The Silver spike (26 page)

Smiley took us to an alley. “This is where we grabbed the
guy.”

Raven had asked questions while we walked. “And you
didn’t know anything about the guy? Like where he was coming
from or where he was headed?”

“I told you. This Abel set it up and gave it to Shorts.
Shorts just hired me and Tanker to back him up when he grabbed this
guy with only one hand that was supposed to come through here.
Maybe Shorts knew what was going on. I didn’t.”

“Convenient.”

“Yeah. The more I think about it the more I figure the
only reason they had me and Tanker hang around after we got the guy
down to the cellar was they planned on us never leaving if they got
what they wanted.”

“You’re probably right. That’s the way those
kind work.”

“And you guys don’t?”

“Not when we get cooperation. Show us that
cellar.”

I was glum. Our big strike looked like it was turning into a
pocket of fool’s gold. The guys who could give us answers had
checked out.

Raven thought we might get something out of a look at the
bodies. I was willing to bet all we would get was gagged.
“Shit, this is desolate,” I said as we was getting
close. “How much farther?”

“About a block . . . ”

“Hold it!” Raven said. “Quiet!”

I listened. I didn’t hear nothing. But my eyes were good
at night. By looking slightly to the side of them I could make out
some guys. Three of them carrying a fourth. They were headed
somewhere in a big hurry.

I told Raven. He asked, “You know this area?”

“Only vaguely.”

“Try to get ahead of them. They won’t be able to
move too fast if they’re carrying a body. We’ll run
them down from behind.”

Smiley said, “I’ll do a fade now.”

Raven replied, “You’ll come with us and tell us if
you recognize any faces.”

Smiley started cursing.

I took off. I figured it was a waste of time but I’d give
it a shot. Five minutes and I’d be lost and they’d be
long gone.

I went about three hundred yards and found myself on open
ground. It looked like the area where we had landed, seen from a
different direction. I couldn’t see anyone in the open.
Figuring they’d been to my left when I started and I’d
paralleled them, I moved to my left, along the face of the ruins
still standing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Just like I expected. Where were the
others? I worried. I thought about yelling but decided not to. I
didn’t want to look silly.

I thought I was paying attention but I guess I wasn’t.

Somebody stepped out of nowhere and kicked me in the noogies. A
perfect shot. The pain exploded through me. I bent over and puked
and didn’t care about anything else in the world.

He hit me in the back of the head. I went down, rooted up a
little pavement with my chin. Somebody got onto me and forced me to
lay out flat, facedown. He was not gentle. I wiggled a couple
fingers by way of fighting back. He was not impressed.

He twisted one arm up behind me till I thought it was going to
break, then whispered in my ear, “I don’t want you
tromping around in my life, boy. You hear?”

I did not answer.

He twisted my arm a little more. I let out a yell, proving I was
getting my wind back faster than I thought.

“You hear me, boy?”

“Yeah.”

“Next time I even see you or one of your buddies
they’re going to be picking up pieces all over Oar. You
understand?”

“Yeah.”

“You tell that slit she don’t mind her own business
she’s going to be up to her twat in grays. You
listening?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” He hit me on the head again. I don’t
know why—maybe because my skull is as thick as my old man
used to tell me it was—he didn’t put me all the way
out. I lay there powerless but aware as he drew a knife across my
left cheek. Then he got up and went away and my only companions
were pain, nausea, and humiliation.

After a while I got my feet under me and stumbled off to find
Raven. I hadn’t been whipped up on so bad since I was a kid.
The slash burned like hell but wasn’t as bad as I’d
feared.

I actually found them pretty easy, considering. Only took me
about fifteen minutes. There was a little light now from a big fire
burning down south. Later I found out they were getting rid of the
bodies of the first hundred people to die from the cholera. The
twins must have anticipated epidemics. They’d had the
engineers save all the scrap lumber from the demolished
buildings.

I stumbled over Raven is how I found him.

He was out cold. He had a slash just like mine.

The Torque was about ten feet away and just starting to twitch
and make noises. He had been cut, too.

