The Silver spike (21 page)

“Buzzard, if you were fit to eat I’d be picking up
kindling right now!” he shouted. Then he got back to
business. “The tree god has reason to suspect that the spike
is now in Oar. The White Rose, Silent, the Torques, and some of our
smaller companions will drop into the city. With the help of the
underground they will establish a secure base, then will take up
the hunt. Raven, Case, and I, because of our considerable
familiarity with the site, will go on to the Barrowland to see what
can be learned there.”

That started a bunch of bitching. Raven didn’t like being
sent off someplace where Darling wasn’t. I didn’t think
these guys had the right to draft me into their adventure. I got
pretty hot.

Darling took me aside and calmed me down, then convinced me that
even if I remained committed to the empire in my heart, helping her
in this would not harm me. Maybe she was right when she said the
evil she wanted to abort wouldn’t respect allegiances or
philosophies. That it would divide the world into two kinds of
people, its enemies and its slaves.

That was a little heavy to get down in one or two bites but I
said all right, I’m just following Raven around anyway. Might
as well keep on keeping on.

So that was that. I gave in. I also started giving some thought
to going back to herding potatoes as a career No potato never
talked anybody into making a fool of himself.

Smeds came out onto the porch of the Skull and Crossbones
figuring to shoot the shit with Fish, but found the only empty
chair stood between Fish and the Nightcrawler corporal. He wanted
to turn around but felt like he was committed.

He plopped down. “Hey, Corp. Don’t you never do
nothing but sit here and drink beer?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“That’s the life. I oughta go sign up.”

“Yeah? You wouldn’t like it. Where was you at three
in the morning?”

“In bed sleeping one off.”

“Lucky you. Ask me where I was at three in the
morning.”

“Where were you at three in the morning?”

“With about two hundred others guys out Shant, where they
got all those buildings tore down and nothing new put up yet.
Looking for a monster. Some guy reported there was a monster out
there bigger than the Civil Palace.”

“Was there?”

“Not even a little one.”

“Was the guy drunk?”

“Would a sober man be out there at that time of
night?”

“Got something interesting coming here,” Fish
interjected, jutting his chin up the street.

Smeds saw three men and a woman. She was not much to look at and
too old to be interesting anyway. But she looked tough. She carried
weapons like a man.

As a bunch they looked as hard and tough as any Smeds had seen.
But what made them stand out was the zoo they carried with
them.

The woman had a live ferret draped around her neck and chipmunks
peeking out of her pockets. The tall, dark, and darkly clad man who
walked to her right carried an unhooded falcon on his left
shoulder. The three men behind them—Smeds thought they might
be brothers—carried a bunch of monkeys and one big snake.

Smeds asked, “You going to arrest them? They’re
lugging enough illegal hardware to start their own war.”

“And give you boys a show? Eh? My mama’s stupid
babies never lived to make corporal.” Even so, he stuck his
fingers in this mouth and whistled. When those people looked he
beckoned.

The tall man looked over with tight eyes for a moment, made a
slight gesture at the man with the snake. That one came over. The
snake looked them over like it was sizing them up for dinner. It
gave Smeds the creeps.

The corporal said, “Just a friendly word of advice, pal.
The city is under martial law. Ain’t nobody supposed to tote
a blade over eight inches long. ’Less he’s wearing
gray.”

The snake man went back and told the tall man, who looked at the
corporal hard for a moment, then nodded.

“You see that?” Smeds said. “That goddamned
monkey gave us the finger.”

The corporal said, “I seen that tall guy somewhere before.
Down the length of a sword. Hunh! Well. Bucket’s empty. Save
my chair while I walk my lizard and get me a refill.” He went
inside.

“What you think of that bunch?” Smeds asked
Fish.

“I’ve seen the tall one before, too. In the same
circumstances as the corporal. A long time ago. No problem
remembering where or when, either, since I was only ever in one
battle.”

That just puzzled Smeds. He asked, “You figure
they’re here after the dingus, too?” He could ask
because by now everyone in town had a good idea what was going
on.

