The Heretic

lamplighting,” he said.

“Wastelander!” said Rostov, more loudly. “Answer me!”

Gaspar forced himself to tear his gaze away from the boy. “Great sheik,” he said. “I will do whatever you ask of me.”

“Was that ever a question?”

Gaspar didn’t answer. There was no way to answer that would not mean doom.

Rostov laughed lowly, and stepped beside Gaspar, stepped toward the slaves. They must have seen something forbidding in his countenance-Gaspar was too busy taking in, drinking in, Frel, to notice-for they both stepped back.

And then he let the map unroll again, the Redlands map. He held it up like a dividing curtain between Gaspar and the food, the boy, cutting off his view.

“Now,” said Rostov. “Show me. Show me where.”

Gaspar slowly raised his hand. He looked at the map. He would locate it, the hilltop within the surrounding mountains where the Scouts were camped, he would point to it. But no. He would be killing ninety men.

He stared at the map. And, after a moment, Gaspar let out a stifled whimper, like the last breath of a dak that you had to put down for its own good.

“What?”

“I-” he whimpered. I am not an evil man.

“What are you mumbling about, wastelander? Speak up!”

The bastards! Bastards to put him in such a position. They deserved what was coming.

The bastard Weldletter, making the theft so easy.

In a way it will be Weldletter’s own fault.

And the lieutenant. The Dashian spawn. Taking him hostage, leaving him no choice.

My child, my child!

He wanted to run, to grab Frel and run, but he knew the bodyguards would cut him down at the first move.

Instead, his finger moved toward the map, found the curve of the contour line he was looking for. The bastard Weldletter had shown him how these worked, what they represented.

“Here,” he heard his voice croak. “In this dry run, near a blackstone cliff.”

Over. Now there was only hope. Only-

Gaspar looked up into the shining, black eyes of Rostov, and felt that hope crinkle, like the skin of one of the Schlusels, strapped to those strange, uniformly shaped stones.

He’s not going to let Frel go.

A part of him, a small rational voice, echoed quietly within him that it had been a forlorn hope all along.

Rostov didn’t have to say anything. The same voice said it for him.

You fooled yourself, great chief. You were never going to save your son.

A shot rang out. One of the bodyguard crumpled. Another, and the second man, who had drawn a blunderbuss pistol with almost supernatural alacrity, also grabbed at his chest just under the neck as it exploded and bled. He fell also, writhing and kicking in a pool of his own blood, his limbs out of his motor control and seemingly full of crawling insects.

From the edge of the tent two men stepped forward. Both were in Blaskoye white, but they wore the garments loosely, in an unkempt fashion a Blaskoye would not have been caught dead in.

Both held composite bows notched with arrow.

And those arrows were pointing straight at Rostov.

Amazingly, Rostov only smiled the broader. The more terribly.

“You’ve killed my cousins,” he said. “This is not something we take lightly here in the Redlands.”

He nodded toward the wine slave.

“You’ve come for the girl, I suppose,” he said. “There she is. Take her.”

The lieutenant held his bow steady. “You get her, Kruso,” he said to the other man. The other man quickly moved over, put an hand on the slave girl’s arm, and pulled the wine pitcher toward him. He gently took it from her grasp, set it on a nearby pedestal that had been designed for such a purpose, the delivery of spent dishes. Then he pulled the girl toward himself and into his arm.

“Her ah gotten, Lieutenant,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Rostov shook his head. “Lieutenant,” he said. “That’s not a name. It’s a thing, like carpenter or potter. One who carries out the orders of others, and has no will of his own.”

“My name is Dashian,” the other replied.

“Dashian is the commander,” said Rostov. “You are a lieutenant, not a Dashian.”

“We’re leaving now,” the lieutenant said.

“And how will you do so?”

“Through the entrance,” said the other.

“Unlikely.”

“Maybe you are right,” said the lieutenant. He turned to the other Scout. “Ready, Kruso?”

“Aye, Lieutenant.”

“No!” shouted Gaspar. “You can’t go. Not like this. Not now.”

“Goodbye, Gaspar,” said the lieutenant.

“Take the boy,” Gaspar said. “You must!”

“You broke our deal.”

“Take him,” Gaspar pleaded. “He’s dead if you don’t.”

Dashian glanced quickly to the other, the one called Kruso. Kruso shook his head. “Na good, thet many toh carry,” he said.

Rostov began to laugh. “This is the chatter of walking corpses,” he said. “Wind over rocks. Nothing. Lower your bows.” He motioned to them impatiently, pointing downward with a finger. “Lower your bows and the slaves will die quickly, cleanly.”

“I saw the Schlusels,” said Dashian.

Rostov growled impatiently.

“Then you saw how this has to end. You will live, in a manner of speaking. I will trade you to your father,” he said. “Perhaps a little worse for wear, perhaps no longer quite the man you were. The others…well, I have my cousins to avenge, so I’m afraid I cannot promise to make it quick. This one”-he nodded toward Gaspar-“must watch the boy die, of course.”

Gaspar felt himself shaking. So much he had risked. Now to have it all yanked from his hands.

I’m a coward, after all, he thought. I do not want to watch him die. I would want to go before. I would beg to go before if I thought Rostov would listen.

“Enough,” said Dashian. Gaspar looked up, ready for the end to come. But the lieutenant was not speaking to Rostov. He was speaking to the other, the sergeant. “Kruso?”

Together they raised their bows and loosed the arrows. The string sang out and the arrows shot upward, toward the ceiling. Then past the ceiling and through the great venting hole at the very apex of the structure. Upward and out into daylight.

Rostov reached for the knife in his belt, ignoring the pistol stuffed in beside it. He was moving toward the boy.

I would beg, but he wouldn’t listen.

And then the sky began to rain arrows.

Split-awareness interpolation complete to ninety-three point two seven degrees of accuracy, said Center. The tracking and location purposes are served.My recommendation is that you return to single-channel awareness with extreme alacrity.

Hell, yes, said Abel. We’re here.