"We shall be like lions, Captain Ingolf," he said, and his sister nodded, a rare smile on her face.
"Like a lioness," she added.
They always say that, and they never say why it's funny, Ingolf thought, as they heeled their horses into a walk; Kaur dropped a little behind, covering her brother with an arrow on the string of her saddlebow.
I know what lions are. He had seen pictures in old books, and once a trader had brought a skin through, just before he left home. They've got 'em down in Texas.
One of his best men came from there, having wandered up the way people did every now and then and joined the bossman's army when Ingolf did; he'd told stories about them, how they'd bred up in the bush country until they were a major nuisance along the Rio Grande, the way tigers were farther north.
Sort of tiger sized but colored like a cougar, and the males have a big black ruff around the neck, and they hunt together in packs like wolves. OK, a lion's big and fierce and sneaky, and so's Singh… well, his sister is medium-sized and fierce and sneaky. But why's it funny?
"All right, we'll camp here," he called loudly. Then he squinted at the sun; they still had eight hours to dark, this time of year. "Jump to it!"
Everyone knew what to do; some cleared the brush; others drove the wagons into a circle and linked them with chains and knockdown barriers of timber, shoved and fastened coils of razor wire under the vehicles, saw to the rest of the defenses, built fires, scavenged firewood, got the cooking gear ready. They had plenty of food, besides hoarded dried fruits and such to keep them from scurvy; this area swarmed with deer and duck, rabbit and bear, and some of the rivers were thick with fish, where the old time poisons weren't still leaking from rusting storage tanks or lingering in the mud.
The natives were too thin on the ground nowadays to keep the game down, and they weren't really very good hunters, most of them…
Not of animals, at least, he thought grimly as he swung down and handed over Boy's reins.
The stock were watered from buckets, and the wood teams also collected any green fodder around and piled it up for them to stretch the remnants of the parched corn. The Villains were cheerful enough, more so than he'd expected; there was even some laughing and horse play, and after the main work was done someone got out a guitar.
I'm going to see every one of you gets a home out of this, if I can; so help me God and His mother.
He smiled to himself; homes for the ones who didn't just want to blow every penny on booze, whores and fancy duds, at least.
And me, I'm going to be rich, if I can, with a fort and land to the horizon. None of my kids are going to have to earn a living like this when I have 'em. And God knows I've earned it… And as for you, my dear brother Edward, you can shit sideways, fold yourself in half and go blind back there in the old homestead. Maybe I'll come visit my nieces and nephews, with gifts fit for a bossman's heirs.
Kuttner came over, and Ingolf hid a grimace. Al though the little man had turned out to be a lot tougher and less of a complainer than he'd expected back in Des Moines, and a hell of a lot better in a fight, that hadn't made him any more agreeable, just less disgusting. He was about thirty, a bit below average height-five six or so-thin and wiry, with close-cropped brown hair and an unremarkable face that looked distorted, somehow, without being in any way abnormal if you considered it feature by feature.
"We should push on to Innsmouth, see if we can find a usable boat," Kuttner said; his voice always sounded as if he was in a hurry
… which he generally was.
"Mr. Kuttner, you know I'm the best in this business, don't you?" he said, swatting at a mosquito.
It went squit and left a smear of blood on his cheek. He had bites under his armor, too.
"Yes, Mr. Vogeler, but-"
"Kuttner," he said, getting a little less polite, "did you ever wonder why the best man in this business is only twenty-seven years old?"
Kuttner stopped-which was a wonder, because he liked to talk better than listen-and looked at him out of his ordinary brown eyes. "No, Mr. Vogeler, I can't say that I have. Why?"
"Well, two reasons. First, it's a pretty new business, the way my Villains do it, because there hasn't been enough call for it till now. Second, those who take it up don't usu ally live very long, if they come anywhere near this far east. I am alive and I aim to get back to Iowa still alive, and collect what was promised. Are you sure we have to do this? The Bossman didn't mention Nantucket when we talked-we've got the stuff he wanted from Boston and that was the last on our list."
And I lost four good men doing it, he thought but didn't say.
That was a cost of doing business, and everyone in the Villains knew they took the most dangerous jobs. That didn't make watching an old friend die by inches of a punctured gut much better, or make it easier to make yourself give them an end to pain as the last gift.
"I have written instructions and the Bossman's au thority," Kuttner said, running a hand over his close-cropped hair.
"Yeah-" Ingolf began.
The sound of drumming hoofbeats interrupted them. They could see a fair way down the roads to the south, littered with the rusting vine-grown heaps that had been cars and trucks. Kaur and Singh were coming along at a gallop, riding on the sandy median strip. The hard drum beat of the hooves echoed through the woods, setting birds to avalanche loud flight; it wasn't a sound anyone around here had heard for a long time.
Just when they'd broken free of the narrowest section something flashed in the sunlight, and Singh's horse stumbled, then went down by the stern with a short thick throwing spear in its back near the spine just be hind the saddle. It began to shriek, enormous sounds that sounded like a woman except for the volume.
"Shit," Ingolf said, and looked around. "We're getting short of horses."
Jose had the section on guard, and he was already on it, leading his five riders towards the pair at a round trot. Kaur stopped, shooting over her brother's head into the woods; something screamed there. Singh crouched with his shield up and another javelin went bang off the surface, and a third hit the horse again. When Jose's men joined in the shooting he came erect and gave the wounded beast the mercy stroke, then started salvaging his gear; that meant that there weren't any more of the natives close enough to see.
"Everyone keep an eye out all 'round," he snapped.
A few started guiltily; everyone had picked up their weapons at the alarm, pikes and broadaxes, crossbows or bows, but a few had been staring at the action rather than their assigned sectors. Kuttner had his shete out and was looking around without more than a tightening of the lips.
Singh dropped to the ground from where one of the rescue squad had taken him up behind. "Ranjeet was a good horse," he complained to the air.
Then to Ingolf: "Captain, the woods are thick with them already. More coming from the direction of Inns mouth. I saw no bows… but we did not stay to be sure."
"About what I expected," Ingolf said, and looked at the circling woods, all beyond throwing range. "Good work. Cut a horse out of the remount herd."
Kuttner had the grace to look a little abashed. The captain of the Villains went on to him: "There were bound to be a bunch of them in Innsmouth; they like to lair up in ruins when they can, and it's a good place for them-water, fishing, hunting here in the brush. This is the best spot to take them on. Without we give 'em a good hiding right away, we'll have little ambushes every second hour."
"They'll attack?" Kuttner said, peering at the woods.
Nothing was visible, though they both knew that red hating eyes were studying them. These were the ones who'd lived, or more likely their children by now.