Warlord

down as she fellated him. His left hand stroked her hair; he smiled dreamily, and rested the point of a fighting knife on the skin between her neck and collarbone. Four others in stained white uniforms were sprawled around the table; and three times as many servants, mistresses and general hangers-on, frozen at the sound of the shot in every activity from drunken sleep through vomiting and shouted song to vigorous fornication.

The oldest of the peasant women screamed sharply as the door flew open. The girl stopped at her task as she felt the knifepoint lift from her arteries; looked up and scuttled on all fours over to a wall-side bench and hid beneath it, curled into a ball with her eyes closed. Silence fell as the Companions stepped through behind Raj, weapons ready; silence except for the last shriek from the bedroom. That door banged open, too, and a man in the 2nd's uniform stepped through.

'What the Outer Dark-' he began, then focused owlishly on the gun-muzzles staring at him across the room. His trousers were unbuttoned, and there was blood on the slack genitals and clotted in the wool. Raj could see him forcing alertness, eyes narrowing and hand dropping to his pistol as a man in servant's livery stepped through the door behind him. The servant's trousers were stained as well, although it was harder to tell against the burgundy fabric. He was pushing a nude boy of about ten ahead of him, gripping his neck.

'I'll put the tightass snottie back with the others, Messer-' he began. Faster than his master, or simply less drunk, he pushed the boy away sprawling and crouched. That would be the boy Tuk, Raj thought, surprised at the clarity of his mind, watching the child haul himself across the packed dirt with a red sheet glistening in the firelight across the backs of his thighs. Center's scenarios played themselves through his mind; he did not need the angel-computer to prompt them now. Tewfik riding his dog into the sea . .

'Messers,' Raj began, his voice high and clear. It was very important to enunciate clearly. 'Thank you for your timely aid, in, in apprehending these bandits.'

More silence, broken only by the whimpering of the raped children. Then a babble of voices, hooting laughter from some of the servants and mistresses, shouts of anger from the soldiers of the 2nd.

'Spirit curse you, what bandits?' the man with the fighting knife still in his hand said, blinking; the other hand fumbled his garments closed, a human male's first instinct in a conflict situation. Adrenaline was sobering him a little, but not much. 'Thersh. . there's nobody here but our servants, man!' He peered. 'Why, it's the Descotter sheep-diddler, the one who spends all day wallowing in the dirt while his wife-'

Raj fired into the ceiling again; it was roughly-barked pine logs with lathes laid over, and dust filtered down from the bullet hole. He suppressed a sneeze.

'It shows great initiative of you to hold them helpless here, after the atrocities they've committed on Civil Government subjects,' he went on, overriding the man's voice. Ignoring him, in fact; instinct told him that only the one in the door to the bedroom was much problem. That one hadn't bothered to button his fly, and his weight had gone forward on the balls of his feet. A glance went between the officer and his servant.

Raj smiled, an expression much like those of the sicklefeet his men had killed the previous day. 'Because now we are going to take the bandits out and kill them, each and every one.'

Movement: the servant by the bedroom door snatched up a cleaver from the board that served as a mantle and lunged. Movement: Foley's shotgun roared. The target was less than five meters away, far too close for the double-buckshot load to spread much. It did chew the man's stomach into a pink mass, through which red-grey loops of intestine showed; he flew backward into the fireplace, toppling the spit with the chickens. The smell of burning pork added itself to the fug of the room, and scorched wool as his clothes caught fire. The young companion turned like a gun turret, the stock of his weapon clamped against his ribs. The stubby barrels stared at the officer of the 2nd, who had managed to clear his pistol and bring it up to half-port in the fraction of a second it had taken to kill his servant.

'Drop it,' Foley said; his voice cracked in the middle of the words, but the cut-off shotgun did not waver, one barrel smoking and the other black readiness. 'This one's for you, Messer.'

