Exile's Challenge (26 page)

He rolled across moon-washed grass not knowing he still clutched his poor spear, and shouted again as flame seared his back and the wolverine exploded from the wickiup. As he looked into the cold dark eyes it seemed time slowed, each instant drawn out interminably as he saw the beast crouch, thick hind legs bunching in readiness to spring. He had not seen a wolverine before. Tekah and Rannach, Morrhyn, had
described the beasts, but words did little justice to the reality. It was large as a young bear, its fur thick and dark, its limbs short and heavy with muscle, tipped with murderous talons. Its snarl exposed long, curved fangs between the bone-breaking jaws, and the eyes seemed possessed of a malign intelligence, lusting to kill. It launched itself at Davyd and he flailed wildly with his spear, flinging himself across the fire, careless of the pain, seeking only to escape.

He landed on his back and staggered upright, fear lending him a strength he had not known he possessed. The wolverine coughed out a snarling roar and charged. Oblivious of the flames that seared his skin, Davyd reached into the fire and tore loose a brand. He flung it at the attacking predator and the wolverine sprang clear. Davyd grasped his spear in both hands as the beast launched itself anew. He thrust out the pole as the ravening animal hurtled toward him. It seemed all fangs and claws and horrid determination, and he felt raw pain as talons scored his flesh and fetid breath befouled his nostrils. Its weight smashed him down and he screamed as the world went dark.

After Matieu Fallyn's death Tomas Var felt very alone, in ways to which he was not accustomed. In the Old World he had had friends around him, old acquaintances from the campaigns or the peaceful aftermath: familiar faces with whom he might relax and speak openly. Here in Salvation he had no one—and until Fallyn was slain by the hostiles, he had not realized how dear those faces were. Here he had no one save the oddest friend: Abram Jaymes.

They were quite unalike, the major and the scout, but even so a bond formed between them, slow and wary, but nonetheless firm. Jaymes had forgotten his declaration of departure once the forts were built and continued to scout for Var. Not for the Inquisitor Jared Talle—he showed a cheerful disregard of that eminence—but for Var; and Var was grateful and came to open himself, as much as he dared, to Jaymes. It seemed to him that the man was the embodiment of Salvation's pioneering spirit, more than the farmers and millers and vintners, more than the traders and bargemen and Militia, and he came to enjoy Jaymes's company, the scout's rough-hewn directness. Jaymes spoke honestly, and was he crude in his expression, still he spoke only what he saw as truth and Var respected that.

The forts were built and manned, garrisoned first by those Militiamen Var had brought with him from Evander, and then augmented by the troop ships that had arrived as the year aged toward winter. They were sound now—surely against such primitive weapons as the hostiles owned—with
cannon and swivel guns and the muskets of the infantry. Each bastion was armed with case-shot and grape-, powder for the infantry, and kegs of musket balls. The wilderness perimeter was sealed from where the Restitution disappeared into the forests northward to the emergence of the Glory River into the sea. The engineers headed southward to repeat their efforts along the Hope River in the—as yet—unattacked lower quadrant of Salvation.

And as the year aged, Tomas Var returned to Grostheim to face a problem he believed might destroy him.

“He's crazy.” Abram Jaymes leaned sideways to expel a stream of tobacco-darkened spittle into the cuspidor. “A winter campaign?”

Var glanced around, more nervous of disapproval, of listening ears that might carry such criticism back to the Inquisitor. Jaymes seemed entirely unconcerned, and not without reason: they sat alone, as if some invisible perimeter separated them from the tavern's other patrons. It was a further reminder of the hostility most felt toward Talle and, by association, his lieutenant.

Var said, “It's what he talks about; and for God's sake keep your voice down. Do you want to end up on the gallows?”

The first snow had fallen; not much, but enough to remind folk that the long months of winter descended. The harvests had been poor for the neglect of the preceding year, and the farmers and the vintners and the millers were not yet convinced the land was secure, so some fled back to the city.

Where Jared Talle hanged them.

