The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) (35 page)

“Bentlow’s gone to ground.  Pulled her entire household and gone on vacation, in her words,” Tonya said.  I shook my head.  Five.  Only five Focuses in the actual attack.  Proportionally, as bad off as the goddamned Crows.  Fucking embarrassing.  The other nine Focuses would do logistic support of various kinds, all under Gerry Caruthers’ command, and to my horror, Beth Hargrove and her people were the best of that sorry lot.

“This, too, Commander,” Tonya said, and handed me a short report.  Predawn meetings in my command tent, much like the bad old days of the Clearing of Chicago fight.  An oversized army tent in the center of my army.  It still smelled of must and dust, and I had been trying to air it out for the last two days.

“Ma’am,” Sky said.  I ignored him as I read what Tonya handed me.

“What’s this shit about Claunch
now
?”

Tonya and our most dearest renegade first Focus, Michelle Claunch, had been arguing with each other for days.  Claunch seemed to think she had been helping us by letting the Cause use the Network, and that we owed her, now that the rebellion was on.  Arrogant bitch.

“She’s offering a deal,” Tonya said.  “She’ll give us her information about Patterson.  In return, she wants official status as a rebellion Focus, meaning she won’t get taken out by the Arms.”

“I don’t want her anywhere near the rebellion until after I mind scrape her.  That list of deeds she’s done to help us since the start of the Cause did clear up some mysteries, but until I clear her in person, she’s not in.”

“How about you grant her immunity from Arm attacks in return for the information on Patterson?” Tonya said.

I shook my head.  “Too open ended.  I want her to agree to a mind scrape.  She’s got too much of a history to just ignore, Tonya.”

“A mind scrape with Lori and me and her Crow, Road, present?”

“How good is this Crow, anyway?” I said.  “I’ll want Gilgamesh there in any event, but I don’t want some random whoop ass Mentor-quality Crow anywhere near me.”

“Shadow talked to Road after Patterson took Keaton.  He’s leery of Road as well, and I think he wants to do to Road what you want to do to Claunch.”  I nodded, visions of Rogue Crow dancing in my head.  Reasonable, since Road was one of the followers of Innocence from long, long ago.  “He thinks Road has fallen, in his terms, ‘deep into the Crow – Focus symbiosis’.  He puts Road about on the same talent level as Sky and Rumor.”

Ouch.  Both Sky and Rumor had danced with me in the past, and both were Crows I would rather not face on the other side of a fight.  “In that case, I’m not going to agree to
anything
without Shadow present.”

“I’ll pass that along.  I think I can get Claunch to agree to this, with a mind scrape put on your calendar after the Patterson fight, and us getting her Patterson information now.  On the other hand, that means she won’t be physically involved in the Patterson fight.”

“I can live with that.  I’m not sure how far I’m going to trust her, even after a mind scrape.  She’s as twisty as you are, Tonya.  Even in the best of circumstances, it might be a few years before I’m going to be comfortable with Claunch at my back.”

Tonya nodded.

“Ma’am,” Sky said.  Again.  He had been haunting the back corner of my command tent for the last half hour, attempting to attract my attention with about every honorific and tag-pulling trick he could think up.  I was tired of Tonya, and decided to give him his turn.

“Yes, Sky?”  Although I relented, I still gave him a beastly glare.

Sky took a deep breath.  “Commander, how much of an open mind are you, regarding your army?  There’s a situation to talk to you about regarding…”

I raised my hand.  Sky would go on for a half hour with pleasantries like this, if you let him.  “Out with it.  I’ll take just about anything able to walk and talk, and I’ll waive the latter if their boss can talk.”  Occum’s menagerie was a bit much, but I was learning not to drop into a stalk when his tamed non-human Monsters walked by.  Well, at least most of the time.  There were so many of them, and they all filled my head, thanks to my quite functional Monster amulet.

“I would like to present, then, Courtier Freeman, who wishes to speak to you.”

Haggerty appeared by my side in an instant, all eyes and ears.  She had been in the tent next door, working through the lists of Transforms and normals who were a part of my army.  She burned to get over here.  No danger vibes from her, just an air of extreme interest.

