“Yes, sir,” Karcher said with a catlike smile.
“That’s it,” Talbot said. “Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir,” Karcher said, standing up and putting on her hat. “I’ll try to make my own.”
“Hello, your Dukeship,” Herzer said, striding into the lamp-lit tent.
“Herzer, you’re really losing your military bearing with me, aren’t you?” Edmund chuckled.
“I bring orders from your wife, via your daughter who you haven’t even said hello to, yet,” Herzer replied, walking over and pulling a sheet of paper out of the admiral’s hand. “We are ordered to repair to the O-Club. Where you, Van Krief and I, at a minimum, will occupy one corner and get shit faced. Rachel’s precisely transmitted words. ‘You are hereby ordered, by mother, to get him, and I quote, shit faced.’ It’s a rest day tomorrow and that gives us at least a few hours to get over the hangover. So stand up, our real masters call.”
Edmund shook his head and waved at the desk. “She already had me sleep in. I’ve got reams of paperwork to catch up on.”
“All of it will wait,” Herzer said, walking around the desk and lifting up on Edmund’s arm. “Don’t even think about fighting. I’m younger and faster than you.”
“Age and treachery beats youth and speed every time,” Edmund growled. But he stood up.
“Well, once we get drunk enough, maybe we can put it to the test,” Herzer chuckled. “Come on, boss, times a wastin’.”
“You sound like Bast when you say that,” Edmund chuckled. “Speaking of which, you gotten your tubes cleaned lately?”
“No, more’s the pity,” Herzer replied, frowning. “When we got here we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. And since then the only female contact I’ve had is with subordinates. And I don’t even want to go there after the day I just had. Especially since that idiot decision of mine to set up The Mast.”
“I thought that was brilliant,” Edmund said as they strode past the ring of guards around the headquarters.
“So did I,” Herzer growled. “And I thought putting it up where the commander could watch was brilliant as well. Then I noticed that when they’re running up the ratlines, well… let’s just say that there are some fine butts in that class. And they’re getting finer every week!”
Edmund laughed and clapped him on the back as they crossed the blacked-out road.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure your lackanookie condition won’t…” He spun sideways as a sword lashed out of the darkness, then spun again as another attacker came from his off-side.
Herzer and Edmund were unarmed but that didn’t last long. There was a crack of a broken arm and a scream as Herzer spun sideways, hurling one of the attackers into the roadway. But he had retained the assassin’s short sword and he tossed it -overhand to Edmund as the admiral flipped his cloak in the face of another attacker. Edmund caught the sword and skewered one of the assassins through the neck, then tossed the dead assassin’s sword to Herzer. After that it became somewhat bloody.
Herzer parried a blade and used the same trick with the cloak to wrap up one of the attackers, running his blade across the man’s throat and throwing the thrashing body onto one that had closed on Edmund’s back.
Edmund now had two blades and was moving forward through the group, the blades acting as if they had a will of their own. An arm thumped the ground followed by a head and Herzer used the distraction of the blood from the spurting stump to kill another half-blind assassin. He felt a cut across his shoulder but turned and jabbed backwards, killing the man behind him, then kicked out at one to his front. As the attacker bent double Herzer drove the blade of the sword into the side of his neck and outward, slashing his carotid artery and spilling more blood onto the soaked ground.
In moments it was over, two of the attackers running into the night as a group of lantern-bearing marines pounded across the road.
“Bloody hellfire,” the sergeant choked, looking at the scattered pieces on the ground.
“Indeed,” Edmund said, dropping one of his swords and cleaning the other on a bit of almost-clean cloth. “Herzer, I think I owe you a drink.”
Herzer looked at the lamp-lit ground and counted. “I dunno… I think we’re about even. Youth and speed might not beat age and treachery.”
“Do we get cleaned up?” Edmund asked, looking at his blood-soaked uniform. “Or just go to the club?”
“They’ve got a dress-code,” Herzer pointed out, chuckling.
“Ah, they make exceptions for admirals,” Edmund said, walking towards the doors of the club and into the night.
“Hey, Van Krief,” Edmund said as they entered the main bar.
He’d heard the expression: “You could have heard a pin drop,” but he’d never actually experienced it in his very long life. Now he really understood it. He actually heard, all the way across the club, a bartender set down the bottle he was holding. The faint “tap” was the only sound in the room for a moment.
“Good evening, sir,” Van Krief said, getting up from the table by the door. “Are all the members of your staff alive?” She was a Blood Lord and be damned if she was going to react in shock to two blood-soaked officers walking into the main bar.
“Do me a favor, will you?” Edmund said, stripping off his uniform tunic. “Go get some clothes for Herzer and me while we go wash up.” He took the short sword and tossed it overhand across the room, so hard that it stuck in the wall. “We had a spot of bother on the way over from headquarters.”
“You could have been killed!” Daneh said, angrily.
“I very nearly was,” Edmund replied, taking another sip of his drink. “Would have been if it wasn’t for Herzer.”
Daneh and Rachel had hurried over as soon as Van Krief had explained why she needed new clothes for Edmund and the major. The foursome, with Van Krief, Destrang and Tao at a nearby table, now had a corner of the bar all to themselves. Except for a hovering waiter who was watching them like a mouse watches a hovering falcon.
“Nah, you were doing fine on your own.” Herzer chuckled, taking a deep pull off of his beer. “It was hairy for a second or two, though. You spotted them before I did, I’ll give you that.”
“Years of hard living, son,” Edmund replied, shaking his head. “Years of hard living. Some habits die hard.”
“You’re going to need bodyguards,” Rachel said.
“Yep,” Talbot replied, grimly. “But the good news is, somebody doesn’t like me.”
“That’s good news?” Daneh asked. “Since when?”
“It means someone considers him a threat,” Herzer pointed out. “And whereas I’m sure there’s more than one Navy officer who would love to shove a foot of steel in his back, I doubt that they were the source of the assassins.”
“Which means Sheida’s old friend Chansa,” Edmund said. “Or, possibly, Paul. So that’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s not just me who will need guards, but you, Rachel and the squirt as well. Which is why there’s already a team of marines over at the VIP quarters and more on the way.”
“Yes, they would try to strike at you through us, wouldn’t they?” Daneh asked, quietly.
“Yes, they would,” Edmund replied. “Rachel, I hate to talk business but are you up to another long coach ride?”
“If I must,” she said.
“Daneh, I’m going to put you to work,” Edmund continued. “Special assistant for medical facilities or something. When the fleet comes back I want better medical care than the last time. I haven’t been able to put enough emphasis on that as I’d like. You can. We’re setting up another Fleet base in Balmoran, Rachel. I want you to go up there and get in on the ground floor on the medical facilities. You’ll report to your mother; she’ll report to me. The fleet can actually make for Balmoran better than they can for here, if we fight in the north again. The main thing that we’d be bringing in is casualties. I’d like the hospital up there to be top-notch. Okay?”