Starfist: Lazarus Rising (28 page)

"I thought we were about to be ambushed. I gave the order to open fire. So would anybody."

A figure approached. It was Spencer Maynard. He held out his hand. "Emwanna told me about you. Thanks." They shook.

"How's the child?" Raipur asked.

"Fine, thanks to you."

"Spencer, stick around, I'll be needing you in a little while." Bass nodded toward the knot of villagers gathered about the cave entrance. They were casting nasty looks back at Raipur. There was big trouble brewing there. Bass knew he couldn't exactly blame the Stoughtons, but the law of warfare regarding prisoners would be observed. And this man might come in very handy tomorrow.

Emwanna came with dried beef and cold water. Raipur ate ravenously, thanking her profusely between bites. She kissed the sergeant's hand, then withdrew and left the two men alone.

"Reinforcements won't be here until sometime tomorrow," Raipur offered. "They will come in overwhelming force. You won't have a chance."

"We might not be here tomorrow morning. But if they're left alone, these people want to rebuild their village, take back their lives. Will your commanders listen to us?

Will you go to them under a flag of truce?"

"I will," Raipur answered with confidence. He knew that Lieutenant Ben Loman, left to himself, would have gladly wiped out the survivors of New Salem, but he would stay under cover now, until the reinforcing column arrived, then cooler heads would be in command and Raipur was sure he could prevail upon those commanders to hold their fire and avoid another massacre.

Lieutenant Ben Loman raced as far away from New Salem as fast as he could.

Raipur and his men had been killed by demons—the sergeant's backup had seen the whole thing. There was a nest of them, heavily armed, back in that draw, and he was not about to stick around and take them on.

Loman and the rest of his platoon got fifteen kilometers beyond New Salem before darkness closed in. The men were in a panic. They forted for the night when it got too dark to proceed any farther. Fortunately, they got one of the radios working again and contacted their company commander, reporting Skinks "in force and heavily armed" at New Salem. Captain Dieter informed Battalion, and the message was passed up to the regiment, brigade, and then division army group, which passed it up to General Lambsblood's headquarters. Nobody at a lower echelon wanted to take the initiative to attack a "heavily armed" and aggressive "nest" of demons without orders from higher command. The reinforcements Ben Loman's battalion was about to dispatch to New Salem were held back waiting for clearance.

General Lambsblood requested guidance from Dominic de Tomas.

CHAPTER 20

Midnight. Flaring torches cast pale wavering light over the men of the Special Group assembled in the Great Hall at Wayvelsberg Castle. Utter darkness filled the distant recesses of the hall and the assembled faithful. In the flickering torchlight, the graven image of Heinrich the Fowler, the warrior-king who unified the ancient German states and whose statue many thought resembled Dominic de Tomas, seemed to come to life as it gazed down on the rites with baleful solemnity.

De Tomas stepped forward and stood before the dozen men standing at rigid attention in the center of the Great Hall. As he did, the clear, soaring notes of a single trumpet sounded "Attention!" The notes echoed throughout the vastness of the hall, and when they died away, a band struck up "Raise the Flag!" the anthem of the Special Group and the SPK. All the hundreds of men present stood silently in ranks around the hall, singing the stirring words.

"Raise the flag! Our ranks are tightly closed..."

When the last note and the roar of the voices had vanished into the stygian corners of the great darkened hall, two shooters—one bearing a velvet-lined case studded with a dozen silver rings, the other holding richly engraved leather binders containing certificates printed on vellum—stepped into position to de Tomas's left and right rear. The only sound in the hall was the fluttering of the torches as de Tomas silently looked into the faces of the dozen men standing before him. They were about to receive the highest honor a man of the Special Group could aspire to, an honor given only at midnight on the sixth day of the week, and only in the Great Hall. No matter where a man was when selected to receive this accolade, he was called back to Haven for the ceremony. Each occasion was presided over personally by de Tomas; no one was ever permitted to stand in for him.

The twelve men assembled that night at Wayvelsberg were about to receive the Special Group Death's Head Honor Ring.