So had Smiley. Twice. The second cut was about four inches below
the first, ran from ear to ear, and was the last wound he’d
ever suffer.

They’d done a number on us, all right.

Raven hadn’t gotten him a swift kick but a good whack on
the head. He was still rocky as we reported. His hands shook badly
as he tried to sign to Darling: “One man, I think. Took us by
surprise.” He was embarrassed.

I don’t think I ever saw him embarrassed like that before.
But he never got took like that before, either.

I was embarrassed when my turn came because I had to report
every word the man had said. I was afraid I was going to have to
explain a couple of them.

She surprised me for the hundredth time by not being as ignorant
as I expected.

Silent touched his cheek, signed, “Queen’s
Bridge.”

Darling nodded.

I had to ask.

Silent signed, “When we fought the Nightstalkers at
Queen’s Bridge they took eighteen prisoners. They marked them
all on the left cheek and turned them loose.”

“What the hell? Could the soldiers themselves have the
spike? Is that why they haven’t had any luck finding it? Is
the brigadier playing some game of her own?” I did it in
sign. You get into the habit when you’re around Darling
long.

She looked at me weird for a few seconds, then signed, “We
have to get out of here now. Soldiers—not
Nightstalkers—are going to come any minute.”

I saw it then.

Somebody was a mad genius, a wizard at thinking on his feet. In
the minutes he’d had us at his mercy he’d put together
a plan that could hurl Oar into a whirlpool of chaos and
violence.

He had spared us only to spark a greater bloodletting.

The twins’ soldiers would grab us, with the marks on us,
and eliminate the White Rose menace. Word would get out. A
significant portion of the population would start raising hell.
Meantime, the twins would take our testimony on the rack and find
cause to suspect the Nightstalkers and their commander. There was
no love lost there now and there was no way the Nightstalkers were
going to let their brigadier be arrested or even relieved of her
command.

The Nightstalkers were outnumbered by the other gray regiments
but they were the better, tougher soldiers and they would win in
any confrontation, unless the twins themselves intervened
directly.

Bloody-minded genius. Who could keep his or her mind on the
silver spike with all that shit going on?

While I was thinking, Darling was flinging orders left and
right. She sent all the little Plain creatures out to scout around
and see who was in the neighborhood and to watch for soldiers. She
sent the Torque brothers off to warn our Rebel friends. Bomanz and
Silent she sent to the area where we got bushwhacked to see if
they, with their talents, could pick up anything.

She looked from me to Raven and back again, deciding who should
be their guide.

She picked Raven.

Before they could all work up a good scowl for me—I think
Silent was pleased that he would not be leaving her alone with
Raven—one of the Plain creatures zipped in to report the area
clear except for an antiquated wino passed out on the wooden
sidewalk half a block away.

Darling signed, “Let us go now.”

We all went.

The wave of raids and arrests started less than an hour
later.

Smeds looked at Tully across the little table. His cousin was
drinking with a grim determination but he was still stone-cold
sober. Those bodies. Gruesome. Those men chasing them through the
night. Those fires in the south, where they were burning the bodies
of cholera victims. Now there were bands of soldiers tramping
through the streets, about some nocturnal business that had set the
rumors flying. It was not a time to inspire confidence in
one’s security.

The soldiers—some of them—were troubled, too.
Moments before, several Nightstalkers had come in to consult the
resident corporal. Now the whole bunch was headed out. They looked
like they expected bad trouble.

“It’s starting to come apart,” Smeds said. He
felt breathless.

Shivering, Tully nodded. “If I knew what we was going to
go through I would’ve said screw the spike.”

“The big hit, man. I guess when you think about it it
wasn’t never that easy for nobody that ever made
it.”

“Yeah. What I did, I never thought it through. Or I
would’ve figured the world would go crazy. I would’ve
figured there’d be just a whole mob of them who’d kill
anybody and do anything to get ahold of it. What the hell is wrong
with this beer? It’s got a kick like a mouse.”

