My men, yonder are the Hessians. They were bought for seven pounds and ten pence a man. Are you worth more? Prove it. Tonight the American flag floats from yonder hill or Molly Stark sleeps a widow!
—John Stark,
before the Battle of Bennington
The way Walter Slovotsky explained it, most of the problems were front-loaded; if things went to hell early, they should be able to break off and get out before it all fell apart.
Two days of rest had Jason feeling human again as he crouched near Durine, hiding in the dark next to the fence, with the walkway to his left. The slaver compound was behind him. In front of him was his target: the stable next door.
He was stiff, and his knees and lower back burned with pain; he longed to straighten up, but it was almost twelfth-hour and the guard should be changing shortly. That was the time to hit the slavers; it gave Jason and his companions as much leeway as possible.
With a creak of protesting hinges the door opened and a blocky man marched quickly toward the stable, someone behind him closing the door. He was dressed in a metal cap and chain mail, a slaver rifle and pike over his left shoulder, a hooded lantern held high in his right hand.
He passed perhaps fifteen feet from where Jason and Durine hid, and it was tempting to take him now, but it would have been wrong; his relief would be watching a marked candle burn down, and would be both expecting him and would be expected shortly by whoever was on the other side of the door.
They let him pass.
After waiting to be sure that the door to the compound was closed, Jason and Durine rose and followed the guard into the stable. Best to let his light lead the way.
The stable was as Walter Slovotsky had described it: a three-story building, two partial floors surrounding an open space. At each corner of the building, stairways led up to the top level, where another man waited for the slaver they were following. It smelled of rotting straw and old horseshit.
The horses could smell them; a large roan threw back its head and whinnied, its hooves beating a heavy tattoo on the floorboards. They ducked into an empty stall, knowing that the two slavers would attribute the sound of the horses to the disturbance by the relief watchman.
Jason took a deep breath and let it out. "Wish me luck," he more mouthed than whispered as he crept off toward the stairs.
Walter Slovotsky had done a thorough recon of the stable the night before last; and he had tested Jason's memory on which stairs didn't squeak.
Jason worked his way up the far stairway to the second level while the relief watchman called out a password that he couldn't quite make out. He seemed to take the responding grunt from above as a matter of course, and then put his weapons in a wooden box that was suspended from the ceiling via a rope and pulley arrangement. He pulled on the rope, raising them. The pulley needed greasing; it made enough noise to cover any sound that Jason would have made going up the stairs, although he was only able to get halfway up the second staircase before the weapons carrier reached the top.
The slaver pulled it in with a long crook. The rattling sounds suggested that he was replacing the new guard's weapons with his own; it was enough noise to cover Jason's careful creep up the second set of stairs, avoiding the eighth, eleventh and twelfth steps.
Finally he was on the top floor. He waited for the weapons carrier to creak and shudder its way to the ground, and then he drew his garotte.
And waited, while the sound of the retreating footsteps of the off-duty watchman diminished, then disappeared.
The watchman over by an unshuttered window had been waiting, too. As soon as the other was gone, he set his metal cap down on the floor and then took off his chain mail overshirt and dropped it to one side, chuckling to himself as it clanked and clicked to the floor. Mail is heavy stuff; he sighed as he worked his shoulders, then picked up his pike and leaned on it, looking out into the night.
Jason was right behind him and quickly, gently, slipped the noose of his garotte over the slaver's head, jerking it tight, dragging the man backward to the floor as he kicked and shuddered, then voided himself with a horrible flatulence and an awful stench.
Jason held the garotte tightly while the slaver gave one final jerk and then went limp.
Jason stood over the body for a moment. It was strange. He didn't feel anything; this was just another slaver who had gotten in his way, and now it was a dead slaver. It just didn't matter.
He whistled twice, softly, and was relieved to hear three short whistles back. In a few moments Durine was at the top of the stairs, lowering his gear to the floor: four heavy crossbows and a windlass to wind them, plus a dozen bolts. While Durine quickly loaded the crossbows, Jason put on the dead slaver's steel helmet and stood in front of the window, holding the pike.
Across the way, the garret in the burned-out house was dark. Jason wondered if Walter Slovotsky had done his job and taken out the other guard.
Apparently he had; there was something moving in the dark under the far guard shack on top of the wall.
"He's fast, that one," Durine whispered, handing Jason one of the crossbows and taking the other for himself. They were just backup; if everything went right, Walter Slovotsky would take out the guards on the wall. If everything went right.
