XX
Pure good luck attended Spud and Soup. They slipped a boat away unnoticed, caught a brisk breeze, made a landfall not a half mile from a legionary encampment. The prefect of the camp was a friend of Rider and Jehrke. Within an hour they were crossing the Bridge of the World aboard the legion's courier airship. First light was just starting to limn the City when they stepped down into the jungle of the military yards.
Though they were as far from the exit gate as they could get, they grinned at one another and set off jauntily. Spud whistled as he walked.
Minutes later Spud's tune died behind Soup's hand. Both ducked into shadows.
Soft voices approached. They saw men moving quickly, cautiously, probing shadows with shielded lights, arguing.
"Those knobbly guys again," Spud said. "What're they doing here?"
"Right now they're looking for a whistler."
Spud reddened. "Let's get them."
"I admire your confidence. Nevertheless, the odds aren't exciting for one of my delicate sensibilities." There were six gnarly men, none of whom were completely alert. They were going through the motions of a search, complaining.
"Let's even them up, then." Spud vanished, moving with feline silence.
Soup sighed. Spud was in one of his moods. He would not give it up till he bashed a few heads.
Or got bashed himself. Soup retreated the way he had come. Twenty feet back, he kicked a wooden support away from an airship cradle still under construction. He ducked behind the cradle.
The noise brought the gnarly men his way.
Spud stepped out behind the last and smacked his head with a board. He jumped back into shadow.
Gnarly men chattered at one another. Knives came out. Lights probed shadows diligently.
Soup took his turn crowning a man. When the gnarly men turned to rush him, Spud struck again.
Then Rider's men waded in. Confused, howling, the gnarly men panicked. They fled into striped shadows. The yards resembled a boneyard populated by the skeletons of monsters more vast than any leviathan of the deep. The dawn itself was as bloody as a newly mown army.
Soup and Spud skidded to a halt, dove into cover. The gnarly men had joined a young regiment working around a monster of an air warship from the eastern fleet. Soup sputtered, "They're trying to steal that airship!"
Chaos spread as the fugitives reported.
Spud observed, "Some big payoffs must have been made to let that many men sneak in here." An entire cohort guarded the military yards.
"Couldn't be all of them, though," Soup observed.
"No. Just a few officers and noncoms. A big enough racket ought to get the rest out here."
"What're you going to do? Howl like a mad dog?"
The how did present a problem. They had come out of captivity with nothing but their clothing.
"Better think of something fast," Soup said. "They're not going to wait around." The would-be airship thieves were organizing a counterstroke.
Soup found himself talking to empty air.
He found Spud searching the apparel of a fallen gnarly man. "Aha. Here we go. Now something flammable."
Soup thought he got the idea. He also thought it was too dangerous. If the tire got out of hand the whole yard could go. Nevertheless, he collected a pair of dropped lanterns. One still burned. He tuned it up high, whirled like a hammer thrower in the athletic games, arced it toward the gas bladders.
"What are you, crazy?"
Soup glared. What did Spud want? He collected another lantern. "Light this." Spud had taken a spark-striker from the gnarly man he had plundered.
The sparks betrayed their hiding place. But as men started toward them others nearer the airship sent up a howl of panic.
The lantern Soup threw had blown its reservoir. A merry fire was popping and crackling as it crawled toward the gas bladders. Would-be airship pirates fled. Some of the bolder tried to keep the burning oil contained. Those stalking toward Soup and Spud turned back.
Soup sent the second lantern arcing into the crowd. Meantime, Spud set a safer fire which sent up billows of dark smoke. "This is what I had in mind," he said. "Not attempted suicide."
"Yeah? Let's get out of here. We don't want to get rounded up with that lot. Too much explaining, I figure."
Avoiding capture, though, proved easier said than done. First, several very angry, determined, and perseverant gnarly men got onto their trail. Then soldiers popped up everywhere, sooner than expected.
The guilty officers, nervously alert, had heard the first uproar. They had decided to cover up. Three hundred soldiers were in the yards with orders to take no prisoners.
Unlike the pirates, Soup and Spud did not try to escape, only to evade. They lay low during the worst howl and clang. When it waned and the troops were feeling smug, they spied around and found a noncom known to themselves and Rider.
"Baracas," Soup called. "Over here." He stepped from the shadows skirting a mooring mast, into light where he could be recognized. Spud followed.
"You guys? What're you doing here?"
"Foiling an airship theft."
The soldier frowned. "That what was going on?"
"We rushed in on the courier from the Twelfth's camp on the Saverne side ... " Soup shut up.
Spud had gouged him.
The soldier, baffled, shrugged and said, "Stay close to me or you might get gutted with the rest. We'll let the tribunes sort you out later."
"That was the idea," Soup admitted.
The troops had the fires out. They were collecting bodies. Not a few wore imperial uniforms.
The gnarly men and easterners were fierce when cornered. Soup counted a score of the squat men and nearly as many orientals. Spud observed, "This ought to break Shai Khe's back. He'll have to do his own dirty work now."
"How many got away?" Soup asked Baracas.
"None. That we know of."
Soup chuckled. "That'll get Shai Khe's goat. Can you imagine what he could have done with that airship? And his powers? He could have held the City hostage."
"Who the hell is this Shy Key?" Baracas asked.
"A villain with enough wealth to make your officers blind while forty men steal an imperial warship."
Baracas took them to the leading centurion of his maniple, who immediately kicked the question of their presence up to the tribune level.
They found officers gathered, discussing the excitement in secretive voices, when Baracas brought them to headquarters, near the yard gates. A sour-faced subaltern demanded, "What do you want, Baracas?"
"Sir, these men were mixing it up with the foreigners trying to steal the Grand Phantom, and I thought ... "
"They were in there? What're they doing here? You had orders ... "
"They're Rider's men, sir. They were trying to stop that gang."
A half dozen heads jerked around. Faces went pale. Someone muttered, "If the Protector is mixed up in this ... "
A tribune moved closer. He snapped, "You! Baracas, is it? Why haven't you executed your orders?"
"Sir, they're Rider's ... "
"'Is Rider your superior officer? Kill them."
Soup grinned. "Now we know who'll be first to hang."
And Spud, "You do it, Baracas, and I'll bet you your pension you don't make it to sundown yourself."