Hyllis Family Story 1: Telekinetic (25 page)

“What I’d like…” Pike said, “is for you to stab me in the heart and put me out of my
gods be damned misery.”

Tarc
twitched at the thought of killing again. Slowly he said, “How about a sip of water instead?” His ghost had found the wound in Pike’s intestine. The tissue around it had thickened and felt hot. A little bit of fluid surrounded the intestines in that area but it didn’t seem to have leaked out of the wound. Instead, Tarc thought it was exuding from the wall of the intestine near the sutures. He suspected that infection was responsible for some of the changes. One of the Hyllis’s books had talked of making a medicine from bread mold that could kill germs. Practical details on how that might be done were sadly lacking though.

Pike lifted his head, so
Tarc helped him sit up a little and held the cup to his lips. He asked Tarc what had happened during the day.

Tarc
described the scene in the square to him and he closed his eyes and sighed. “Well, we failed.”

Tarc
wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by failed. “At least we got you free.”

“No, I meant the town’s leaders. We failed to keep the barbarians outside the
gate.”

“Oh. But we could still push them back outside the walls, couldn’t we?”

Pike shrugged listlessly, “I don’t know how. Everyone with any military training is dead.”

“That’s not true! You’ve trained every man in this town, at least a little. The soldiers are pretty upset about how many of
their own got killed last night.”

Pike frowned, “How many
did they lose?”

Tarc
thought to himself,
they’d said fifteen last night, plus two today
… “Seventeen so far. Do you think killing them a few at a time will help?”

Pike grunted a sad little laugh, “Sure
,
if
we had someone who could do it. Having a few men dropping dead every day destroys morale. But, I doubt we can kill very many of them, they aren’t going to just walk up and say, ‘slay me next,’ you know. From what Krait said in the square they’re trained soldiers.”

Tarc
pondered this a moment, then said, “I’d better get back upstairs before they start wondering what I’m doing. I’m sure Eva will come check on you before she goes to bed.”

Tarc
left the jars of water with Pike and closed up the wall. He started back up the stairs carrying a bottle of moonshine.

Most of the soldiers had left by the time Tarc got back upstairs. However, Daum told him that six of them were staying in the rooms upstairs. “Daussie’s going to sleep in the hayloft. She doesn’t want to stay over here if there are soldiers sleeping in our rooms. Eva thinks we should empty her room so they don’t wonder who lives there.”

“What if some of them
sleep in the stable again?”

“I asked them if any were going to do that and they said ‘no.’” Daum shrugged, “They killed quite a few people… I think they’re sleeping in their homes. Also in the drill center, and Robinson’s hotel.”

Tarc’s eyes widened, “But they only killed the men! What about the wives that lived in those homes?”

Daum gazed at his son for a moment, then said, “I don’t think we want to know…”

Tarc had been wondering whether he could bring himself to kill any of the soldiers in cold blood rather than self-defense. Now, his own blood running cold, he decided that surely he could. “Capt. Pike said that killing a few of them each night would destroy their morale.”

Daum had been turning away, but his eyes jerked back to his son. “Don’t even think it! We got very, very lucky last night.”

“But I was thinking…”

“Well,
don’t
!” Daum sighed, “Sorry, I shouldn’t bark at you. But, I don’t want to lose you either. It would be good if you could move the stuff out of Daussie’s room. You can tell what the soldiers upstairs are doing before you move anything, so you’re less likely to run into one of them carrying stuff out of her room.”

Tarc
nodded, much as he didn’t want to do it, it would be safer for him. He headed upstairs where he moved Daussie’s feminine things in amongst his mother’s stuff. Things that seemed gender free he moved into his own room. The man in the room next to Daussie’s was sound asleep and not disturbed by Tarc moving around. Each time, before he left Daussie’s room, Tarc checked the hall to make sure it was empty. Daussie didn’t have much so it only took a few trips and Tarc was able to carry out the move completely unobserved.

Still worried about Daussie, he decided to go out and check on her. Perhaps she needed something from her room?

Once in the stable, Tarc checked on Shogun who seemed fine. There were six horses in the stalls of the stable. Tarc wondered if the soldiers would pay for the upkeep of the horses. If not the tavern could run out of the hay Daussie was hiding behind. He could feel her with his ghost, hidden on the other side of the stack of hay bales.

Tarc
climbed the ladder up to the loft. When he reached the top and turned his attention back to Daussie, he saw that she had shifted position, now crouched rather than lying down. Her pose looked very tense. For a moment he wondered what she was doing, “Daussie?”

She relaxed. “
Tarc!” she whispered, “
Tell
me it’s
you
if you come out here!”

“Oh… sorry.”
Tarc moved around to the other side of the stack of bales. Daussie held one of the small kitchen knives in her hand. Despite being extremely cramped, the little crevice of the end of the stacks of bales that Daussie had appropriated wasn’t really very well hidden. “Uh, I think we can make you a better hiding spot.”

