The Silver spike (24 page)

Darling got that from Silent. She signed back, “That
method has been tried. Without success. The Limper’s raid
killed so many and left people so mixed around that the necessary
information cannot be gathered.”

“There’s got to be a way,” Raven carped.

One of the local guys said, “Gossamer and Spidersilk
already thought of it. Get so many bad guys in that the thieves
have to panic and do something to give themselves away. Sooner or
later.”

“Dumb,” Raven said. He sneered. “All
they’d have to do is snip a few loose ends, if there were
any, and sit tight.”

“That’s what they’re doing. We think.”
The guy went off about some really gruesome disease called the
black hand that had been traced to a physician that got himself
knifed an eyeblink after the twins closed the city. There was still
some debate, but a lot thought the black hand maybe got started
when somebody accidentally touched the spike barehand, then passed
it on when he went to the physician for help. The physician passed
it around to his clients and they passed it around some more, till
the soldiers rounded them up so they couldn’t.

Darling signed, “The twins cleave to this theory. The
physician’s murder was witnessed. Two men were involved. They
have not been identified or even well described.”

The local man went on about theories and about how none of the
people with the black hand had had anything to do with grabbing the
spike. The twins made sure of that right away. So there was some
guy running around who maybe had been fixed up by the doc and that
was an angle a lot of hunters were working.

“Maybe,” I said. “But what if maybe his
buddies was smart enough to put him six feet under?”

Seemed like nobody had thought about that. Nice people tend to
think everybody is nice.

“What about them roses?” I asked. “If it
ain’t your people painting them, who is? And why?”

“A diversion, obviously,” Raven said. “If we
could catch whoever is doing it we might get a break.”

The local talker said, “Go teach your grandma to suck
eggs, fella. We’ve got everybody we have on the street,
calming people down and asking questions. Tonight everybody is
going to be watching likely places to put more up. We see somebody,
he’ll be over here answering questions before he can
blink.”

I sat myself down out of the way, fixing to take a nap.
“Want to bet they don’t walk into it?”

Does clay tire? Does the earth? No. The clay man loped
northward, hour after hour and mile after mile, day and night,
pausing seldom and then only to freshen the coat of grease,
spell-supported, that retained moisture and kept the clay
supple.

The miles passed away. The hulks of raped cities fell behind.
Suns rose and set. He crossed the southern frontier of the northern
empire. It was early in the day.

He had not gone far when he realized he was being paced by
imperial cavalry. He slowed. They slowed. He stopped. They drifted
into cover and waited.

They had been waiting for him. His return had been expected.

How? By whom? For how long? What lay ahead, specially prepared
for him?

He resumed his run, but more slowly, his senses keyed.

The cavalry worked in relays, no party riding more than five
miles before being relieved. If he turned toward them they
retreated. When he held to the road they closed in slowly, as
though carefully daring his might. He suspected they wanted him to
pursue them. He refused. He followed the road. In time he increased
his pace.

A subtle mind opposed him.

After a while the indrift of the riders sharpened, like a charge
starting to take shape . . . 

His attention ensnared thus, he nearly missed the slight
discoloration, the minuscule sag, in the road ahead. But catch it
he did. Pit trap. He hurled himself forward in a prodigious
leap.

Missiles filled the air. Several slammed into him, batting him
around, and he knew he had been taken. Arrows from saddle bows were
whistling around him before he regained his equilibrium. The
cavalry to his left had grown a little too daring. He faced them,
about to welcome them with death.

A five-hundred-pound stone ripped across his right shoulder so
close it brushed away the protective grease. He jumped, whirled. If
that had caught him square . . . He sensed no
presence on which to spend his wrath. He whirled again. The cavalry
were galloping away, already beyond retribution.

He removed the shafts from his body, surveyed the area. There
was no pit. Just the appearance of one with a trigger board much
better hidden under the dust where his foot must fall if he was
going to jump over. Even the stone had been hurled by an engine
triggered remotely and fortune had placed him a step out of the
line of fire.

