Pickles is Company quartermaster. He usually went on turnip patrol. He begged off this one because of stomach troubles.
“Looks like everybody was sandbagging,” he said, and glared at a hopeless hand. Pair of sevens, pair of eights, and a nine to go with one of the eights, but no run. Almost everything I could use was in the discard pile. I drew. Sumbitch. Another nine, and it gave me a run. I spread it, dumped the off seven, and prayed. Prayer was all that could help.
One-Eye ignored my seven. He drew. “Damn!” He dumped a six on the bottom of my straight and discarded a six. “The moment of truth, Porkchop,” he told Goblin. “You going to try Pickles?” And, “These Forsbergers are crazy. I’ve never seen anything like them.”
We had been in the fortress a month. It was a little big for us, but I liked it. “I could get to like them,” I said. “If they could just learn to like me.” We had beaten off four counterattacks already. “Shit or get off the pot, Goblin. You know you got me and Elmo licked.”
Pickles ticked the corner of his card with his thumbnail, stared at Goblin. He said, “They’ve got a whole Rebel mythos up here. Prophets and false prophets. Prophetic dreams. Sendings from the gods. Even a prophecy that a child somewhere around here is a reincarnation of the White Rose.”
“If the kid’s already here, how come he’s not pounding on us?” Elmo asked.
“They haven’t found him yet. Or her. They have a whole tribe of people out looking.”
Goblin chickened. He drew, sputtered, discarded a king. Elmo drew and discarded another king. Pickles looked at Goblin. He smiled a small smile, took a card, did not bother looking at it. He tossed a five onto the six One-Eye had dumped on my run and flipped his draw into the discard pile.
“A five?” Goblin squeaked. “You were holding a five? I don’t believe it. He had a five.” He slapped his ace onto the tabletop. “He had a damned five.”
“Temper, temper,” Elmo admonished. “You’re the guy who’s always telling One-Eye to simmer down, remember?”
“He bluffed me with a damned five?”
Pickles wore that little smile as he stacked his winnings. He was pleased with himself. He had pulled a good bluff. I would have bet he was holding an ace myself.
One-Eye shoved the cards to Goblin. “Deal.”
“Oh, come on. He was holding a five, and I got to deal too?”
“It’s your turn. Shut up and shuffle.”
I asked Pickles, “Where’d you hear that reincarnation stuff?”
“Flick.” Flick was the old man Raven had saved. Pickles had overcome the old man’s defenses. They were getting thick.
The girl went by the name Darling. She had taken a big shine to Raven. She followed him around, and drove the rest of us crazy sometimes. I was glad Raven had gone to town. We would not see much of Darling till he got back.
Goblin dealt. I checked my cards. The proverbial hand so bad it could not make a foot. Damned near one of Elmo’s fabled Pismo straights, or no two cards of the same suit.
Goblin looked his over. His eyes got big. He slapped them down face upward. “Tonk! Goddammed tonk. Fifty!” He had dealt himself five royal cards, an automatic win demanding a double payoff.
“The only way he can win is deal them to himself,” One-Eye grumped.
Goblin chortled, “You ain’t winning even when you deal, Maggot Lips.”
Elmo started shuffling.
The next hand went the distance. Pickles fed us snippets of the reincarnation story between plays.
Darling wandered by, her round, freckled face blank, her eyes empty. I tried imagining her in the White Rose role. I could not. She did not fit.
Pickles dealt. Elmo tried to go down with eighteen. One-Eye burned him. He held seventeen after his draw. I raked the cards in, started shuffling.
“Come on, Croaker,” One-Eye taunted. “Let’s don’t fool around. I’m on a streak. One in a row. Deal me them aces and deuces:” Fifteen and under is an automatic win, same as forty-nine and fifty.
“Oh. Sorry. I caught myself taking this Rebel superstition seriously.”
Pickles observed, “It’s a persuasive sort of nonsense. It hangs together in a certain elegant illusion of hope.” I frowned his way. His smile was almost shy. “It’s hard to lose when you know fate is on your side. The Rebel knows. Anyway, that’s what Raven says.” Our grand old man was getting close to Raven.
“Then we’ll have to change their thinking.”
