The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) (29 page)

“Ma’am,” Mouse said, interrupting in sudden agitation.  “I beg your pardon for interrupting, but Rose has told me many times that Arms require such interruptions.  There’s something close by you need to know about, and also something Rose needs to know about.”  Arm Webberly’s ‘Crow name’ was her first name, apparently, and the thorns and bloom metaphor did fit.  Del hoped the Crows would come up with something better for her than the ‘robotic Arm from Hell’ nickname the other Arms tended to use.  “Two very very very senior Crows are signaling, from the rest stop up ahead, that they want to help.  Could you tell Rose for me, please?  Even thinking about Crows this senior is panic inducing.”

Arm Webberly was going to fillet my ass for this, Del thought.  ‘Ignore the Crow behind the boxes,’ Arm Webberly said.  And ‘Don’t bother me,’ she meant.  Del snorted as she moved to clamber out of the back of the truck into the rain, along its wet canvas side, to the cab, where she politely knocked on the passenger side window, surprising Arm Webberly.  Arm Webberly would need to get used to Del’s craziness.  Stepping neck deep in problems too big for her britches was one of her
better
personality traits.

The rest stop was barely a rest stop, just a couple of picnic tables and an under-maintained outhouse, deep in the high plains of north Texas.  The rain had turned to sleet, and Del suspected they would be dealing with ice on the road as the night grew colder.

Arm Webberly exited the passenger seat of the truck with a slam of the door, giving orders at Arm speed.  The last, to Del, could have been worse.  “Come with me and be attentive; if these senior Crows demand a payment I’ll just give them you,” wasn’t too bad for a punishment.  Del expected more later.  At least she wasn’t on call as the last ditch combatant protecting the other wounded Arms, as Arm Bartlett was.  Not given her uselessness in combat against any senior Arm.  Rigging a catapult and flinging her at Arm Bass as dead weight would be more useful.

They faced a grizzled Crow in a cowboy hat and a person-sized blizzard, partly concealed by the outhouse and fifty feet back from the road.  The blizzard blended well into the miserable weather, and became almost invisible.  “Crow Guru Snow,” Arm Webberly said to the blizzard.  Both Arms ignored the icy water soaking their clothes, cold and wretched even for an Arm, especially wounded, and with low juice.  Merry did the same from the roof of the truck as she took a defensive position.  Del noted with interest that Guru Snow, one of the least known Crow Gurus, already had a relationship with Arm Webberly.  “Sir,” Arm Webberly said, to the Crow in the cowboy hat, who looked like he belonged on a dusty ranch working cattle, not a soggy highway picnic area.  “I’m Arm Rose Webberly, and this is my charge, Student Arm Dolores Sokolnik.  May I ask why you flagged us down?”

“Restitution,” the blizzard said.  “And a favor to ask of you.”  The blizzard’s voice vibrated deep and low.

“A favor?” Arm Webberly said.  She tensed, faintly.  “We’re in a bit of trouble right now, but if the favor is possible, I’ll listen.”

“Madame Arm,” the tall Crow said.  “I’m Crow Guru Arpeggio, and the one in need of restitution.  I made a mistake recently, of which kind Guru Snow has convinced me, and I seek to balance the scales by protecting you from the assailants who are following you.”

Oh.  Del clamped down on her impulse to blurt out the obvious truth – that Guru Arpeggio had been one of the Crows involved in casting out Crow Master Sinclair, which he now considered a mistake.  She wasn’t sure how much Arm Webberly knew about the event, as Del had learned this from Merry after she tagged the older Arm, but she was sure any interjection wouldn’t be polite.

“And the favor?”  Arm Webberly didn’t appear to be curious at the moment, likely feeling the weight of her responsibilities as well as fearing for her life.

“Do you happen to know the identities of those who are following you?  The Crow community wishes to know this, for many reasons.  For one, two of the three involved are known of as escapees from the recent fight in Pittsburgh between Arm Keaton and Focus Patterson, and I personally expect the third escaped as well, but better hidden.”

Arm Webberly relaxed, masterfully still ignoring the icy rain running down her face and into her clothes.  The water at her feet ran pink with blood.  “Despite the change in her metapresence, the only one who matters among the group is Arm Bass.  With her is an Arm taken from the authorities by Focus Patterson and her faction, and trained by Focus Patterson in her compound.  Also with her is a Crow we believe is Crow Echo, but beyond the use of the ‘metapresence echo’ trick we have no real proof of this.”

