The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (39 page)

Perrin shook his head again, trying to
dislodge tempting thoughts of how they could test just how much or
little pain the captain could feel right now. The notion of
dropping him from varying heights was presenting itself in his mind
when he noticed Brillen gesturing slowly.

“
Colonel,” his frail voice
came as forcefully as it could. “Don’t criticize sedation until
you’ve experienced it. That stuff is a miracle, and you know I
don’t believe in miracles.”

The only man in the tent who knew just how
much sedation the colonel had experienced found, at the most
opportune moment, the strength to keep his face completely
somber.

“
And a ‘hear, hear’ to
that!” Yordin called from the floor. His assistant held up his hand
again for the major to smack. “Days of planking are
over!”

“
What was so bad about
being planked?” Perrin asked.

Yordin tried to push himself up into a
sitting position but he cringed in pain and collapsed.

Perrin winced in sympathy. The major’s arm
wasn’t the only thing injured. He took a deep dagger plunge into
his
upper back thigh
—he wanted to make sure everyone
referred to the location of his injury that way as well—when he
startled one of the last Guarders hiding in an abandoned bedroom.
If Yordin tried to lie on his side to relieve the pressure on his
thigh, his injured arm had to support his weight. If he shifted to
the other side, then his thigh wound bore his weight. The only
option was to lie on his stomach, which Gari refused to do claiming
it wasn’t dignified.

The other officers had a bet as to when he
would finally relent. Perrin guessed by midday meal.

Now the major tried propping himself against
his ever-ready Burk who struggled to find a way to support Yordin
without inflicting more discomfort. Burk offered him his knee to
lean against. For about a minute, Gari would be comfortable. “Shin,
have you ever been planked?” Yordin said from his semi-prone
position.

Brillen and Shem both began to chuckle.

Perrin ignored them. “Yes, maybe a couple of
times.”

Shem chortled. “Maybe a couple?”

Brillen jabbed him in his side and coughed
back his own laugh.

“
Well, each time they hit
me over the head to knock me out for stitches, I wake up with a
headache worse than the pain of the stitching!” Yordin declared.
“With sedation, I wake up only groggy as if I’d had a bad jug of
mead. Since I’m used to that from my Command School days, I’ll take
sedation over planking any day.”

Perrin nodded obligingly. “I’ll be sure to
look into it if ever I need stitching again.”

Another low groan came from Thorne.

Shem gave him a casual glance and waved at
Perrin. “He’s fine. Best get on with your briefing before he’s
fully awake. He’s got maybe ten minutes.”

“
Heard that,” moaned
Thorne.

“
Bet you won’t remember
it!” Yordin chuckled.

“
With any luck,” Fadh
murmured, “he won’t remember a great many things.”

Colonel Shin cleared his throat, unsure of
what to do about those
many things
. “Additional wagons are
on their way from Edge,” he told the men in the tent. “Because of
the explosions, our casualty numbers are higher than we
anticipated. But I sent a messenger to Edge telling them of our
situation, and my surgeon assures me we can care for all of the
wounded in our training arena, provided we can borrow a few of your
surgeons for a few weeks?”

The commanders nodded at that.

“
So the wagons to head back
to the fort will be those carrying the most severe cases first.
Once the injured are taken care of, we’ll use the wagons to
retrieve the dead, likely this afternoon. Fadh and I will go to
Moorland to oversee the retrieval of our fallen—”

Shem shook his head. “You’re not supposed to
leave this farm, Colonel. Have you forgotten? You did so well last
night staying where you should, don’t ruin it now.”

Several of the assistants smirked and looked
down at the ground. Yordin’s guffaw was so loud that Perrin saw the
tent wall move.

“
Thank you for the
reminder, Zenos,” Perrin said dutifully.

“
Besides,” Shem continued,
“I’m sorry to report that your horse is, um . . .
unable
to
take you.”

Fadh cleared his throat as if Shem had just
broken some agreement they had.

Perrin squinted. “Why?”

Shem shrugged an apology to Fadh, who gently
took Perrin’s arm. “We found it dead, this morning. Exhaustion,
maybe colic—we’re not sure. I’m very sorry.”