I knew Freeman from the Eskimo Spear quest.  “So he’s Courtier officially now, not a Goldilocks?” I asked Haggerty.

“Yes,
ma’am
,” she said, practically a purr.

Haggerty was terrible at recruiting people for her personal organization; I don’t think she ever owned more than a half dozen at any one time, and I had to help her for several of them.  However, she balanced it out by ‘making friends’, lots of friends, only a few of which I had ever encountered.  Some were disastrous in their own way, such as a certain Focus Keistermann.  On the balance, she made her method work.  There were times when I swore she had met nearly
everybody
.

“Send him in,” I said, to Sky.  Freeman was a Goldilocks who didn’t like the name or the idea that Goldilocks’ were useless, and was out attempting to change their image.  He envisioned these ‘Courtiers’ as Transform diplomats, and he made it work, at least a little.  The only Major Transforms who recognized Courtiers and used them for diplomacy were the Nobles, who apparently needed them regularly.  It would have helped if Goldilocks were more common, but they weren’t, and there were fewer Goldilocks than there were Crows.  They were just an uncommon Transform variant without the fertility problems or any need for Focus support.  It would be interesting to see a Courtier working professionally.  They were all absurdly resistant to Major Transform charisma.

A minute later, Courtier Freeman came in, a lanky medium height man with black hair and a piercing stare, with the poise of an ex-military man who had taken well to Transform life.  He wore a close-cropped black beard, and his hair was similarly short.  He had a lesser Noble I didn’t recognize as a bodyguard.  The Noble had already changed into his combat form, which was a man-weight wolf.  Courtier Freeman bowed to me and offered his hand for me to sniff.

That little whiff of his hand told me what was going on.  I let a small smile creep over my face, and wondered why Giselle wasn’t involved.  Had I seduced their spy farther into my service than they trusted?

“Commander, I have a set of proposals for you,” he said.

“I’ll listen,” I said.  For diplomacy, I banked down my predator.

“A substantial group of Canadian Transforms wishes to join in your conflict.  They will ally with you, and work under your command.  However, there are protocol issues that need explicating.”

Freeman was impossible to read, and well trained, the equivalent of Lori’s best.  “I’m going to want standard half tags on all the Major Transforms in your group, including Sports, plus quarter tags on the rest.  Does your Arm,” no, I wasn’t going to say her name, yet, “think this will be sufficient?”

“I’m not familiar with your terminology, Commander.”

I slapped a half tag on Freeman.

“Oh,” he said, afterwards.  “There isn’t much to this form of tag, is there.  What The Arm was talking about was something she refers to as a dual Eissler tag.”  ‘The Arm’?  What hubris.  Yet, what else to call her?  Arm Armenigar sounded perverse.  She did have prior claim to the name.

“We would call that a mutual Eissler full tag.  I’m going to need to talk to her in person regarding that.”  I wasn’t giving one of those away for free.

“Yes, Commander.  I can arrange that.”

“Why is your group interested in this fight?” I said.  I mean, all the way from Canada, and they already had a spy in my ranks.

“It’s a matter of honor,” Courtier Freeman said, drawing himself up as tall as possible.  “Their grievances against the original American Focuses are extensive, as I’m sure Arm Debardelaben has already explained.  On the other hand, our friendly contacts with Focuses Rizzari, Keistermann and Biggioni are similarly extensive.  We wish to support their efforts in this struggle.  In addition, the Borealis Barony Crow Master, Icestorm, learned from Crow Master Occum.”  The last, alone, would be enough.

“Yes.  What about the others in your group?”  I smelled a whole lot of Transforms, and having another Crow Master and his Nobles would help immensely.

“Besides The Arm, our contingent consists of Crow Master Icestorm; Lord Kevin, Viscount of Borealis Barony; Mistress Cindy Lederer, a detection specialist Sport; Focus-Sport Nancy Rakshe; Focus Gwen Larson of London, Ontario; Sir Hal of Borealis; The Crow Nameless; nine combat trained Transforms, six combat trained commoners, two combat trained normals, and five combat trained noble Monsters.  And myself.”