The tall Crow smiled a thin and nasty smile, and cracked his knuckles.  His cowboy hat seemed to completely protect him from the sleet, and he wasn’t wet at all.  “By your enemies you prove your worthiness,” he said.  Del felt a caress of snakes in her metasense, an immense moving of the juice in a metasense area beyond her understanding.  Senior Crow tricks involving dross, she suspected.  She wished she had more experience in this, anything more than Ma’am Keaton’s literature about senior Crows, who were supposedly fearless…and for good reason.  She didn’t trust the former, as both these senior Crows leaked fear like a wet sponge, but she suspected the latter was an understatement.  “Arm Webberly, is it possible you could lure your opponents closer?  When you pulled into the rest stop, they pulled over to the side of the road a mile back, where they now wait.”

Now Arm Webberly smiled.  “You’re volunteering to smite them?”

“Crow Echo and I need to have words,” Guru Arpeggio said, implying far more than words.  “About many things.  Arm Bass I would present to the Commander as a gift.  Unfortunately, to do so, you would need to lure them in, to within a hundred yards.”

“I can try, Guru Arpeggio,” Arm Webberly said.  “It shouldn’t be too hard to make my group appear to be falling apart due to lack of juice.  I fear Arm Bass is too canny to fall for such a trick, though.  I can guarantee that if you can chase them away and get them off our tail, you will have given the Commander a gift nearly as large.”

Guru Arpeggio turned to Guru Snow.  “Will this satisfy you?”

“Oh, quite,” Guru Snow said in his deep voice.  “Arm Webberly, you recall that I am of a far more delicate nature than most, and I find combat and fracases most distressing.  Would you mind overly much if I spent some time conversing with your most interesting Student Arm?  I promise I will return her to you unharmed at the end of this contretemps.”

Del hid her instinctive wince.  Guru Snow believed Guru Arpeggio would easily defeat Arm Bass and her crew, which Del thought arrogant.  This she couldn’t let sit.

“Sirs, Ma’am, other Major Transforms, a moment,” Del said.  Uh huh, the frowns, or what she took as a frown from the blizzard protection around Guru Snow, which got fiercer.  Arm Webberly motioned for her to speak, likely against her better judgment.  “Guru Crows, you need to know that Arm Bass surpasses all the Arms I am familiar with as far as holding a grudge is concerned.  She is most irrational on the subject, to the point of carrying out payment on grudges to her own detriment.  It would be remiss of us not to warn you of this, as you are volunteering to help us.”

“We know of the danger, little one,” Guru Arpeggio said, and not with a grin.  “I am much the same way, myself.”

“Take her, Guru Snow.  Please,” Arm Webberly said.  She said nothing about returning Del afterwards.

Del wasn’t sure about this, but did walk off with Guru Snow, to behind the reeking outhouse, as Guru Arpeggio and Arm Webberly walked back to the military surplus truck and concocted their scheme.  Del’s wet hair stuck to her face, and her clothes were now wet through.  At least the wet had loosened the spots where the blood had cemented the fabric to her wounds.  The water running off her ran pink as well.  “I’ve never met a Crow Guru before, Guru Snow.  What do I need to know about Crow Gurus, so as not to embarrass myself and the Arm community by my actions?”

Crow Guru Snow laughed.  “Need to know?  Well, how about the fact that when you wake up, you won’t remember a word of our conversation.”

Crap.

“…then all of a sudden someone inside the station wagon grabbed at the wheel and Bass’s car spun out.  On the Interstate!  Two semis skidded out of the way, and one tipped over, sliding to a stop blocking the rest stop entrance.  Guru Arpeggio said the wheel-grabber was Crow Echo; it didn’t take much for Arm Bass to change her mind about tailing us, because the station wagon made a U-turn on the eastbound lanes and drove west, against traffic, for almost a quarter mile before crossing over at one of the gravel official-use-only turnarounds and continuing to the west, this time with the flow of traffic.