“Can’t. Whip them a hundred times and they’ll keep on coming. And because of that they’ll fulfill their own prophecy.”
Elmo grunted, “Then we have to do more than whip them. We have to humiliate them.” We meant everybody on the Lady’s side.
I flipped an eight into another of the countless discard piles which have become the milemarks of my life. “This is getting old.” I was restless. I felt an undirected urge to be doing something. Anything.
Elmo shrugged. “Playing passes the time.”
“This is the life, all right,” Goblin said. “Sit around and wait. How much of that have we done over the years?”
“I haven’t kept track,” I grumbled. “More of that than anything else.”
“Hark!” Elmo said. “I hear a little voice. It says my flock are bored. Pickles. Break out the archery butts and...” His suggestion died under an avalanche of groans.
Rigorous physical training is Elmo’s prescription for ennui. A dash through his diabolical obstacle course kills or cures.
Pickles extended his protest beyond the obligatory groan. “I’m gonna have wagons to unload, Elmo. Those guys should be back any time. You want these clowns to exercise, give them to me.”
Elmo and I exchanged glances. Goblin and One-Eye looked alert. Not back yet? They should have been in before noon. I figured they were sleeping it off. Turnip patrol always came back wasted.
“I figured they were in,” Elmo said.
Goblin flipped his hand at the discard pile. His cards danced for a moment, suspended by his trickery. He wanted us to know he was letting us off. “I better check this out.”
One-Eye’s cards slithered across the table, humping like inchworms. “Til look into it, Chubby.”
“I called it first, Toad Breath.”
“I got seniority.”
“Both of you do it,” Elmo suggested. He turned to me. “I’ll put a patrol together. You tell the Lieutenant.” He tossed his cards in, started calling names. He headed for the stables.
Hooves pounded the dust beneath a continuous, grumbling drumbeat. We rode swiftly but warily. One-Eye watched for trouble, but performing sorceries on horseback is difficult.
Still, he caught a whiff in time. Elmo fluttered hand signals. We split into two groups, ploughed into the tall roadside weeds. The Rebel popped up and found us at his throat. He never had a chance. We were travelling again in minutes.
One-Eye told me, “I hope nobody over there starts wondering why we always know what they’re going to try.”
“Let them think they’re up to their asses in spies.”
“How did a spy get the word to Deal so fast? Our luck looks too good to be true. The Captain should get Soulcatcher to pull us out while we still have some value.”
He had a point. Once our secret got out, the Rebel would neutralize our wizards with his own. Our luck would take a header.
The walls of Oar hove into view. I started getting the queasy regrets. The Lieutenant hadn’t really approved this adventure. The Captain himself would ream me royal. His cussing would scorch the hair off my chin. I would be old before the restrictions ran out. So long madonnas of the streetside!
I was supposed to know better. I was halfway an officer.
The prospect of careers cleaning the Company stables and heads did not intimidate Elmo or his corporals. Forward! they seemed to be thinking. Onward, for the glory of the band. Yech!
They were not stupid, just willing to pay the price of disobedience.
That idiot One
-Eye actually started singing as we entered Oar. The song was his own wild, nonsensical composition sung in a voice utterly incapable of carrying a tune.
“Can it, One-Eye,” Elmo snarled. “You’re attracting attention.”
His order was pointless- We were too obviously who we were, and just as obviously were in vile temper. This was no turnip patrol. We were looking for trouble.
One-Eye whooped his way into a new song. “Can the racket!” Elmo thundered. “Get on your goddamned job.”
We turned a corner. A black fog formed around our horses’ fetlocks as we did. Moist black noses poked up and out and sniffed the fetid evening air. They wrinkled. Maybe they had become as countrified as I. Out came almond eyes glowing like the lamps of Hell. A susurrus of fear swept the pedestrians watching from the streetsides.
Up they sprang, a dozen, a score, five score phantoms born in that snakepit One-Eye calls a mind. They streaked ahead, weasely, toothy, sinuous black things that darted at the people of Oar. Terror outpaced them. In minutes we shared the streets with no one but ghosts.
This was my first visit to Oar. I looked it over like I had just come in on the pumpkin wagon.