“Better enjoy it.” Fish appeared out of nowhere. He
had a haggard, harried look. He joined them. “It might be the
last beer in town.” He slumped, wrung out. “I’ve
done what I can. All we can do is wait. And hope.”

Smeds asked, “What’s going on out there? With the
soldiers.”

“They’re rounding up Rebels. They’re going to
execute a big bunch in the morning. That ought to set off the
explosion that will break the city wide open.”

“What if it don’t?” Tully asked.

“Then we’re screwed. Sooner or later they’ll
get us. Process of elimination.” Fish stole a sip of
Smeds’s beer. “Cheer up. They’re between us and
the cholera. Maybe it’ll get them before they get
us.”

“Shit!”

“We ought to get some sleep.”

“You kidding?”

“We ought to try. We ought, at least, to get out of sight.
Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.”

Smeds fell asleep in about two minutes.

He was not sure what wakened him. The sun was up. So were Tully
and Fish. Up and out of there. Something made him start shivering.
He went to the common room. It was empty.

It hit him as he crossed to the door.

The silence.

The morning was as still as the grave. But for his footsteps he
would have feared he was deaf. The door groaned as he opened
it.

Everyone stood in the street, looking toward the center of Oar,
waiting for something.

The wait was short.

Smeds felt it in the earth before it reached his ears, a monster
vibration pursued by an avalanche of rage, a roar almost like a
blow.

Fish told him, “They started the executions. I was afraid
they would chicken out.”

The roar grew louder, rolled closer, as an entire city, in a
moment, decided that it had had enough of tyranny and
oppression.

The wave came into the street outside the Skull and Crossbones.
The people reeled with it.

Then mothers began herding children inside. Men began moving
toward city center, in a rage for death, few of them armed because
the repeated searches by the grays had turned up most of the
privately held weapons. They had confiscated everything but the
personal knife.

Smeds decided he must be getting old and cynical. He
hadn’t the slightest urge to get involved.

Neither did Fish. Tully twitched for a moment, then stood
fast.

Many of the men in the street did the same. The rage was like
the cholera. Not everyone had it yet. But both would claim many
more before they subsided.

Fish got Smeds and Tully inside the Skull and Crossbones and
sat them down. “We don’t move. We let the rumors come
to us. If they turn favorable enough we’ll head for the wall
whenever it looks like we’ve got a chance to get out. Smeds,
go put yourself a pack together. Stuff you’ll need to
travel.”

Tully whispered, “What about the spike?”

“It can take care of itself.”

“Where the hell is it, anyway?”

“Smeds, go pack. I don’t know, Tully. I don’t
want to know. All I care is, Smeds found a place so good nobody
else has found it.”

Smeds felt Tully’s angry stare as he moved away.

The first flurry of rumors spoke more eloquently of human
savagery than it did of human nobility.

Despite knowing the mob was in an ugly mood, the regiment
handling the executions had been caught off balance by the violence
of the outburst following the first execution. They were swamped by
the responding fury. Eight hundred died before panicky
reinforcements, in no good order, arrived. Several thousand
civilians and several hundred more soldiers died before it broke
up. The fleeing citizens took a fair supply of arms with them.

Small-to-medium-sized riots bubbled up all over Oar, anywhere
the grays appeared weak.

A mob tried to storm the Civil Palace. They were driven off but
they left several fires burning, the worst of which raged out of
control for hours.

A huge mob attacked the regiment that had moved in to beef up
protection of the South Gate. Many captured weapons surfaced there.
The mob overwhelmed the regiment but failed to flush the gate
guards and failed to take the top of the wall. Archers posted there
soon dispersed them.

Fish did not let Tully or Smeds go out once.

Come nightfall the situation grew both more chaotic and more
sinister. The hard-pressed soldiers began to lose discipline, to
indulge in indiscriminate slaughter. Youths got out and set fires,
vandalized, looted. Individuals pursued private feuds. And the
world’s densest population of wizards decided to become
involved. Decided to gang up and eliminate their toughest
competitor.