Cardin attempted to intercept him, sputtering an explanation, but Styke stiff-armed him to the ground. He had no interest in explanations. Someone under his protection was being attacked.
Styke set his sights on the other officer – the man who was not Prost, and bore the pins of a captain on his drink-stained lapels. Styke grabbed the captain by the back of the shirt, lifting him bodily so that his next kick went wide of Tel-islo. He panicked, his feet kicking the air as Styke held him aloft. Styke tossed him toward the nervous cordon of cuirassiers.
The street, he noticed, had gone deathly silent – until a voice broke out from the back of the crowd: “You show those Kez assholes, Major Styke!” Another voice joined the first, and then a round of jeers opened up. The cuirassiers tightened into a knot, clearly wondering whether they should run or open fire, and Styke was more than cognizant of their greater number of companions waiting just a few streets over.
A wrong word, and this would end in a bloodbath.
“Everyone shut up,” he bellowed. Silence returned, and he turned toward Major Prost and Tel-islo. Major Prost swayed on his feet, looking at Styke in cross-eyed confusion.
Styke lifted Tel-islo to his feet. “Can you walk?” he asked gently.
Tel-islo nodded, his eyes fixed fearfully on Prost.
“Go inside, lock your doors, and clean yourself up,” Styke ordered, giving Tel-islo a little shove to propel him toward his inn. He turned toward Prost, looking him in the eyes. Definitely still drunk. Prost lurched after Tel-islo, brandishing a riding crop.
“I’m not done with you, Palo!” He came to a quick stop, eyes focusing on Styke as if seeing him for the first time. “And you,” he said, pointing the riding crop at Styke’s chest, “have just made a very big mistake. I will deal with you as soon as I’ve finished with that foxhead whore’s son over there. You hear me, foxhead? Come back here this instant!”
Styke waved Tel-islo inside with one hand and snatched Prost by the lapels, lifting him into the air with both hands and pulling him so close their noses touched. “You will drop the riding crop and take your soldiers and leave this very instant, or I will break both of your arms.”
Prost let out a noxious burp in Styke’s face, his weak jaw twisting in a drunken sneer. “Unhand me, you colonial tit.”
“These people are under my protection,” Styke said calmly. He didn’t want this to escalate any further, but he would not allow the Kez to bully his people. “Set aside your pride and let Captain Cardin lead you out of the town before things go poorly.”
Prost stared at Styke, the sneer still fixed on his lips, his eyes gradually focusing. Slowly, deliberately, he closed his lips and sucked his cheeks in. Styke could see exactly what was going to happen next, and he decided in the back of his head that he was just going to let it happen.
The wad of phlegm smacked him just below the left eye, splattering all cross his face and dripping down his cheek. He heard an audible gasp from among the closest members of the crowd and a very distinct, “Oh, shit,” from Captain Cardin.
Styke dropped Prost to his feet, snatching him by the left arm before his drunk legs could give out beneath him. He grasped Prost’s wrist in one hand and his bicep with the other, then brought the major’s elbow down over his knee like he’d done to the cuirassier’s carbine. There was a sickening snap, bone and blood tearing through Prost’s uniform, and an almost startlingly long pause before Prost began to scream.
He continued to scream as Styke forced him around and did the same to the other arm. It was done in just a few seconds, then he let Prost fall to the ground, where he rolled in the dust, screaming in pain and bellowing for someone to kill Styke.
Styke looked up to find Cardin staring at him. Beyond, several dozen of the mounted cuirassiers had arrived, with Sergeant Gracely at their front. They froze in indecision when they saw that the source of the screams was their major, and Styke could practically see the calculations on Gracely’s face as she wondered whether she should kill Styke, and then whether she could.
“Take him and get out of my city,” Styke told Cardin. Styke raised his head to the gathered crowd and spoke over the screams of the man at his feet. “You will disperse now. Constable Remi will be around later to talk to the witnesses of this crime. Thank you.” He turned his back on the crowd and the cuirassiers and headed toward the front door of the inn, where he spotted Tel-islo’s face in the window. There was a thump, and then the sound of a latch sliding.
Styke stepped inside the quiet of the inn and headed to the bar. “Something bitter,” he told Tel-islo, waiting patiently until the mug of beer was set in front of him. He took a sip, then pressed the cool mug against his temple as he listened to the muffled sounds of soldiers trying to quiet Prost’s screaming.
“Thank you, Major,” Tel-islo said, not meeting Styke’s eye.
“Your wife owes me an apple pie this fall,” Styke said gruffly, wishing he’d stayed in bed with Rezi and knowing she was going to spend the next few days reminding him how that would have been a much better idea.
Tel-islo gave Styke a grateful smile. “You’ll have one every day for a week.”
That, Styke decided, might actually make this whole thing worth it. Running a hand through his hair, he asked Tel-islo, “What was this whole thing about, anyways?”
“I asked him to pay his tab,” Tel-islo gulped. “He… objected to my request.”
“What an asshole,” Styke muttered. “Look, it’s all right. You’re under my protection, Palo or not, and I’m not gonna let some continental piece of shit kick you around.”
“Again, thank you.”
Styke listened to the sound of hoofbeats and the shouting of soldiers outside. If Cardin was properly motivated to keep a riot from happening, he would have his men out of town within a quarter of an hour. He’d rush Prost to Landfall to find a healing Privileged, and within a couple of days word would reach the governor. Styke cursed his own temper and tried to decide what he was going to do next. The governor was not going to be happy, to put it lightly. Perhaps, Styke thought, he should quietly retire, heading up into the mountains before someone came to arrest him.
Styke counted down the minutes, growing slightly concerned as the sound of hoofbeats suddenly grew louder and a few angry shouts came from the street. He turned around on his stool. “What’s going on?”
Tel-islo rushed to the window. His face grew ashen, and he took a step backwards.
Before Styke could get to his feet, the door opened. He was surprised to find Captain Cardin and a small group of soldiers in Kez uniforms who were definitely not cuirassiers. Beyond them, he could see that the crowd had not dispersed and that the cuirassiers were definitely still here. These new soldiers each had a red feather stuck in their lapels, and they held their muskets menacingly.
“I thought I told you to go,” Styke said.
Cardin was pale, sweating visibly. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but this is out of my hands. Major Benjamin Styke, I arrest you in the name of Governor Crillot je Sirod, and I ask that you come along with me quietly.”
Styke felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end. The sounds he’d heard – those weren’t soldiers leaving. They were soldiers arriving. Something clicked in his brain, and he recognized the red feathers. Of course. They were the governor’s personal bodyguard. Which meant that the governor himself was here.
Talk about bad damned luck.