The Bands of Mourning (33 page)

“Good eye,” MeLaan said.

“You can’t have it,” he said, turning the spyglass and looking toward the farmsteads in the area. “Soldiers stationed in that farmhouse over there, I’d guess. And none of the other homes have smoke rising from them. Probably abandoned. You’re unlikely to find a farmstead this time of day without dinner in the oven.”

“They’re waiting for us?”

“No, this is too extensive for that,” Wax said. “This is a perimeter. They’re trying not to have it look like one, to prevent word from spreading, but they’ve cordoned off this entire area. What the hell is happening in there?”

MeLaan shook her head, looking baffled.

“Well, we can’t take the coach any farther,” Wax said, handing back the spyglass. “How are you at bareback?”

“Well, I haven’t thrown any riders off recently, but I don’t get occasion to be a horse very often, so I can’t say how I’ll feel today.”

Wax blinked.

“Oh, you meant
riding,
” MeLaan said. “Yeah, I’m fine. I doubt I’m the one you’ll have to worry about.” She nodded back toward Steris walking into the grove, trailed by Wayne, who had filled his hat with walnuts.

“Right,” Wax said.

Hopefully some of their horses would prove docile.

*   *   *

Twilight settled upon the land fitfully, like a tired eye struggling to stay open. It was the variety of the land down here in the south, Wax figured. One moment you could be riding through a wooded hollow, all in shadow, and the next you’d crest a hill into an open field and find that the sun hadn’t quite dropped below the horizon yet.

Still, darkness did eventually arrive, but with it came no mists. Wax realized he’d been longing to feel them envelop him again.

MeLaan led the sortie, keeping to forested areas when possible. She or Wayne would scout ahead, listening for patrols, but the Set was attempting to hold such a large area that they obviously couldn’t watch the whole wilderness. Marasi, of course, was an accomplished rider—and seemed pleased to have a reason to change into her new constable’s trousers and jacket.

Steris surprised him. She did just fine, even riding in a skirt. She’d packed one full enough that she could tuck it beneath her and ride bareback without exposing too much. She took to it without complaint, as she’d done with practically everything else on this trip.

The few farmsteads or hunter’s camps they passed on their ride were empty. Wax felt a mounting disquiet. Yes, this was a small, largely unpopulated region in the Basin’s backwaters—but it was still profoundly disturbing that the Set could dominate it so fully.

Once they reached the final patch of trees near the village, MeLaan scouted ahead, then came back and waved for him to follow. He crawled up with her to peer at the village from the tree line.

Bright electric floodlights lit the perimeter around an enormous structure in what obviously had once been the center of the village of Dulsing. Wooden, windowless, huge, it was still under construction, judging by the scaffolding at the sides and the unfinished roof at the top. The town’s buildings had mostly been torn down, leaving only a few at the perimeter untouched.

The roofless top of the building glowed with a warm light. Where were they getting so much electricity? MeLaan handed him the spyglass and he raised it, inspecting the perimeter. Those were definitely soldiers, wearing red uniforms with some mark on the breast that wasn’t distinguishable at this distance. They carried rifles at their shoulders, and the floodlights created a bright ring around the place. Focused outward, not toward the building, which left plenty of shadowed areas inside that ring. So they’d have cover once they got past the perimeter.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Is that some kind of bunker?”

“Doesn’t look like any fort
I’ve
seen,” MeLaan whispered. “With those flimsy walls? Looks more like a big warehouse.”

A warehouse as large as a small town. Wax shook his head in bafflement, then spotted something near the far side of the village. A waterfall? It was outside the lights, but he thought he could see mist rising from where it plunged down, and a small stream did run through the village.

“High ground that direction,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “The maps mention the waterfall over there. Small but pretty, supposedly.”

“Must have hooked a turbine up to it,” he said. “That’s where the power is coming from. Let’s get back to the others.”

They crawled through the underbrush again to where Wayne, Marasi, and Steris waited in the dim woods. “They’re here all right,” Wax whispered. “We have to find a way to get in. Tons of soldiers. Well-guarded perimeter.”

“Fly in,” Steris suggested.