The gallows was a permanent fixture of the central square now, its last victim left dangling until the next appeared in grim reminder of the new order, and Spelt's red-coated soldiers patrolled the streets to drive out those who would hide with friends or argue the Inquisitor's diktat. Under Inquisitorial rule, Grostheim lived in fear.

Talle himself was ensconced in Wyme's mansion, the governor banished to lesser rooms, and Var—to his intense embarrassment—was settled on Talle's order in the chambers of
the governor's wife. He had sooner found quarters in the Militia barracks or gone out to the forts, but Talle would have his military commander close to hand—mostly, it seemed to Var, that the Inquisitor might insist on a campaign that seemed to him insane.

“He's convinced they must be easier to find and attack in winter,” Var said. “He claims they withdraw with the snows; that they don't fight in winter. That they retreat back into the forests.”

Jaymes shrugged and lifted his tankard; drank deep before replying: “Sure they do—into the wilderness forest. Snow's deep there, an' they know the trails. Unlike you. More likely your boys'll be slaughtered if you try to follow them in there.”

“Even so, he wants you to scout for us,” Var said. “Lead us to them.”

Jaymes sniffed loudly. “An' if I say no?”

Var said, “He'll hex you. That, or hang you.”

“An' lose himself a scout?” Jaymes grinned across his mug, exposing stained teeth. “You know there's not a man knows the wilderness like I do.”

“I know that,” Var said, wondering the while why he spoke to this draggle-haired tramp so honestly, “but does he? Or does he care?”

Jaymes shrugged again, emptying his mug. Var beckoned that it be refilled and waited until the indentured woman who brought their ale was gone before speaking again. A tavern servant, her flounced blouse hung down over her plump shoulders, exposing the brand there.

“He'll go out anyway,” he said, “if he's decided on it. And I'll have to take my men with him. I've no other choice.”

“You'll get lost,” Jaymes said. “You'll wander around through the trees an' the snow an' likely never find 'em. Or they'll hear you coming an' slaughter you like they did Fallyn.”

“I know.” Var winced at the memory of his friend's torn body. “But even so the Inquisitor shall not leave me much choice. I must do what he orders.”

“Why?”

Var frowned, taken aback by the unusual question. “Because I am an officer of the God's Militia, and Talle is an
Inquisitor, and therefore my commanding officer—I must obey him.”

Jaymes repeated himself: “Why?”

The question was so direct and so bluntly put that Var was momentarily at a loss to find an answer. Old tropes came to mind, the ritual responses, but Jaymes's stare held him and fixed him to honesty, and so he said, “Because that is what I do.”

“Obey orders?”

“Yes.” Var nodded. “What else holds this world together?”

Jaymes shrugged and emptied his mug, belched loudly, and said, “Comradeship; friendship. Belief in what you're doin'.”

Var said, “I do believe in what I'm doing. And I've comrades …”

Jaymes chuckled, shaking his grizzled head as he interrupted. “And that's why you're drinkin' with me? You'd sooner be with me than your
comrades
?”

Var thought a moment, staring into his mug. Then he raised his eyes to Jaymes's and said, “I'm drinking with you because you're honest. Because you tell me the truth about Salvation.”

“And I drink with you,” Jaymes returned, “because you're willin' to listen. Not like that damn Inquisitor.”

“Careful!” Var let go of his tankard that he might gesture the scout to silence, to caution. “Are you hungry for the gallows?”

“No more than any other man he's hung.” He snorted cynical laughter, then his face grew serious. “You don't like what the Inquisitor's doin' any more than I do.”

“No.” Var shook his head, wondering again why he opened his mind to this truculent, sweat-stinking scout. “But even so, I'm under orders, and he wants a winter campaign.”

“Then I suppose,” Jaymes said, “that I better come with you. You'll need a guide, eh?”

Var was surprised how grateful he felt. He began to express his thanks, but Jaymes waved him silent. “You'll get yourself lost otherwise. An' besides,” the scout chuckled, “I got no stomach to hang around Grostheim all winter—I'd
just get drunk an' fat an' bored. Better I take the Autarchy's pay. But,” his grin disappeared, “understand that I'm not doin' this for Talle or the Autarchy. I'm doin' it for you.”