“Well, look here,” Elmo said as we turned into the street where the turnip patrol usually quartered. “Here’s old Cornie.” I knew the name, though not the man. Cornie kept the stable where the patrol always stayed.
An old man rose from his seat beside a watering trough.
“Heared you was coming,” he said. “Done all what I could, Elmo, Couldn’t get them no doctor, though.”
“We brought our own,” Though Cornie was old and had to hustle to keep pace, Elmo did not slow down.
I sniffed the air. It held a taint of old smoke.
Cornie dashed ahead, around an angle in the street. Weasel things flashed around his legs like surf foaming around a boulder on the shore. We followed, and found the source of the smoke smell.
Someone had fired Cornie’s stable, then jumped our guys as they ran out. The villains. Wisps of smoke still rose. The street in front of the stable was filled with casualties. The least injured were standing guard, rerouting traffic.
Candy, who commanded the patrol, limped toward us. “Where do I start?” I asked.
He pointed. “Those are the worst. Better begin with Raven, if he’s still alive.”
My heart jumped. Raven? He seemed so invulnerable.
One-Eye scattered his pets. No Rebel would sneak up on us now. I followed Candy to where Raven lay. The man was unconscious. His face was paper-white. “He the worst?”
“The only one I thought wouldn’t make it.”
“You did all right. Did the tourniquets the way I taught you, didn’t you?” I looked Candy over. “You should be lying down yourself.” Back to Raven. He had close to thirty cuts on his face side, some of them deep. I threaded my needle.
Elmo joined us after a quick look around the perimeter. “Bad?” he asked.
“Can’t tell for sure. He’s full of holes. Lost a tot of blood. Better have One-Eye make up some of his broth.” One-Eye makes an herb and chicken soup that will bring new hope to the dead. He is my only assistant.
Elmo asked, “How did it happen, Candy?”
“They fired the stable and jumped us when we ran out.”
“I can see that.”
Cornie muttered, “The filthy murderers.” I got the feeling he was mourning his stable more than the patrol, though.
Elmo made a face like a man chewing on a green persimmon. “And no dead? Raven is the worst? That’s hard to believe.”
“One dead,” Candy corrected. “The old guy. Raven’s sidekick. From that village.”
“Flick,” Elmo growled. Flick was not supposed to have left the fortress at Deal. The Captain did not trust him. But Elmo overlooked that breach of regulations. “We’re going to make somebody sorry they started this,” he said. There wasn’t a bit of emotion in his voice. He might have been quoting the wholesale price of yams.
I wondered how Pickles would take the news. He was fond of Flick. Darling would be shattered. Flick was her grandfather.
“They were only after Raven,” Cornie said. “That’s why he got cut so bad.”
And Candy, “Flick threw himself in their way.” He gestured. “All the rest of this is because we wouldn’t stand back.”
Elmo asked the question puzzling me. “Why would the Rebel be that hot to get Raven?”
Doughbelly was hanging around waiting for me to get to the gash in his left forearm. He said, “It wasn’t Rebels, Elmo. It was that dumbshit captain from where we picked up Flick and Darling,”
I swore.
“You stick to your needlepoint, Croaker,” Elmo said. “You sure, Doughbelly?”
“Sure I’m sure. Ask Jolly. He seen him too. The rest was just street thugs. We whipped them good once we got going.” He pointed. Near the unburned side of the stable were a dozen bodies stacked like cordwood. Flick was the only one I recognized. The others wore ragged local costume.
Candy said, “I saw him too, Elmo. And he wasn’t top dog. There was another guy hanging around back in the shadows. He cleared out when we started winning.”
Cornie had been hanging around, looking watchful and staying quiet. He volunteered, “I know where they went. Place over to Bleek Street.”
I exchanged glances with One-Eye, who was putting his broth together using this and that from a black bag of his own. “Looks like Cornie knows our crowd,” I said.
“Know you well enough to know you don’t want nobody getting away with nothing like this.”
I looked at Elmo, Elmo stared at Cornie, There always was some doubt about the stablekeeper. Cornie got nervous. Elmo, like any veteran sergeant, has a baleful stare. Finally, “One-Eye, take this fellow for a walk. Get his story.”
