move.
And that’s the way it is, I guess. There’s no blessing so pure it doesn’t bring harm to someone. The reprieve I’d offered two strangers meant death for Roussel. Though if I was being honest about it, I felt no more slitting his throat than I would have stepping on a cockroach – less really, ’cause with the cockroach I’d have needed to clean my boots.
At least no one could accuse me of half-measures – I’d wet my trench blade, as instructed.
I popped the cork on another grenade and dropped it on the corpse, then sprinted back down the passageway. It went off behind me, splattering Roussel’s insides against the walls, swaths of red flesh and white bone. A loud crack and the top floor caved in on top of him, a half-dozen tons of brick and wood. It was quite a cenotaph. More than he warranted, were I to be frank.
Out the way I’d come and I felt the building weakening around me. A black-powder bomb doesn’t make nothing like the damage of an artillery shell or a battle hex, but you drop enough of them and they’ll do the trick. It was clear I wasn’t the only one who’d decided the obstructions to his path would best be leveled by heavy ordnance. Things went on like this and there wouldn’t be enough left of the Hen and Harpy to shade a vagrant from the sun.
Most of the other vets were waiting in the alley, and after a moment the rest came charging out as well. One or two were bloodied, none seriously. Security hadn’t been that at all – men waiting around to die would be more accurate. Artur had thrown a glancing blow, and figured the veterans to do the same, chew at their edges, hit a safe house or execute a few low-level players. That had been his mistake – Pretories wasn’t a crime lord, didn’t abide by their customs and codes. The commander learned something from five years dancing with the Dren, though the Daevas knew most of the rest of the higher-ups hadn’t. In truth it was as precisely executed a mission as you could ask for, a decapitating strike that lasted all of ten minutes, with barely a casualty taken.
Barely.
‘Where’s Roussel?’ Rabbit asked once we were back in the wagon and pulling away, the excitement of the evening momentarily blinding him to his partner’s absence.
I shook my head. ‘They got him.’
‘Bullshit,’ he said, and he wasn’t smiling anymore. ‘Not Roussel.’
‘Anybody can get it, Rabbit – you been doing this long enough to know that.’
‘Where’s the body?’ Hroudland asked.
‘I had to clear the room.’ I tapped at the empty rack on my bandolier. ‘There was nothing to carry out.’
‘You were supposed to have his back.’
‘What the hell do you want from me? Roussel was a berserker – once he smelled blood he wanted to make more. I couldn’t keep up with him.’
‘Son of a bitch.’ Rabbit’s hands began to shake, clenched but wavering. ‘Son of a bitch!’ He turned his square shoulders and slammed a fist into the side of the wagon. Even short a man the confines were tight, and the vet sitting next to him had to scramble to avoid being struck.
‘Cool off,’ said the oversized Vaalan who’d taken the door down. He was sitting across from Rabbit, flexing his hands around the hilt of his mace. ‘Roussel knew the risks – getting crazy won’t do nothing to bring him back.’
The rest of the wagon echoed agreement. I got the sense that even amongst this pack of killers, Roussel was little loved. And there wasn’t any reason to think things had gone any way except how I’d said it.
Rabbit was gassed to hell, sweating and snorting like a stallion. Hroudland was looking at me in a fashion I didn’t care for, but he was at least savvy enough to see that now wasn’t the time for further violence. After a moment he leaned over and whispered something in his subordinate’s ear, and whatever it was it seemed to work. The madness gradually drained out of Rabbit’s eyes, replaced with a broad smile. Not his normal friendly idiocy, but something tainted and deadly as a rusty nail. ‘We made them pay for it, though. By the Scarred One, we made them pay for it.’ He pulled something from a pouch on his back, then tossed it to the wagon floor.
At my feet were Artur’s blond tresses, now stained with red, a fair bit of waxy scalp attached.
‘A class act, Rabbit,’ I said, turning away. ‘Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.’
42
Back at the Earl I stepped right past our ale tap and pulled a bottle of liquor from below the counter, then found myself a spot in the corner and went to it. I knew what I was in for when I set things rolling, I told myself after the first shot. After about the third I even started to believe it. At some point I discovered the vial of breath in my pocket was empty, though I didn’t remember using it.
By the time Adolphus and Wren came in, thrilled with the progress of the evening, I was the sort of drunk no man should get. The sort of drunk where you don’t notice mistakes, where you get to enjoying making them.
‘If it isn’t the Hero of Aunis, and his faithful sidekick.’
They’d missed me in the dark, had already crossed to the bar. Adolphus stopped smiling, but Wren’s grin seemed slapped on, cheeks flushed red. Probably Adolphus had given him a nip or two in the bustle and the excitement, Adolphus or one of our ex-comrades.
I stood up from my seat, slow enough to keep my legs steady, then ambled over to meet them. ‘Late night, I see.’
Adolphus muttered something under his breath.
‘Me too, as it turns out. Noble service to the corps, the both of us. Though I imagine mine had a different tenor.’
‘Adolphus was a hit. He left everyone in tears,’ Wren piped in, happily drunk or actively trying to aggravate me.
‘Just like the Dren!’ The words swelled together incomprehensibly.
‘Best you go to bed now,’ Adolphus answered, his bad eye refusing to meet my gaze, and his good one.
‘Spare a few moments for a drink with an old veteran, down on his luck.’ I reached behind the counter and slopped some liquor into fresh cups. ‘You wouldn’t want to leave a man behind.’
Adolphus didn’t like where this was going, but he went along with it anyway. After a moment Wren took his cue as well, hands small and stiff around the mug.
‘What should we drink to?’
‘It’s your show,’ the giant grumbled.
‘Indeed it is.’ I angled my tumbler above my head. ‘To the men of the First Capital Infantry, as slippery a batch of motherfuckers as ever planted a knife in a man’s back.’ I rolled back the rim of the cup.
Wren downed his own, then raised a mocking hand to his forehead.
I cuffed it away. ‘Don’t ever fucking salute me,’ I said. ‘Don’t ever fucking salute anyone.’
‘Boy, bed,’ Adolphus ordered, and this time I didn’t contradict him. Wren slunk off to the back room, then put an ear to the door, if I know anything about anything.
‘You ought to be more careful with your words – you can only coast on that liquor but so long.’
I poured whiskey into my cup, then into my throat. ‘I’ll stand by them.’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘But right just the same.’
‘I won’t listen to you badmouth the men we died with. I’m proud to count myself a member of the Fightin’ First.’
‘You been telling Wren that?’
‘There are worse things than being a soldier.’
‘I will see that child in the ground before I see him in uniform.’ I took a long swig straight from the bottle, cutting out the middleman. ‘I’ll put him there myself.’
‘Because your current employment is so praiseworthy?’
‘Damn right. I kill a man now at least I know it’s in my interest, not ’cause he’s wearing different colored leather.’
‘Why do you insist upon pissing on everything we were?’
‘Because I remember it accurately – I’m not puffing myself up to impress a child.’
