Shadow of the Warmaster

4

The pen had small sleeping chambers arranged around an assembly hall with a horizontal lattice displayed across the ceiling, tracks for the slides of the tether chains. At night around a hundred slaves were locked onto those chains and left to negotiate their way into their assigned sleeping places. Because of the Surge and the attack on the Wall, the Palace slaves had been herded into the pen early, the Huvved didn’t want them getting ideas about escaping. When I burned the latch and kicked the door in, most of them were still in the assembly chamber, gathered in clusters, talking, arguing, fidgeting or just sitting and staring in deep depression at stains on the walls.

I stood beside the door, looking over that very various crowd in that long narrow room. “Tom’perianne,” I called. I waited a minute, repeated the name, yelling over the noise. “Remember a dancer name of Kante Xalloor? She asked us to have a look for you and your sisters.”

A thin vital woman, vaguely pteroid, moved away from a group of the back wall, her chain clinking musically. “Xalloor, eh?” She had a deep contralto. So much voice from so frail a body. She looked to her right at two others who might have been clones instead of sisters they were so like her.

“Xalloor,” Nym’perianne said (or it might have been Lam’perianne). Whoever, her voice was a liquid lovely soprano. When I learned their names, I could tell them apart by voices if not their faces and bodies.

“What cha know,” Lam’perianne said (or it might have been Nym’perianne). This one had an oboe’s reedy notes, less immediately enticing than her sister, but maybe more interesting as time passed.

“Good kid,” they chorused.

“You know us,” Tom’perianne said. “Who’re you?”

“Name’s Quale,” I said. “Ship Slancy Orza. You want a ride to Helvetia?”

“That’s the dumbest question I ever heard.” She laughed, flutesong.

“I assume that means yes. Pels, cut the three of them loose. Someone here called Jaunniko?”

The noise got louder. Two men struggled, one fell; the one still standing moved away from the tangle he’d created. “Here, Quale. I’m Jaunniko. The dancer ask for me?”

“Someone did. Described him too and you’re not him. Jaunniko, stick your head up, will you? Or your hands, sculptor.”

Behind the scowling claimant, pushing impatiently at two men and a woman trying to help him up, a lanky young man got unsteadily to his feet and ran strong square hands through hair with a remnant of purple dye still clinging to it. As his biceps flexed, the lavender butterfly tattooed on his arm seemed to flutter. He tried to speak, but a partially deflected blow in the mixup had shoved his collar against his larynx and left him temporarily mute.

I gave him a nod. “Yeh, you match. Pels?”

The Omperiannas hurried over, dancing away from hands grabbing at them.

“What now?” Tom’perianne fluted at me; Xalloor said she did most of the talking for the three of them. “Wait by the door, hmm?”

Pushing the steel collar up and rubbing at his neck, Jaunniko reached me and I waved him over to join, the three musicians.

“The rest of you-” I started.

The slaves began fighting to get to me, tangling their chains, struggling, desperate, yelling, grunting, wrestling with each other.

“Quiet,” I roared at them. “Get back. Give me trouble and you can sit here and rot.” I waited until the noise subsided to a manageable level. “Untangle those chains, dammit, how do you expect us to cut them when they’re messed up like that? All right, right. The more you help, the sooner we can get out of here. You have any idea what’s cranking up outside? This place is going to be rubble before the sun comes up. Bloody rubble. And they’re not caring who does the bleeding.” I turned my head. “Tom’perianne, come here.” When she was at my side, I gave her my stunner. “It won’t kill anyone,” I said. “It’ll just lay them out and we’ll leave them laying.” I raised my voice again and repeated that, so everyone could hear it, went on, “Use it on anyone who looks like trouble. You out there, when you’re cut loose, back up against the inside wall if you want us to run shotgun for you; if you figure you can handle yourself outside, take off. Up to you, I’m no nursemaid.”

I plunged into the crowd and began helping Pels sever the chains; the job got easier when the yells and screams from outside came in loud enough for them to get an earful; they calmed down fast and sorted themselves out as we cut them loose. When we were ready to go, Pels led, with the Omperiannas and Jaunniko immediately behind him. The rest of that motley crop followed, organized into squads that kept together and made good time once they were out of the pen. I followed a few strides behind so I could scan the whole and have a better chance of spotting trouble.

When they saw the tug’s snout, they really put on some speed. I started hoping we’d reach Chicklet without much trouble. Pels flattened a couple of cats before they made up their minds to jump us, that was about it. The two-legged guards were too busy to bother with anything not coming at them. The attack on the walls was more intense, I could see strings of Hordar coming up and over like lines of ants, and the yizzies were thick overhead. Not over us at first. I was hoping they’d keep away; they were circling high up, beyond the range of the guard’s pellet guns, spilling fire over everything and everyone below them, even the front lines of the Surge. The yizzy riders were acting like they weren’t part of them on the ground, like they were a Surge on their own. Since most of them were street kids or divorced outcasts, I suppose they had to be a separate force, a third force striking at Huvved and Hordar alike.

We were too big a target. Half a dozen yizzies came at us dripping fire, They stayed high up, my stunner wouldn’t reach them. Nothing I could do. Like an idiot I’d left the launch tube and my darts in the tug.

Another yizzy came swooping by, looked like it was carrying two, one draped over the knees of the other; the one in control rested a black tube on his passenger’s back. Even that far off I could see what it was-a heavy-duty cutter. It slashed across the inklins attacking us and turned them into ash on the wind.

As the newcomer bagged himself some more twelve year olds, I ran for the tug, cursing Bolodo and Adelaar and Pittipat and Huvved snots and bloody-minded rebels and the Surge and him up there and everyone and everything that got me here and made me look at these things. Children killing. Killing children. Made me want to vomit.

As Pels finished loading the ex-slaves, a fifth wave of fliers formed up and headed our way. I cupped my hands around my mouth and bellowed at our friend on the yizzy to come on board if that’s what he wanted, we were going to get the hell out of here.

He brought his yizzy down until he was hanging over the edge of the lift platform. “N’Ceegh Pa’ao,” he said, his voice was a hoarse roar that had trouble cutting through the noise around us. “Escaped slave asking transport offworld. My son Zaraiz Pa’ao.” He patted the boy’s buttocks. “Surge got hold of him and I had to put him out. Give me a hand with him.”

“Right. How you want to do this?”

“Let me get the straps off.” He produced a wicked-looking scalpel from an armsheath and sliced through the braided thongs that tied the boy in place.

I got my hands around the child’s waist and lifted; he was small like most Hordar children, slight, a featherweight. I held him while the Pa’ao swung from the saddle and let the yizzy drift off. “We’ll go up to the bridge,” I said. “We can talk while I’m taking Chicklet back to Base. Mind leaving that cutter in the lock?”

“Uhnh, Fiddoodah’ak.” Before I could ask what that meant, his mouth split into a lipless grin. “Sure, no problem.”

He stripped off the battery and dropped it and the tube near the inner hatch. I gave him the boy and got busy; by the time I had the lift folded in and the outer lock dogged home, Pels had the drives humming.

When we reached the bridge, the Pa’ao laid the boy he’d called his son on the floor mat and dropped down to sit cross-legged beside him. He lifted the child’s head and shoulders into his lap and sat with one hand resting lightly on his son’s tangled black hair.

I took a last look at the chaos around us, goosed the tug into the air. I’d had more than enough of Tairanna, the Hordar and this whole rescue business.