When the droplet of water finally fell, her arm whipped up in a dark blur and the throwing knife streaked out of her hand so fast that it was buried in the exact center of the Vbefore the line sergeant had completed his throwing motion. The sergeant’s knife was wide of the mark by six inches.
There was a smattering of applause and a few cheers from the spectators. Rue Meridian retrieved her knife and walked over to the bar to collect on her wager. The smith’s wife already had the tankard of ale on the counter. “This one’s yours, Sergeant Trock,” she said in a loud voice, giving Rue a broad smile. “Pay up before you leave.”
The line sergeant stalked over to the wall and pulled his heavy throwing knife free. For a moment he held it balanced in his hand as he gave Rue Meridian a venomous look. Then he sheathed the knife beneath his tunic and swaggered over to where she stood. “I’m not paying,” he announced, planting himself at her side.
“Up to you,” she replied, sipping at the ale.
“If you don’t, you won’t be coming back in here again,” the smith’s wife advised pointedly. “Stop being so troublesome.”
“I’m not paying because you cheated!” he snapped, his response directed at Rue. “You threw before the water drop left the beam. It was plain as day.”
There was a general murmur of dissent and a shaking of heads from the assembled, but no one called him on it. Emboldened, he leaned close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath and smell its stink. “You know what your problem is, Little Red? You need someone to teach you some manners. Then you wouldn’t be so stuck—”
The rest of what he was going to say caught in his throat as he felt the tip of her throwing knife pressed against the soft underside of his bearded chin.
“You should think carefully before you speak again, Sergeant,” she hissed. “You’ve already said enough to persuade me that it might be just as well if I cut your throat and have done with it.”
The room had gone silent. No one was moving, not even the smith’s wife, who stood watching with a dishrag in one hand and her mouth open.
The line sergeant gasped as Rue Meridian pressed upward with the knife tip, lifting his chin a little higher. The knife had appeared so suddenly that his hands still hung loose at his sides and his weapons remained sheathed. “I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean,” she cut him short, “that I needed to learn new manners, am I right?”
“Yes.” He swallowed thickly.
“You didn’t mean that someone as crude and stupid as yourself could teach them to me in any case, right?”
“Yes.”
“You wish to tell me that you are sorry for saying I cheated and for spoiling my midday contemplation of things far away and dear to me, right?”
“Yes, yes!”
She backed him away, the knife tip still pressed against his neck. When he was standing clear of the bar, she reached down with her free hand and stripped him of his weapons. Then she shoved him backwards into a chair.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said, her own knife disappearing into her dark clothing. “I don’t want you paying for my drink, wager or no. I want you sitting quietly right where you are until I decide you can leave. If I see you move a muscle, I’ll pretend the V of your crotch is the Von the back wall and try my luck with a fresh throw.”
The big man’s eyes dropped involuntarily and then lifted. The rage reflected in his eyes was tempered only by his fear. He believed she would do what she said.
She was reaching for her tankard of ale when the door to the smith’s shop burst open and Furl Hawken lumbered into view. Everyone in the room turned to look, and he slowed at once, aware of the unnatural silence, his eyes darting right and left.
Then he caught sight of her. “Little Red, something’s come up. We have to go.”
She stayed where she was, taking the tankard of ale in hand, lifting it to her lips, and drinking down the contents as if she had all the time in the world. Everyone watched in silence. No one moved. When she was finished, she set the tankard on the counter and walked over to the line sergeant. She bent close, as if daring him to do something about it. When he didn’t, she said softly, “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
She dropped a coin on the counter as she passed the smith’s wife, giving her a wink as she did so. Then she was through the door and surrounded by the clamor and fire of the forge, Furl Hawken at her back as he followed her out.
They moved swiftly through the maze of anvils, furnaces, and scrap heaps to the cluster of makeshift buildings beyond—kitchen, armory, surgery, command center, stables, supply depots, and the like, all bustling with activity in the midday heat. The sky was cloudless and blue, the sun a ball of white fire burning down on the dusty heights and the encamped army. Rue Meridian shook her head. It was the first daylight she had seen since yesterday, and it made her head pound.
“Is Big Red upset with me?” she asked as they moved away from the buildings and into the tented encampment, where she slowed her walk.
“Big Red is in irons and looking at twenty years’ hard labor or worse,” her companion growled, moving closer, keeping his voice low. “We had some company on our outing this morning, a couple of Federation officers. One went over the side during an attack, an accident, but he’s just as dead. The ranking officer was furious. He was even madder when your brother refused to go after a couple of disabled Free-born ships, knock ’em out of the sky instead of letting them descend. When we set down again, he had Big Red arrested and taken away, promising him that he would soon be experiencing an abrupt career change.”
She shook her head. “Nothing we can do about it, is there? I mean, nothing that involves words and official procedure?”
Furl Hawken grunted. “We’re Rovers, Little Red. What do you think?”
She put her hand on his massive shoulder. “I think I’m sick of this place, these people, this war, the whole business. I think we need a change of employment. What do we care about any of this? It was only the money that brought us here in the first place, and we have more than enough of that to last us for a while.”
Furl Hawken shook his head. “Can’t ever have enough money, Little Red.”
“True,” she admitted.
“Besides, it’s not so bad here.” His voice took on a wistful tone. “I’ve kind of gotten used to it. Grows on you, all this flatness and space, dust and grit—”
She shoved him playfully. “Don’t you play that game with me! You hate it here as much as I do!”
His bluff face broke into a wide grin. “Well, maybe so.”
“Time to go home, Hawk,” she declared firmly. “Gather up the men, equipment, our pay, supplies, horses for everyone, and meet me on the south ridge in one hour.” She shoved him anew, laughing. “Go on, you great blowhard!”
She waited until he was on his way, then turned toward the stockade where Federation convicts and miscreants were housed, chained in the open or in barred wooden boxes that on a hot day could cook the brain. Just thinking of her brother in one of those set her teeth on edge. The Federation’s attitude toward Rovers hadn’t changed a whit in the three years of their service. Rovers were mercenaries, and mercenaries were a necessary evil. It didn’t matter how faithfully they served. It didn’t matter how many of them died in the Federation cause. It didn’t matter that they had proved themselves the better flyers and, for the most part, the better fighters. In the eyes of most Southlanders, Rovers were inferior solely because of who they were, and nothing of their abilities or accomplishments could ever change that.