Ironshield

by Edward Nile

  Samuel’s hands curled into fists. If Davids and Salkirk were right about anything, it was that the North couldn’t be trusted to hold to their word. How many young men’s lives were worth sacrificing to uphold the rules? More important, who was Samuel to decide either way?

  He needed advice, and there was only one person he could think to turn to. It made him grimace to think about, but Samuel would swallow his pride. If he was going to betray his ideals, he had to be sure it was for the greater good.

  When the first set of knocks yielded no answer, Samuel pounded harder.

  “Alright, alright,” came a muffled response from the other side.

  The door swung inward by an inch or two. Leanne Mutton peered at him through the gap, one hand clutching her nightgown closed at her chest. At first, Samuel’s wife looked surprised, then annoyed. “You have a key, Samuel. Why bother with the hammering? As if I have any more privacy left.”

  “May I come in?” Samuel asked.

  “Do I have any say in the matter?”

  “Tonight, you do.”

  Leanne leaned forward and sniffed. “Have you been drinking?

  “Maybe.” He’d had a few ales to work up his nerve. He still didn’t feel ready, and the irritation in his wife’s eyes didn’t help.

  But Leanne’s expression seemed to soften, if only a fraction. She rolled her eyes and stepped aside. “Fine.”

  “You two,” Samuel said to the guards to either side of the door. “Take a walk.”

  “Yes, Sir!” They strode off.

  “If you’re offering a conjugal visit,” Leanne said as she lit a lamp. “I’m about as far from in the mood as I can get.”

  No surprise there. “I’m not here for that,” he said, even though her curves, laid bare by the sheer robe, were tempting.

  “Then what do you want? It’s the middle of the night for God’s sake.”

  Samuel stood rooted to the carpet, trying to find the words.

  Leanne’s brow furrowed in concern. “What is it? Are you here to lay a sentence on me, Sam? Was that why you left for Arkenridge?”

  “What you did… I haven’t told anyone. Davids doesn’t know.”

  “Yet,” Leanne finished. “He’s bound to find out with Salkirk slithering around. That man’s too good a liar not to stumble on the truth eventually.”

  God, but I love you. Here was yet another reason to end the war quick. If Leanne was found out after the North’s capitulation, she might be spared prison in peacetime.

  If her betrayal became known now, it meant execution.

  “Yet,” Samuel agreed. “No, Leanne, I’m here because…” He swallowed. “Because I need your advice.”

  Leanne looked taken aback. Her eyebrows shot up. “Really.” Her voice dripped with skepticism. “My advice.”

  Sighing, Samuel walked past her and slumped onto the couch, thinking those ales might have been a mistake after all. He looked up at his wife, her features cast in the warm glow of the lamp’s yellow bulb.

  “Sam, this isn’t like you.”

  “Wanting to talk to my wife?”

  “Being uncertain.” She moved for the couch, appeared to think better of it, and dragged a chair over instead. It was a bizarre, reversed re-enactment of the previous week, when Leanne had faced him from this same seat.

  “What sort of advice could I possibly give that you’d listen to?” Leanne asked, her tone exhausted. “We’re on opposite sides of a war.”

  “Pretend we weren’t. Pretend, just for a minute, that there was no war, and that I was merely a husband in doubt. Can you do that for me?”

  Leanne sat and exhaled. "I don't know if that's possible," she admitted.

  That's good, Samuel thought. She could just as easily have lied. He was talking to an Industrialist, an enemy. But at least she was an honest enemy. And she was, for better or worse, the love of his life. "Will you try, then? I won't ask you to go against your principles," he rushed to add. "Nothing specific, nothing compromising."

  Leanne's lip curled in a bemused smirk. "I'm not sure that is possible either… but I'll try."

  Samuel nodded. "Thank you." He took in a deep breath as he thought about how to voice his thoughts. Finally, he asked a question. Not the one he thought most relevant, but a question he burned to have answered above all. A question that had eaten away at him ever since the end of the Xang war.

  "Do you think I'm a good man? That I do the right thing, more often than not?"

  Leanne bit her lip. "There's no simple answer to that."

  "No," Samuel agreed. "I guess there isn't."

  Leanne surprised Samuel by moving from her chair to the cushion beside him. She took his hand in hers and studied it as she spoke. "I think you're a fine man. As good a man as I was ever likely to meet. And... despite what my feelings are, I think you do what you believe is the right thing. I've never known Samuel Mutton to willfully do something he knew was evil."

  “But what if that evil was for the greater good? And what if refusing to sully my hands meant greater suffering and death for others?”

  “Sam, just what are we talking about?” Leanne paused in caressing his palm, though her dainty hands still held his.

  Samuel shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just having a moment of doubt. About a lot of things.”

