Teleporter (a Hyllis family story #2) (21 page)

Lt. Toler—Johnson had left him as his lieutenant because Toler was the smartest guy in the company, even if he was kind of a wimp—said, a panicked look in his eyes, “All
six
of the guards we had out. Ten guys, shot in their tents with arrows. Two guys, shot outside their tents. Arrows again.
Those
two sons of bitches were running! And Smitty. Smitty took an arrow in the shoulder while he was dropping arrows into their caravan! He just got back.”

“But how many of those are just wounded?”

“Smitty.” Toler glanced over towards the tents, “Well, unless you want to count the three of them in the tents with arrows through their chests who ain’t dead
yet
?”

“
Jesus!
How many total?!” Johnson asked, too flustered to try to add them up himself even if he’d been good at math.

“Eighteen dead or dying, one wounded and might make it, but he ain’t gonna be fightin’ anytime soon.”

“
Christ!
” Johnson said, running his fingers through his hair and trying to make sense of this mess. “So
how many
effectives do we have left?” He could have figured it out on his own if he wasn’t in such a dither, but that’s what a lieutenant was for, wasn’t it?

“We had fifty-two,” Toler said patiently. Even Krait, who was a lot smarter than Johnson, had relied on Toler to do math. “We lost eleven when they shot Wayne and them out at the roadblock, so we were down to forty-one then. Nineteen more tonight, leaves us with twenty-two.”

“You’ve got to be
shittin’
me!” Johnson said again, scrubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands. He peered at Toler, “What do you think we should do?” he asked. Johnson didn’t want to admit just how panicked he felt, but he really had no idea how to handle
this
disaster.

“Bury the dead. Let that
unholy
caravan go! Twenty-two men will be plenty to control this area once
those
sons of bitches are gone.”

Feeling haunted, Johnson’s eyes flickered back and forth, “Are you sure it’s the caravan? What if it’s somebody from around here?”

“Somebody from around here would’ve attacked us before now.” Toler shrugged, “Besides, they’ve got those professional-looking guards, and you saw how the caravan shot Wayne up. This wasn’t just some stray farmers what learned to shoot arrows last night, you know?”

“Jesus,” Johnson said again. After a moment he practically whispered, “How many archers did they bring down here tonight?”

Toler didn’t say anything for a bit, then, sounding haunted himself, he said, “I don’t know, but they only shot twelve arrows, so it might have been just one.”

Johnson understood what Toler meant because a quiver that held a dozen arrows was pretty common. But he didn’t completely understand because after a second he said, “Wait a minute, they killed
twelve
of our guys!”

Toler nodded.

“You’re saying they didn’t miss with a single arrow?!”

Toler shook his head.

“Come on! You said they shot ten of our guys in their tents!”

Toler nodded again, “Yeah.”

“And killed all ten!”

Toler nodded again.

“How the hell can anyone be
that
lucky?!”

Toler shrugged, and glanced around as if he thought someone might be listening. “Not sure it was luck. All ten of them were shot in the chest. It’s like some kind of
demon
did it.” He made a warding sign. “Remember, the guys that made it back from the road said Wayne and all his guys got shot in the skull?” A shiver ran over him. “The two guys what got shot outside their tents tonight? They got hit in the head too.” He lowered his voice to an ominous whisper. “Some of the guards were stuck in the
eye
, like back in
that
town.”

Johnson felt his pulse pounding in his chest like he was about to start a battle. He stood up and looked around for an imaginary foe, desperate to do something, anything. Finally he said, “We’ve got to get the hell out of here before
that
son of a bitch comes back!”

***

Waxman, who’d been Krait’s best scout when Krait was alive, sat in the little spot he’d burrowed out in the woods. He’d watched the caravan the past nights as instructed, but hadn’t seen anything all that remarkable. He’d been surprised when he’d checked back in this past afternoon and heard that the caravan had a couple of archers who’d taken out Wayne and ten more of the guys.

When Smitty had shown up with Johnson’s plan to drop arrows into the caravan and terrorize the bastards, Waxman had thought it was a stroke of genius. The caravan was keeping fires and lamps going, so the sorry bastards wouldn’t be able to see shit out away from their wagons. Smitty should have been able to sit out there dropping arrows into the wagon train until hell froze over.