If he hadn't been looking for it, Jason wouldn't have seen the rope snake up and around the pole supporting the glowsteel and mirror next to the guard station. Jason dipped the pike twice to the left, and then to the right.
At that signal, Walter Slovotsky climbed quickly up the rope and disappeared over the side. There was silence for a few moments, and then a dark form slumped out of the window of the narrow guard shack at that corner.
"Guard," Durine hissed. There was movement at the near guard shack.
The door to the shack opened and the guard stepped out onto the walkway.
"Now." Two bolts hissed into the night, vanishing in the darkness. Jason was sure it was Durine's that pinned the slaver's throat to the wall of the shack.
The man struggled feebly and Durine put another bolt into him, this one piercing his chest squarely.
"Let's get downstairs," Durine said, quickly reloading the crossbows, then tying the windlass and a quiver of bolts to his belt.
It was a bit awkward walking down the stairs with a cocked crossbow in each hand, but in a few moments they were at the rear door. It slowly opened, just far enough to admit the two of them.
Walter Slovotsky stood there, smiling in the dim light of the overhead glowsteels. He hitched at the pistol at the right side of his waist.
"Now?" Durine asked.
"Now, we go kill some slavers in their beds."
Sick to his stomach, Jason returned Slovotsky's smile.
* * *
They stood in front of the locked door to the slave pens while Jason fumbled with the keys.
It had all gone bloody, but well; they'd killed six sleeping men, Walter Slovotsky slitting their throats while they lay in their sleeping pallets, while Jason and Durine had stood in the doorway, ready to put a bolt in anyone who woke up.
But none of them woke up; Slovotsky had slit six throats, with no sound except for gurgling gasps.
They'd walked through the sleeping room, the floor slick with blood and shit, and through a swinging door into a kitchen, where five men, sitting around a table, drinking wine and talking, had sprung up, only to fall beneath hissing bolts and swords.
Three of them had shouted and leaped to their feet, reaching for weapons. One had whimpered as he tried to parry Slovotsky's lunge, only to be spitted on a sword, and another had thrown up his hands and begged for his life; Durine had hacked through his neck like a woodsman chopping down a tree.
Just numbers. That was all they were: six men sleeping, five men sitting, three shouting, one whimpering, another begging, eleven men dying. Just numbers.
Finally Jason found a key that fit into the lock of the knobless door. Durine stood behind him, ready to kick the door open if necessary.
Walter Slovotsky's brow furrowed; he held up a hand. Wait, he mouthed, running his fingers along the frame, up to the top of the door.
As his fingers tested the oak timber above the door, his face broke into a smile.
He gestured Jason to move away. Slovotsky took a small metal rod from his pouch and inserted it into the hole in the end of the key, tying the lockpick into place with a quick twist of string. He tied another length of string to the end of the pick, took a few quick turns around the key, and stepped back.
Slovotsky beckoned the two of them over. "That timber above the door isn't a timber," he whispered, his voice barely audible even inches away. "It's a deadfall. My guess is that if we turn the key counterclockwise, the way you usually would, it'll slam down. But I want to hedge my bet; it might be set to fall when the door opens, so when you do the door, Durine, get your leg out of the way, quick."
Durine nodded, and took up a position in front of the door, no longer quite below the timber.
Jason drew his pistol, opened the cylinder and thumbed a cartridge into the empty chamber, while Slovotsky did the same. If there were other slavers behind the door, this was a place for guns; a sixth round in the cylinder might make a difference.
Slovotsky pulled on the string. Slowly the key turned in the lock. Something snicked inside.
Durine, his sword in his right hand, his left arm wrapped in a cloak and left hand holding a lantern aloft, drew back his foot for a kick.
Slovotsky nodded. Durine's booted foot kicked the door, hard; wood splintered and shattered as it slammed inward.
Missing Durine's foot by only inches, the deadfall timber slammed down on the stone floor, splitting lengthwise with a pistol-like crack. Hopping over it, Slovotsky was first through the door: he broke left as he skittered inside in a half squat, the pistol held out in front of him.
Jason followed him in, breaking right.
There were shouts and cries, and Jason brought the pistol around, looking for targets.
There were targets in front of him: behind the bars, half-naked men crouched and shouted, some of them flinging hands up in front of their faces.
His wrist wavered, seeking a target. His finger tightened on the—
No. Those were the slaves in the cages; there were no slavers, no targets in the room.
Durine was smiling. "We're all set." The big man hung the lantern on a hook by the door, and left. He'd be keeping watch for a midnight relief party of slavers from the Silver Mushroom Inn.
