Only these two are still in the game.
It’s a large pot for the man with his back to me to win.
Makes me wonder if he’s going to see dawn at all. Or whether one of his colleagues will find him with his dick out, his throat cut and his pockets empty. And the village whore nowhere to be seen. Of course, she’ll turn up in a ditch, with her own throat cut, a few days later. When scar-face has left the area.
Old story. I’ve seen it happen.
Haven’t we all.
‘Food,’ I demand.
The weasel-faced man behind the bar shakes his head. He’s a slow learner.
‘And a room, three beds.’
He begins to tell me his inn is full and the kitchens closed and none of the rooms has three beds anyway, even if they weren’t all taken. His words trail into silence when it occurs to him I’m not listening.
The scar-faced man gets up from the table.
‘This is a private party.’
He’s definitely losing. Has to be. The speed he ditches his hand, tossing four cards onto the table so they slide into the discarded pile, makes that final hand impossible to call.
His coat is like mine.
Mesh-lined and double-stitched, with thin armour over the heart and wrapped round the kidneys. A pulse pistol juts from a belt that is studded with turquoise and fixed with a vast buckle that reads Let God sort them out.
The motto suggests he’s a mercenary.
His stance says he’s regular. And his side arm isn’t fancy enough for a mercenary. What with their pearl handles and ruby sights, you can usually see them a thousand yards off. Even on a dark day.
‘You hear me?’ He’s talking to Leona, thinks she’s the softest target.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘You say something?’
Someone at the bar laughs.
The eyes of the man hassling her tighten. ‘This place is closed.’
‘Not any longer.’
‘I don’t think you heard me.’ He frees the flap on his holster.
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘we heard you, all right. It’s just we don’t give a fuck.’
Very ostentatiously, the man puts his hand on his revolver. ‘One last time,’ he says. ‘The door’s behind you.’
Leona points. ‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s over there.’
That’s the second time someone at the bar laughs. As the man’s cheek twitches, I realize his position in this group isn’t secure. A corporal, a freshly made sergeant? Maybe not that battle-hardened despite his scar. It’s hard to gauge his age through cheap lighting and a haze of cigar smoke.
‘We’re taking a room,’ I tell him. ‘Get your men to bunk up.’
‘You’re not-’
A step takes me within reach and the palm of my hand connects with his chin, snapping his jaw shut hard enough to crack bone. As I hook back my elbow to drive it into his throat, Anton steps forward.
‘Sven.’
I knee the man instead.
Stepping over him, I bundle Anton outside.
Outrage floods his face, but it’s mixed with fear. I make myself unclench my fist. ‘What,’ I say, ‘is the fucking point of being in disguise if you’re going to shout my name all over the place?’
‘You were going to kill him.’
‘So?’
Anton looks at me.
‘He might have lived,’ I say.
In the darkness someone snorts. A flame flares, and a bald headed man touches a match to the end of a cigarillo. Smoke seeps slowly from between his lips. He’s leaning against the wall, staring at the sky.
The collar of his leather coat is turned up against the cold.
‘Want one?’ he asks, twitching his smoke.
Anton says no.
I accept.
The match he uses to light me is military issue. Well used and rubbed back to base metal where it’s been hung from a belt. He sees me look and nods approvingly.
‘NCO?’ he asks.
‘Ex-sergeant.’ That much is true.
‘What happened?’
Punched an officer.’
His eyebrows rise in the glow from his cigarillo. No one gets away with hitting an officer. I can see him wondering if I’m taking the piss.
‘No witnesses?’ he asks.
‘None . . . My lieutenant decided not to press charges.’
‘All the same,’ says the man, ‘I’m surprised you mention it.’
‘The lieutenant’s dead and I’m out of the Legion. So it’s just my boast against a dead man and no one gives a fuck anyway.’
Dragging deep, I let smoke trickle into the starlit sky. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a desert, but I hate city skies. I need to be able to see the constellations, like now. High above me are the howitzer, the whore and the frying pan.
Of course, on Farlight they look different.
I’m used to them looking sharper.
‘Off-planet?’ asks the man. Maybe he sees my surprise, because he nods towards the howitzer and smiles. ‘Always strange, when the sky’s not your own.’
His name is Toro, he’s ex-Legion. Invalided out after a battle I’ve never heard of, on a planet that means even less. He worked his way in-Spiral, before ending in Farlight. These days he’s sergeant major for a militia regiment in the capital. I ask him if he’s with the men inside and watch him try not to be offended.
That’s what I thought.
‘You were here before them?’
That’s as close as I’m coming to asking him what the fuck he’s doing in a dump like this. I mean, there are one-horse towns and there are no-horse towns. And this one’s missing its horse and most of the town.
‘Hunting’s good round here.’
So we have a brief conversation about freshwater crocodiles and that leads on to my arm. Ripped off by a ferox sounds too unlikely. So I tell him it’s a battle injury. And I’m still waiting for compensation to get it fixed.
We both know how likely that is to happen.
‘Where you heading?’
Anton shoots me a glance. Not sure what it’s intended to say.
‘Farlight. We’re looking for a friend. Well, my boss is.’ My nod points out Anton. ‘He’s been out of the city for a while.’
‘Anyone I might know?’
‘Not unless you’re friends with the new duke.’
The sergeant whistles. ‘The old bastard himself? I heard he was off-planet. Leading our glorious troops to certain victory.’ Toro says this with a straight face. Since to doubt a single word of it is treason, that’s probably wise. He’s intending to say more but drops his hand to his side arm instead.
Maybe because the card-player I kneed earlier is in the doorway and clutching a pulse pistol. When I step towards him, he backs away and lifts his side arm a little higher. Seems he’s brought it to defend himself from another beating.
‘Call me if you need help . . .’ Sergeant Toro’s gaze sweeps over my combat arm and ends at the weapon in my hand. Its muzzle now rests under the chin of the man who’s come looking for me. Leona stands behind him. The only reason her gun isn’t at his head is mine got there first.
‘Not that it seems likely,’ he adds.
Chapter 14
‘Mybosswantstoseeyou.’
‘What?’
‘Sir,’ Leona says. ‘You might want-’
I lower my pistol enough to let the man talk.
‘My boss wants to see you.’
‘Who’s your boss?’ Anton demands.
‘He’ll tell you himself.’ The card-player seems happier now Anton’s involved. ‘His room’s at the top of the stairs. He asked if you’d join him.’
Anton nods, as if to say of course . . .
The man with the cigarillo drags a lungful of smoke and lets it out slowly. ‘I’ll still be out here,’ he tells me.’ When you’re done. If you fancy a drink . . .’ He smiles sourly. ‘For old times’ sake?’
Once in the Legion, always in the Legion.
I nod, noticing the coldness between him and the man holding the gun. Anton’s already heading indoors. You would think being in prison would have sharpened his edge. Instead the relief of being free has blunted it altogether.
‘Me first,’ I say. ‘May as well try to keep you alive.’
Outside, the man with the cigar laughs.