“They’re here for it, yes. They’ll help make
the game interesting.”

“What’re you yapping about, Fish?”

“Don’t mind me, boy. Just an old man maundering. Ha!
I thought so. Isn’t there anymore, is it?”

Down the street the animals people had stopped in front of a
place Timmy said used to be a butcher shop but these days was just
another dump filled up with squatters. The tall man glanced back as
though he had heard Fish. Then the whole bunch moved on,
indifferent to stares.

The corporal came back out with his full pail and bladder empty.
“I ought to give this shit up. Bothers my stomach.” He
took a drink. “Where were we?”

Fish said, “I was just going to ask you when they’re
going to unbutton the gates. Going to start getting hungry in here
now the fanners won’t bring anything in.”

“They don’t consult me on policy, Pop. But
I’ll tell you something. I don’t think those two
bitches give a rat’s ass if everybody in Oar starves. They
ain’t going to go hungry.”

Smeds was tired of listening to the corporal. “Going to
get me something to drink.” He went inside and had a beer
drawn, wondered how long the supply would last. And how much more
patience the people of Oar had. A while, for sure. Not that many
were hurting yet. But if circumstances did not change a big blowup
was inevitable.

Timmy Locan came in, got him a beer, stood beside Smeds awhile
without saying anything, then suggested, “Let’s go for
a walk when we finish these.”

“All right. I need the exercise.”

When they were well away from the Skull and Crossbones, passing
through a construction area where they were unlikely to be
overheard, Smeds asked, “Well? What’s up?”

“You remember that doc that looked at my hand when we
first came back?”

“Yeah.” More than a twinge of guilt. He and Fish had
not told the others what they had done. Tully was so indifferent he
had not noticed that the physician and wizard were no longer among
the living. Timmy had noticed, though, and Smeds supposed he had
some definite suspicions about two such coincidental and convenient
murders. “What about him?”

“It looks like he got whatever it was that I had and
passed it around to everybody who came to see him. And they passed
it on, too. Not like the plague or probably everybody would have it
by now. But there’s a couple hundred people got it already.
The ones that have had it the longest . . . 
Well, they’re worse off than I was. Yesterday a woman who had
it killed herself. This morning a guy whose whole arm had gone
black killed four of his kids who had it before he killed
himself.”

“That’s awful. That’s really gruesome. But it
isn’t anything we can do anything about.”

“I know that. But the thing is, see, the grays have gotten
interested. They’re grilling everybody with the black stuff.
From the questions they’re asking you can tell they think
there’s a connection with the spike. They’re trying
real hard to find out about everybody who’s had it and done
something about it, like me.”

“I don’t think you need to worry, Timmy. They
can’t trace it back to you.”

“Yeah? Those bitches are serious, Smeds. What happens
after they find out all the trails lead back to that doc, who
turned up among the dead right after the stuff started spreading?
They’re going to figure he had a fatal accident on account of
somebody he treated didn’t want to be remembered. And they
already know the only way to treat the stuff is to cut off whatever
it’s eating on. So pretty soon the word goes out to the grays
to grab amputees. Especially guys with missing hands.”

“Maybe you got a point. Maybe we better see what Fish
thinks.”

Fish agreed with Timmy. There was no reason to think Gossamer
and Spidersilk would not go so far are to order the arrest of all
amputees. They were determined.

Fish did some heavy thinking. “I reckon it’s time to
blow some smoke.”

“What do you mean?” Smeds asked.

“This situation—the whole city sealed up like a
bottle—can’t go on forever. There’ll be a
blowup. When that comes we break loose with everybody else. Till
then we buy time by getting them off on a wild-goose chase, or by
taking advantage of the potential for chaos they’ve
created.”

Smeds was bewildered. He grew more so when Fish said, “Get
rid of whatever you’ve got that’s silver. Get gold or
copper or jewels or whatever, but get rid of your silver. Smeds,
you pass the word to Tully and don’t let him give you any
shit.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just do it.”

