The Incorruptibles (4 page)

SIX

After the lascar fetched my tack and Fisk’s carbine – bringing back Banty, unfortunately – we rode out into the foothills of the White Mountains on the western shore. The eastern shore, for this scouting rotation, had been assigned to Fisk, Banty, and me. All of our tack and mounts were there, currently. Porting them across on a flatboat was a labour too great to do on a whim, even a senator’s. So, Horehound and Sharbo rustled up some mounts and gave Fisk a feisty mare and me a stumpy but ornery spotted pony, maybe in jest but probably spite.

Gnaeus rode an enormous stallion, steel-shod and tufted at the hooves, rippling with leather and frilly silverwork, while Secundus rode a beaut of a mare, fine lines and even disposition and tacked sensibly, without frill or bangle. Cornelius himself rode a gelding, rough with the first of winter’s growth but white-muzzled and temperate. It seemed Gnaeus was the showman of the family.

All of the Cornelius brood were accoutred like kings, leather hunting vests decorated with ammunition and each one holding a massive long-bore rifle. They bristled with Hellfire. A personal legionary in full uniform – Imperial blue jacket dotted with brass and gold phalerae, grey trousers tucked into leather caligae – toted Cornelius’ rifle. The gun had a barrel half an arm longer than the others, with a series of curious ground glass reticules where the sightings were normally affixed to the barrel. They reminded me of the lenses of spectacles I’d seen a few shopkeeps wear in Covenant, so I had to assume Cornelius had poor eyesight, which the strange sighting glass assisted. He didn’t act near-sighted, though; he constantly raised his hand to shade his eyes and stared toward the large, wooded gulley we fast approached.

I watched Banty as he rode among them, his eyes lingering on the weapons, their clothes. The pup would require constant guard.

We rode through the fallow growth up to the rise, with a view of the
Cornelian
. Sharbo accompanied us, having spotted the bear, and led us down, away from the Big Rill, his tall, lanky form swaying easily on horseback.

‘What was all that about your name back there on the boat, pard?’

Fisk raised an eyebrow and shifted in his saddle to look at the Cornelian clan. When he was satisfied they were out of earshot, he said, ‘She knows a little bit about my history.’

‘What about your history?’

He looked at me sharply, narrowing his eyes. One of the reasons we’re good partners is maybe because we’ve both been around long enough not to jabber away, to think before speaking, and to consider who we’re speaking to.

‘It’s a long story, Shoe, and one I always meant to tell you. But I never saw any need.’ He raised a hand and gestured out to the land, the sheer massiveness of the Hardscrabble Territories, the White Mountains. He reined in and pulled out his last two machine-rolled cigarettes and held one out to me. I brought the pony in close enough to take it. He lit his smoke with a match and then passed the cigarette over, and I lit mine from his. We smoked for a while and surveyed the foothills, wreathed in tall shoal grasses rippling with the wind coming down from the mountainside.

‘But now ain’t the time, and it don’t matter anyway.’ He drew on the smoke and expelled it harshly, as though it tasted foul even though it was spiced and fragrant. ‘It’s an Ia-damned monster of a world always ready to take what you love. Always hungry, this world.’

I nodded. It weren’t nothing I didn’t know from my mother’s milk.

‘This ain’t gonna cause us problems, is it?’ I asked.

He was quiet for a bit, but not too long. ‘No. I don’t think so. Depends on Livia. You think we can trust her?’

‘As much as you can trust anybody. These Cornelians are highborn. Different breed of cat from you and me.’

He remained silent and watched the mountains.

Cornelius adjusted the sights on his massive rifle while Sharbo led the legionaries into the aspen break at the top of the gulley and we waited at the lower mouth.

‘Banty, you go with the legionaries.’

Even though Fisk’s voice sounded fierce, Banty said petulantly, ‘Why? There’re enough men with Sharbo. They don’t need me.’

Fisk pulled the mare abreast Banty. The mare chuffed her head at the closeness of the other horse. Fisk leaned forward and patted her neck with a gloved hand. She stilled.

Watching Fisk was like watching a snake uncoil, striking. One moment his gloved hand was patting his black beast’s neck, the next instant it lashed out and smacked Banty across the jaw, knocking off his hat and tumbling him arse over head off the rump of his mount. He landed in the dirt and gravel.

‘Next time you question me, I’ll put a hole in you. Get after those legionaries, understood?’

