“If it was suicide, I wouldn’t do it.”
“Then why are you?”
Cale shrugged. “If I rescue the girl then His Enormity, the Marshal will be undyingly grateful. Grateful enough to give me money-a lot of money-and safe passage.”
“Where to?”
“Somewhere it’s warm, the food is good, and as far away from the Redeemers as you can get without falling off the edge of the world.”
“And your friends?”
“Friends? Oh, they can come too. Why not?”
“The risk is too great. Better let her be a hostage, and Materazzi can buy her out with whatever it is the Redeemers want.”
“What makes you so sure she’s a hostage?” said Cale, his voice cold and irritable. IdrisPukke looked at him.
“So-now perhaps we get the truth.”
“The truth is that you think the Redeemers are like you-nastier, madder-but that what you want and they want, well, it’s the same underneath. But it isn’t.” He sighed. “It’s not that I understand them, because I don’t. I thought I did until what happened before I killed that shit-bag Picarbo-the Redeemer. I told you that I did it to stop him, you know, raking her.”
“Raping.”
Cale reddened, hating to be corrected. “Whatever it’s called doesn’t matter-that’s not what he was doing. He was cutting her up.” Then he told IdrisPukke exactly what happened that night.
“My God!” said an appalled IdrisPukke when he’d finished. “Why?”
“No idea. That’s what I meant when I said I’d stopped thinking I knew what was going on in their nasty little minds.”
“Why would they do that to Arbell Materazzi?”
“I told you, I don’t know. Maybe they want to see what a Materazzi woman is like, you know…” He paused, awkward for once. “Inside. I don’t know. But it doesn’t make sense that they want her for money. That isn’t their way.”
“It makes even more sense if they want you back.”
Cale gasped, almost laughing.
“They’d like to make an instance of me-a bonfire with all the trimmings. And I don’t deny they’d go to extreme lengths to do it-but starting a war with the Materazzi over an acolyte? Not in a thousand years.” He smiled, grim. “I guess the same thought has crossed the Marshal’s mind. I’m prepared to bet the four of us would be on our way to the Sanctuary in two shakes of a lamb’s tail just as a gesture of his goodwill. Don’t you think so?”
IdrisPukke did not reply, because that was exactly what he’d been thinking. Both were silent for a couple of minutes.
“It is a risk. But it can be done,” said Cale. “She’s nothing to me,” he lied. “I wouldn’t throw my life away for some spoiled Materazzi brat. If the Redeemers take her, I’ve got everything to lose. If we get her back, everything to gain. You too, just as much as me. All you have to do is cover me. Even if I fail you’ve got a better than even chance of getting away. And nobody, let’s face it, is going to thank you if they find out you caught up with her and let them go without doing anything.”
IdrisPukke smiled. “The unfairness of life-always the best argument. Very well. Tell me your plan.”
“There were three words Bosco beat into me nearly every day of my life-surprise, violence, momentum. Now he’s going to wish he hadn’t.” Cale drew a circle in the dead pine needles that covered the forest floor.
“There’ll be four guards around the circle-east, west, south, north. There’s no moon tonight, so we can’t move until first light. That’s when you’ll have to kill the guard at the west-as soon as you can make him out. Then I’ll take the south guard. You have to hold the west guard’s position because it’s the only one where it’s possible to get in a shot behind the rock the girl is next to. That’s where I’m going to take her as soon as I cut her free. Do you know any birdcalls?”
“I can do an owl,” said IdrisPukke doubtfully. “But there aren’t any owls in this part of the world.”
“The Redeemers probably don’t know that.” Cale paused. “What does an owl sound like?”
IdrisPukke gave him a demonstration. “What if the guard makes a noise while I’m trying to kill him?”
“Trying?” said Cale, appalled. “There won’t be any trying. I don’t want to hear anything about doing your best. Bungle it and I’m dead. Understand?”
IdrisPukke looked at Cale, piqued. “Don’t worry about me, boy.” “Well, I do worry. So once I hear your signal, I’ll kill the south guard. I’ll need a minute to put on his cassock. Then I’ll just walk into the camp as quietly as I can. Once the remaining guards work out what’s happening…”
“Why don’t we kill all the lookouts first?”
“There’s no chance you’ll be able to crawl around here for long without giving yourself away. This is the safest it’s going to be. They’ll be confused and I’ll look just like the others in camp. It’ll still be near dark. If you do your job properly, one way or the other, it isn’t going to take long.”
“So what do I do then?”
“You won’t see where the lookouts are on the north and east unless they start shooting-if they do, then you shoot back-keep their heads down. I’ll take the girl behind the rock here. They can’t get us from anywhere but directly above.” Cale smiled. “That’s when this gets tricky. You have to stop them getting directly above and behind us until I can make a run for it. She’ll be safe there as long as you can keep them from taking your position. Once I’m over the lip, it’s two against two.”
“That’s forty yards in the open and up a steep climb for the last fifteen. If they’re any good, I don’t think much of your chances.”
“They’ll be good.”
“Anyway, I can’t see why I’m worrying about a suicidal dash-after all, you’ve got to kill six armed men single-handed first. This whole idea is ridiculous. We should wait for the Materazzi.”
“They’ll kill her before the Materazzi get to her. This is the only chance she has. Depend on it-I can do this quicker than I can tell you about it. They won’t expect it so close to dawn, and they won’t be able to tell me from one of their own in the dark. Once they’ve realized it’s an attack, they’ll be expecting Materazzi all over the place, they’re not going to be expecting anything like this.”
“Because it’s too stupid to believe.”
“It’s my life here, not yours.”
“And the girl’s.”
“The girl is worth something only if we’re the ones who save her. Without this, you descend to a kind of nothing-or worse. The choice is simple enough, I’d say.”
Six hours later IdrisPukke was standing over the body of the dead west guard.
In times gone by IdrisPukke had commanded numerous battles in which many thousands had died. But it had been a long time since he had killed a man face-to-face. He stood for a moment looking down at the glassy eyes and open mouth, lips pulled back over his teeth, and he could feel his whole body begin to shake.
As a result, his effort at impersonating an owl stuck in his throat and might have alarmed anyone who ever heard one before. But within less than a minute he could just make out the figure of Cale moving slowly down the slope, being careful not to make a noise or, if he was seen by the remaining two guards, to be in any kind of a hurry.
A profound dread began to fill IdrisPukke as he watched what, after all, was no more than a boy walk easily up to the six sleeping men and begin.
He had not been sure what to expect, but it was nothing like this. Cale drew his shortsword and in one movement stabbed downward at the first sleeping figure; the man neither moved nor cried out. Still unhurried, Cale moved on to the second man. Again the powerful downward strike and the lack of a cry. As he moved, the third Redeemer began to stir and even raised his head. Another strike-if he called out, IdrisPukke could not hear. Cale moved to the fourth man, who now sat upright and sleepily gazed at Cale, puzzled but not afraid. A downward jab into his throat and he fell back with a cry, strangled but loud.