off, somehow, which is to your credit. But they’ve got to know that if they only play a waiting game, they can just wear you down.”
Al rumbled deep in his chest, a sound like distant thunder. “They can’t afford this damned war to go on perpetually, no more than we can. And we’re just up against flat busted.”
He shook his head. “Ah, if only those damned fool women...”
He let his voice trail off without, so far as Mildred could tell, seeing the way Cody Turnbull’s face stiffened and went pale.
“What we’re saying, Baron,” said J.B., perched on a wooden chair, “is that the Protectors have been just too nuke-blasted comfortable. They’ve got the edge, and their brass in particular haven’t faced any consequences. If anybody eats in their army, it’s them. Anybody goes hungry, it isn’t.”
Cody looked puzzled. “Isn’t that the normal order of things?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “That’s why we want to sting the barons—the landowning higher-ups—where it hurts. After what happened to their pal Clark they’re all going to have half a mind on their homes and the holdings they left behind, which up until now’ve been safe.”
“What purpose does this serve, Mr. Cawdor?” Cody asked.
The way Mildred had the man sized up, he was far from stupid. He seemed to be pretty knowledgeable about military business, and cared for his men, even if he was pretty uptight about maintaining the distinction between the grunts and their betters. But he wasn’t the most mentally agile monkey in the troop, either. He had habits of thinking and found it hard to shift outside them.
“Well, anything they’re thinking about that isn’t a way to screw us over helps, Cody.”
This time the baron, who was looking at his officer, did see his face turn red. He waved a big hand. “Relax, Cody. I’m not busting your chops. The fact is, if we make Kylie’s commanders nervous, looking over their shoulders, they’ll be distracted. If nothing else, that’ll distract Jed. Cloud his thinking.”
Cody shook his head. “And I’m not trying to be stubborn, General. But I don’t see any substantial way in which this helps us.”
“Call it stage one,” J.B. said, sitting back down after helping himself to a cookie. “Early days yet. We got a few tricks to pull before you start seeing benefits.”
Cody frowned. “I thought it was a primary principle of strategy never to engage in any action that doesn’t potentially lead to winning the war.”
“Not so easy for a group as small as we are to pull off, Colonel,” Krysty said. “Unless we assassinate Baron Jed directly, and since that would be a suicide mission, it would be hard for you to pay us enough to do that.”
Al and some of his aides laughed. Cody looked pained.
“So what—”
“Like J.B. said, Colonel,” Ryan said, “it’s a process. We get them off balance, get them angry. Get them stupe. Then they’re prime for you to hit them.”
“So you have a graduated plan of action mapped out,” Cody said, with just a hint of sarcasm. “I presume you plan to involve us at some point.”
“That’d be the general idea, yes,” Ryan said, refusing to be baited.
“Very well,” he said. “What’s your next move? Captain Muller, why don’t you set out a map and our friends can show us where they mean to sting our enemies next.”
A slightly plump officer with curly blond hair, who always seemed to hang around on Al’s staff but never spoke up much, moved to unroll a map on the gate-leg table by one side of the room. Mildred wondered at that; the baron tended to rotate his staff officers in and out of the field. Maybe Captain Muller wasn’t any great shakes as a field commander, and his baron felt safer with him on-staff all the time. Or maybe he was just a wizard at paperwork.
“Now,” Cody said, smiling at the companions over the U.S.G.S. contour map, “if you’ll point us to your next target so we can have some idea what to expect—”
“Isn’t that a bad idea?”
Everybody turned to stare at Ricky Morales. His olive-skinned face went dark with embarrassment.
“I mean, isn’t that a security breach or something?”
“Ricky,” J.B. said, “pipe down.”
“He’s got a point, J.B.,” Ryan stated.
“Oh, come now,” Cody said. “We want to have some idea whether the Uplands Alliance is getting its jack’s worth from you. We’re your employers. It isn’t so much to ask.”
“To tell the truth,” Baron Al said, rubbing his big powerful hands together, “I just plain want to know. I feel like a schoolboy at my birthday all over again.”
Though Ryan’s face never changed expression, Mildred could tell he wasn’t happy. But as a baron’s son himself, he knew that barons—even a baron as sharp and basically decent as Al had shown himself to be—had a will of iron.
“All right,” he said, sauntering over to the map.
As it happened, they’d already discussed the plan—the whole thing, not just the next stage. Ryan and J.B., who were the strategists of the bunch, had dreamed up the broad outlines, then the rest of them had helped flesh it out and mold it into shape.
It was a crazy plan. What else was new? Mildred decided to give in and have herself a cookie.
But when she looked at the occasional table the dainty china plate with daintier flowers painted on it was bare except for a few crumbs.