That was the first trap. The next was a bridge over a small,
sluggish river. Barrels of naphtha had been rigged beneath it,
fixed to break open and catch fire when he stepped upon the bridge
decking.

This time the diversionary troops waited atop a ridge beyond the
river. Light engines hurled missiles at him as he used his power to
jam the mechanism meant to breach the barrels and start the
fire.

A five-pound rock hit him in the chest, flung him backward. He
sprang up angrily and sprinted toward his tormentors.

Held only by a feeble peg, the center section of the bridge
collapsed under his weight. The falling timbers smashed the naphtha
barrels. A swarm of fire missiles was in the air before he hit
water.

They had made a fool of him twice.

They would not live to try a third time.

He came boiling out of the water, up the bank below the burning
bridge, into the face of renewed missile fire,
bellowing . . . 

He tripped something. A vast net flew up, toward, and over him.
Its cables were as strong as steel but of a sticky, flexible
substance like spider silk. The more he struggled, the more tangled
he became. And something kept drawing the net tighter and dragging
him back toward the water. He would have great difficulty with the
verbal parts of his sorcery beneath the river.

The knowledge of the possibility that he might be vanquished by
lesser beings stabbed through him like a blade of ice. He was up
against something he could not overcome by brute force.

The blow of fear—the existence of which he could not
confess even to himself—stilled his rage, made him take time
to think, to act appropriately.

He tried a couple of sorceries. The second effected a break in
the net just before he was pulled beneath the surface.

He came out of the river carefully, with concentration, and so
avoided a trap armed with a blade that could have sliced him in
two. Safe for the moment, he took stock. Minor, all the damage done
him. But a dozen such encounters could accumulate into something
crippling.

Was that the strategy? Wear him down? Likely, though each phase
of each trap had been vicious enough.

He proceeded much more carefully, his emotions, his madness,
under tight rein. Vengeance could await achievement of the more
important triumph in the north. Once he had taken that keystone of
power he could requite the world a thousand times for its cruelties
and indignities.

There were more traps. Some were deadly and cunning. He did not
escape unscathed, alert as he was. His enemies did not rely upon
sorcery. They preferred mechanisms and psychological ploys, which
for him were more difficult to handle.

Not once did he see anyone other than the cavalrymen who dogged
him. He found the gates of the great port city Beryl standing open
and its streets empty. Nothing stirred but leaves and bits of
trash, tossed by winds from the sea. The hearthstones were cold and
even the rats had gone away. Not a pigeon or sparrow swooped
through the air.

The murmur of the wind seemed like the cold whisper of the
grave. In that desolation even he could feel alone and lonely in
spirit.

There were no ships in the harbor, no boats on the waterfront.
Not so much as a punt. The haze-distorted shape of a single black
quinquirireme hovered beyond the harbor light, well out to sea.
There was a statement here. He would not be allowed to cross the
sea. He was sure that whichever way he chose to walk along the
coast he would find the shores naked of boats.

He considered swimming. But that black ship would be waiting for
that. He was so massive that all his energy would have to go to
staying afloat. He would be vulnerable.

Moreover, salt water would leak through his protective spells
and gnaw at the grease, and then at the
clay . . . 

So there was little choice. He must do what they wanted him to
do and go around. He pictured the map, chose what seemed to be the
shorter way. He began running to the east.

The horsemen paced him the rest of that day. When dawn came they
were gone. After a few hours he became confident enough to increase
his pace. Curse them. He would do what they wanted and slaughter
them anyway.

The miles passed away as they had before he had entered the
empire.

As he ran he pondered the hidden purpose behind his having been
turned onto this extended course. He could not prize loose the
sense of it.

Smeds found Old Man Fish as soon as he had gotten himself some
rest. Fish listened intently and watched him through narrowed eyes
as he told his tale. “Didn’t think you’d have
what it takes, Smeds.”

“Me neither. I was scared shitless the whole
time.”

“But you thought, and you did what you had to do.
That’s good. Think you’d know the man who got away if
you saw him again?”

“I don’t know. It was dark and I never got a real
good look at him.”