“Not gonna work,” Wayne said. “They had a Seeker back at the party; you think they won’t have one here? The moment one of us burns a metal, we’ll draw a hundred of Suit’s goons to welcome us with a handshake and a friendly bit of murderin’.”

“What then?” Marasi asked.

“I need to see,” Wayne said.

“There’s a better vantage on the other side, we think,” Wax said. He pointed, and MeLaan led the way in the darkness, walking her horse between the towering hardwoods. Wax fell in with Steris at the tail of the group, and lagged a little to be able to speak with her privately.

“Steris,” he whispered, “I’ve been considering how to proceed once we decide how to infiltrate. I’ve thought about bringing you in with us, and I just don’t see that it’s feasible. I think it would be best if you stayed and watched the horses.”

“Very well.”

“No, really. Those are
armed soldiers
. I can’t even fathom how I’d feel if I brought you in there and something happened. You need to stay out here.”

“Very well.”

“It isn’t subject to—” Wax hesitated. “Wait. You’re all right with this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked. “I barely have any sense of where to point a gun, and have hardly any capacity for sneaking—that’s really quite a scandalous talent if you think about it, Lord Waxillium. While I
do
believe that people tend to be safest when near you, riding into an enemy compound is stretching the issue. I’ll stay here.”

Wax grinned in the darkness. “Steris, you’re a gem.”

“What? Because I have a moderately healthy sense of self-preservation?”

“Let’s just say that out in the Roughs, I was accustomed to people always wanting to try things beyond their capacity. And they always seemed determined to do it right when it was the most dangerous.”

“Well, I shall endeavor to stay out of sight,” Steris said, “and not get captured.”

“I doubt you need to worry about that all the way out here.”

“Oh, I agree,” she said. “But that
is
the sort of statistical anomaly that plagues my life, so I’ll plan for it nonetheless.”

With some difficulty, they navigated to the eastern edge of the town, where they left Steris and the horses. Wax dug some supplies off the pack animal. Metal vials, extra bullets, plenty of guns—including the aluminum one he’d stolen back at Kelesina’s place. And the last of Ranette’s ball-and-string devices, which he tucked into the pouch on his gunbelt.

After climbing up some switchbacks, they were able to settle onto a darkened ridge above the falls—which were nowhere near as impressive as he’d imagined—and study the town. Well, the remnants of it.

“I wish we could see into that building,” Marasi said, handing back the spyglass.

Wax grunted in agreement. They were
almost
high enough to see what was going on inside. Certainly, those flickering lights bespoke considerable activity: people moving down below, passing before the lights in the large chamber. But what were they doing, and why were they still at it well into the night?

“Gonna be hard to sneak in there,” Wayne said.

“You could kill one of the guards for me,” MeLaan said, settling onto a rock. “I’d eat him, take his shape, and slip us in that way.”

Wax blinked, then glanced at Marasi, who seemed sick.

“Really,” MeLaan said, “you all need to stop staring at me like that when I offer pragmatic suggestions.”

“It’s not pragmatic,” Marasi said. “It’s cannibalism.”

“Technically it’s not, as we’re different species. Honestly, if you look at our physiology, I share less in common with humans than you do with a cow—and nobody gasps when you eat one of
those.
You didn’t have trouble with it back in the mansion with Innate’s bodyguard.”

“She was already dead,” Wax said. “Thank you for the suggestion, MeLaan, but getting you a guard’s body is out of the question.”

“We don’t like killin’ folks,” Wayne said. “At least, unless they start shootin’ at us. They’re just chaps what are doing their job.” He looked to Marasi, as if for support.

“Don’t look at me,” Marasi said. “I’m reeling from watching
you
trying to take the moral high ground.”

“Focus, Wayne,” Wax said. “How are we going to get in? Shall we try a Fat Belt?”

“Nah,” Wayne said, “too loud. I think we should do Spoiled Tomato.”

“Dangerous,” Wax said, shaking his head. “I’d have to do the placement just right, between the lit perimeter and the shadowed part near the walls.”

“You can do it. You make shots like that all the time. Plus, we got this shiny new metalmind, full o’ health waitin’ to be slurped up.”