Slovotsky was already straightening. "Ta havath, all of you. Shut up. You're being freed, assholes," he said, sticking his pistol into the front of his belt. He drew his knife and rapped on the bars with its hilt. "There's clothes upstairs, and you're welcome to what money and weapons you can find," he said, as Jason tried to stop the pounding of his heart.
Jason sagged against the coolness of the stone wall while Slovotsky released the slaves, ten unsmiling men in collars and filthy, ragged breechclouts, some of them standing in the front of their cage as though not sure what to do next, some of them still inside. They didn't appear to be ill-fed, but the slave kennels reeked of unwashed sweat; it was almost as bad as the charnel house outside.
Jason's lungs ached for the taste of fresh air.
"You'll find tools over there for getting the collars off," Slovotsky said as he worked the keys in the lock of the second cage. "The Warrior's next door, finishing off the guards in the stable. Help yourself to horses and saddles. I'd suggest you grab some food and weapons, and then get out of here. You're on your own."
One of the slaves, a skinny man, nodded briefly at another.
There was something very wrong here. The metallic taste of fear filled Jason's mouth, clutched at Jason's gut with icy fingers. Jason stepped away from the wall.
One of the slaves was having trouble getting up; Slovotsky took a step into the cell.
"No."
A black-bearded man reached out and pulled Jason off balance while strong fingers grabbed at Jason's left arm. Instinctively, Jason jerked on the trigger.
The blast was impossibly loud in the close confines of the kennels, the gun kicking hard in his hand, flame lancing into the ceiling.
A blow to the head set the world spinning, sent him reeling back, but he brought the pistol down and shoved the cold metal barrel against an unwashed belly.
The hammer rose and fell. The gun kicked hard against his hand. A warm, salty spray and awful stench splattered Jason's face as the man staggered back, two more rushing to take his place.
Jason shrugged off one attacker and pulled the trigger again, flame lancing out, spearing a slaver in the neck, sending him stumbling back into the bars.
A hairy arm snaked around Jason's throat, but he had already drawn his bowie with his left hand and stabbed backward, slicing into flesh, twisting his knife out when he hit bone. The man's scream deafened Jason's right ear before fading off into a sobbing whimper as he fell away.
"Back off," Jason screamed, shooting another one. Three shots; three to go. "Back off."
It was all obvious, now; these weren't slaves. They were the trap within a trap—slavers, masquerading as slaves.
Three of them had wrestled Slovotsky up against the bars, and one of them had gotten his knife, setting it against his throat while another clawed at the butt of his pistol. But Slovotsky, his eyes glazed, pressed his belly hard against the bars, trapping the pistol.
"Put it down. Put it down, or he dies," the slaver said, digging the point in for emphasis. "Do it now." Slovotsky's teeth clenched around a groan.
Fuck you, asshole, Jason thought as he brought up his pistol and shot the slaver in the right eye.
Slovotsky elbowed the other slaver away, drew his pistol and shot him, then picked up his sword and quickly speared two of the moving injured.
Jason had holstered his pistol and drew his own sword. He crouched, his bowie in one hand, ready to block, the point of his saber weaving, searching, hunting.
But they were all dead, all lying on the stone floor that was slick with the blood and the piss and the shit, and not only didn't it bother him, he liked it that way.
" 'Put it down or he dies'?" Jason spat on the body of the slaver who had said that.
* * *
Durine was in the door. He took it all in with one quick look, then turned to Jason.
"Go get the horses ready," Jason said. "And fire the place. We'll be along."
Walter Slovotsky faced him, his face and beard speckled with blood, not all of it his.
"You could have shot me, Jason," Walter Slovotsky said.
"You complaining?"
"Not at all. Not at all." He pressed a hand tightly against the side of his neck, staggering.
Jason was quickly at his side, supporting the older man. He dug a flask of healing draughts out of his pouch and handed it to Slovotsky, who pulled the cork out with trembling fingers, then drained it quickly.
"Let's get the hell out of here, kid," Walter Slovotsky said, his voice deepening, strengthening. "We can skip the note this time."
"Like hell." Jason was already untying the strings of Slovotsky's pouch; he fumbled out two speedloaders, then quickly loaded both his and Walter's pistols, careful to put the spent brass back in Slovotsky's pouch. He'd leave the bastards only dead bodies and a note to remember him by.
He took the note out of his own pouch, and stuck it in the mouth of a dead man. "Like the man says, the Warrior lives."
He kicked the body in the face. "And we are not nice people," he said. He clapped a hand to Walter Slovotsky's shoulder. "Come on, old man. Now we get the hell out of here."