Banty found his knees and rose, hand going to his Hellfire. Hard to tell if he was smiling or if his mouth was pulled back in pain, but his teeth were bloody and his eyes wild.

I said, ‘Don’t kill him, Fisk,’ knowing he wouldn’t anyway, unless the boy drew. When Banty glanced at me, Fisk kicked his horse forward and Banty scrambled to get out of the way. Fisk didn’t look back.

‘If you want to keep breathing, I’d take my hand off that piece of damnation,’ I said, low, softly, and as gently as I could.

Banty glanced at me and spat a clot into the dirt.

‘No percentage in it, son.’

If looks could kill, Banty’s gaze and expression would have done for us all. ‘Not your son, dwarf.’

‘Thank Ia for that.’

Cornelius and his sons watched from a fair piece away, no doubt wondering what the ruckus was all about.

‘You better get on after them legionaries, Mr Bantam. You can tend to your honour later.’

He spat again in my direction and went after his horse.

We watched Banty scramble up the gulley’s edges, after the men. Cornelius and his sons joined us and commenced fiddling with their gear and weapons. Gnaeus drank some sort of spirit from a leather bladder, handed it to his father, who swallowed a great draught. Secundus waved away the proffered refreshment with a scowl.

After a while, the echoes of hollers and beating of the small
dvergar
-crafted tambours came rattling over the wind as the beaters made their way through the gulley.

‘We were grousing here, yesterday afternoon. Gnaeus bagged a brace of hens. Sharbo spied some movement in yon bramblewrack and called my attention to it.’ Cornelius shifted the rifle in his hands. ‘I made her out, dimly at first. But she appeared like a dream. A huge creature she was, easily fifteen hands high on her back feet, I swear. Her belly was loose with the slough of fat from suckling a cub at teat, and she had a wild rangy look, she did.’

I thought I should point out the obvious. ‘Mr Cornelius, a mama bear with a cub is at her most vicious. I’ve seen a small bear maul a man to death. She gets in close, Ia save you.’

Gnaeus laughed. Secundus said, ‘It’s doubtful any creature could get within a hundred paces of our dear pater while he’s holding that cannon.’

‘If I might be so bold, Mr Cornelius,’ I said, dismounting. ‘We should take positions.’

The beating grew louder, and there came some excited shouting. And the bellow of something hairy and mighty pissed off.

Mama bear.

The highborns dismounted and arrayed themselves at three points in the mouth of the gulley. They might have been a tad too close, but it was too hard to tell – the brush and bramblewrack stood dark and impenetrable before them. Fisk remained mounted, unsmiling, leaning forward, arms crossed and resting on the saddle-horn. The whiteness of his face reminded me that he’d been leg-shot only yesterday and must still be in considerable pain. Deep flesh wounds hurt more in the days following the injury than the time immediately after. At least that has been my experience, and I’ve lived through four knife fights and a gunfight that got me through the fat on the edge of my belly. But the shooting was down south in the hot lands and there was a woman there to soothe me. And knife fights are as common as schoolyard scuffles in the Hardscrabble Territories.

The bramblewrack rustled, shifted, and then parted. A bear cub caromed out of the mouth of the gulley, roused from its den, mewling and growling and making small pathetic sounds. I felt a moment of sadness for the small creature, having to live out its last moments in heart-shattering fear of man. Ia save us, we
are
fearsome beasts.

A grunt followed, deep as the voice of the mountains, and the she-bear ripped down the bramblewrack and stood like a great shadow behind her cub.

Gnaeus raised his rifle, but his father called, ‘She’s mine!’ and, hoisting the cannon, sighted down the length of the barrel. He held it steady for a moment, squinting his left eye, and then there was a great boom and an incandescent flash of light. Whatever
daemon
was bound behind that great burst, it was unlike any I’d seen before and there was no afterimage of wings, or horns, only a writhing mass of
something
. What it was I couldn’t tell – but I whispered a prayer to Ia, thankful that the
daemon
was without a host. But I felt weak, and I can admit here that had I not expected some horror my bowels might have loosed. As it was, my heart hammered in my chest and I felt like something very bad was going to happen.

Daemons
. Damned things. Damn them, and damn guns, and Ia damn the men who wield them.

