Брайан Макклеллан - The Mad Lancers

“No one’s speaking up for him?”

“Nah. He’s just an orphan boy. Been workin’ the cotton fields for the last few years, but he likes to fight, so Da says it might be best just to let ’im hang.”

Styke felt his lip curl. Whatever was being said at the front of the crowd was finished, and a barrister kicked the crate from beneath the Palo’s feet. The Palo dropped a few inches, immediately beginning to strangle.

Styke clicked his tongue, leading Deshnar into the middle of the street before letting out a “Yah!” and digging his knees into Deshnar’s sides. The horse leapt beneath him and galloped full speed into the crowd of townsfolk. The crowd scattered before the sound of his charge. He reached the oak tree, circling it twice, driving back the few angry mob leaders before standing up in the stirrups and severing the rope with Rezi’s knife.

Styke dug his knees in again, urging Deshnar into a gallop around the oak again and again, in increasingly wide circles, nearly running down anyone who tried to approach the recovering Palo.

When the crowd finally seemed to get the message, he reined in beside the Palo and looked down. “What’s your name?”

The young man couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen – a boy, really. He was of medium height and had the kind of lean, muscular hardness brought on by a life of physical labor. He had sharp cheekbones, giving his face a perpetually sinister look, and his freckles were so emphasized by a life in the sun that his whole face was ashen with them. He wore a cotton suit, the jacket torn, and his face was bloody. He rubbed his neck and looked up at Styke.

“Henrich,” he coughed. “Henrich Jackal.”

“What kind of a Palo name is Henrich?”

“It’s the one I chose.”

“You should go, Jackal,” Styke said.

“He’s ours to hang as we see fit,” someone shouted from the crowd.

Styke turned to find a red-faced woman dressed like a barrister – the one who’d kicked Jackal’s crate from beneath him. Styke sniffed. “What he do, sleep with your daughter?”

The woman gave a strangled cry and leapt forward. In the time it took her to reach Styke, he had unlimbered his lance and lowered it. She skidded to a stop mere inches from its tip.

“Where’s the town constable?” Styke demanded, sweeping his gaze around the crowd. There was no answer, and he asked twice more before someone finally responded.

“He went into Landfall a couple of hours ago.”

Styke snorted. He’d seen that kind of thing plenty of times; a sheriff or constable “stepping out” just ahead of a bit of mob justice so they don’t have to get their hands dirty or say no to a mob.

“And the garrison?” he asked.

“They don’t want to get involved. This is a local matter,” someone else shouted.

Typical. “So did he actually do anything worth hanging?” Styke asked.

There was a very long silence, and no one wanted to meet his eyes. Styke thought of what Sunin had told him – about the drunk colonials looking for Palo to lynch – and wondered how many Palo had died in the last twelve hours because of the governor’s fearmongering. Sirod wanted to turn the people’s attention toward the Palo, to distract them with a fictional enemy. It was working.

“I thought as much,” Styke grunted, raising his lance. “You’ve got better things to do than take out your problems on the Palo – because that’s just going to make everything worse.” He jerked his head at Jackal. “With me.”

Styke remained unmolested as he returned to the highway and continued north, the Palo walking beside him. They left the town far behind. Styke eventually brought Deshnar to a stop and leaned on the saddle horn, looking down at the sullen, silent boy.

Jackal stared back at him for some time before finally saying in a quiet, stoic voice, “I did.”

“You did what?”

“I slept with the barrister’s daughter. But I didn’t force her.”

Styke scoffed. “Good for you. You might want to work on your timing, though. Governor’s stirred everyone up against the Palo. There’s going to be a lot of this sort of shit the next few months.”

“I didn’t know about Fernhollow when it happened. I’m not stupid.”

“Well, continue being not stupid and get out of here.”

Jackal gave a nod of thanks and headed off the road, disappearing into the marshlands. Styke wondered if the boy would be a fool and circle back around to try and retrieve valuables – or the girl in question – from the town, or if he’d be smart about it and head toward the frontier as fast as his feet would carry him. It wasn’t Styke’s problem anymore.

Styke’s own journey carried him another three miles north before he crossed the river and headed west. The landscape quickly grew more varied – strips of willows marching along streams that broke up the cotton fields; rolling hills; and the immense plantation manors that belonged to ex-patriot Kez noblemen and successful Fatrastan merchants.

It was about three hours later that he found himself along a narrow road underneath a line of big willows, viewing a distant manor from across a field of tobacco. The manor was built in the same style as any plantation house in this part of the world – a two-story brick building with a columned porch, large white door, and big, shuttered windows marching across the face of both floors. It was, however, much bigger than most plantation houses. Wings of the manor had their own wings, and it seemed to creep into the distance like some kind of noble’s estate. The kennels off to one side were bigger than the barracks where Styke had lodged three hundred lancers, while the museum at the far end of the valley housed an infamous art collection that was rumored to be the envy of Kressian nobles.

The governor of the Landfall region of Fatrasta had, in short, done very well for himself.

Styke watched as a group on horseback came around from the side of the house to the front drive, where one of them dismounted and went inside. There were about twenty of them, and they all wore the little red feathers of the governor’s bodyguard.

These weren’t cheap Kez cuirassiers with little experience and less bravery. These were handpicked men, many of whom came straight from the grenadiers. Maybe not the equal of, say, Adran riflemen, but they were more than Styke wanted to wrestle in broad daylight.

Styke turned in the saddle, glancing back to see a wagon trundling toward him. He had passed it a few minutes before, and now he waited until it caught up and hailed the frail-looking man smoking a pipe in the driver’s seat. “Are you heading to the governor’s residence?” Styke asked.

“I am. Delivering salted fish from the Landfall market.” The old man squinted at Styke. “Boy, you’re a big one.”

Styke fished a few coins from his pocket and bent to hand them to the old man. “Do me a favor and deliver something for me. A gift for the governor.”

“Can’t deliver it yourself?”

Styke winced. “Used to sleep with the head maid of the household. She swore she’d shoot me if she ever saw me again.”

“All right, then. I’ll take your money. For the governor, you say?”

“It goes to him personally.” Styke untied the sea chest that he’d lashed to his saddlebags. “Tell him that it’s from a Major Prost.”

Styke woke up from a dream in which fires danced in the ruins of Landfall. He lay in the damp grass, hidden beside a stream in one of the long, thin groves of willow trees that divided the cotton fields a few miles north of the governor’s mansion. He felt sweat on his brow and a sharp pain like a bug bite on his left forearm. He swatted at the bug bite and rolled over.

He’d only just gotten comfortable when his eyes flew open, the sleep gone from him, at the sound of a soft grunt. He rolled to his knees, Rezi’s knife coming to hand, and he squinted into the darkness.