CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

The next day passed quietly, especially in the hostages' suite.

Roger failed to emerge from his room even when a breakfast of barleyrice and vegetables was brought to the suite. The food no longer contained the obnoxious herb that had been so prevalent in the first dinner, but there was still a weird, bitter aftertaste. Despite that, Roger had been able to stomach it on the previous two days, but he obviously had no interest in it at all today.

An hour after the breakfast had been cleared, Pahner opened the door to make sure he was all right. Roger was sprawled on his camp bed, in the middle of a mass of broken fixtures, his forearm across his face. When the door opened, the prince simply glanced at the captain and resumed his position. Recognizing a deep funk that was in no mood for semi-parental bitching, the Marine shook his head and closed the door.

Back in the troop barracks, however, the mood was quiet but active. Rumors were still the only method of faster than light communication the military had discovered.

"I heard he called the Empress a whore!" St. John (M.) said.

"I heard it was just a bitch," St. John (J.) said. The older twin had often had to control the outbursts of his younger brother. "But still."

"It was a bitch," Kosutic confirmed, appearing as if by magic behind them. "To be precise, a `paranoid bitch.' But," she added, "he was also referring to the Empress as his mother, not the Empress. It's a big difference."

"How?" St. John (M.) asked. "They're the same person, ain't they?"

"Yes," the sergeant major agreed. "But calling one of them a bitch is treason, and calling the other one a bitch is just being really, really pissed at your mother." She looked from twin to twin. "Either one of you ever been upset with your mother before?"

"Welll . . ." St. John (M.) said.

"He always calls her a damnsaint when he's mad at Momma," St. John (J.) said with a grin.

"Well so do you!" St. John (M.) protested.

"Sure, Mark. But not to her face!"

"The point is," the sergeant major said before the family feud could go any farther, "that he was mad at his mother. Not at Empress Alexandra."

"Well, why?" St. John (M.) asked in a puzzled tone. "I mean, Her Majesty's not exactly here to get mad at. I mean, I don't get mad at Momma back on New Miss just 'cause, well, she ain't here."

"You got mad at Momma just the other day 'cause she had twins," St. John (J.) said slyly.

"Well, the Prince ain't got no twin," his exasperated brother said, then he got a puzzled expression and turned back to the sergeant major. "He doesn't, does he? We'd a heard, right?"

Kosutic kept the smile off her face only with difficulty. She knew why the St. John brothers had made it into the Regiment; they were both very, very good soldiers with the protective instincts of Dobermans. But the younger twin was no Hawking.

"He doesn't have a twin," she said precisely. "However, he was told something yesterday about some of his mother's decisions that really upset him."

"What?" St. John (J.) asked.

"What it was is between him and his mother. And he really wants to talk to her about it. The thing for all of you to keep in mind is that our job is to make sure that that conversation takes place."

"Okay," St. John (J.) said with a snort. "Gotcha, Sergeant Major."

"Now, I want you guys to pass it on. What happened yesterday is between Roger and his mother. Our job is to make sure that he gets home to ask her why she's a paranoid bitch in person."

Roger emerged without a word just before dinner was delivered. There'd been sounds of movement for some time before that, and he carried a pile of crushed and broken fixtures from the room. He took them to the door to the suite, deposited them in the guarded hall beyond, and turned to Pahner.

"What's the status of the Company?" he asked coldly.

"Nominal," the CO replied in a neutral tone. He was seated on a cushion, tapping on a pad, and he cocked his head as he looked up at the prince. "They've been doing some training with the new weapons, and they're waiting for the word on when we move." He hesitated, then went on. "They got the word about last evening. The Sergeant Major has been spending most of the day quelling rumors."

Roger nodded in acknowledgment, but didn't respond directly to the last sentence.

"We have a problem, Captain," he said instead.

"And that is?"

