March To The Sea

'It's more what we can do for you,' Roger told him with a smile. 'I understand you have a problem.'

'That we do,' Deb Tar agreed with a handclap of emphasis. 'But I doubt you'll be able to do anything about it.'

'I don't know about that,' Roger said. 'We might surprise you.'

'Some other time, basik,' the other Mardukan grunted. 'We're about to get the problem solved for us.'

'Oh.' Roger raised an eyebrow. 'I take it there are competitors?'

'For a month's production from my mine?' Deb Tar's snort was perilously near to a snarl. 'Of course there are—including my former mine manager,' he continued with a distasteful gesture of a false-hand at the other civilian. 'Nor Tob seems to feel that it should be easy to take the valley back. Since, after all, it was so easy to take away from him in the first place.'

'It was not my fault,' the former manager ground out. 'Was I the guard commander?'

'No, you weren't,' the owner agreed. 'Otherwise your horns would be over my fireplace. There's still an empty space I could fit them into, though. I would have saved half the cost if you hadn't persuaded me to relocate the refinery there, as well!'

'You made money hand over hand from that!' the former manager shot back, then turned to Roger and Cord. 'Come on, basik,' he snarled. 'Let us show you how real Mardukans deal with scum like this!'

'Oh, by all means, lead on,' Roger invited, waving towards the door. 'This I've got to see.'

CHAPTER FOUR

'The valley's a fortress,' Roger said, and took a sip of wine.

'So, what happened?' Julian asked.

'I've got the whole thing on helmet recording, but the short answer is that it was a farce.'

'How?' Kosutic asked. She looked at the schematic of the valley entrance and shook her head. 'I don't see anything particularly humorous about the situation. You could take that with a wave of Kranolta, but that's the only way to go over the wall that comes to mind.'

'Yep,' Roger agreed. 'And that was more or less what our friend Nor Tob tried. He gathered up a few hundred out-of-work miners and half-assed mercenaries with a promise to divide the loot when they took the place and threw them straight at it.'

He laughed and shook his head.

'They came at the wall with ladders, but it's so damned high that half the ladders broke under the weight of the climbers. Those that didn't got pushed down easily. Basically, they didn't get within five meters of the top.'

'How many casualties?' Gunny Lai asked. The gunnery sergeant stood beside Kosutic, looking down at the map and rubbing the side of her nose.

'None,' Roger said with another laugh. 'Oh, there were a few broken arms and more bruised egos, but no military casualties. The barb mercenaries never even shot back. They just pushed the ladders down and threw stuff. Mostly smelly stuff, like their slop buckets.'

'Contemptuous, were they?' the sergeant major asked as she panned the map out to get a look at the entire valley.

'Very,' Roger told her. 'These guys—they call themselves the Vasin—are apparently a tribe that got displaced by this Boman invasion. Either they were already mercenaries, or else they took up the trade after they got shoved off their homeland originally. Nobody's too sure about that, but whichever it was, it sounds to me like they were looking for work when they hit Ran Tai and they'd gone to the mine as a good place to trade some of their hides for raw gold and silver at refinery prices. As nearly as I can tell, they didn't have any intention of taking it before they got there and realized how wide open it was. No one seems to know exactly what started the ruckus, but they ended up in possession of the place, and according to the owner, Deb Tar, he had over two months of refined output bagged and crated for shipment when they moved in on him. He really, really wants that loot back, but they're not especially eager to hand it over, and since they grabbed it so easily, they're pretty contemptuous of all the locals. Even if they weren't, the city authorities aren't about to take the losses involved in throwing them out—especially when Deb Tar deliberately located his refining facilities right there at the minehead to avoid paying city taxes on them. The way the Council sees it, it's out of their jurisdiction, so good luck to him. And from some of the conversations we overheard, the Vasin have offered Deb Tar a price to get his property back . . . an even three months' production.'

'Ouch!' Kosutic grimaced. 'Still, I'd think giving up an extra month of output wouldn't sound all that unreasonable if it got the mines back for him. He can always dig more, after all.'

'But they are bargaining?' Sergeant Jin asked. 'That wasn't what we were told.'

'Oh, yeah, they're ready enough to deal.' Roger smiled broadly. 'Deb Tar is just holding out for a better price, which is why he's looking so hard for someone who can kick them out without meeting their demands. Nor Tob was the first to actually try to take him up on it, but when he saw that his own valiant effort was going to be a bust, he decided to haul ass and headed out as soon as it was clear the assault was a failure.'

'No wonder,' Kosutic laughed. 'I bet those miners were some pissed individuals. Anybody know where he went?'

'Nope,' Julian said. 'It looks like he's gone to ground somewhere. He hasn't left the area, but he hasn't been seen in his usual haunts, either.'

'I been lookin' around,' Poertena interjected. 'T'is Deb Tar, he offering a full month's output to whoever get them out. T'at be something like thirty sedant in gold an' another ten in silver, an' a sedant's nearly half a kilo. Even with tee prices up here, we can load up ever't'ing we need for less t'an twenty sedant of gold.' He shrugged. 'Tee other gold an' silver be profit.'

'So it's a worthwhile operation,' Roger said. 'If anyone can figure out a method to get in, at least.'

'Oh, that's easy enough,' Kosutic told him, looking up from the map display.

'Yeah. Getting in isn't a problem,' Jin agreed. 'The question is how we go about taking on a hundred scummy mercenaries after we do.'

'Oh?' Roger looked over the sergeant major's shoulder at the map. 'What are you planning?'

'Welll . . .' Kosutic drawled, and pointed at the map. 'Your helmet imagery shows that there's a straight cliff at the entrance, right?'

'It widens out further in,' Roger said. 'But, yes, the entrance is a narrow gorge, nearly fifty meters high. There's a stream that comes out through a metal grate at the base of the wall. It's probably what cut the gorge in the first place.'

'Yes, Sir,' Gunny Lai said. 'But if you get up on top of that plateau at the entrance, you can come around behind the wall and rappel right down on their heads.'

'Oh.' The prince tugged at a flyaway strand of hair and frowned. 'What about getting up the face in the first place?'

'That we can do, Sir,' Kosutic said. 'But I want to know more about the scummies on the inside. What their pattern is, what sorts of guard posts they set—that sort of thing.'

'All right,' Roger said. 'But we've got some competitors in this. Let's not let them have an edge or tip our own hand. Send a team up to the plateau to check out the route, but tell them to stay low and keep their heads down.'

* * *

'Kosutic and her great ideas,' Julian said sourly.

The windswept plateau was actively cold in the night wind, and the distant lights of the town didn't make him feel any better. If he and Poertena hadn't happened to hear about this job and pass the word to Roger, he could have been down there now, drinking on the prince's decicred.

'Hey, I think we lucked out again, Sergeant,' Gronningen said quietly.