Dammit.
Chapter Fourteen
“Stay frosty, people,” Lieutenant Card said. “Word come down from the top that those mercie coldhearts the sheepfuckers hired are gonna be mounting a play a
t this depot tonight. Baron Jed would take it as a personal favor if we all gave them a triple-warm welcome.”
Asshole, Private Reiser thought.
Unseen overhead a killdeer flicked past, trailing its distinctive whit-whit-whit call as it wove between the powder warehouses. From behind the small waterfront sec detail came the sound and smell of the Des Moines River slogging against the wood pilings of the dock.
The lieutenant strutted importantly in front of the four-man crew on duty. “Us here in the organic security detail aren’t expected to have to do much. Baron’s sent down a full troop of his best cavalry to get ready the surprise party.”
“Why, gee, Lieutenant,” said Haldeman from behind Reiser. “We were plumb unaware of the fact that sixty-some horsemen crowded into this happy little base of ours just before the sun went down. Not like we keep tabs on what goes down around here or anything.”
As usual, Reiser didn’t know whether to laugh at his squad-mate’s wisecrack or kick his ass for pissing off their superior officer. Not that trying either right now, when they were all just trying to remember how to stand at attention, was anywhere near a smart idea.
Anyway, kicking Haldeman’s ass would be too much trouble. Especially if this puffed-up little bastard Card socked them with extra punishment detail for his smart mouth. It wasn’t as if pulling riverside security at the main Protectors Association supply depot was the sort of work that kept the sec detail a lean, mean, fighting machine.
Mostly what Reiser and his little bunch did was try to stop pilferage. Except, of course, by duly authorized pilferers. By which he meant quartermaster corps.
Sometimes it seemed like that bunch’s assignment was doing its utmost to prevent potentially valuable supplies from being wasted on the troops. Not that Reiser and his buddies failed to snag their share of the loot. But they thought of it as getting back for the little guy.
Fort Thor was the grandiose name for a facility that was double-large, in the geographic sense, what with having to accommodate goods transhipments and storage, meaning flatboats and wags. Most of the personnel complement was just cargo handlers, which meant troops from the Protectors Army told to do pretty much the same sort of backbreaking grunt work for the barons they did in their civilian life.
As such, it wasn’t a bad billet. Some of them got fed more regularly at the mess than back at the manor. And at least in Reiser’s experience the chow was better. Or at least consistently moderately shitty, which was an improvement over what you got if the baron was cheap or had dropped an unusually large wad gambling with his or her bids, or the supervisors woke up on the wrong side of the cot that morning.
As the main shore-head and resupply point for the whole grand and glorious Protectors Army it would be a prime target for a sheepherders’ attack. Except of course it was miles behind the front lines, with pretty much the whole of said army between the Uplanders and it.
Except this night. This new mercie squad the sheepherders had hired was supposed to visit them. Reiser had already heard that, too. Of course, scuttlebutt was faster than official military intelligence, and consistently more reliable.
“So is it true, Lieutenant Card?” Private Coonts asked. “The general’s got a spy in the Sheepfucker HQ?”
Of course, dumb-ass, Reiser wanted to snarl. Just like Al’s got spies in Jed’s tent. It’s not like we look any different from each other, or talk a different lingo or something.
Card smiled and laid a finger alongside his long nose. He had a long skinny face for a guy who appeared to be carrying that big a cannonball in the gut area of his blue uniform blouse, which was of course immaculate and fresh. Nothing but the best for the men in the rear with the gear. Reiser had no idea what that gesture meant and knew damn well Card didn’t, either. Reiser had read about it in old books. For Card to have done likewise would imply he knew how to read, which Reiser wasn’t ready to concede.
“I only know what little I pass on to you men,” the lieutenant said importantly. “But I can tell you that the mercies are planning to sneak into the fort by hijacking a wag deadheading empty barrels back to the boats for hauling back downstream.”
Which, of course, happened all the time, at pretty much every hour of the day or night. Making it, Private Reiser had to privately concede, at least a double-shrewd scam. Except for them blurting it out under the ears of Bismuth Toth’s paid traitor in Baron Al’s court, of course.
“Word is, they’re gonna be hiding inside. Then in the middle of the night they’ll creep out and blow the powder stocks. Just like the Trojan Horse.”
He grinned. “Except they’re never gonna get through the gate! A troop of First Battalion’s gonna make sure of that!”
“So what do you want us to do, Lieutenant?” Coonts asked.
Card smiled wider. “Nothing at all, gentlemen,” he said. “The higher-ups just didn’t want you panicking when the balloon went up. For tonight, you can all stand easy and let the glory boys from the pony troop earn their jack!”