One-Eye had Cornie under hypnosis in seconds. The two of them roamed around chatting like old buddies.
I shifted my attention to Candy. “That man in the shadows. Did he limp?”
“Wasn’t the Limper. Too tall.”
“Even so, the attack would have had the spook’s blessing. Right, Elmo?”
Elmo nodded. “Soulcatcher would get severely pissed if he figured it out. The okay to risk that had to come from the top.”
Something like a sigh came out of Raven. I looked down. His eyes were open a crack. He repeated the sound. I put my ear next to his lips, “Zouad...” he murmured.
Zouad. The infamous Colonel Zouad. The enemy he had renounced. The Limper’s special villain. Raven’s knight-errantry had generated vicious repercussions.
I told Elmo. He did not seem surprised. Maybe the Captain had passed Raven’s history on to his platoon leaders.
One-Eye came back. He said, “Friend Cornie works for the other team.” He grinned a malific grin, the one he practices so he can scare kids and dogs. “Thought you might want to take that into consideration, Elmo.”
“Oh, yes.” Elmo seemed delighted.
I went to work on the man next worse off. More sewing to do. I wondered if I would have enough suture. The patrol was in bad shape. “How long till we get some of that broth, One-Eye?”
“Still got to come up with a chicken.”
Elmo grumbled, “So have somebody go steal one.”
One-Eye said, “The people we want are holed up in a Bleek Street dive. They’ve got some rough friends.”
“What are you going to do, Elmo?” I asked. I was sure he would do something. Raven had put us under obligation by naming Zouad. He thought he was dying. He would not have named the name otherwise. I knew him that well, if I didn’t know anything about his past.
“We’ve got to arrange something for the Colonel.”
“You go looking for trouble, you’re going to find it. Remember who he works for.”
“Bad business, letting somebody get away with hitting the Company, Croaker. Even the Limper.”
“That’s taking pretty high policy on your own shoulders, isn’t it?” I co
uld not disagree, though. A defeat on the battlefield is acceptable. This was not the same. This was empire politics. People should be warned that it could get hairy if they dragged us in. The Limper and Soulcatcher had to be shown. I asked Elmo, “What kind of repercussions do you figure on?”
“One hell of a lot of pissing and moaning. But I don’t reckon there’s much they can do. Hell, Croaker, it ain’t your no nevermind anyway. You get paid to patch guys up.” He stared at Cornie thoughtfully. “I reckon the fewer witnesses left over, the better. The Limpet can’t scream if he can’t prove nothing. One-Eye. You go on talking to your pet Rebel there. I got a nasty little idea shaping up in the back of my head. Maybe he has the key.”
One-Eye finished dishing out his soup. The earliest partakers had more color in their cheeks already. Elmo stopped paring his nails. He skewered the stablekeeper with a hard stare. “Cornie, you ever hear of Colonel Zouad?”
Cornie stiffened. He hesitated just a second too long. “Can’t say as I have.”
“That’s odd. Figured you would have. He’s the one they call the Limper’s left hand. Anyway, I figure the Circle would do most anything to lay hands on him. What do you think?”
“I don’t know nothing about the Circle, Elmo.” He gazed out over the rooftops. “You telling me this fellow over to Bleek is this Zouad?”
Elmo chuckled. “Didn’t say that at all, Cornie. Did I give that impression, Croaker?”
“Hell no. What would Zouad be doing hanging around a crummy whorehouse in Oar? The Limper is up to his butt in trouble over east. He’d want all the help he could get.”
“See, Cornie? But look here. Maybe I do know where the Circle could find the Colonel. Now, him and the Company ain’t no friends. On the other hand, we ain’t friends with the Circle, neither. But that’s business. No hard feelings. So I was thinking. Maybe we could trade a favor for a favor. Maybe some big-time Rebel could drop by that place in Bleek Street and tell the owners he don’t think they ought to be looking out for those guys. You see what I mean? If it was to go that way, Colonel Zouad just might drop into the Circle’s lap.”
Cornie got the look of a man who knows he is trapped.
The Black Company tbc-1 Page 7