“Where?”

“In the middle of the bales, rather than at the end here.” Tarc started restacking the bales of the second row from the end.

“How are you seeing to do that?!”

Tarc realized that he had been mostly using his ghost. “Um, I see pretty well in the dark compared to most people.”

“I’ll say,” she said, sounding a little dubious.

Tarc couldn’t really evaluate the expression on her face with his ghost, having not had much experience trying to do that. He hoped that she had believed him about just seeing well, though he didn’t know what else she might suspect. Soon, he had left the back part of the second row only two bales high. The front of the stack was full height to hide the fact that the stack was incomplete behind it. Daussie could climb around behind the entire stack of bales and spread her blankets on top of the two bales in the partially empty slot. This left her surrounded by bales everywhere except at the back wall.

Once
he’d guided Daussie back and let her feel around so that she understood what Tarc had done with his re-stacking, she thanked him with evident feeling. After an uncomfortable pause, she gave him a little hug.

Tarc
couldn’t remember ever getting a hug from his sister. Or giving her one for that matter. After years of thinking he despised his sibling, he realized that being her ally of late felt much better. He said, “Uh, I’ll get you a better knife too.”

When Tarc came back out with a bigger knife and his old sheath, he sent out his ghost to be absolutely sure no one else was in the stable, then said, “Daussie, it’s me.”

He brought a lamp and asked her to climb down from
the loft. Taking the lamp up near the hay would be dangerous. Down in the light, he showed her how to strap the sheath on and position it where the knife would be easy to reach.

Tarc
started to leave, but Daussie said, “Uh, I don’t really know how to use a knife. I mean, in a fight. Can you… teach me anything from your training?”

Tarc
thought about telling her that the drill center didn’t teach knife fighting, but decided that the last thing she needed to know now was that he didn’t know how to fight with a knife either. “The heart is right here,” he said, pointing to his left chest. “But, if you stab right at it, you might be stopped by a rib, so it’s a better, if you can, to stab up under the ribs.”

Daussie looked a little puzzled, “How do you mean?”

Pretending he had a knife in his fist, Tarc showed her how he thought you might plunge a knife up under the ribs and into the heart. He suspected that he knew the anatomy better than any of the soldiers out there, even if he’d never done it.

Daussie put her new knife back in the sheath and practiced stabbing at
Tarc with her closed fist a couple of times. “I’d have to get really close for this to work!” she said. “I don’t think I could get past one of their swords to do that.”

Tarc
felt his own cheeks heating, “Yeah. No one wants to take a knife to a sword fight. If you’re fighting a sword, there’s probably no way you can win. I’m thinking more… if one of them figures out… that… you’re a girl and gets really close on his own…” Tarc rushed through the last few words.

“Oh… Yeah,” Daussie said sadly. “Thanks,” she said in a very small voice.

Tarc stayed, holding the lamp up while Daussie climbed back up to her hiding place. When he went back into the tavern, he felt somehow that he’d let his sister down.

The next morning’s breakfast rush was enormous again, but Krait had apparently told his men to start paying for their meals so at least the tavern had income again. Once the rush slowed, Daum sent Tarc out to pay Stevenson for yesterday’s meat. The streets were fairly empty. Tarc had the impression that people only went out on absolutely necessary errands. No more “shopping” as a form of social activity.

To his surprise he saw Jacob coming his way on the other side of the street. He crossed over, desperate to talk to someone outside his own family. To his dismay, Jacob looked both ways as if embarrassed to be seen with
Tarc. Then he stepped into a small alley.

Tarc
followed him in to the alley, “What’s the matter?”

“People are saying you’re
‘collaborators.’ They say the tavern’s the only place in town doing a booming business. And, they say you showed up at Stevenson’s with a bunch of soldiers and just
took
their meat without paying.”

“That ‘booming business’ is all soldiers! None of them paid us yesterday! When we ran out of meat,
they took me
to Stevenson’s and
they
took the meat not me!”

Jacob shrugged, “I thought it might be something like that but… you know how people talk.”

Tarc said, “You tell them, that when you met me I was on my way to pay Stevenson’s. Even though we didn’t get paid yesterday, my dad said we should pay Stevenson’s so that there wouldn’t be any bad blood between us.”

Jacob said, “I’ll try to get the word out,
but you know bad gossip spreads faster than good.”

“Thanks. Do whatever you can do, my family will appreciate it.”

“Did, did you hear about Joe and Denny Smith?”

“No, we haven’t heard
anything
. With all the soldiers in our place, nobody from town has come by.”

“Well, people from town haven’t been going out much anyway. Especially…”
He wavered.