Reiser felt his eyebrows rise. “Well, that’s a first, Lieutenant,” he blurted. “You’ve given us some good news for once.”
* * *
“READY,” SERGEANT Clancy whispered as the wag approached the outer perimeter. The sprawling camp was ringed about on the landward side with double rows of razor tape and barbed wire, depending obviously on how much of what variety scabbie had been available when a specific section went up.
The idea, or so Trooper Brown and his eager comrades thought, was to crouch hidden in the dark behind barrels and stacked crates just inside the inner wire, while every fourth man from A Troop held his and his mates’ horses in a space behind the blacksmith shop and a warehouse where they couldn’t be seen from the gate. But where they were ready for the troop hiding in ambush to mount up and ride down survivors of their little turnabout surprise.
The covered wag rumbled forward into the lights of big lanterns that flanked the gates. The first set of guards pulled up the barrier, per routine. The wag proceeded into the ten-yard space between it and the next gate, which stayed shut.
The team of four horses bobbed their heads in agitation. Long-time veterans of the run, they knew this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
As barriers, neither was much, though wags loaded with sandbags could be rolled out to block the inner entrance in case of serious threat. For regular operations the barriers were pretty nominal: a couple of ancient metal light standards, too brittle to be worth chopping up for scrap. They wouldn’t actually hold back much, certainly not the mass of a full-size cargo wag, even one carrying nothing but empty barrels. But horses wouldn’t push against a visible barrier unless they knew it would open, the way they learned the gates of their stalls would. So the relatively flimsy barriers blocked horse-drawn progress as effectively as a reinforced-concrete wall.
At once the driver, a crusty old man with a hat battered to shapelessness with a ratty old cock-pheasant tail feather stick in it, started looking around, his eyes as wild as his bushy gray beard.
“That’s suspicious behavior if I ever saw it,” muttered Corporal Rollins, crouched to Trooper Brown’s right.
“Stand your ground and prepare to be searched!” cried the troop commander, Captain Morris.
“Wait! No! Please!” The wag driver began to wave his hands desperately, causing his ragged sleeves to flap like cavalry pennons in a stiff breeze. “Please, don’t hurt me! I’m not in this! They made me! I’m only doin’ it ’cause they got blasters on me—”
In response to his words a muzzle-flash bloomed in unmistakable orange fire out in the black of the bottomlands. By the way the shot’s sound hit Brown’s ears a beat later, it wouldn’t be more than one or two hundred yards out.
“We’re under attack!” the captain roared. “Open fire!”
With enthusiastic obedience, Trooper Brown pulled the trigger of his longblaster. The brass butt-plate of his replica Spencer repeating carbine slammed his shoulder as a giant yellow fl
ame and a big cloud of smoke erupted out the muzzle. He jacked the lever action, feeding in a fresh .56-caliber rimfire cartridge, specially loaded back in Hugoville, into the chamber from the 7-round tubular magazine.
The old wagoneer was still waving hysterically. “No!” he shrieked, his voice soaring even over the slamming blasts of the weps to either side of Trooper Brown. “Them barrels ain’t empt—”
A white flash swallowed the old man, the wag, the team.
Before Trooper Brown could do more than blink at the glare and feel a kiss of warmth on his downy-bearded young face, the white light swallowed him, too.
* * *
AT THE ENORMOUS FLASH, followed rapidly by a head-splitting crack of explosion, J.B. turned a wicked grin to Jak, who was crouched beside him in the darkness at the water’s edge.
“Oh, shoot, did Ryan say we’d steal a wagload of empty barrels in front of whoever the spy at Uplander HQ is? What a damn shame.”
Jak grinned back. Like the Armorer, he had averted his eyes from the direction of the front gate of the compound they’d infiltrated by canoe, floating down the broad yet shallow Des Moines River, to preserve his night vision. Now they opened to mirror the orange dance of flames from the wreck of the powder wag.
It hadn’t been even half a challenge to find a fully loaded powder wag, headed out from the supply base to the Protectors camp, given how insatiable an army’s appetite for gunpowder was. And Jed was shrewd enough to stockpile what he could between battles.
Nor had it been hard to jack the wag, especially since they were miles behind the army’s lines. And if there was any special alert it would concern the unloaded wags heading back south to send the barrels home to Hugoville to get filled up again. And it had been a breeze for J.B., cool hand that he was with explosives, to rig up percussion caps to the barrels in convenient locations to be hit by incoming bullets—from Ryan’s Scout longblaster, if the fort’s defenders inexplicably hadn’t obliged. As naturally they had. Ricky had been a help, too, even suggesting a few little twists of his own. Handy, that boy, J.B. thought.