Lawrence Watt-Evans - In the Empire of Shadow

“That’s why I’m over here with you folks,” the Imperial agreed.

“What about Ted?” Amy asked.

Pel frowned, and glanced at the lawyer, who was standing to one side, alone, gazing idly at the dead bat-monster. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“We better take him,” Amy said. “He’ll get killed if he stays here. The lieutenant isn’t going to want to look after him.”

“I don’t know,” Pel said reluctantly. “He’s pretty far gone. He could really slow us down…”

“Pel Brown, how can you say that?” Amy shouted. “If he doesn’t come with us, he’ll never get home to Earth! And getting home is probably the only chance he’s ever got to recover, and you know it!”

“It’s not a hell of a great chance,” Pel shouted back. “If we drag him along, maybe none of us will get back!”

Amy prepared to shout a reply, but Pel raised a hand to forestall her. “You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “I know that. We have to bring him. Stoddard, could you go bring him along, please?”

“I’ll go,” Susan said quietly.

“Together, then, lady,” Stoddard said.

As if echoing the Earthpeople’s shouts, a loud argument broke out just then among the Imperials; startled, Pel and Amy turned to see two soldiers marching angrily away from their companions and toward Raven’s group.

A third hesitated, and then followed. This one had no helmet, Pel noticed.

The pair marched up; the shorter of the two addressed the soldier who was already there.

“You better be right about this, Al,” he said. “The lieutenant says that he’ll let us go and won’t try to stop us, but if Base One calls it desertion, he won’t argue with them, either.”

“Lord Raven,” the first soldier said, “this is Ronnie Wilkins. And beside him there is Bill Marks.”

“And your own name, good sir?” Raven asked.

The soldier smiled. “Guess I forgot to say; I’m Albert Singer.”

The fourth soldier, the one who had followed Wilkins and Marks, cleared his throat. He stood behind and between his companions, speaking over their shoulders. Pel recognized him as the man who had been missing for an hour or so after the hellbeasts had attacked.

“Excuse me,” the soldier said, “but are you people serious about it being dangerous here? That this dead monster’s going to attract more?”

“Aye, and indeed we are,” Raven answered. “’Tis a thing of Shadow, and where one falls, a dozen follow.”

“In that case…” He glanced back over his own shoulder, then turned toward Raven again and said, “In that case, I’d say I’m coming with you.” He held out a hand. “My name’s Tom Sawyer.”

Pel started.

Raven made no move to take the soldier’s hand, so Pel stepped forward and shook it warmly. “Tom Sawyer? Really?” he asked.

Puzzled, the soldier nodded. “Spaceman Second Class Thomas James Sawyer,” he said.

“Tom Sawyer,” Pel repeated, grinning foolishly. “I’ll be damned.”

The soldiers and the Faerie folk were all staring curiously at Pel; Amy shoved him.

“It’s not so strange as all that,” she said. “Now, come on, let’s get out of here. We have a wizard to find.”

“Right,” Pel said, dropping Sawyer’s hand and turning to Raven. “Which way?”

Something rustled in the dark leaves overhead; Pel started and looked up.

“Probably just a squirrel,” Wilkins said somewhere behind Pel; he looked upward, as well.

Pel turned at the comment, and realized that Sawyer had his blaster drawn-for all the good that would do him, here in Faerie.

Sawyer was next to Wilkins; Marks and Singer were a step ahead. The four Imperial soldiers had stayed close together, talking mostly with each other, as the group proceeded; Pel didn’t suppose he could blame them for that, for wanting to stay with their friends and compatriots while trapped in this alien reality. He had noticed, though, that they seemed to avoid Prossie Thorpe-wasn’t she an Imperial, too? Her uniform had been somewhat slashed up by Shadow’s hellbeasts, but she still had the proper purple blouse and slacks, and the insignia on her shoulder.

Of course, for himself, he avoided Ted, who was a fellow Earthman, but that was different. Ted was…well…damaged. Prossie wasn’t. And she was a woman, too; why would soldiers avoid a woman, especially one with those peek-a-boo tears in her blouse? It seemed out of character.

This stupid Imperial prejudice against telepathic “mutants” was probably responsible.

Pel glanced at Prossie; she seemed content to walk with Stoddard and Amy and Susan. Raven and Valadrakul had moved on a few paces ahead of the others; then came Ted, herded forward by Stoddard and the women. Pel, not inclined to talk just now, was close behind; he had taken off the remains of his borrowed T-shirt, since he hardly needed it in the warm, damp evening air of the forest, and wore only purple pants and black boots. The sweat was starting to dry on his back, though; what he would do when the air cooled further he didn’t know. And he thought he might be developing a blister on his right foot; the boots were a fairly good fit, but unfamiliar, and he wasn’t used to walking so much.

Behind him, the Imperial soldiers brought up the rear, still fully dressed, and wearing boots and helmets-except Sawyer, of course, who had lost his helmet. Pel wondered why they weren’t stinking of sweat.

Maybe they were, and he just didn’t smell it over the rich, heavy odors of the forest.

“What’re you planning to do with that?” Wilkins said, pointing to Sawyer’s blaster.

“Nothing,” Sawyer replied defensively, holstering the weapon. “Just habit.”

“You really think it was just a squirrel?” Marks said uneasily.

Wilkins shrugged. “Or a bird, or something.”

“It’s getting hard to see what’s up there,” Marks pointed out. “How do you know it wasn’t one of those black things?”

“Because if it was, it would have attacked us already,” Wilkins said.

No one had an answer to that; Pel turned away, and they all marched on.

A moment later, Wilkins stubbed his toe on a tree root hidden in fallen leaves, and swore quietly-though Pel doubted it had actually hurt, through the heavy boot the soldier wore.

“Hey, Raven,” Singer called.

Ahead, Pel saw Raven and Valadrakul stop and turn.

“It’s getting dark,” Singer called. “The sun’s been down a good half an hour, at least. When are we going to make camp for the night?”

“Yeah,” Amy said, loudly. “I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

That, Pel thought, was an understatement. They had gotten out of bed that morning in Base One; now they were in the forests of Faerie, Elani and Colonel Carson and a score of Shadow’s monsters were dead-and it had been a very long day literally, as well as figuratively, since they had departed Base One in late afternoon by the artificial local time, and arrived in Faerie around midday, going by the sun.

Amy added, “And we’ve been walking forever. My feet are killing me.”

Pel could sympathize with that. The Imperials were all soldiers, and presumably accustomed to marching, while the Faerie folk came from a world where human feet were still the primary form of transportation, but Pel and Amy, at least, weren’t in the habit of walking when they could drive. Pel wasn’t sure about Susan or Ted; they didn’t seem inclined to complain.

Susan never seemed inclined to complain about anything, of course, and if Ted had had anything to say about pain in his feet, or tired legs, he’d probably have attributed it all to twisted bedsheets or something else suited to his insistence that he was dreaming.