listening?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He hit me on the head again. I don’t know why-maybe because my skull is as thick as my old man used to tell me it was-he didn’t put me all the way out. I lay there powerless but aware as he drew a knife across my left cheek. Then he got up and went away and my only companions were pain, nausea, and humiliation.
After a while I got my feet under me and stumbled off to find Raven. I hadn’t been whipped up on so bad since I was a kid. The slash burned like hell but wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.
I actually found them pretty easy, considering. Only took me about fifteen minutes. There was a little light now from a big fire burning down south. Later I found out they were getting rid of the bodies of the first hundred people to die from the cholera. The twins must have anticipated epidemics. They’d had the engineers save all the scrap lumber from the demolished buildings.
I stumbled over Raven is how I found him.
He was out cold. He had a slash just like mine.
The Torque was about ten feet away and just starting to twitch and make noises. He had been cut, too.
So had Smiley. Twice. The second cut was about four inches below the first, ran from ear to ear, and was the last wound he’d ever suffer.
They’d done a number on us, all right.
Raven hadn’t gotten him a swift kick but a good whack on the head. He was still rocky as we reported. His hands shook badly as he tried to sign to Darling: “One man, I think. Took us by surprise.” He was embarrassed.
I don’t think I ever saw him embarrassed like that before. But he never got took like that before, either.
I was embarrassed when my turn came because I had to report every word the man had said. I was afraid I was going to have to explain a couple of them.
She surprised me for the hundredth time by not being as ignorant as I expected.
Silent touched his cheek, signed, “Queen’s Bridge.”
Darling nodded.
I had to ask.
Silent signed, “When we fought the Nightstalkers at Queen’s Bridge they took eighteen prisoners. They marked them all on the left cheek and turned them loose.”
“What the hell? Could the soldiers themselves have the spike? Is that why they haven’t had any luck finding it? Is the brigadier playing some game of her own?” I did it in sign. You get into the habit when you’re around Darling long.
She looked at me weird for a few seconds, then signed, “We have to get out of here now. Soldiers-not Nightstalkers-are going to come any minute.”
I saw it then.
Somebody was a mad genius, a wizard at thinking on his feet. In the minutes he’d had us at his mercy he’d put together a plan that could hurl Oar into a whirlpool of chaos and violence.
He had spared us only to spark a greater bloodletting.
The twins’ soldiers would grab us, with the marks on us, and eliminate the White Rose menace. Word would get out. A significant portion of the population would start raising hell. Meantime, the twins would take our testimony on the rack and find cause to suspect the Nightstalkers and their commander. There was no love lost there now and there was no way the Nightstalkers were going to let their brigadier be arrested or even relieved of her command.
The Nightstalkers were outnumbered by the other gray regiments but they were the better, tougher soldiers and they would win in any confrontation, unless the twins themselves intervened directly.
Bloody-minded genius. Who could keep his or her mind on the silver spike with all that shit going on?
While I was thinking, Darling was flinging orders left and right. She sent all the little Plain creatures out to scout around and see who was in the neighborhood and to watch for soldiers. She sent the Torque brothers off to warn our Rebel friends. Bomanz and Silent she sent to the area where we got bushwhacked to see if they, with their talents, could pick up anything.
She looked from me to Raven and back again, deciding who should be their guide.
She picked Raven.
Before they could all work up a good scowl for me-I think Silent was pleased that he would not be leaving her alone with Raven-one of the Plain creatures zipped in to report the area clear except for an antiquated wino passed out on the wooden sidewalk half a block away.
Darling signed, “Let us go now.”
We all went.
The wave of raids and arrests started less than an hour later.
LI
Smeds looked at Tully across the little table. His cousin was drinking with a grim determination but he was still stone-cold sober. Those bodies. Gruesome. Those men chasing them through the night. Those fires in the south, where they were burning the bodies of cholera victims. Now there were bands of soldiers tramping through the streets, about some nocturnal business that had set the rumors flying. It was not a time to inspire confidence in one’s security.
The soldiers-some of them-were troubled, too. Moments before, several Nightstalkers had come in to consult the resident corporal. Now the whole bunch was headed out. They looked like they expected bad trouble.
“It’s starting to come apart,” Smeds said. He felt breathless.
Shivering, Tully nodded. “If I knew what we was going to go through I would’ve said screw the spike.”
“The big hit, man. I guess when you think about it it wasn’t never that easy for nobody that ever made it.”
“Yeah. What I did, I never thought it through. Or I would’ve figured the world would go crazy. I would’ve figured there’d be just a whole mob of them who’d kill anybody and do anything to get ahold of it. What the hell is wrong with this beer? It’s got a kick like a mouse.”
“Better enjoy it.” Fish appeared out of nowhere. He had a haggard, harried look. He joined them. “It might be the last beer in town.” He slumped, wrung out. “I’ve done what I can. All we can do is wait. And hope.”
Smeds asked, “What’s going on out there? With the soldiers.”
“They’re rounding up Rebels. They’re going to execute a big bunch in the morning. That ought to set off the explosion that will break the city wide open.”
“What if it don’t?” Tully asked.
“Then we’re screwed. Sooner or later they’ll get us. Process of elimination.” Fish stole a sip of Smeds’s beer. “Cheer up. They’re between us and the cholera. Maybe it’ll get them before they get us.”
“Shit!”
“We ought to get some sleep.”
“You kidding?”
“We ought to try. We ought, at least, to get out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.”
Smeds fell asleep in about two minutes.
He was not sure what wakened him. The sun was up. So were Tully and Fish. Up and out of there. Something made him start shivering. He went to the common room. It was empty.
It hit him as he crossed to the door.
The silence.
The morning was as still as the grave. But for his footsteps he would have feared he was deaf. The door groaned as he opened it.
Everyone stood in the street, looking toward the center of Oar, waiting for something.
The wait was short.
Smeds felt it in the earth before it reached his ears, a monster vibration pursued by an avalanche of rage, a