"I don't think we have enough troops or ammunition to make it to the coast." The prince pulled up a pile of cushions beside the Marine and dropped down onto them, and Pahner regarded him calmly as O'Casey looked up from her own pad.

"To an extent, I agree, Your Highness. Do you have an answer?"

"Not directly." Roger picked up a canteen and took a sip. The water was tepid, but his chilled camel-bag was in the other room. "But I was thinking about Cord and his nephews. We need more Mardukan warriors attached to us, whether that be by cash or loyalty oaths."

"So we keep an eye out for a group of mercenaries to attach?" Pahner sounded dubious. "I'm not sure about using mercenaries to protect you, Your Highness."

"Let's not look too far down on mercenaries," Roger said with a bitter smile. "After all, we're about to take still another city so that we can get the gear to continue our journey. I don't think we should be calling the kettle black."

"That is a point, Your Highness," Pahner said ruefully. "However, it's not like we're doing it by our own choice."

"Let's go," Denat hissed. "It's not like we have a choice!"

The little female didn't even look around. She was totally focused on the path from the walls to the water, and a part of Denat wished he could match her total concentration.

Unfortunately, he couldn't. He didn't know what was happening back at the barracks, but whatever it was, it was making Julian nervous as hell, which hadn't done a great deal for Denat's state of mind, either. The good news was that the NCO had steadied down when the time to move arrived, and now he was monitoring the sensors scattered over the Mardukan's gear.

"Well," the earbud whispered. "There's nothing large moving between you and the water. By the way, I'm glad it's you and not me."

Denat wrinkled his nose but forbore to comment. The exit from the city was a sewer, and although the runoff stream was currently a mere trickle, the first hint of rain would transform it into a flash flood of obnoxious matter. It was high time to make a bolt for the river.

"Come on!" he hissed again.

"Great hunter," Sena said derisively, "I have learned not to move too fast. You have to know what the next step is. Otherwise, you find yourself paste between the toes of the flar-ke."

Denat shook his head and stepped forward.

"Julian," his subvocalized, "have you got anything?"

"Guards on the bridge," the human responded, detecting the movement at a hundred meters. "Other than that, there's no movement."

The tribesman tried to sniff the air for the musk of a hidden enemy, but the sewer stench overrode any other scent.

"Stay here," he whispered to Sena, removing the encumbering armor. When he was finished, he wore only his normal garb, a belt with a knife and a pouch. The pouch bulged with the human gift to the King of Marshad.

He stepped out of the sewer-stream and moved forward slowly but naturally. The bridge guards were using lanterns, which would destroy their night vision, so the two conspirators should be impossible to see at this distance.

He was confused by the little female's timidity. She'd been practically fearless up until this moment, and the change was baffling . . . until he suddenly realized that all the previous action had taken place within the confines of the city walls. Now, out in the open, the spy was no longer on familiar ground facing familiar threats.

Denat, on the other hand, was close to his element. He had grown up hunting the jungles of the east, and was one of the few of his tribe who was as willing to hunt the night as the day. The nighttime jungles were a pitch black mine of hazards, both inanimate and animate alike; from quagmires to atul, night was when death stalked the forests.

And was stalked in turn by D'Nal Denat.

Now he moved away from the stench of the sewer and let his senses roam. The way to move by night was without focus. Trying to concentrate, straining to see, fighting to hear—those were the ways to die. The way to live was the way of intuition. Place the feet just so, and the leaf did not stir. Open the eyes wide, but look at nothing; open the ears, but hear nothing; and breathe the air, but smell nothing. Become one with the night.

And because that was the way he moved, he was instantly aware when the faint sound out of harmony with its surroundings came to him. He stopped, motionless, like a darker hole in the night, as a furtive shape stole past him. The figure was short—a small male or a female—returning from the river and bent under a dripping pack, and the tribesman's stomach dropped as he realized there was smuggling across the river.

