The Silver spike (28 page)

The wait stretched interminably. He had time to get scared
again. To talk himself into freezing up, almost.

Then they were there, a pair of soldiers out front, a pair
behind, one leading Tully by the choke cord and one behind to poke
him if he slowed down. Smeds’s knife slipped into his hand.
It was the knife he’d taken off that man in that cellar.

He flung himself forward, running hard. They barely had time to
turn and see him coming. Tully’s eyes got huge as he saw the
knife come to his throat.

Smeds hit the choke cord and smashed through and in a moment was
back in shadows clutching a knife that dripped family blood.
Soldiers shouted. Feet pounded after him.

There was very little physical or emotional reaction. His mind
turned to the pursuit. Two men, he decided. Very determined
bastards, too. He wasn’t gaining on them.

He did not want to deal with them but it looked like they might
give him no choice.

He knew the place. It was only a few yards from where he had
hidden his pack, where the alley was darkest. He would use the
trick the physician had tried. If they went on by he would sneak
away behind them.

He was amazed at himself. Smeds Stahl, scared, could still
think.

He slipped into a crack in a brick wall that, probably, was a
legacy of the Limper’s visit. It had been improved upon by
someone who had used it to get into the building, a thief or
squatters. He could slide through and get away, but something that
was not concern for his pack stayed him.

He picked up a broken board and waited.

They did not continue their headlong rush once his footsteps
stopped. They exchanged breathless words in an unfamiliar language.
Smeds grew tense. If they stuck
together . . . 

He still had the out through the building.

One soldier put on a burst that took him a hundred feet past
Smeds. He called to the other. They began moving toward one
another.

The one who had not run was much closer.

He did not notice the gap in the wall till Smeds popped out
behind his knife. He made one strange noise, surprise that turned
to pain.

Smeds tried to pull the knife free as the man fell and the other
soldier yelled. It would not come. Goddamn it! Again!

Feet pounded toward him.

He grabbed his board and swung it just as the other soldier
arrived. The impact slammed the man against the wall. Smeds hit him
again. And again and again, feeling bones crunch, till the broken
thing stopped whimpering.

He stood there panting, unaware that he was grinning, till he
heard more men coming. He darted toward where his pack lay,
realized he did not have time to dig it out, darted back, and tried
the knife again. It would not come. Still. Then he was out of time
before he could appropriate a weapon from one of the dead men. He
slithered through the crack into the darkness inside the
building.

Moments later there was an outraged roar from the alleyway.

Smeds kept his head down as he stepped into the street. There
was little foot traffic. No one paid him any mind. He set off at a
brisk pace, but not one so fast it would attract attention.

What now?

He didn’t dare go find Fish. Some damned soldier might
recognize him.

But Fish would hear about Tully. Fish would understand. Best
thing would be to go back to the Skull and Crossbones and wait.
Fish was sure to check there.

As his heartbeat slowed toward normal he became aware of the
hollow in his stomach. He had not eaten since yesterday. The Skull
and Crossbones was dry. Where could he find something? With stores
getting low, nobody might be willing to
sell . . . 

It was a meal. Of sorts. A bowl of bad soup and a chunk of stale
bread, and the fat old geek who ran the filthy place hadn’t
tried to rob him.

He was nearly done when a kid blew in, yelled, “Run
mister! Press gang!” and sailed out the back.

“What the hell?”

“Press gang,” the greasy fat man said. “Round
here the grays been grabbing all the young men they can
find—”

Two grays stamped in. One grinned and said, “Here’s
a likely-looking patriot.”

Smeds sneered and went back to work on his meal. He did not feel
troubled.

A wooden truncheon tapped him on the shoulder. “Come
along, then.”

“You better hope there’s no splinters in that thing.
You touch me again I’m going to shove it up your
ass.”

“Oh, a tough one, Cord. We like them tough, don’t
we? What’s your name, boy?”