Perrin exhaled and rubbed his forehead. Of
course there were more casualties than he anticipated, but
the
horse
. . . He was even trying to think of a good name for it,
too. “That was actually the first decent animal I’ve had since I’ve
been to Edge.”

“
You’ve never claimed a
horse, Shin?” Yordin was amazed. “Request one! From the Stables at
Pools. Tell them what you want.”

Perrin sighed. “Maybe I will. Ah, well, there
are still plenty of riderless horses today, and I fail to see how
staying here now—”

“
You
will
stay
here
!” Shem’s tone was more forceful than Perrin had ever
heard it.

He glared. “We’ll discuss this later,
Sergeant Major.”

Brillen found enough strength to say, “You
should
stay here, Colonel. Let Zenos go with Major Fadh. We
need you here.”

Perrin sighed at the well-intentioned
insubordination. He was being overruled at every turn. But they
were also right.

“
I’ve asked Rigoff to
compile a list of the missing men,” he said in resignation. “He
should have that completed within the hour. We will take that—I
mean,
those going to Moorland
will take a copy of the list,
along with soldiers from each fort to help identify their dead
should their name patches be unreadable.” He glanced around the
tent. “No one’s seen Beneff yet, have they?”

The men shook their heads.

Shem stared off at a corner.

“
Zenos, you went looking
for him last night. Did you—”

“
No, sir, I didn’t. I even
went to the forest’s edge.”

Perrin frowned. “Was there any activity in
the forest near our camp? Anything whatsoever?”

“
No Guarder activity at
all, sir.” Shem looked him in the eye.

The doddering old fool likely wandered back
to the fort and was asleep in his quarters, Perrin decided.

“
My goal,” he continued,
“is to have the camp dismantled by tomorrow afternoon. I also want
a team of volunteer to investigate the crater in Moorland. I want
to know what happened there.”

Major Fadh shook his head. “I’m not sure
that’s a good idea, sir. There could be more of that black powder,
in smaller amounts, somewhere in the area. I made sure the men
touched nothing as they raided the houses. We don’t need another
explosion—”

“
I agree. That’s why we
can’t leave it then, can we?” Perrin said. “As much as I’d like to
believe we killed every Guarder last night, I know that’s not the
truth. What’s to stop any survivors from returning for that
substance and using it against us?”

“
Then burn whatever’s left
of Moorland!” Yordin insisted. “Pull out our dead and torch the
place. Don’t give anyone else a reason to settle there.”

Burk held up his hand for another Yordin
slap.

The rest of the men agreed loudly with the
major until Colonel Shin held up his hands for quiet.

“
I agree. We destroy the
village. But first we should find out what caused the blast. The
knowledge of how to create it may have escaped last night, and
someone may be able to duplicate it somewhere else. If we know what
it was, we may be able to fight it.”

“
Colonel,” Shem said, “how
could we fight Nature? What they did was a re-creation of Nature.
You can’t conquer that. You can only run from it. It will do us no
good to pursue this—”

“
But Zenos,” Perrin said,
“what if we re-create it ourselves?”

The air in the tent went deathly still.

“
Find out the secrets
ourselves, Shin?” Zenos glared at him. “And use it where? Who are
you
planning to annihilate, sir?”

Perrin felt the stares of nearly all the eyes
in the room. Thorne’s remained closed, and the only sound was his
faint, nasally snoring.

Perrin held up his hands again. “Just a
thought.”

Shem shook his head. “Get rid of that
thought, Colonel. We shouldn’t be copying the Guarders. We’re
better than that.”

Fadh turned to Perrin. “Sir, respectfully, I
agree with Zenos. Let’s just torch the remaining areas, and hope
that if the secrets did escape those who hold them are too
terrified by what happened—”

“
Fadh, that’s not the way
Guarders think,” Perrin hissed at him. “
Nothing
terrifies
them—”

“
Colonel!” Shem
interrupted. “We’ll put it to a vote if we must. But since you’re
confined by the Administrators to this farm, and each of us here
have pledged to serve the Administrators and follow their decrees
and
make sure you stay here,
I don’t see how you’ll stop us
from torching the village without us first finding its
secrets.”

