"Oh dear," Skellum said. "That is a problem. Are you sure we can't come to some sort of arrangement?" He smiled.
"We don't make deals with the likes of you," Teroh said.
"Everyone does business with the Cabal," Skellum said cheerfully. "This is our city, after all. It's merely a question of what you want and what you're willing to give."
Teroh's voice rose. "If that dog takes one more step toward that boy, I'll give it the flat of my blade. Call off your dog, and leave us to our duty."
"Well now, that raises another problem. I can't 'call her off.' Azza here has been in the Cabal longer than I have, so technically she outranks me." As Skellum prattled on, Chainer stood and gathered up his tangled chain as inconspicuously as he could. Where Roup talked too much because he was lonely and pathetic, Skellum talked too much to defuse the situation and give Chainer time to recover.
"I could suggest to her that she back off, but if she doesn't want to… Hang on. Chainer? Are you bleeding?"
"Yes, Mentor." Then he hissed to Azza, who was closest to him, "There's a big bug in that alley. And something else, I-"
"She knows," Skellum called. "Officer… Sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"I am Major Teroh, and this conversation is over."
Skellum stroked his well-trimmed beard. "Major, officer, officer, major. What's the difference?" He looked at Chainer. "A major is an officer, isn't it?"
"This major is an ass," spat Chainer.
Teroh stiffened, and Skellum sighed.
"Anyway. Major Teroh. Was it you who damaged my pupil?"
Teroh sneered. "I had him damaged, yes. Because he resisted, just like you're resisting now. And if you don't want to be damaged, I suggest…" Teroh's voice trailed off.
As soon as the word "yes" passed Teroh's lips, Skellum changed. His calm demeanor grew darker, and his voice hardened. The happy gleam in his eyes became a cold, penetrating glare. Little knots of muscle formed in his cheeks, and he spoke through clenched teeth.
"The Cabal is here, Major, and everywhere. Chainer is Cabal, and more, he is under my protection. Whatever Chainer has done to you, you in turn owe us for his injury. Now we have to come to an arrangement. No one walks away from a Cabal debt. No one."
"True gods," Teroh snapped in exasperation. "Do any of you bog-wallowers live in this world? We are the Order. We are the law. And we have you outnumbered. Reseda!"
Chainer was ready for the blur this time. As the mantis sprang out of the alley toward Skellum, Chainer tried simultaneously to shout a warning and draw back his chain. He needn't have bothered.
Fast as Reseda was, Azza was even faster, and her center of gravity was far lower. Reseda's thorax crashed into Azza's driving shoulder, and even Chainer winced as he heard the insect's exoskeleton crack. Six hundred pounds of magically bred and enhanced canine reared up and slammed her powerful head into Reseda's shoulder and throat. The crippled mantis spun painfully onto the paving stones, and the hellhound clamped onto him, gripping Reseda's shoulder joint and half of his face with her massive jaws. Azza bit down to immobilize the mantis, but she did not injure Reseda further. She let out a single, explosive bark, and Reseda screamed in his eerie, alien tongue. Teroh and Baankis were wide-eyed and speechless.
"Now, Major," Skellum said coldly, "about that arrangement."
Teroh recovered first. He pointed his still-glowing sword and said, "Turn my ally loose, Skellum. Your dog is impressive, but you've just overplayed your hand."
"Have I?" He walked over to Azza and Reseda, who was hissing and chittering out a steady stream of mantis talk. Chainer didn't understand a word of it, but he guessed it was either a prayer or a curse.
"It seems to me," Skellum continued, "that we have the advantage. Granted, I'm not a military man like yourself, but still…" Casually, he reached up and gave the brim of his hat a push. The yoke-and- hook rig he wore was designed to let the hat spin freely, and it did, revealing Skellum's face in brief flashes as the gaps went round and round.
A secret, electric thrill ran through Chainer as he watched Teroh's face. The major had no idea what Master Skellum was doing-or how dangerous it was.
"You're through, Major," Chainer called out. "And you don't even know it."
Azza growled at Chainer, and the next flashes of Skellum's face showed an angry glare directed at his pupil. He gave his hat another spin and refocused on the matter at hand. Baankis looked at Chainer in confusion. Teroh ignored them all. Instead, he concentrated on the words pouring out of Reseda and nodded to himself. Reseda had been repeating the same syllable over and over, his clicking voice growing louder and more shrill with each repetition. "What's he saying?" Skellum asked. Teroh actually smiled, cruelly. "He's saying 'kill.'" "Oh, it's not that bad." Skellum's voice was becoming distant, almost sleepy, and the strobe flashes of his face revealed eyes rolled back and jaw hanging slack. "A few herbs, some bed rest, maybe some time in the hot springs… "
"He's issuing a command, not a request. I am a military man, Mr. Skellum, and we military men know enough to keep some forces in reserve." From deep within the alley Reseda had occupied came a rumbling, trumpeting roar. Trooper Baankis side-stepped away from the entrance, and Major Teroh waited confidently for his reserve forces to appear. Skellum gave his hat another spin.
Something huge was dragging itself down the alley. Chainer stole a glance at Skellum, who was starting to weave and list from side to side as his hat continued to whirl. Chainer nervously wound his chain around one hand, then the other. He hadn't had a real look at the mantis's associate, but he knew neither his weapons nor his skills would be enough to stop it. He was relying on Master Skellum to meet this new challenge.
The monster lurched heavily out of the alley and cracked the stones beneath it. Its skin was hairy and warty green, and it had natural armored plates across its chest and shoulders. It dragged itself forward on tree-trunk-thick arms that were taller than a person. Its huge, round head sat directly on its boulder-sized torso, which tapered off at the waist down to two spindly legs that dragged uselessly behind it. Chainer thought it looked like a cross between a tadpole in mid-metamorphosis and a whale.
"Oooh," Skellum said dreamily. "A grendelkin. I haven't seen one of those since I was a boy. Pity about its hind legs, though. Was it born stunted, or did someone cripple it?"
The grendelkin opened its mouth and roared, displaying triple rows of gnarled molars.
"Take a good look," Teroh said grimly. "You'll never see another." He waved a hand to catch the grendelkin's attention, and then pointed at Azza, Reseda, and Skellum. Reseda was still screeching, "kill, kill," over and over. Azza shook him once, roughly, and the forest dweller finally passed out.
The sudden silence seemed to drive the grendelkin over the edge. It roared again and stomped angrily toward Azza. Teroh said something to Baankis that Chainer couldn't hear, and the two soldiers moved toward Chainer once more. Chainer started his chain whirling. He hoped to slam the weighted end into one of Teroh's softer parts and then cut Baankis's hamstring with his dagger before Teroh recovered.
Even as he prepared to fight for his life, Chainer kept an eye on
Skellum. He was the only one in the street to see his mentor reach up with both hands and decisively stop the brim of his hat with a gap directly in front of his face.
Master Skellum's entire head was gone. In its place was a whirling vortex of black smoke and purple light. There was a muffled boom from deep inside the hat, and a solid nugget of smoke leaped out through the gap, trailing charnel gas and soot. The nugget expanded at soon as it was clear of Skellum's hat, exploding into a full-fledged creature straight out of a madman's nightmare.