“And yourself.”  Rakshe I knew from years ago, rescued by Occum and his first batch of Nobles from a crazy Progenitor item in the north woods of Canada.  It was from them I got my now active Monster pendant.  I also knew of Focus Larson as one of the few Focuses who could bring a warm smile to Keaton’s face.  She was here to help rescue Keaton…and likely to try to convince me to torture Adkins, her old nemesis, to death.  Slowly.  “Let’s see if we can arrange this Arm to Arm meeting, why don’t we?”  The extra troops would help, though I had hoped for more from a Canadian Noble contingent.  Perhaps they weren’t as advanced as our Nobles – or, as with our male Major Transforms, they couldn’t spare the resources due to other problems.

“A moment, Commander,” Haggerty said.  I nodded, and smiled.

“Hi, Dan!” Haggerty said, rushing over.  She picked up the Courtier and gave him a huge hug.  Then she nuzzled his ear and whispered some interesting things that I won’t repeat.  Well, that made things clear enough, now didn’t it?

I was going to get all the Eskimo Spear heroes, plus some extras.  I liked.

“Let’s hear it,” I said.

Armenigar and I met outside the Adirondacks resort, in a properly neutral location, a traffic pullout with a gorgeous view of the valley where my small army gathered.  The rising sun cast odd shadows over the tents and training fields.  I was fighting the urge to pull out my knives and start slicing, despite the fact Armenigar could probably pound me into pudding nine times out of ten.  If not more often.  She was six foot eight, bald as an egg and broad as a linebacker.  She squatted, smiling, just watching me.  A lonely car passed, and noticed neither us nor our half dozen Transform guards.

“We need to be able to get along, and I thought the Eissler tags would work best.”

“Since when did you get into tags?”  I thought she was beyond all that.

“I haven’t been sitting on my ass these past years, Hancock,” she said.  “Besides, my real objection to cooperation with you down here in the States was the goddamned psychotic pipsqueak.  I’ve followed your career, and you’re not half bad as an Arm, at least according to Giselle.  I’m willing to support your leadership.”

“It’s nice to see you haven’t lost your arrogance,” I said.  Armenigar just laughed.

In her case, she had earned her arrogance.

“You see, Hancock, at some point we’re going to need to work out who’s boss, and I thought this fight might serve as a good icebreaker.  I don’t want you casting your eyes toward Canada, and I suspect you don’t want me casting my eyes toward the States.  Just a guess.  I figured we could use mutual Eissler tags to make our territories official and avoid needless conflict.”

I could live with that.  “What are you offering?  There are a lot more Arms under my command.”

“Offering?” Armenigar said, a pure growl of a word.  She looked at her hands, and then sighed.  “How about my word of honor to follow your commands in the upcoming fight?”

Hmm.  There was a lot of juice emphasis in that statement, and more than a bit of anger.  I needed to figure this out, quickly, or I would be eating dirt.  Our only prior in-person contact came during the Detroit fight, where she had just barged in and did whatever she felt like doing.  Our indirect contacts were more common, such as Giselle’s joining of my organization and several visits from Zielinski, which she had purchased with information.  I didn’t understand her personality, save for the fact she considered it her right to do whatever she felt like doing and that she used sex as her primary recruiting method.  Her word of honor meant a lot to her, though.  I bet she didn’t give it lightly or often.  This made her more extreme than I was, and explained her dislike of Keaton, who held to her word only as long as it suited her and it made sense – which meant most of the time, but not always.  I wondered how Armenigar had avoided killing all the Canadian Focuses, though.  Focuses would betray their word in a heartbeat to preserve their households.

“Our agreement needs to be deeper than that,” I said.  “My people recently made a breakthrough regarding Focus technology, one aspect of which allows a Focus to give juice to an Arm.”  A breakthrough I had explicitly forbidden Giselle from passing along to the Canadians.  “Our enemy’s spies likely know about this.  I could easily see her offering this to any of my allies who don’t have this technology as an inducement to change sides.  Thus, you and your Focuses need to be assured of having this technology already, before the fight.”