  She nodded, but didn’t seem convinced. “If you’re doubting your decision making capabilities, I don’t know how I can help you. Obviously, I think you’ve been misguided. If you’re in doubt, you’ll need to come up with the answers yourself. No one else’s solutions will suffice, Sam, not for you. But…” She turned to face him fully and caressed his cheek. “For what it’s worth, I believe you’ll do what you think is best. I’m worried, though, that you might look back and realize you got it all wrong. When… if that day comes, I’m afraid to see what it does to you.”

  Samuel leaned into her hand, kissed her palm and the tips of her fingers. Nothing had been answered, nothing had been resolved, either in his country or his marriage. Still, Samuel felt a weight lift from his shoulders. “Thank you.”

  Leanne flashed a devious grin. “Now, since you’ve gone and woken me up, maybe you can help your wife with something in return.”

  The next thing he knew, Samuel was being pulled down on top of her, her mouth seeking his, her hands running up and down his back. He gave in, and for the first time, for just a little while, forgot about the war.

  Samuel kissed Leanne’s forehead as she slept, then crept out of her bedchamber.

  He packed a small bag and dismissed the guards who tried to follow him through the halls. As he passed Paulson’s rooms, Samuel was tempted to knock, to tell his secretary what was happening. But there was no point. Regardless of what happened in the next few days, there was nothing to gain by implicating his friend.

  The car waited outside as promised, its black finish reflecting the yellow light of a lone streetlamp.

  Drawing a deep breath, Samuel touched his amulet of the Savior and sent up a prayer. Lord, give me strength on the road ahead, and forgive me what I’m about to do.

  He climbed into the back seat, and the car rolled off to take him to his fate.

  Chapter 9

  “Wait, Stop.”

  James reared his mount to a halt and looked back. It was the first time Matthew had spoken since their argument. “Yeah?

  They’d ascended a curving slope and were walking along the edge of a grassy vale dotted with clumps of foliage and moss-covered rocks. James saw the trail of smoke a moment before Matthew pointed it out. The source was hidden by a copse of cedar trees, but it had to be close.

  “Must be small,” Matthew said. “Probably a campfire.”

  “Here, this close to the border?” James was skeptical. “Doesn’t sound normal. ‘Tet, can we pass it by without being spotted?”

  The tribesman brought his horse to join theirs. Studying the smoke trail, he shook his head, muttering something in his own strange language. “That lies near t
he path Na’Tet leads you to, Holy Speaker.”

  Figured. “Is there another way?”

  “For those of us on two legs, yes. For the horses… no.”

  “It’d take us a week to get there on foot, nevermind that we’d run out of food first,” said Matthew. “We don’t have that much time.”

  “Well, it looks like only one fire,” James thought out loud. “Can’t be too many down there, whoever they are. Might even be friendlies.”

  “Or they might scalp us. No offence, ‘Tet.”

  “Holy Kaizer is wise to be wary,” Na’Tet said. “Many tribes roam the wilds that have no love for white faces.”

  “Southerners are less likely, but we can’t risk being sniped on foot. Not to mention all the hiding spots in those hills.” James stroked his chin, irritated to feel hairs he’d missed in his shave. “We’ll get closer and take a look. Either way, we need to know who’s down there.”

  Leaving the horses tethered by a patch of wild grass, they proceeded on foot, careful not to tread over anything that would snap or rustle. The sun began to dip beneath the horizon as the three men crept through the trees. James winced every time he made a sound and shot curious glances up at Na’Tet. If he couldn’t see the tribesman in the fading light, he wouldn’t even know he was there.

  They smelled the faint whiff of woodsmoke moments before the trees thinned enough to spot a flicker of orange light. Na’Tet dropped to the ground and began to crawl. Somehow, he still managed not to make a whisper.

  James wasn’t nearly so skilled. Twigs broke and leaves rustled beneath him as he inched forward. Matthew, being larger, had to move that much slower to avoid heralding their presence to the entire vale.

  Fortunately, as James could soon hear, the owners of the campfire weren’t paying too much attention.

  “Pass that here,” a man said. Liquid sloshed as a bottle or canteen passed hands.

  “Don’t usually go in for wine,” continued the voice between audible sips. “But this stuff’s not bad.”

  “Savior above, I’d take anything so long as it numbs my aching ass,” said another voice. “How anyone expects us to last in saddles made of granite’s a mystery to me.”

  “I’ll be sure to confiscate a cushion for ya, Lem.”

  Na’Tet, James, and Matthew continued to snake their way under some thick brush, until the fire was clearly visible through a gap in the spindled branches. James crawled up alongside Na’Tet and pushed a branch aside.

  Two men in gray uniforms sat drinking by a firepit of piled stones, the carcasses of a pair of rabbits roasting over the flames on an iron spit.

  The uniforms were those of Northern enlisted men, simple and unembroidered.

  What would two privates be doing out here on their own? Unless they were scouts for a larger division. If there was a friendly army nearby, James and his companions would have a much easier trip of it to Quarrystone. James shot Matthew a questioning look. His friend returned it with a slow shake of his head. He didn’t know anything about this.