Well, at least until he ran out of arrows.

Waxman had been stunned when someone in the caravan had managed to hit Smitty before he’d shot his fifth arrow. Waxman had been sitting there the rest of the night wondering how to get better intel on this caravan.
Sure as hell, we need to know who it is that’s shooting those arrows.

Shortly before dawn, Waxman decided they needed someone from the caravan to interrogate. He moved off through a cornfield toward the stream where the caravaners washed and got their water.

***

When Daussie woke Tarc in the morning he looked exhausted. “What’s the matter with
you
? Couldn’t you sleep?”

“No.” Tarc said, grumpily.

“Well, maybe you can get a nap later, but right now Mom needs a fire.”

Soon they were full tilt into making breakfast for the caravan. When people came by to eat, there was a great deal of gossip and some heated arguments about what had happened during the night.

Although Jesse Carter was quite upset about the loss of her finger and Mr. Tate complained loudly about the loss of his mule, most seemed to feel that they had gotten off very lightly. In fact, the main topic of conversation was the possibility that it would happen again, night after night. The secondary topic revolved around why the shooter had only shot four arrows.

Mr. Norton came through the breakfast line with the others. He said, “They just wanted to instill a
little
terror. They wanted to show us what
could
happen so we’d be more willing to negotiate the next time.”

Before anyone responded to Norton, Arco approached. He crooked a finger at Norton, calling him to one side. Arco spoke to him in a low voice, however Daussie was close enough to hear.

Arco said, “The shooter only shot four arrows because someone here in camp shot back at him.”

Norton frowned, “How do you know that?”

“I sent a couple of the guys out to scout around. They found one of
our
arrows stuck into the base of a fencepost out at the corner where we graze our animals. They also found some blood spotting the ground just beyond the fencepost. It led away so the shooter probably took off once he’d been hit.”

Norton stared at him while he digested these facts. “So—one of your guys shot at them. Why didn’t you know that already?”

“My guys swear
they
didn’t shoot any arrows. Besides, it was dark out there. None of us here in camp could see anyone out there, that’s why it was such a horrifying thing for them to have done. Nobody
could
have shot back at the son of a bitch. It would have just been a waste of arrows. I would’ve yelled at any of my guys who tried.”

Norton frowned, “What do you mean, ‘nobody could have?’ You just told me someone did!”

“Exactly! No one
could
possibly have done it, but someone
did
!” Arco paused, “I mean someone
could
have shot, but they couldn’t have hit anything… yet they did.”

Norton turned to look out toward the fencepost in question. “You think someone saw a reflection off of something and just started shooting randomly out that way, eventually hitting him?”

Arco had turned to look the same direction, a distant look in his eyes. “He shot two arrows. One that missed, and one that hit. He
knew
he’d hit the bastard ‘cause he didn’t shoot any more arrows!”

“You think we have someone who can see in the dark?”

Arco shrugged, “I sure as hell
don’t
, but however they…” he stared off toward the post, “I don’t know, but it’s got me spooked!”

Daussie knew that Tarc had been on guard at the time of the arrow attack. She wondered why Arco and Norton weren’t trying to figure out who’d actually been awake at the time and might therefore have been the shooter. After a moment she began to wonder if perhaps they had already figured out who was awake then, but simply discounted Tarc as a possible shooter because of his youth. Although, she thought pensively, they
had
watched Tarc shoot back at the tavern so they
must
know
he could shoot fairly well, didn’t they? But he’s just a kid and that’s probably blocking their thought patterns.

Tarc and Daussie were closing up the breakfast line when she found a moment to speak to him. “Lt. Arco says that the arrow attack last night stopped because someone in our camp shot back at the archer. I assume that was you?”

Tarc had suddenly stopped in the middle of picking up a basket of cooking utensils for washing. A regretful grimace flashed over his face but then smoothed away. He jerked a nod, “Do they know?” he asked quietly.

“They don’t seem to, though I don’t know
how
they haven’t figured it out. They know you can shoot, and they know you were on watch. Well, I guess I don’t know that they’ve figured out you were on watch, but it shouldn’t be too hard for them to check on that.”