“A mistake could ruin the whole infiltration, healing power or no,” Wax said. “I think we should do Duck Under Clouds instead.”

“You kiddin’?” Wayne said. “Didn’t you get
shot
last time we tried that?”

“Kinda,” Wax admitted.

MeLaan stared at them, baffled. “Duck under Clouds?”

“They get like this,” Marasi said, patting her on the shoulder. “Best not to listen too closely.”

“Tube Run,” Wayne said.

“No glue.”

“Banefielder?”

“Too dark.”

“Blackwatch Doublestomp.”

Wax hesitated. “… The hell is that?”

“Just made it up,” Wayne said, grinning. “It’s a nifty code name though, eh?”

“Not bad,” Wax admitted. “And what type of plan is it?”

“Same as Spoiled Tomato,” Wayne said.

“I said that was too dangerous.”

“Nothin’ else will work,” Wayne said, standing. “Look, are we going to sit here arguing, or are we going to do this?”

Wax debated for a moment, eyeing the grounds, thinking. Could he get the placement right?

But then, did he have a better plan? That perimeter was very well guarded, but it was a dark night. If his life in the Roughs had taught him one thing, it was to trust his instincts. Unfortunately, at that moment they agreed with Wayne.

So, before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled his shotgun from its holster and tossed it to Wayne. The shorter man caught it with distaste—guns and Wayne didn’t agree. His arms immediately started shaking.

“Try to hold on tight,” Wax said. “Make an opening on the north side, if you can.”

He increased his weight, flared his metal, and Pushed on the gun, using it as an anchor to hurl Wayne out off the rocky outcropping and over the camp. The man soared from the Push before dropping through the darkness, some fifty feet toward the ground below.

Marasi gasped. “Spoiled Tomato?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Wax said. “Apparently it makes a mess sometimes when he lands.”

*   *   *

To rust with that Wax,
Wayne thought as he plummeted toward the ground, his hat blowing off.
Tossin’ a gun to a fellow without even warnin’ him. Why, that’s just—

He hit.

Now, there was a trick to falling to your death. Bodies hitting the ground were
loud
. Louder than anyone ever expected.

He mitigated this by hitting feet-first—his legs both snapped immediately—then twisted onto his side, breaking his shoulder, but dampening some of the sound by rolling with the impact. He tapped his fancy new metalmind right before his head smacked the ground, dazing him.

He ended up in a crumpled, broken heap beside a pile of rocks.
Of course
Wax would have sent him into a pile of rocks. As his vision cleared, he tried to glance at his legs, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel anything, actually, which was quite pleasant. It was always nice when you snapped the spine—helped with the pain.

Not that the pain went
completely
away, mind you. But he and pain were old friends what shared a handshake and a beer now and then. Didn’t much like one another, but they had a working relationship. Sensation—and agony—flooded back into him as his metalmind healed his spine, focusing on the worst wounds first. He drew in a deep breath. A snapped spine could suffocate a man. People didn’t know that. Or, well, the ones who
did
know had suffocated already.

As soon as he could move—even while his legs were healing—he twisted and used his good arm to position one of the large rocks in the pile. Looked like these stones were here intended for shoring up the sides of the stream, perhaps to make a pathway across. Wayne put them to good use, reaching up with his other hand as his shoulder healed. Wax had placed him well, right in the dark area between the perimeter watchposts and the building. But that didn’t mean he was safe.

Wayne stumbled to his feet, dragging Wax’s gun, his leg twisting about and bones reknitting. Damn fine metalmind, that gold bracelet was. An extensive healing like this would have cost him months of saving up, but this metalmind was still mostly full.

He stumbled away as quietly as he could, leaving a large rock balanced on the others as he sought a place deeper in the shadows, then hid the gun near the building so his damn hand would stop shaking.

He got away none too soon. A pair of soldiers were approaching from the perimeter.

“It was over here,” one said to the other. As they drew closer, one of the spotlights turned around and shone on the area, giving them light and quite nearly exposing Wayne. He froze in the shadows near a pile of work equipment, sweating as his toes popped softly, the bones grinding against one another as they knit back into their proper places.