When de Tomas had taken over as the Dean of the Collegium, he realized that it was necessary that the men who enforced its authority should see themselves as standing apart from the rest of humanity. Their special uniforms, their rigorous selection and training, the sense of belonging to an elite corps that was fostered by their leaders and fellows every waking hour of every day, all were vital ingredients in a process carefully designed to bind each recruit to the mystique of the Special Group. The Honor Ring, given only after a man had proven himself, was the final step required to induct him forever into the sacred companionship of his comrades.

At last de Tomas signaled the man to his left, who handed him one of the leather binders. "Shooter Camarines Ambos, Special Group Number 42,678!" de Tomas read in a voice that reached every corner of the Great Hall. The single trumpet once again sounded "Attention!" as Shooter Ambos took one step forward and came to attention.

"I hereby decorate you with the Honor Ring of the Special Group," de Tomas intoned. He did not have to look at the certificate. He'd done this so many times over the years, he had the text memorized. "It is a symbol of our loyalty to each other, our unmitigated obedience to our superiors, and our everlasting faith in our comrades. The Death's Head is an admonition to be prepared at any time to sacrifice one's life for the life of the collective whole. The Death's Head is surrounded by the goshawks that symbolize the unshakable faith in the rightness of our mission in the service of justice and in the victory of our worldview. This ring may never be allowed to fall into the hands of anyone who is not one of us! When you leave this life, this ring will be returned to your leader. Like your spirit, it will live on in our community, to one day honor other men who have earned the right to wear it. Wear it in honor!"

The shooter to de Tomas's right presented the case of rings, and he took one.

Again the trumpet sounded, this time accompanied by a quick drum roll. The rings had been sized a long time ago, and this one slid perfectly onto the middle finger of Shooter Ambos's right hand. He accepted a brief handshake from the Leader, took his certificate, saluted smartly, and stepped back into the rank.

Herten Gorman stood in the shadows. He was remembering the time when de Tomas had presented him with his own Honor Ring. He glanced at it now. The silver skull inlaid in black opal and surrounded by spread-winged goshawks was his prize possession. His heart swelled within his chest the night de Tomas had slipped this ring onto his finger. Well, that had been a long time ago, he thought, and the world had changed drastically since then. And so had Dominic de Tomas. Oh, he is in great form tonight, Gorman reflected; nobody can outdo him in public. He recalled the night only recently when they'd had the reception for the Auxiliaries in that very hall, when the great Leader had kissed hands and sweet-talked the ladies, bowing, scraping, ingratiating himself, and how he, Herten Gorman, had been relegated once again to the despicable role of the Leader's pimp.

Worse, far worse, was when he, Deputy Leader and technically the man responsible for running de Tomas's government, had recently been frozen out of all the major decisions, hardly even consulted, reduced to a figurehead.

In all the time that Gorman had served in the SG, de Tomas had been the distant, ruthless, and ascetic power behind the Collegium. In those days, except on ceremonial occasions, most men of the SG never saw their leader. But they all respected him—and feared him. But since the seizure of power, de Tomas had taken on a new personality, presenting himself as a "man of the people." The last executions he'd ordered had been of the professors at the university. Since then, even those who explicitly opposed his rule or posed a threat to it, instead of facing summary execution, were placed in "protective custody." No picnic, to be sure, but they were still alive. Gorman believed that a serious mistake. He thought back to the students who'd been caught distributing leaflets on campus. Gorman would have fed them into the furnaces and executed their entire families, stamped out the treason at its source. But de Tomas had let them go!

Where everyone else in the Great Hall of Wayvelsberg Castle that night smelled only the aromatic bouquet of the flaring torches, Herten Gorman smelled the seeds of disaster. He placed his right hand, and the finger bearing the ring, behind his back.

Now that it was full dark outside, someone had carefully erected a screen across the entrance to the cavern. Bass and Raipur stepped into the circle of lamplight that illuminated the small group of villagers assembled there. Everyone was present except for the men detailed to watch the approaches to the ravine.

The Stoughton family—Esau and Mehetabel, the parents, their daughters Lela and Tamar, and sons Reuben, Benjamin, and Elon—stood apart from the others in a small cluster. As Raipur came into the light, Reuben, the oldest son, stepped forward and leveled his finger at him. "You murdered my brother!" he accused.

Behind him, his mother wailed her grief, and as Esau held her in his arms, he cast a murderous glance at the sergeant.