“Everyone seems to think that since I’m just a kid I couldn’t possibly do something like that.” Tarc said in a disgusted tone.

“I thought you didn’t want them to know?”

Tarc shrugged, “I don’t. It’s just irritating that they seem to be so sure I’m incapable.”

“Why’d you shoot at that guy anyway? You had to know that they’d figure it out eventually!”

“Did you want me to just let him keep shooting ‘til he
killed
someone?”

“Couldn’t you have just made sure all his arrows landed harmlessly?”

Tarc gave a sharp shake of his head. “Some of them were coming down all the way across the caravan. I don’t have much control that far away.”

“Oh come on! You controlled your own arrows all the way out to hit him!”

“Yeah, but when I’m shooting an arrow, my ghost can tell pretty much where it’s going to go right after it leaves the bowstring. I see where it’s going to go and I make major adjustments before it gets very far from me and my control gets weak.” He shrugged, “When an arrow is shot from far away, arches high in the air over me, and then
lands
pretty far from me, there’s never any time that I have good control. I pushed the one that hit Jesse’s finger out of the middle of their wagon, and moved the one that hit the horse away from its abdomen, but I couldn’t make them completely miss their targets.”

Daussie frowned, “One of them did miss.”

Tarc shrugged, “That was luck.”

“I guess you had to then,” she sighed.

Waxman watched the skinny boy with the hacked off hair kick out of his shoes and step gingerly into the stream with a big basket of cooking utensils. The boy soaped a rag. He began taking pans out of one end of the basket, washing them quickly, dipping them in the water and putting them back in the other end of the basket.

Waxman chewed a lip. The kid was young, probably somewhere between twelve and sixteen. Waxman had hoped to grab someone a little older. Someone who’d know more about the caravan, but this kid was the first one to come down to the stream alone.
Oh well,
he thought,
probably everyone in the caravan—including all the kids—knows who their archer is if the guy’s as good as I’ve been told. A kid will be a lot easier to handle too.

Waxman stepped out from behind the tree and slowly waded up behind the kid. He pulled out a leather sap filled with lead beads. A quick swing, a quiet thump, and the kid dropped over. Waxman pulled him quickly across the stream and into the corn. Fortunately, the kid had a stout shirt on so Waxman could drag him by the collar. He picked up his boots and, crouching to stay lower than the corn, he dragged the kid over a small rise.

Once he was beyond eyeshot of the camp, Waxman put on his boots and threw the kid over his shoulder. Mercifully, the kid was light enough that Waxman could almost trot, though he still felt exhausted by the time he reached the woods.

Once they were into the woods twenty feet or so, Waxman laid the kid down and gasped until he got his breath back. Once he felt better he patted the kid down. No way he was turning the kid over to Johnson with any valuables on him. Waxman found a work knife on the kid’s right hip, then he suddenly stopped, eyes narrowed. He felt around a little more, then grinned.
This is a girl! Dressed up to look like a boy, but still—a girl!
Waxman tilted the kid’s head to look at her face. He licked his thumb and wiped off a couple of the smudges.
Holy shit!
He thought excitedly,
it’s that sexy little bitch from the Hyllis tavern!

Waxman had been with Krait when they scouted the town that first time. This girl had waited on them in the tavern and Krait had fondled her. She’d been terrified which had excited Krait even more. They’d both been looking forward to her bringing back their food, but instead some boy had delivered their order. Waxman had heard that the girl’s looks had become famous on the road since then. All the guys had talked about her and wanted her, but then she’d disappeared. Waxman grinned,
I’ll bet she’s been dressing like a boy this whole time!

He undid her shirt and pulled it open. She had cloth wound tightly around her chest and thickly around her waist. He pulled the top of the wrapping down to stare at her chest. He shook his head in admiration, but then buttoned her back up. Waxman might have done a lot of ugly things in his life, but raping
unconscious
women wasn’t one of them—yet anyway. He’d get his chance later, once she was awake.

He bound her wrists and ankles, then tossed her back over his shoulder to get back on his way to camp. He thought of how the guys had talked about this girl like she was the hottest chick alive.
Johnson’s going to owe me big for this one!

***

Tarc worked his way closer when he saw Norton and Arco approach Daum. Norton began with, “We aren’t making any money staying here at Prichard’s farm.”