  A coincidence? Now, so soon after James’ escape, he didn’t trust the notion. He turned to Na’Tet, intending to whisper that the tribesman circle the strangers’ camp to make sure the two men were really alone.

  But Na’Tet was gone.

  “Matt,” James hissed, turning to his friend. “’Tet, he’s…”

  Matthew looked at James from the corner of his eye. The muzzle of a rifle was pressed against the back of his head.

  James started to rise until he felt something hard poke against his own scalp.

  “Wouldn’t recommend it,” someone said behind him.

  Slowly, James raised his hands.

  Their captors forced them into the firelight where the pair of gray-clad men James had first seen searched them and took their weapons. The wine and talk had been a ruse. The two riflemen wore civilian rags unlike their compatriots, which begged the question: were these Appeaser soldiers, or mercenaries?

  James let the man searching him take his machine pistol, but when he reached for his saber, James lashed out with a fist. This earned him a hard boot to the chest that knocked the wind from his lungs and left him dazed on his back long enough for the bastard to strip him of his blade. The gray-clad man -Lem, if James had it right- drew the saber and studied the straight, single-edged blade by firelight. The ignition saber’s key groove was unmistakable.

  Lem’s partner whistled low. “To be honest, boys, I didn’t think we’d actually get him.”

  “The Ironshield,” said one of the plain-clothed men behind James in something approaching awe. “You fellas smell that? That’s money right there.”

  Mercenaries, then. This could be good. Men in it for marks were sometimes easier to deal with than idealistic soldiers under orders. James just had to find his opening.

  Matthew, kneeling beside him, looked about without moving his head, eyes flitting from bushes to trees.

  Give up, James thought, bitter. Na’Tet had either abandoned them or set them up. I could have warned you, Matt. The tribes can be fickle.

  “Who’s this one, you figure? The other rifleman said, poking Matthew between the shoulder blades with his weapon. “Bit heavy around the middle for a soldier.”

  Now this definitely wasn’t good. The North could lose James and fight on. But since the disappearance of Clint Kaizer, his son was the only man who knew how to construct the precious Kaizer Engine. And in a war in which the Industrialists depended on the strength of their Warsuits, losing the ability to manufacture Kaizers spelled the end for the North. “He’s no one,” James blurted out. “Some farmer I met on the road. He didn’t even know who I was.”

  “Oooh, he must be a big fish if you’re that worried, Edstein.”

  “Jim, you’ve always been a shitty liar,” Matthew muttered.

  “Hey, Lem,” one of the riflemen said. “I know they said they wanted the sword, but what do you figure we can sell it for?”

  “Could just say we didn’t find it on ‘im,” the other gray-clad man mused.

  James snarled and moved to rise again.

  Lem whipped him across the jaw with his own machine pistol, sending James sprawling to the side. James spat out a wad of blood, along with a chunk of tooth.

  “Oi,” one of the mercenaries said. “Where’s that rusty that was crawling with you two anyw—" His words were cut off. The mercenary stumbled forward between James and Matthew and fell onto his face. The leather-wrapped handle of a crude knife stuck out the back of his skull.

  “The hell – agh!”

  A thrown axe struck Lem in the chest with a wet thud.

  James dove forward as the mercenary fell, catching his machine pistol before it hit the ground. In the same motion, James rattled five rounds into the other gray-clad figure. He spun to face the last man, only to see Matthew already on him, beating the unfortunate mercenary with the butt of his own rifle. There was a wet squelching sound, but Matthew didn’t stop.

  “Matt.” James touched his friend on the shoulder.

  Matthew smashed the rifle against what was left of the man’s head one more time before dropping the weapon. James helped him up, averting his eyes from the bloody mess.

  “Close one,” Matthew said between heaving breaths.

  “Yeah.”

  Leaves rustled to the left. James raised his machine pistol as a figure materialized out of the bushes.

  “Are the Holy Speakers unharmed?” Na’Tet asked, ignoring the gun leveled at him. His robes blended entirely too well with the surrounding foliage.

  “We’re good,” James said. “Could have been better if you’d done something sooner. Or you could have, I don’t know, not disappeared in the first place. What was the big idea?”

  “Na’Tet thought it would be easier to fight the white men if they weren’t looking…” The tribesman averted his eyes.

  James’ jaw dropped. “Bait,” he said. “You let them take us as bait.”

  Na’Tet kicked at
some dirt like a scolded schoolboy. “If Na’Tet has shamed himself or done you evil, the Holy Ironshield may strike him down.”

  James couldn’t hold it in any longer, and it seemed neither could Matthew. They both snorted and burst into laughter.

  “Crazy bugger.” Matthew slapped the tribesman on the back. “You saved our skins.”

  “Just wish you’d saved my tooth.” James tongued the jagged spot where his molar had been broken. Still, he smirked as he said it. “Wonder where they got the uniforms…” his smile faltered when he caught sight of something behind the picketed horses. A pair of shapes laid side by side, covered with rough sheets. James could make out dark bloodstains marring the fabric.