Tarc
developed a sense of foreboding. When Jacob had first mentioned Joe and Denny, Tarc had thought that maybe he was going to say that Denny was pregnant. Now he couldn’t believe that he’d thought the news could be anything but terrible. “What happened?!”

“Joe and Denny were going somewhere, nobody’s sure exactly where… But they ran into some soldiers that said some things about Denny. You know Joe, he was kind of
a hothead. He said something to the soldiers and one of them ran him through with a sword…”

“Jesus!”

“And then they took turns raping Denny.”

Tarc
closed his eyes as horror and hate welled up in him.

The sound of feet tramping in unison became audible. “Oh-oh,” Jacob said, “some of them are coming. I’ve got to get out of
here; they don’t like us talking to each other on the street.” He slipped around the corner and was gone.

Tarc
scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeve; then stepped out around the corner continuing in the opposite direction from Jacob. The soldiers tramped by and though Tarc didn’t look at them, he thought he could feel their eyes on him.

When he got to Stevenson’s the door was closed and locked again. He knocked but no one answered. He went around back
where Stevenson kept a number of animals waiting to butcher at need. When he got there, Stevenson and his wife were just going inside. Tarc had the distinct feeling that Stevenson had been out caring for the animals and she’d come to get him in response to Tarc’s knocking. “Mr. Stevenson!” he called out.

Stevenson stopped in the doorway and turned, “Well, don’t you have a lot of nerve! You come to demand
more
meat without paying?” Suddenly, he looked nervous. He glanced around, and seeing no one appeared reassured. “Didn’t you bring your bully boys?”

Tarc
felt a flash of anger at being addressed this way, but did his best to stay calm. He said, “I’m truly sorry about that Mr. Stevenson. It
surely
wasn’t our idea. The soldiers had been at our place and hadn’t been paying. When we ran out of meat, we told them we couldn’t buy any more. Instead of paying us, they dragged me down here so they could ‘requisition’ meat from you.”

Stevenson looked a little mollified, but then said, “I’m sure your dad has some money saved up.”

Tarc nodded, “And he told me yesterday to tell you that he’d pay you out of his own funds, but I wasn’t able to pass the message without a soldier hearing me yesterday.” He reached in his pocket, “My dad sent me down here today to pay you.” He held out a handful of coins, “How much was it?”

Stevenson looked a little embarrassed. “Even though he didn’t get paid?”

“Yes sir.”

“Out of his savings?”

“Yes sir.”

“
Weren’t his savings in one of the banks?”

“Yes sir, a good part of them.”

Stevenson took a big breath and squared his shoulders, “You tell your Pa… he’s a better man than most and I’m sorry I said some bad things about him yesterday. I’ll split the cost of yesterday’s meat with him.” He leaned forward and selected coins from Tarc’s hand.

Tarc
had purchased meat from Stevenson’s enough times in the past that he had a pretty good idea how much yesterday’s meat should have cost. It did seem to Tarc that Stevenson had taken about half the coin he would usually have charged.

Once that business was done,
Tarc asked if he could get a side of bacon. Stevenson said, “Sure,” and led Tarc through the house to the front. The butcher lived right on the river, and cold water ran in through a series of little troughs to cool the cabinet Stevenson kept butchered meat in. While he was getting the bacon, Stevenson’s wife filled Tarc in on the news passing through the town’s gossip channels from one woman to another.

Denny hadn’t been the only woman raped. Soldiers had moved into the homes of the men
who had been killed in the square or who’d hindered the takeover the night before. Some of the women had moved out and gone to live with their families, but those that hadn’t had been abused in their own homes. It seemed like any man who looked like he might be a threat was being killed. “They’ve been asking around, trying to find out who is good with the sword.” She glanced at Tarc, “You’d best hope they don’t start asking about archers or Daum will be in trouble.”

A bolt of fear shot through
Tarc, but just then Stevenson said, “Here’s your bacon.”

Feeling somewhat dazed,
Tarc laid out the same amount of money he’d been charged for a side of bacon in the past.

Stevenson looked at it
thoughtfully for a moment, “And the soldiers are payin’ for their meals now?”

Tarc
nodded.

Stevenson nodded in return, then swept up the coins. “I hope somebody does something about those bastards soon.”

As Tarc left, he wondered just
who
Stevenson thought might be doing something.

When Tarc got back to the tavern, he told his parents about how they’d been called collaborators. Daum said, “I was afraid of something like that. That’s why I wanted you to tell Stevenson we’d pay. I know you didn’t get a chance, but…”

Eva said, “Surely they’ll figure it out soon.”

Tarc told them that Stevenson had said he would get the word out to the town that the Hyllis’s had been forced to feed the soldiers. But then he had to tell them about Ms. Stevenson’s tales of rapes and killings and how she’d said they might be looking for archers sometime.