“Crow Guru Arpeggio wasn’t satisfied with simply chasing Arm Bass and her entourage away.  Annoyed that his ‘low juice insanity’ metasense illusion didn’t work, and hadn’t lured Arm Bass and crew to within a hundred yards, he let loose a
song of power
, an immense use of hidden Crow strength none of us expected from any Crow.  It was as if the notes of the song had physical presence, and they took wing toward Arm Bass’s station wagon, an angry swarm of noise-hornets aimed at Bass’s treacherous heart.  Because of his long-distance attack, Arm Bass’s predatory ‘part the incoming cars the way Moses parted the Red Sea’ trick failed, and she barely avoided a head-on with a car-carrying semi.  Even after crossing to the westbound lanes she still showed the afflictions of the Crow Guru, and she wove from lane to lane as she headed off into the night.”

Del sighed and shook her head.  She had given up on her wet clothes and now wore only a rough army surplus blanket.  Her wet hair still stuck to her scalp.  “The original U-turn sentence is far too run on and detracts from the story.  It’s better, though.”

Arm Duval nodded, thought for a moment, and started over.

A group of Arms got to watch a Crow Guru strut his stuff and chase off Arm Bass, and Del hadn’t witnessed an instant of the fight.  At least they were safe, now, on their way to the Commander and to the safety of absurdly large numbers.  And a war against Focus Patterson, it appeared.

In the back of Del’s mind some unwanted thoughts gathered to bother her equilibrium: “You’re part of the Commander’s Arm organization now.  Get used to this sort of insanity, as it’s what they do all the time.”  Worse, Arm Webberly’s ‘feel your fear’ order still held, and Del couldn’t bury the terror of her realization deep in her quiet pools, where it belonged.

Carol Hancock: December 21, 1972

“Boss?” Webberly said.

“You okay?”  I stood in a phone booth in one of the oversized rest stops on the Ohio Turnpike, on my way to the Adirondacks camp.  Checking in, hoping against hope Webberly would call in to my people back in Chicago.  I had already talked to Tonya and gotten the word on Polly’s acceptance of my invitation, talked to Focus Gerry Caruthers about renting us the transports we would need to get to Pittsburgh and about the other issues of food, water, shelter and juice for the Adirondacks camp, and I talked to Linda Cooley about what to do if the Hunters (or Bass) attacked Chicago while I was away.  Then I heard the word that Webberly had survived and remained free.

“Yes, overall, but we’ve had what the Hero would call
an adventure
.”

The stars faded in the east and I ignored the cold as Rose told me about grabbing Keaton’s students, the fight with Bass, the chase, and the conclusion of the ‘adventure’ when the in-afterthought-almost-predictable aid from Guru Arpeggio appeared.  The lack of fatalities pleased me to no end, and I managed to hold in my anger over the casualties.  I had been counting on Giselle for the Patterson fight, and with her down an arm and a leg, the Patterson fight was no place for her.  Still, Bass’s confession of her treachery was priceless; with her confession, I wouldn’t have any problems retaining the loyalty of the rest of the Arms.  It also gave me a bunch more motivation to take down Bass before she made the inevitable challenge for the Arm boss position.  I absolutely had to keep her from gathering a power base, which meant holding all the Arms close to me, and preventing her from helping Patterson.  My best strategy was still to hit Patterson fast.

“I promised Guru Arpeggio that if he saved us from Bass, by chasing her off, you would consider his work a great gift.  He wouldn’t say what he did to need such a gift, though, and I don’t trust what a particularly annoying student Arm told me about what was going on.”

“He was one of the Gurus who cast out Crow Sinclair,” I said.  “I take it he’s had a change of heart?”

“Yes, ma’am.  He’s agreed to neutrality in some Crow duel that’s coming up.”

“I’ll explain later.  Anything else?”  Given the amount of effort Gilgamesh and I had invested in winning Arpeggio over to the good guys, he needed more restitution than this.  Listening to Chevalier about anything was boneheaded on his part.

“He said he’s not going to help us against Focus Patterson, but he is pledging to at least provide distant support against the Hunters, and, um, personal help against Bass and Crow Echo, whenever needed.”

“I’m not surprised at the latter,” I said.  “Any other problems?”

“The Focus I was supposed to pick up wasn’t there, and the Arms at Keaton’s place didn’t know what happened to her.”

“Naylor got her and gave her to me as a gift,” I said.  “She had some cockamamie reason for stealing the Focus from Keaton’s lair, something to do with not wanting to end up as a flunky of a Student Arm.  Morris is with me
here
, she’s helping me care for Focus Elspeth and I’m helping her by trying to put her mind back together.  She had a rough time of it with Keaton.”