Now all the eyes turned and stared at the
sergeant major, but his hard gaze held Perrin’s equally cold one.
Perrin had never seen Shem so adamant, nor so angry. “We’ll discuss
this later, Zenos.”

“
I’ll tell you what I’d
like to discuss,” Yordin said, trying to break the tension, “since
you two will be discussing quite a bit on your own later—I’d like
to discuss what kind of medal I should get for being stabbed in the
upper back thigh!”

A couple of men began to chuckle.

“
In fact, I imagine there
will be quite a few medals handed out in the next few moons,”
Yordin declared. “Consider what we’ve done, gentlemen: we’re the
first to find a Guarder holdout, wipe them out, and destroy their
new weapon! I’m going to need stronger cloth to hold up the weight
of all those new medals on my uniform.”

Now even Perrin was smiling, but stiffly.
“Actually, that
is
something we need to discuss: the report
we send to Idumea.”

“
Yes,” said Brillen
thoughtfully. “There may be a bit of a problem with
that.”

Fadh nodded. “I agree. Just how much detail
do we provide?” He folded his arms and looked steadily at Colonel
Shin. “Seeing as how some people weren’t where they were supposed
to be . . .”

A fragile voice from the corner piped up. “If
he was where he was supposed to be, I wouldn’t be here now.” Thorne
tried to roll over, but the thirty stitches in his side wouldn’t
let him.

The words
Don’t remind me
, nearly came
out of Perrin’s mouth.

Thorne attempted to sit up, and Shem
halfheartedly offered him a hand.

“
Indeed, Colonel Shin,”
Yordin smiled as he slowly slumped along Burk’s leg. “For what you
put together, the success we had, and your valiant personal effort
on the field, I can’t see how anyone could argue you don’t deserve
immediate promotion to general!” His assistant already had his hand
out waiting for the slap.

Karna, Zenos, and Fadh grinned and several of
the assistants cried out, “Hear, hear!”

Perrin knew he was turning red, but he
couldn’t imagine how to stop it. Then he had an idea. He looked at
Thorne.

The captain had struggled to a sideways
sitting position, trying not to lean on Shem any more than
necessary. He regarded the colonel with an expression Perrin
couldn’t quite decipher, but it seemed to be part worry, part
defiance, and part admiration.

“
There’ll be no promotion
for me, gentlemen,” Perrin said quietly, meeting Thorne’s
unreadable eyes. “In fact, there’ll probably be an extension to my
probation for violating it so willfully. And as for planning the
offensive in the beginning, without the ‘express permission of the
hierarchy’?” He shook his head.

Shem smiled at him. “Sir, probably the only
thing that will keep you from being demoted to a measly private is
that you saved the grandson of the High General of Idumea. Hmm. Too
bad. I could have outranked you,” he said with a twinkle in his
eyes.

Thorne glanced sharply in his direction, but
nodded. “Funny.”

Shem looked up, as if searching for
strength.

“
Any volunteers to write
our report?” Perrin asked the officers. “You may have all my notes,
and my permission to relay the facts as best as you remember them,”
he said in a tone full of suggestion.

“
I’ll do it,” Fadh said.
“My men were the first to see them in Moorland, I sent the message
to Karna who contacted you, so I started it all. Let me finish it,
sir.”

Perrin nodded at him. “Thank you, Major.”

A messenger appeared at the tent flap. “Sirs,
the first wagons from Edge are arriving. Along with a little
extra help
.” He sent a wary look to Perrin.

Perrin shifted the look to Shem, with an
additional level of,
All right, Shem—what have you done?

Shem leaped to his feet, nearly knocking
Thorne back down. “We have our orders, right men? Fadh, I’ll need
just a few minutes with the colonel before I join you for Moorland.
Perhaps you can see to helping Thorne back to the surgeons?”

It was presumptuous for Zenos to issue
suggestions
, but every man in the tent could see something
was up between him and Shin, and no one wanted to get in the middle
of it. Fadh nodded while Shem took a startled Perrin by the arm and
pulled him out of the tent. “We need to talk.”