The mama bear roared, rearing back, but blood darkened her brown fur, flowed from her chest. It pumped, bright in the light streaming over the plains, and her muzzle, already frothed with white, began to fleck crimson.

She dropped to her paws and came forward, twisting her body and head, giving a roar that shook me like thunder. I was thinking,
What a magnificent beast—
, when I heard the snick of rifle-work and knew Cornelius was reloading his monstrosity of a gun.

‘She’s mine, Gnaeus! Do
not
fire!’

The massive bear surged forward toward Cornelius, closing the distance in a flash. The patriarch fell backward and the bear swiped with her paw, snagging his leg. There was a bright ripping sound as her long claws tore through leathers and into flesh. Cornelius screamed and dropped his fancy rifle, grabbing at the earth as the bear jerked him forward.

Then there was another brilliant flash, a sinking despair, and when the afterimage of the
daemon
died away I saw Secundus standing on the far side of the bear – the slumped bear. A pained expression was on his face, and I couldn’t tell if it was due to killing such a magnificent creature or because of the effects of
daemon
gunplay. Maybe both. Or neither, and some other dark current washed his tarnished soul. You never can tell with highborn.

‘Secundus,’ said Gnaeus, through clenched teeth. ‘By rights, that kill should have been mine.’

Secundus laughed. ‘Brother, you can claim it, should you want. I care not one whit. I acted to preserve our father.’

Gnaeus sneered. ‘You arse. You don’t know your place. I have primacy,
little brother.
’

Again, Secundus laughed. ‘And you can keep it.’

Cornelius cursed, loudly, in a variety of languages. It seemed he’d spent some time in Petrugal.

‘Might want to tend your father, gents,’ Fisk said as the bramblewrack rustled again and four legionaries emerged with Banty following close behind – a scowl darkening his features. I went to Cornelius and knelt by him. The mama bear had shredded his britches, ripped his black leather boot clean away. There was a lot of blood. Beaucoup blood.

‘She got you good, sir. We gotta stop the bleeding.’ I whipped off my belt and cinched it tight around his thigh.

I’d refilled my flask of cacique since Fisk’s injury; I withdrew it and handed it to Cornelius. He twisted off the silver cap and swallowed, his throat working up and down.

While I tended the injured highborn, Gnaeus said, ‘And the cub? Shall we take it as a pet?’ He gave a laugh. Not a pleasant sound to my ears, and I’m no saint, Ia knows. But that one, he was sour.

‘I don’t know, Gnaeus. It’s just a cub.’

I pulled my longknife and split Cornelius’ britches – the second time I’d performed this action in two days – to get a better look. He’d been hamstrung, surely, and would never walk right again. But when I moved his leg, and he screamed, I saw how bad the damage was.

‘Banty! And, you … soldier! What’s your name?’

‘Jim Orrin, sir.’

‘Mr Orrin, take Banty here and a hatchet, and cut as many long saplings as you can. We’ve got to get Mr Cornelius back to the boat. And quick, boys.’

Banty came to Cornelius, a strange look upon his face, like he was innocent and eager all at once, and whipped off his hat. ‘I’ll make sure you have what you need, sir. On my honour.’

Cornelius looked from Banty to me, and back. I shrugged. If the boy wanted to grandstand, it was fine by me, as long as he did what I said.

‘Get the saplings. Quick-like. We’ve got to make a travois.’

‘I can ride, dwarf. Never has a Cornelian not been able to mount …’

‘Pardon me, sir, but don’t be a fool. If we don’t get you back within the hour, that leg will have to come off.’

‘What? Devils, no! I’ve endured worse scratches.’ The cacique had done its work, I could tell. He fumbled to get up.

‘Mr Cornelius, your calf’s cut totally from your leg. It’s hanging by a scrap. Maybe Miss Livia can help you, but I can’t do anything other than to cut it off, start a fire, and cauterize the wound.’

His breath was coming heavy, and he had a hand on my arm, squeezing tightly. Strange thing, watching him turn pale like a clear glass filling with milky fluid. No doubt he was feeling the first of the shock of the wound. A tough one, this Cornelius.

‘
Soldier
!’ Gnaeus called. ‘Fetch some rope! We’ll take this bear cub as a pet!’

One of the legionaries went to his pack horse, retrieving some length of hemp-rope. I looked about and spied the cub, still mewling, huddled by the corpse of its mother. Poor thing. The legionary approached and tossed a lasso toward the creature.