Daum nodded, and Tarc agreed himself. It was an obvious tenet of success as a merchant that, if you wanted to earn your living, first you had to have customers: then you had to generate sales to those customers. There weren’t any customers out here in the farmlands.

“So, Arco and I have been talking about how to get back on the road again. We figure that, the way they took a beating yesterday, the raiders will be more inclined to negotiate the next time they try to stop us.”

Daum shrugged, granting the likelihood. “So what’s your plan?”

“Well, they aren’t going to know who our good archers are. So we’ll put the guard wagon second instead of first. With you up there, you can still shoot over the front wagon to protect it. We’ll have another guy who can shoot up there with you, even though he won’t be able to shoot like you can. We’ll have another couple of guys with bows on a wagon in the middle and then your son and another bowman on a wagon near the back.”

Arco said, “We’ll scatter our guards around the caravan and have everyone armed, but I know how men like these raiders think. After what happened to them yesterday, they’ll be fidgety about attacking. If we offer to pay them
something
,” he glanced at Norton, “they’ll take it.”

Daum looked pensively off at the road, then looked at Tarc. “What do you think?”

Tarc knew his father was asking about their relative locations. Without Tarc there to help his arrows hit their marks Daum wouldn’t be nearly as deadly as he had been yesterday.
But if Daum shot for the body, rather than the head?
Tarc shrugged, “Seems okay to me.”

Arco looked at Norton. Norton looked up at the position of the sun in the sky, then said, “We’d just as well go this morning. I’ll go around and tell everybody we’re leaving as soon as they can get ready.” He started for the next wagon.

Daum looked around and frowned, “Have you seen Daussie?”

Tarc said, “She took the basket down to wash the pans.” Then he frowned himself, “That was quite a while ago. She’s probably washing her hair or something.”

Daum grinned. Daussie was well known for washing her hair a lot more often than anyone else. Even though the water in the stream was bound to be cold, it did seem like a likely reason for her delay. “Can you go let her know we’re moving out?”

Tarc restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Surely she’d be back pretty quickly on her own. Nonetheless he said, “Sure,” and turned toward the stream.

As Tarc walked down to the little eddy in the stream where they normally washed their pans, he saw the big open weave basket they kept the pots in just sitting in the shallow water. “Daussie,” he called, wondering where she was. Usually she just bent over to dip her head when she washed her hair. Could she have decided to take a complete bath despite the cold water?

“Daussie!” He stepped to the edge and leaned forward to look a little further around the bend in the stream. No Daussie. “Crap,” he muttered as he knelt to take off his boots. Rolling up his pants legs, he stepped out into the stream so that he could look further around the bend. Still no sign of Daussie.

Then Tarc saw some broken corn stalks. After that, he noticed a wet trail leading from the stream to the cornstalks. His heart pounding, he quick stepped across the stream and leapt out onto the bank. The cornstalks were broken down away from him and made a trail going out into the field! “Daum!” he shouted.

Tarc high stepped it as he ran back across the stream. He grabbed his boots and socks. Shouting, “Daum!” over and over again, he ran back to the camp.

“She’s gone! Someone dragged her away!” Tarc shouted when he saw Daum. With some relief Tarc saw Lizeth and Arco, standing beside the guard wagon, turn to stare at the urgency in his voice. To them he said, “It’s Daussie, my sister. She was washing the breakfast pans down at the stream. Someone’s dragged her out through the cornfield on the other side!” He wiped his feet on one of the kitchen towels and hurriedly put his socks and boots back on.

Arco said, “Who?”

Lizeth answered him, “The daughter, his sister!” She’d turned to the guard wagon and was pulling out some equipment.

Tarc grabbed his bow and threw on his refilled quiver, turning toward the little bridge over the stream behind Prichard’s house. Though he heard Arco say, “Are you
sure
boy?” Tarc ignored him and started running. He assumed that at least Daum would be behind him. Presumably, Arco would send some of the guards as well.

Tarc ran across the bridge, turned right and hustled over to where the path in the corn began. Veering onto the track, he lengthened his stride, but resisted the temptation to sprint. His ghost couldn’t see anyone up ahead, telling him that Daussie and whoever had taken her were at least a couple of hundred meters ahead of him.