“We’ll worry about him later. Thing we got to do now
is get rid of those bodies. Where’s Tully?”

“Who knows? Probably sleeping. Why not just leave them
where they are? It ain’t like they’re out where
somebody’s going to trip over them.”

“Because somebody besides you and me knows where they are
and he might tell somebody else who might go take a look and maybe
recognize Timmy Locan as a guy who used to hang around with you and
me and Tully. Get it?”

“Got it.” Also, maybe Fish wanted a look just to
make sure Timmy had gone out the way Smeds said he had. Smeds was
related to Tully Stahl and Fish already had a habit of not taking
on faith anything that Stahl said.

“So get Tully and let’s move.”

Smeds went inside the Skull and Crossbones, nodding to the
Nightstalkers corporal as he passed. The owner, who didn’t
have much use for them, scowled at him across the common room.
Smeds had to pass close by him. The man asked, “You boys
going to pay for your room? You’re two days late.”

“Tully was supposed to take care of it. It’s his
turn.”

“Surprise, friend. Tully didn’t. And he’s
running a pretty steep beer tab, too. Another day or two,
I’ll mention it to your buddy the corporal.” He grinned
wickedly. Nothing he’d like better than to send them to the
labor companies.

Smeds held his eye till he flinched, then tossed him a coin.
“There’s for the rent. I’ll tell Tully to cover
his tab.”

Tully was not asleep. He’d maybe heard some of that. He
was pretending. Smeds said, “Come on. We’ve got work to
do.” When Tully didn’t move, he added, “I’m
going to count to five, then I’m going to kick your ribs
in.”

Tully sat up. “Shit, Smeds. You get more like that asshole
Fish every day. What’s so damned important you got to get me
out of bed?”

“In the street.” Meaning he couldn’t say
there, where somebody might hear. “On our way out you might
pay the landlord what you owe him. He’s getting edgy. Talking
about mentioning you to that corporal.”

Tully shuddered. “Shit. That asshole. How about you cover
it for me for now, Smeds? I’ll get it back to you soon as I
can sneak off and tap my stash.”

Smeds eyed him. “All right. We’ll be waiting
outside. Don’t fool around.” He went out, tossed a
heavy coin at the landlord as he passed, said, “Don’t
give him no more credit,” and joined Fish outside.
“Back when we hit town I figured my share of the cash take
should keep me pretty good for four or five years. How about
you?”

“Easy. I’m an old man. My needs are simple.
What’s up?”

“Tully. You think even a dipshit like him could have blown
his whole share already?”

“Tell me about it.”

“Tully’s been hitting me up for loans. The first
couple times he paid me back, but not the last three times. I just
now found out he didn’t bother to pay the rent and he’s
running a big beer tab.”

“Yeah?” Fish looked downright nasty for a second.
“I have something to do. When he comes out you and him head
out to the place. I’ll catch up before you get there.”
He stalked off.

Tully stomped out a minute later. “All right. I’m
here. What’s so goddamned important? Where’s Fish and
Timmy?”

“Fish had something to do.” Smeds thought he knew
what. “He’ll catch up. Timmy’s dead. We’re
going to bury him.”

Tully looked at him blankly, not watching where he walked.
“You’re shitting me.”

“No, I’m not.” Smeds told it in driblets, when
no one could overhear. There were a lot of people in the street,
moving restlessly, aimlessly. There was tension in the air. Smeds
figured the grays wouldn’t be able to keep the lid on much
longer. A little more patience, a little more care, and they would
have weathered the siege.

Wherever they went, wherever there were no grays, people
whispered about the white roses, fed the rumor that the White Rose
herself had come to Oar and was just awaiting the right portents to
start the insurrection.

The grays had spies everywhere, Smeds knew. Spidersilk and
Gossamer would have heard of the whispers within an hour of their
first muttering. They would have to act, absurd as the rumors might
be. Else someone would see something as a sign and would raise the
torch of rebellion. There was another whisper, more sinister,
running beneath the foolish hope of an adventure by the White Rose.
This one was harder to catch because the rumor mongers were much
more cautious in retailing it.