Var nodded, meeting the man's level gaze, then gave Jaymes back the scout's own earlier question: “Why?”

It was Jaymes's turn to hesitate, to frown in … Var was not sure … confusion, perhaps, or embarrassment. He pressed the point, asking again, “Why?”

Jaymes hid awhile behind his tankard, then wiped foam from mustache and beard before replying. “Like I said—there's money in it, an' I got no stomach to winter over in the city.” He no longer met Var's eyes.

“Those are reasons to obey the Inquisitor.” Var shook his head. “Tell me the truth.”

Jaymes scratched under his shirt, found something there that he cracked between his dirty fingernails, flicked it away, and raised his head to face the marine. “You're different, Major.” He said it slowly, as if anxious to find the exact words, the precise expression of his sentiment. “You're not like Talle, nor Major Spelt or the governor. You're not quite like any officer I've met.”

Var held an expression of bland friendship, wondering where this conversation led and if he should not curtail it now. He felt an odd presentiment, as if they trod the border of some forbidden country, each sentence a step farther toward … He was not sure what. He shaped a casual smile and asked, “You've met so many?”

“Enough.” Jaymes waved his mug over his head, eliciting the attention of the serving wench. “Most were bastards; a few were decent men. You're …” He shrugged. “Decent, an' more.”

Now Var felt embarrassed. He was, he believed, a good officer; he treated his men decently because he knew he must rely on them in battle. They were as much his comrades as gun-fodder for the Autarchy's imperial ambitions. Nor did he consider any man's life a casual thing to be spent carelessly. But he knew other officers who felt the same, and did not consider himself special—only sensible. How ask a man to fight for you, to perhaps give up his life on your command, if you were not prepared to do the same? But there was something
more in the scout's words, something behind them, that he was not sure he wished to investigate.

He endeavored to gather his thoughts as the branded woman fetched them fresh mugs. He realized that Jaymes had not spat in a while, nor cut a fresh plug from his wad of tobacco, and that impressed on him the seriousness of the scout's observations. It was, he thought, as if Jaymes tested him, tried him for some purpose he could not yet discern precisely; only guess at, and shy away.

He was, after all, an officer in the God's Militia, as much representative of the Autarchy as Spelt or Wyme, even Talle.

So he looked the scout square in the eye and demanded, “Explain.”

Jaymes shrugged and shook his head at the same time. “I mean you care about folk. You don't much like seein' them hanged, nor hexed into doin' what they don't want to do. You don't like to see lives wasted needlessly.”

Var drank, feeling his footing shift loose beneath his convictions. “I obey my orders,” he said.

Jaymes chuckled. “Sure you do: so arrest me.”

“Why?”

“God!” Jaymes shook his head again, only now his eyes remained steadily fixed on Var's. “I've disrespected Inquisitor Talle an' every other authority in Grostheim. I don't go to church, an' I think it's a lousy deal that Evander puts a hot iron on folk an' ships 'em out here like they was branded cattle an' nothin' better. Is that enough? Now you going to arrest me like you should an' give me to Talle for hangin'?”

Var emptied his tankard and smiled. “No,” he said.

Jaymes grinned. “Why not?”

“Because I need you to lead me and my men into the forests,” Var answered. “Because you know the hostiles better than most. And you've said you'll do that.”

Jaymes nodded. “Sure. But what else?”

“I don't know,” Var said, biting back the “yet” that gnawed on his suspicions, “only that the Inquisitor wants a winter campaign, and you're the only scout I trust.”

“I'm honored.” Jaymes aped a mocking bow. “When do we go?”

“I don't know for sure.” Var drained his mug and rose. “I'll speak with Talle and let you know.”

“You do that, Major,” Jaymes replied. “You speak with him an' let me know. I'll be waitin' on his word.”

Var nodded and pulled on his greatcoat, settled the tricorne hat in place, and quit the tavern wondering at the conversation. It was surely not such as an officer of the God's Militia should have with a commoner, and there was something he could not quite recognize hidden behind Jaymes's casual disregard of authority. He should, he knew, report it to Talle, and knew he would not. God, he thought as he stepped out from the tavern's warmth into the night's cold, this is no easy duty.