So they did. Even Tully, who had become reasonably serious and
responsive since Fish’s demonstration of the deadly power of
the loose word.

We arrived in the Barrowland by sliding down ropes with our
possessions strapped on our backs. A few Plain creatures joined us.
More would after we set up a safe camp. The boss menhir wanted a
couple of his flint-hearted buddies there to keep an ear on us. The
better to maintain quick communication, he said. Right.

The better to make sure things got done the tree god’s
way.

“Back where we got started,” Raven said as soon as
we had our feet on the ground. He’d been getting more fit to
live with since Opal. He was almost back to being the old boy
I’d known when I first met him.

“Back in the cold and wet,” I grumped. It had been
the tag end of winter when we’d left. It was sneaking up on
winter again now. The leaves had fallen. We could get snow anytime.
“Let’s don’t fool around, eh? Let’s do what
we got to and get out.”

Raven chuckled. “How you going to keep them on the farm
after they’ve seen the big city?”

“A little less ruckus, please,” Bomanz said.
“We don’t yet know there aren’t any imperials
around.”

He was halfway right. We hadn’t yet seen that with our own
eyes, but the Plain creatures had scouted and reported nothing
bigger than a rabbit within five miles. I could trust them on
that.

Bomanz had to do some wizard stuff before he was satisfied. Then
he let us set up housekeeping and start a fire.

We dragged out with morning twilight and ate some god-awful cold
yuck. Then we split up.

I got the town and military compound because I knew them best.
Raven took the woods. Bomanz got the Barrowland itself. Near as I
could tell he wasn’t going to do anything but stand in the
middle and take a nap.

The Plain creatures were supposed to do anything they wanted and
clue us if they found anything.

I needed to do only a rough once-over to see what had happened
in town. There wasn’t nothing but bones left. Poking around
wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I did everything I could
think of to find out something useful, then I went back to camp.
Bomanz was just about where I’d left him, eyes still closed,
but taking little tippy-toe baby steps.

At least he was moving.

Raven came back. “You done already?”

“Yep.”

“Find anything?”

“A whole lot of bones. Enough to build an army of
skeletons.”

“Got you down, eh?”

“I knew all them guys.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t say anything else, just
waited. He can be an all-right guy when he isn’t busy feeling
sorry for himself.

“I figure the Limper and Toadkiller Dog did the killing.
But there was somebody else there after them. Somebody went through
like a mother picking a baby’s nits. There ain’t
nothing left there that’s even remotely valuable.”

Raven though about that. “Nothing at all?”

“Picked as clean as the bones.”

“That might be an angle to follow up in Oar. Though they
would have taken only what they could carry, and that would be the
kind of thing that isn’t going to make a splash. Unless they
did something gaudy. Which if they had they would be in the hands
of the imperials already.”

Bomanz joined us. He puttered around making tea while Raven told
us he’d found two campsites probably used by the guys we were
after, but nothing that would help us.

“If there ever was anything here the imperials got to it
first.”

“And if they had,” Bomanz said, “they would
have the spike by now.”

We’d gotten reports from Oar through the stones. The news
was not encouraging. It looked like a couple of imperial bigwigs
were out to grab the spike and go into the empire business for
themselves.

“You learn anything?” Raven asked.

Bomanz said, “Not much. There were four of them. Probably.
They got away with what they did because most of the time the
sapling was preoccupied with Toadkiller Dog and did not perceive
them as a threat. It thought they were throwing sticks at it as a
gesture of defiance.”

“Sticks?” I asked.

“They threw sticks at the tree until it was almost buried.
Then they set the pile on fire.”

Raven muttered, “You don’t have to be brilliant to
be a god.”

I said, “We got them now.”

“What?” That Bomanz never did figure out you could
be joking.

“All we got to do is look for four guys with splinters in
their fingers.”

Bomanz scowled. Raven chuckled. He asked, “Do we know
anything about these men at all?”