Footsteps paced up beside Tarc and he looked over to see Lizeth. She said, “Don’t blow yourself out. You don’t want to arrive at a fight exhausted.”

Tarc nodded as he lengthened his stride a little more, but didn’t waste any breath on a response.

Just as they were about to reach the woods a horse rode up behind them. Tarc glanced back and saw Daum on their bay gelding. At first, he cursed himself for not thinking of a horse. He’d gotten everywhere on his feet or in their wagon his entire life and just didn’t think of it. Then he remembered ducking to get through the woods on the animal path the night before. There were a lot of places that a horse and rider wouldn’t be able to pass. Perhaps some places where even a horse being led couldn’t get through.

Tarc was about to tell Daum that he should leave the horse when he realized that he wouldn’t be able to explain how he knew that. Then Lizeth winked at Tarc and said to Daum, “I think you’re going to have to leave the horse here Mr. Hyllis. I scouted these woods last night and you won’t be able to get the horse through them.” She looked off to the left, “You might be able to ride around on the road and get there about as fast as we do. The raiders are camped at a farm on the other side of these woods.”

Daum looked toward the road as well, but then climbed down, saying, “No, I’ll leave the horse. I’d rather we stuck together.”

***

Waxman had only taken a few steps with the girl on his shoulder when he heard someone call his name. He stopped and listened.

“Waxman, it’s Peters. Where’d you go? I saw you entering the woods about here.”

Waxman frowned and squinted back out at the field he’d just crossed.
Be just like that dumb son of a bitch Peters to be shoutin’ at me without noticing that the caravaners are about to run up his ass!
The field was empty so he stage whispered, “Over here you stupid shit.”

Peters stepped into the woods and looked around. Seeing Waxman he stepped his way. Excitedly, “You heard what went down last night?!”

“What?” Waxman said in an unimpressed tone, expecting Peters to tell him about some kind of orgy the guys had had with the captive women. Or maybe an epic drinking session after finding someone’s keg of brandy?

“Somebody attacked the camp last night! Killed
eighteen
of our guys!”

Waxman felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. He dropped the girl off his shoulder and set her on the ground. He might want her, but she wasn’t going to stand between him and a head start if the hammer was really falling. “Who?!”

“Jessup, Torrance, Gordon…”

“
Not
who got killed, dumbass!
Who
attacked us?!”

“Nobody knows! Sneaky bastards knifed all six guards then started shooting arrows into our tents!”

“What did they look like? Soldiers?”

“Who the hell knows? Nobody saw them! Leastwise, nobody that’s alive.”

“You’re shittin’ me! They killed eighteen of our guys and we didn’t get a
single
one of them?!”

Peters shrugged, “Nope. It’s like they’re some kind of ghosts!”

“We didn’t even see them?!”

Peters just shook his head. He’d been looking at Waxman’s captive. “Who’s that?”

“I grabbed one of them caravaners for questioning. Turns out she’s that good looking girl waitress from the tavern back in Walterston.”

Peters frowned, “That’s a boy!”

“Look again dumb shit. She’s dressed in boy’s clothes, she’s messed up her hair, she’s dirtied her face, she’s even wrapped her waist to make it thicker, but she’s still a girl.”

Peters knelt down to look at her face. “That
is
her!” he breathed excitedly. He started to undo his pants

Waxman smacked him on the side of the head. “Not
now
you crazy son of a bitch! First of all, doin’ her while she’s knocked out is just
sick
. Second, we need to get back to the camp and figure out what we’re gonna do about those caravaners. I
assume
they’re who attacked us last night. We’re gonna milk this girl for intel on how they’re doin’ what they’re doin’. Or,
who
did it at least. Somebody from the caravan is going to be looking for her pretty quick and you
don’t
want to be screwin’ her when they show up, especially if the guy that shows up is the same son of a bitch that killed eighteen of our guys last night!” Waxman bent down, grabbed the girl, and threw her back over his shoulder.

Peters looked around distractedly. “Johnson’s movin’ our camp. That’s why I’m here, he sent me to tell you we’re going to set up at Yates’s farm instead.”

Waxman turned to stare at Peters, “We’re
running away
from the sons of bitches?!”