And almost could do it.
Almost, but not quite. For when he came, it was both the lamplit form of the woman and the feel of his hand on the trigger of the Blaskoye musket as he shot the other, shot the Redlander woman, that filled his mind like an explosion of desire, rage, and grief.
There was one solace. This one, this Blaskoye clanswoman or whatever she was, was not dead. She was still very much alive.
“You are young,” she whispered. “You can do it again. Quickly now, do it again.”
Could he?
Yes. Oh yes, he could.
So he did. And this time, it was only her and the River.
* * *
She led him back to the pallet and slipped away before he could speak to her again. He hadn’t even gotten her name. He lay still, unable to sleep, unwilling to converse with Center and Raj. For their part, they respected his obvious wish for quiet and remained silent.
Then Golitsin stumbled into the room-which slept five, although only four pallets were occupied-and collapsed beside Abel. He was making an odd sound, somewhere between a whistle and a moan, and at first Abel thought he was crying. But then he slapped the pallet and let out a guffaw, and Abel knew it was laughter.
“What?” he said groggily.
“Three,” Golitsin said.
“Women? Times?” Abel sat up. “What?”
“Yes, each,” he said. “Then all at once.”
Abel shook his head. Had he heard that right?
“And years,” Golitsin said. “One for every year I didn’t. That I haven’t.”
“So the last time was-”
“Here,” said Golitsin.
Abel nodded, turned over. “I guess that’s all right, then,” he said.
“By the Bite and the Bolt.”
“Whatever you say.”
“By the Law and the Land.”
“Okay, Golitsin.” Abel’s stomach suddenly spasmed. The nausea rose again momentarily, and with it a thought. Abel fought down the one, but not the other. “Golitsin, did you-is this the only reason you came? Just this tonight? You knew the state of things in Cascade, didn’t you, the reasons the shipment never came?”
“Not the extent.”
“But you knew?”
Golitsin sighed. “Yes, but you’re wrong,” he said. “I may be a bad priest, but I’m not that kind of bad priest. Zilkovsky trusts me, or he wouldn’t have sent me. I know him enough to know that, and so should you by now. That’s why he got your father to send you along, I expect. He trusts you, too. And he knew what I’d do here, and maybe overlooking where I happened to spend the night while here is payment for my being such a good priest for the past three years. That other kind of good priest, I mean. Anyway, we’ll get to the bottom of the problem with the shipments.”
“All right,” Abel said. “Goodnight, then.”
“You think I’m damned?”
“No.”
A pause, then Golitsin spoke again in a lower voice.
“You get yours, kid?”
“I guess.”
“Either you did or you didn’t.”
“Yes. I did. Okay?”
“How was it?”
Abel didn’t answer. Golitsin started to say something else, stopped himself. Then Abel heard him collapse on the pallet, let out a great sigh, and begin to snore.
This seemed to be what Abel’s body was waiting for. The snoring. Familiar. Like after a day on patrol. The clump of spent and tired men who had nothing in common other than the fact that they had all just risked their lives on the same enterprise, taken the same chances, reaped the same reward, which was survival to fight another day.
Abel finally fell asleep.
3
They awoke the next day and washed themselves off at a common bath near the stable. A line of other men joined them, each trying not to catch the other’s eyes. The donts seemed fine, well fed and rested. Abel never liked to leave a dont entirely in unknown hands, but it seemed Spet was none the worse for wear as a result.
Abel and Golitsin rode side by side into the bustling town morning. They stopped to buy a flatcake rolled around grilled dakmeat, and Abel followed it with a pitcher of milk, which he finished in three huge gulps. Golitsin watched in amused amazement. Abel hadn’t realized how thirsty he’d been. The dull throb of his head had obscured his thirst before, he supposed.
“So, back to the priests or to the District Military Headquarters?” he asked. “I’d say we have about equal chances of having gas blown up our asses at both places.”
“What are we going to do?” Abel said. “What if nobody will help us?”
Golitsin shook his head. “Was ever thus in the Land,” he said, echoing a Thursday school mantra. “I don’t know. Improvise, I guess.”
“All right,” Abel said. “Let’s try the DMC headquarters first, and if that doesn’t work, we go find-is there somebody like you around here?”
“Chief of Temple Smithworks, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“There should be. It’s part of the Mandate.”
“Let’s try the military first,” Abel said. “They have guns.”
They crossed the River on a ferry, and approached the DMC HQ, which was in a desert-facing fort about league from the River bank. But even as they approached, Abel knew something was wrong.
There were Scouts here. Too many Scouts. They ringed the encampment like some gnarly outer hull of a nut.
They’re staying in shacks, he thought. Like they’ve been here a while.
A long while, by the looks of it, Raj growled. Living in filth and debauchery. These men haven’t been on patrol in weeks, maybe months.
What Raj said was true. The ground was covered with the remains of people not giving a damn. Dak orts, broken-down wagons, pieces of body armor, stray scraps of papyrus that had blown from a stinking common latrine.
And worst of all, from Abel’s perspective, a dead dont lay in the middle of the road. Not in the exact middle, true. Someone had attempted to pull it to the side just enough for a person to get past, although the very act of pulling had produced a vile trail of rotten intestines running out from the dont and lying across the entire road like a purple-pink line that must not be crossed.
Spet, in fact, shied away and would not cross it. The dont smelled his dead kin and drew back fearfully, his eyes rolling and his shoulder crest feathers erect. It was all Abel could do to calm him, and no effort to urge the dont forward succeeded.
Abel dismounted, as did Golitsin, who was having just as much trouble with his mount.
“I guess I’ll have to lead you across, boy,” Abel whispered gently into the dont’s ear opening. “Don’t worry, I’m just as disgusted as you are, but we’ve got a job to do.”
He did not get the chance. He turned to see two Scouts stumbling up to him armed with muskets. Each wore a mud-speckled russet tunic with leg wrappings unraveling and boots covered in dust and muck. The smell of the two-part carrion wallow, part alcohol reek-reached him and Golitsin before the Scouts actually did.
“Treville man, what yer after?” one of them said. “Tha dont’s brand ye o’ercast. And priest and man ov war brungether tell it Garangipore, dinken I.”
Abel said nothing. They hadn’t addressed him by his rank or asked him a question he felt any obligation to answer.
The scouts drew closer, came to a stop directly in front of them, blocking their way as much as the dead dont.
“Meh tha anshur giben,” the Scout continued, “or pay hell with a shotgut bender.” The Scout raised his musket and put a hand on the trigger.
Stupid, Abel thought. One flinch, one false quiver, and you will do what your stupid mind doesn’t even know it is prepared to do, kill a man in cold blood.
But Abel did not reply. He straightened his tunic, slowly unlimbered his carbine from its saddle holster, made sure of his percussion cap, then checked for something under the saddlebag. He felt its snakelike coils. With a quick tug, he unfastened it from its tong holder, then spun and faced the Bruneberg Scouts with a furious glare.