If there was smuggling, there might be patrols, and he paused for several seconds to consider the problem, then made a small gesture of resignation. The plan was the only one possible, so if there were patrols, he would simply have to avoid them. And from what he'd seen thus far of the locals, at least that shouldn't be difficult to do.

He continued his slow but steady movement, stopping occasionally and making a little natural noise, scuffing a foot, rattling a leaf. The noises blended into the natural night sounds, the sounds of little animals rustling in the kur grass for seeds and roots. If anyone was there to hear his slow passage, they would dismiss him as a stap or basik. Now if only no insheck pounced on him, everything would be fine. In the past, he'd been attacked by insheck or juvenile atul while moving this way because the diminutive predators had mistaken him for natural prey.

He reached the banks of the river without incident, however. The current was fast, but nothing to deter someone who'd been swimming in worse since he was a cub. The humans had assured him that the package was waterproof, so he lowered himself into the water, moving as carefully as if he were stalking an atul-grack.

The current caught him and swept him away from the low earthen bank. The water was warmer than the night, a soothing bath that washed away the stench of the city. He let the current swirl him like a bit of flotsam, keeping his head just above water and breathing through his nose while he kept an eye out for asleem. If he met one of those, the entire plan was forfeit . . . as was his life.

He approached the bridge quickly under the impetus of the current and ducked under to swim towards the bank. There was a danger in this—the danger of striking an underwater obstruction, as much as anything. But it was a calculated risk, for the guards might well be watching the water as much as the banks.

He surfaced carefully when his air ran out and found himself nearly to the bridge, with a guard directly above him, looking up the river. The guard was not, however, looking down, and the tribesman suppressed a grunt of laughter. These shit-sitters were as blind and stupid as basik.

He drove himself towards the edge, where the bridge's foundation shelf was clearly evident in the reflected light of the lamps. He grabbed the rock and held himself still, head out of the water, letting his senses adjust to conditions under the bridge.

The chuckling water echoed oddly in the arches of the structure, gurgling and sucking air into their watery vortices. He heard the echoing footsteps of guards overhead and smaller night sounds—the hissing calls of feen and the chittering cracks of water slen.

Finally, when he was sure he had all the sounds cataloged, he began to lift himself out of the water. The movement was painfully slow, but it allowed all the water to run off his body, leaving nothing to drip-drop-drip and betray him by the out-of-place sound.

He crept up the rock to the junction of the bridge and its foundation. The humans had been careful in their instructions on this point: the package must be in contact with the bridge, but out of sight. He placed the box against the cool stones of the arch, and spread some of the wiry flir grass that thrived in the shadow to cover it. Then he began his slow progress back down the slope.

With any luck at all, there really would be a guide on the downstream side.

"That's half the plan in place," Roger said, and Pahner nodded.

"Now if we can just be in place for the other half."

"About that—" Roger began, then paused as someone thumped on the door.

Despreaux stepped back with most of her squad, covering the door as Corporal Bebi jerked it opened.

The new commander of the Guard was revealed in the doorway, and looked at the leveled weapons evenly.

"I was sent by His Majesty. You are to write a message to your company. It will command them to follow my orders until you are reunited."

Roger looked at Pahner, then back at the visitor.

"How long do you want to be the new commander?" the prince asked. "I can cut that tenure short, if you'd like."

"If you kill me, another will take my place," the commander said in indifferent tones. "And if your company isn't given help in the battle, it will be wiped out. I'll be in command of the support forces. If you anger me, I guarantee that you'll have no soldiers left after the morrow."

"Ah," Roger said with a feral smile. "Nice to know we're all on the same sheet of music." He pulled a pad over, tapped on the interface for a moment, then threw it to the Mardukan. "Take that to them. It gives them all the orders they need."

"Very well," the Mardukan said, holding the pad upside down as he studied it. "Tomorrow morning, you will join my lord in observing our glorious battle." He grunted evilly, the first expression he'd made other than contempt. "To Victory!"

"Yeah," Roger said. "Whatever."