His parents glanced at each other in dismay.

Eva raised her hands to her cheeks, “Maybe we should try to flee?”

Daum said, “They aren’t letting anyone out the gate. We’d have to go over the wall and wouldn’t be able to take much with us at all.”

“We’d have our lives!”

“You’d have to leave your healer instruments behind.”

Tarc was horrified to see tears welling up in his mother’s eyes. “Better that,” she said after a moment, “than you dead, Daussie raped, and, and…” she trailed off without saying more.

One of the soldiers leaned in the door to the kitchen and bellowed, “Hey, how ‘bout some service out here?”

As
Tarc served the crowds of soldiers at lunch and dinner he couldn’t help but wonder whether any of the men he was feeding might have been involved in killing Joe and raping Denny. Or any of the other townspeople for that matter.

He discovered that feeling that angry and hiding it constantly left him feeling exhausted. As the dinner rush slowed he asked Eva, “Couldn’t we put poison in their food somehow?”

“You don’t think they could put two and two together if they started droppin’ over dead in here?”

“Well yeah, but I was thinking of something slow acting.
Then it would do them in late at night, far from here.”

She snorted a small laugh, “If everyone that ate here tonight turned up dead tomorrow, I think even
those
idiots could figure it out.”

When Tarc went down to check on Pike, the man was somewhat delirious. Tarc gave him some water and sent his ghost in to check for any leaking. He didn’t find a leak, but noticed that the intestine was so swollen in that region that its contents seem to be backed up. He used his ghost to push the contents of the bowel past the narrowed area and then tried squeezing the walls of the intestine a little bit. He found he could milk some of the fluid out of the walls making them a little less swollen, but wondered if that was a good or bad thing to do. He decided he’d have to ask Eva.

Pike woke up enough to ask
Tarc what was going on in town. When Tarc told him he cursed for a while. “Is Garcia still alive?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard that he’s been killed. Why?”

“‘Cause he’s the only real warrior you’ve got. He might be able to sneak around in the night and kill some of those sons of bitches. He’s really good at throwing knives. A few of those assholes turn up dead in the morning, that’ll put the fear of God in ‘em.”

“What if… what if they take retribution? They might kill a bunch of townspeople… or something.”

“What if? They’re already killin’ ‘em!” He cackled, “I’ll bet if they tried to drag everyone down the square again, this time they’d have a revolt on their hands!” He stared off into the distance for a moment. “Is Garcia still alive?”

“Um, I don’t know.”
Tarc said, beginning to think that Pike had lost touch.

“Garcia’s really good at throwing knives you know. Tell him for me, he should go around at night killin’ those sons of bitches. Play hell with
the bastard’s morale…” He said this last with a distant tone.

“Capt. Pike?”

Pike didn’t respond. For a moment Tarc thought he might have died, but a quick check with his ghost showed the man’s heart still beat, though its pace was rapid and his breathing was shallow.

Not knowing what else to do,
Tarc went upstairs and reported Pike’s status to his mother. It turned out his mother had no idea whether massaging the fluid out of the walls of Pike’s intestine was a good idea or not.

That evening Tarc was coming out of the outhouse in the stable yard when he saw a couple of the soldiers who’d been staying at the tavern walking toward the stable itself. With a sense of foreboding, he walked quietly over to the side of the stable hoping that Daussie was in her hide.

A
s soon as his ghost could reach into the stable, he saw with dismay that she was down stairs carrying a bucket of something to the horses.

When the door of the stable creaked open, she stopped, frozen in place, bucket still in hand. At first the men didn’t appear to notice her, but she was standing right in front of the stall that one of them headed
toward.

When he did notice her, he seemed startled, then said, “Hey, it’s the gimp.”

The other soldiers seemed startled as well, but then said, “Damn, I forgot about him.” He grinned and turned back to Daussie, “Boy, saddle up our horses for us. They’re the ones in those two stalls,” he said, pointing.

Tarc
’s heart pounded in his chest. He didn’t think Daussie was strong enough to saddle a horse. She might not even know how. It was hard to tell an emotional state with his ghost, but Daussie appeared to be frozen in place with panic. He coughed and pushed the door to the stable open. When he stepped inside, the soldiers had their hands on the hilts of their swords. “Oh, excuse me. Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yeah, you can saddle one of our horses, while
the gimp there does the other.”

“Oh, sorry, Dodge there is pretty retarded. Feedin’ and waterin’ the horses is about as good as he can do. But I’ll be happy to saddle your horses while he does that other stuff.” He walked over to the stall Daussie stood in front of and said, “This one here?”

The first man grunted affirmatively and Tarc took the saddle off its stand. Daussie still hadn’t moved, so Tarc said, “Dodge!” He glanced down into the bucket and saw that it was full of water, “go ahead and water the other horses.”