Several of the 2nd's hangers-on were whimpering now. 'Since your valiant part in this is over,' Raj continued, 'perhaps it would be better, fellow-soldiers, if you all undid your gun belts. . yes, just carry them in your hands. Out now, please. You bandits, too, and if you don't think fifteen minutes more of life matters, try something.'

One of the liveried men did; he plunged erect and out the rear door of the kitchen with an athlete's agility. The door banged closed behind him, and there was a short wet thunk sound that many of the men present could identify; a bayonet driving home. A choked grunt, and then a long bubbling scream; more of the thunking, and the door swung open for an instant. The severed head bounced on the table, spattering gravy, and rolled to a stop against the crock of white lightning.

The 2nd's officers were still babbling protests as they filed out, but none of them were resisting. Raj smiled at them again, nodding and making a depreciating gesture.

'No, no, no thanks,' he said cheerfully. 'Just doing our duty. Now,' he continued, when everyone was outside, 'separate those women.'

While the men were being roughly bound, troopers' bayonets prodded the mistresses to one side; they were in varying states of undress, but all of them wore their jewelry. The primary store of liquid assets, in their trade, and not likely to be let out of the wearer's reach. Some of them were quite spectacular, if genuine. Much of the gold was, certainly.

'Strip them, and take the jewels.' He took a blanket from one of the carriages and spread it. 'Pile the gauds here. All of them, trooper M'lewis.' Raj waited until the women were huddled together, staring at him in wide-eyed fright. 'Go,' he said softly, when they were still. 'And if you're ever within the perimeter of my camp again, I hereby announce you're not under my protection.'

They were professionals, too, in their way; they looked around at the troopers' wolf-grins, turned in a body and began trudging down the dirt lane, heading south toward the town at the ford.

Raj noticed that the old woman who had run to bring him was back, panting and wheezing up past the barn. She stopped at the sight of the farmer lying with his pitchfork in hand, then squatted beside him, rocking herself and moaning. One hand reached out to touch the corpse's face, then drew back. The moaning continued, low and eerie; the next-oldest of the farmstead's women was standing on the porch. She had clothed herself, but looked uncertainly around at the armed men.

'Goodwife,' Raj continued: there were a number of things to be done, before this cursed night was over.

'Yes, Messer?' she said, her voice surprisingly strong as she went to her knees. Well, you had to be strong, to survive the sort of life these people led. 'Thank you, Messer, but. .' there was a tremor to her voice as she looked about'. . they ate everything we needed for the season, Messer, and-'

'You see this?' He toed the pile of ornaments and dresses. 'It's yours.' Her mouth dropped open; there was enough there to buy a farm the size of the one her family sharecropped, and stock it besides. 'I'd advise you to hide it under the hearth and sell it carefully and in small amounts.' Because a peasant who came into money was like one of the legendary cooked pigs who ran about with knife and fork in its back, squealing 'eat me.' 'Don't let your men out of the shed for an hour or so.' No point in having enraged civilians complicating matters.

'Master Sergeant,' he continued.

'Ser?'

'M'lewis is a watch-stander?'

'Ser. Readin', writin' and numbers, summat.'

'Have him transferred to Battalion staff as a courier.' The scrawny trooper whooped as he rebuttoned his uniform tunic; there was a suspicious hang to one sleeve, but Raj decided to ignore it for the moment. 'M'lewis, there should be woodworking tools on a steading like this; bring anything in the way of mallets and hammers, and stakes, wooden treenails, anything like that. Run.' As he sped off: 'Now bring the prisoners down this way. You, too, Messers,' he added to the soldiers of the 2nd Gendarmerie 'You should watch the results of your valiant work.'

The outer wall of the barn was only five meters from the laneway; it was a little more than head-high, built of large adobe bricks mortared with mud, and no whitewash had ever been wasted on it. Quite sturdy enough, Raj decided.

'Line them up against it.' Rough hands pushed the men to stand against the hardened mud; some of them were weeping, and a few fell to their knees to beg. Raj looked up into the crystal purity of the night.