Smeds sighed, hearing the voices of all the bullies who’d
ever baited him. He turned, looked the soldier in the eye, said,
“Death.”

Maybe the man saw seven murders in his eyes. He backed off a
step. Smeds decided the one who kept his mouth shut was probably
more dangerous.

He felt no fear at all. In fact, he felt invulnerable,
invincible.

He rose slowly, flipped his bread into the talker’s face,
kicked him in the groan. A bully had done that to him once. He
shoved his chair at the other man’s legs and while he was
dealing with that shoved his soup into the man’s face. Then
he grabbed the truncheon away from the first and went to work.

He might have killed them both if half a dozen more soldiers had
not showed up to help.

They didn’t beat Smeds much more than they had to to get
him under control. They seemed to think the whole thing was a good
joke on the man with the big mouth.

They dragged Smeds outside and added him to a group of cowed
youngsters about thirty strong. Several of the youngsters got told
off to carry the men Smeds had injured.

So Smeds Stahl became one of the gray boys. Sort of.

The little critters was in and out so much I was sure the people
downstairs was going to find us out any minute. Bomanz and Silent
was having trouble enough keeping curiosity types away without
attracting the attention of the new big boy.

Raven was loving every minute of it. “What the hell are
you grinning about?” I demanded.

“Those guys with the spike. They got balls down to their
ankles.”

“Hunh!” He would appreciate their brass.

“Come on, Case. Look. One of them decides to cut a deal
for himself and winds up getting grabbed by Exile’s boys for
his trouble. So what do his buddies do? Big rescue attempt, against
the odds? Hell, no. Before they get the guy halfway here one man
just casually trots through the escort and practically lops the
guy’s head off. He does it so quick they can’t get two
descriptions that agree no matter how many witnesses they ask. And
when the soldiers get riled and go after the killer, he offs two of
them and leaves the rest standing around with their thumbs in their
ears.”

“Just your kind of fun-loving boy, eh?”

“They have style, Case. I appreciate style. It’s a
sort of bringing of artistry to even the most mundane—or
gruesome—things that have to be done. Bet you something. If
the man who made that hit had had five more minutes he would have
been wearing a Nightstalker uniform, just to mess with
people’s minds. It’s not the deed. It’s how it
was done.”

Here was a shade of the Raven of old. Maybe the shell was ready
to break. “You think these guys are just having a good time,
sticking their tongues out at the world, yelling ‘Catch us if
you can’?”

“No. You don’t understand. They’re probably
hiding out somewhere not fit for a pig. They’re probably
hungry, filthy, scared, sure they’re not going to get out of
it alive. But they’re not letting it break them.
They’re going right on clawing at the faces of the wolves and
vampires trying to feed on them. You see?”

I agreed mostly because I didn’t and if I admitted that
we’d end up spending the whole day getting me lessons in
never surrender, even if the ground you’re holding springs
from stupid or wrong.

Agreeing worked. He moved over and got into a discussion with
Silent and Darling. All business, I assume, since no sparks
flew.

I got into a conversation with Bomanz, who was trying to work
his way through some moral catch trap where the spike was
concerned. He had some questions that nobody had answers for. I
wasn’t sure there were any answers. That spike was like a
drop of black dye plunked into a pool of already murky water,
spreading. It had poisoned Oar already. We had resisted it because
we knew about it and could think it away consciously. But what
would happen if our bunch got lucky and glommed on to it?

Scary.

And what the hell were we going to do with the damned thing if
we did get it? I never heard none of those clowns talk about that.
It was all keep the other guys from grabbing it and doing
dirty.

It sure as hell hadn’t been safe where they left it
before.

I didn’t have no ideas. Not that looked like they would
work. There wasn’t no place in the world you could put it
that somebody else couldn’t get it back from except maybe if
you dropped it in the deepest part of the ocean. And that probably
wouldn’t do the job neither.

Some damned fish would probably gulp it down before it sank ten
feet, then the fish would beach itself or get hooked by some
goddamned fisherman with a hidden talent for sorcery and a secret
lust for conquest.