Bass held up a hand. "Listen to me!" he began.

"We are tired of listening to you!" Reuben shouted. "That—That
man
there killed Levi, and I—we—demand retribution!" Several others nodded and murmured assent.

Knowing how these people loved to vote on community issues, Bass took stock.

He could count on Zechariah and his family to support him; probably Hannah Flood, and possibly the Maynards, especially Spencer; Amen Judah and his family too. Colleen and Chet would support him. How many adults was that? He counted them up mentally. Counting himself, that would be fourteen. Discounting the seven Stoughtons, there were fourteen others he could not be sure of if this situation came to a vote.

Then it couldn't be left to a vote.

"This man is our prisoner and he will be treated—"

"Damn you, Charles!" Mehetabel Stoughton screamed.

"Mehetabel!" Zechariah exclaimed.

"Damn you, Charles!" she screamed again. She strained to break loose from her husband's grip. "May God damn that man's soul to eternal hellfire!" she shouted, eyes blazing and spittle flying from her lips. She pointed at Raipur as she cursed.

"And you too, you damned
foreigner
!" she raged at Bass.

"He is not even a believer," Esau Stoughton added, meaning Bass.

"Put him on trial now!" Tamar, the Stoughton's forty-year-old daughter shouted, pointing at Raipur.

"He's even untied him!" someone else cried, noticing for the first time that Raipur's arms were unbound.

"Friends!" Zechariah held up his arms. "Friends, this animosity must pass. This is not our way, we live in the spirit of Christ!"

"I want that man dead like my son,"
Mehetabel croaked. Her voice, like an icy curse from the tomb, froze the tableau into shocked silence.

Zechariah worked his lips soundlessly, searching for words.

Bass broke the silence. "Now you people listen up—" he grated, his voice just above a whisper.

"We don't have to listen to you!" Reuben Stoughton shouted.

"Reuben, you interrupt me one more time like that and you will not live much longer," Bass rasped. He placed his right hand on the blaster holstered at his side and glared at Reuben, who tried staring back but after a moment cast his eyes downward and stepped back with his parents and siblings.

Zechariah cleared his throat nervously. "You have the floor, Charles," he said, returning to where Consort and Comfort were standing.

"Now listen up and nobody give me any shit," Bass began. "I've been busting my ass for months, trying to whip you yokels into a force that could protect itself. And you did today, you did fine. Young Levi did his duty like a soldier, Mrs. Stoughton, and we should all be proud of him for that. But I am
not
—repeat,
not
—going to let you degenerate into a godforsaken mob! I'm in charge of the defense of this village and you
will
obey my orders, is that understood?"

Nobody moved or said a word. In the dim lamplight Bass cast a huge shadow over the rear wall of the cave, and to the people gathered about him, he looked physically bigger now than they remembered him in the daylight. His right hand rested easily on the blaster at his side.

"This man is our prisoner, and if anyone here—man, woman, or child—touches a hair on his head, I will kill you." The word "you" echoed off the cavern walls. Still nobody moved a muscle. Bass looked into the eyes of each person gathered about the smoking lamp. "Tomorrow," he continued, "this man," he laid a hand on Raipur's shoulder, "will go out under a flag of truce and end this foolishness.

"Yes, Mrs. Stoughton," Bass's voice softened as he looked at the Stoughtons, "I am a foreigner. You people saved my life, and you saved the lives of Emwanna, Colleen, and Chet. And because of that we're in this with you up to our eyes. You people have come through a lot because you stayed together and worked together and prayed together. And I haven't come this far with you to let it all degenerate, as I said, into a godless mob action. I only have one question to ask of you: What would have happened today if you'd been attacked and you didn't have a plan to defend yourselves?" Nobody ventured an answer. Bass nodded. "Well, I'll tell you—you'd all be dead, and any of you who might have survived would be wishing they were dead too.

"Now here's what we're going to do. Those who want can go back to the village while it's still dark and there's enough light from the fires to salvage what you can from your homes. No matter what happens to our peace mission tomorrow, we'll be living in this cave complex for a while, so we might as well get as comfortable as possible." He turned to Raipur. "You stay right beside me for the rest of this night."