That’s the nature of evil talismans.

My best notions were to get a bunch of sorcerers together who
could elevate it to the outer realm and stick in on a passing comet
or to have a bunch break a little hole through to another plane,
pop the spike through, and plug the hole.

Both ways was just cheaters that put the problem off on somebody
else. The people of the future when the comet came back or the
people of the other plane.

I had been picking up bits of the sign exchanges between Raven,
Darling, and Silent, without paying much attention, just like you
can’t help catching snatches of a nearby conversation when it
don’t really interest you. Raven was getting antsy. He was
finger grumbling about all this sitting around waiting for
something to happen instead of getting out and making it
happen.

He was on his way back all right. That was the old Raven. You
got a problem you kill somebody or at least beat the shit out of
them.

I was almost tempted to yell, “Hey!” when I caught
him voluteering me and him to go look around the landscape where
the morning’s excitement had taken place. I choked it. Why
let the boys downstairs know we were here when Darling could tell
him to go soak his head?

Treacherous witch.

She thought it was a great idea. We should drag Bomanz along,
just in case a wizard might turn up handy.

Silent grinned all the way around his face. The prick saw
himself talking his talk and making his pitch every second we were
gone.

I decided I was going for the head recruiter’s job if I
was going to get stuck as a Rebel for life. The movement could use
a few more women. And a few soldiers who weren’t screwballs,
too.

With a little illusion help from Bomanz we just went downstairs
and strutted out the front door, walking like we belonged there.
Like Raven said, if we didn’t belong we
wouldn’t’ve been in there in the first place. Would
we?

Balls and style. That’s my buddy Raven.

They had carted the body off with all the others but we had no
trouble finding the place. There was blood all over and a crowd of
kids still hanging around telling each other all about it.

Raven only gave the stains a glance. Bomanz had no use for that
scene either. He wasn’t looking for dead men.

We strolled down the alley the killer had used to make his
escape. I was surprised they didn’t have soldiers watching,
though I couldn’t imagine who they’d think they’d
be laying for, either. It just seemed like something some officer
would think was a dandy thing to do. If what officers use their
heads for is to think.

The place where the two soldiers got killed was a little harder
to find because of all the dark. That alley was a creepy place. It
felt like it never got light in there. Like a place where people
didn’t belong at all. A place already claimed by other
things, impatient with our intrusion.

Weird thoughts. I shivered.

Maybe the shades of the murdered soldiers were hanging
around.

Then Bomanz conjured up a ball of light and hung it out
overhead. “That’s better,” he said. “It got
spooky for a minute, there.”

He was good for something after all.

“Yeah,” Raven said. They started poking around.
There wasn’t a whole lot to see. I went over to a rubble pile
to sit and wait them out. A fat rat sauntered past without so much
as a nod to intimidation by a superior species. I chucked a hunk of
broken brick at him.

He stopped and eyeballed me over his shoulder, red eyes glowing.
Arrogant little sucker. I grabbed another hunk of brick and this
time put some arm behind it.

He charged me.

Rabid! I thought, and tried to scramble up the pile while
grabbing a broken board to beat him off. The pile collapsed. I went
sliding down, kicking and cussing. The rat zagged out, to be seen
no more. He took him a good brag to hand his buddies.

Raven got a big chuckle out of the whole thing. “Hail, O
Mighty Hunter, Terror of Ratkind.”

“Stuff it.” I rolled me over and saw about a square
foot of raggedy-ass canvas peeking out of the rubble pile. I had me
a stroke of cunning. I stood up, dusted me off, and sat back down.
They went back to their sniffing around. I dug the thing out,
decided it was somebody’s backpack, then decided it might be
why our villain had made a stand here when all he really needed to
do was duck through that hole and leave the soldiers sucking
dust.

“What have you got there?” Raven yelled when he
noticed. Bomanz didn’t say nothing but his beady little eyes
lit right up.