The Infiltrators (12 page)

“Pitkins escaped with the help of a
pholung, convinced the Sogolian king to lend him his army, and he
came in and knocked the hell out of the Dachwaldians, killing them
almost to a man. Then, he went back to his sword shop and his wife.
That’s pretty much it.”

“Pretty much it?! You couldn’t make
this stuff up!”

“Now, if you wanted to know more, you’d
need to talk to the pholung who rescued him. His name was
Istus.”

Righty felt a camaraderie with his
enigmatic instructor, as he realized the two of them would have
quite a contest proving which had the most bizarre past, and also
from realizing that Pitkins too knew the thrill of flying through
the air without the limitations of foot or horse.

But what does this do to
advance your understanding of his bizarre reaction
today?

“Do you know of any people
he might hate, and I mean
really
hate? He said the guy who cleaned the grass with
me today was likely from a group of people that are ‘wicked beyond
imagination.’”

“Well, the Sogolians hate the Metinvurs
even worse than the Dachwaldians hate the Sodorfians, but as for
any personal beef Pitkins might hold towards a group of people, I
couldn’t guess.”

“The Metin—who?!”

“The Metinvurs. The nation of Metinvur
borders Sogolia to the north. They have no diplomatic ties with any
known country on the face of the earth. They’re reclusive. They
make a statue look gregarious. They don’t allow anyone to visit
their country. Anyone entering would be greeted with as much
hostility as an invading army.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Oh . . . my former master used to talk
from time to time. Not necessarily to me . . . but I heard
things.”

“Where is your former
master?”

A tear came rushing towards Harold’s
right eye but was shot down right before it reached the surface. A
knot entered his throat, and he was silent for a while before
answering, “I don’t like to talk about it.”

Righty felt a sudden pang of anxiety at
the thought Harold’s loyalties could be torn to pieces at a
second’s notice by the arrival of his former master, yet he dared
not ask a follow-up question.

“I can research this matter for you,
you know.”

Righty was tempted to respond by
telling him the konulans would be far better for a mission of that
sort, but Harold’s newfound assertiveness caused him to hold his
tongue.

“I’d be most grateful, sir,” Righty
said.

“Don’t mention it.”

Chapter 15

Righty decided the best way to alter
the course of his rocky day was a little nature and a little sword
practice. He surveyed the mountains below, searching for a spot no
human could reach without difficulty, if at all. He soon settled on
a large mountain below that had a broad section with a smooth rock
surface at a very slight angle.

Both sides approached it steeply,
leaving it out of reach to all but the most avid hiker with spikes
and climbing rope. He sent the konulans below to scour the area for
any humans or large beasts, and when they reported the area was
clear, he had Harold set him down.

The sun was shining brightly, and he
welcomed the rays as he took off his shirt, his skin soaking up the
warmth eagerly.

“I’ve got a mission, and I need twenty
volunteers,” he said, looking eagerly at the twenty konulans before
him.

Their current number escaped their
awareness, as they began vying eagerly for the task.

Righty sent them to go inspect all of
Tats’ mansions and usual haunts to locate and then watch him and
make sure he was okay and to report back in a few hours.

Harold announced he was going to go
hunt, and after a flurry of wings and feathers in various
directions, Righty found himself all alone atop the
mountain.

Though the loneliness in a spot from
which he most likely could not extricate himself did cause some
distress, it simultaneously provided a degree of exhilaration,
perhaps serving as a metaphor for combat, in which survival was
never certain.

Breathing slowly in the manner Pitkins
had taught him, he pulled his sword from its sheath in unison with
his breath. Just when it seemed he would exhale until the end of
time while moving in slow motion like a man waking up from a
hangover, he brought the sword down in a quick chopping motion,
crouched low to avoid a slice to the head, inverted his grip on the
blade, and thrust the tip straight into the midsection of the
warrior approaching him in an apparent moment of
weakness.

“HAAAAA!!” he exhaled sharply,
springing to his feet and sticking the sword deeper into his
opponent before pivoting around with the precision of a first-class
dancer and combining the withdrawal of his blade from the man’s
stomach with a brisk upward slash to an advancing opponent’s groin,
cutting him up to his navel.

His breathing slowed again as three
attackers circled him. He was building up his oxygen levels for the
flurry that was about to come. On the count of five, he charged,
unwilling to wait for their attack.

Pitkins would have remarked that the
performance was as good if not better than the already flawless
execution Righty had given earlier that day. Righty felt there was
something magical about this height. The exhilaration of knowing
other men’s feet could not even touch where he currently tread,
nature having provided him with both an excellent platform for his
practice and a view whose beauty defied description.

The cool wind soothed the heat on his
back and chest from the stinging sun, as did the sweat which, by
now, three hours into his practice, was cascading down his
body.

Just as evening began to throw the
first hints of it arrival, Harold returned, sitting before him, his
beak ominously red from his recent dinner.

“What’s next?” he asked.

“Hopefully, we’ll go say hello to
Tats.”

Harold was silent.

They waited about twenty minutes, and
then the konulans arrived.

“We found him!!” one of them said, in a
welcome eagerness that offset Harold’s overly gloomy disposition
today.

Righty went and mounted Harold without
saying a word, sensing correctly that it was lack of action that
had his avian friend somber, and he sensed his mood improving as
his wings beat violently through the air.

Chapter 16

Since this wasn’t a planned meeting,
Righty’s arrival required a little discretion.

After the konulans assured him a grove
of trees in a yard near Tats’ house was unwatched, he was set down
there and then walked quickly to the street, hoping he didn’t hear
shouts of “THIEF!” or “CALL THE POLICE!!”

This was a day he was hoping to wrap up
soon, ended by some long, warm cuddling with Janie and maybe even a
little lovemaking to boot.

Calm reigned as he reached the street
and then approached Tats’ house.

He viewed with a mixture of approval
and fury the sight of several large guards mulling around the
perimeter of Tats’ house. He would have probably cursed Tats for
not having them, yet at this particular moment he wasn’t in the
mood for obstacles or introductions.

He walked up confidently to the house,
and, as he expected, the large cavemen quickly eyed and then
approached him with keen interest.

“What do you want?!” one asked gruffly,
looking at the only slightly smaller Mr. Simmers, but whose body
packed three times the strength.

“I’m here for Tats,” Righty said
calmly.

“He expectin’ you?” the man asked
suspiciously.

“No.”

“Then why you think he wanna see
you?”

“Bosses don’t have to make dates with
their employees, friend,” Righty said with a hardness in his eyes
that softened the man like butter exposed to fire.

“Let me check for you, sir,” he said
softly, his friends looking at him with hard eyes and then back at
Righty cautiously, sensing there was something special about their
guest.

Tats soon appeared at the doorway and
quickly beckoned Righty forward.

“Mr.—” Tats began, censoring the word
“Brass” awkwardly upon realizing he might not want his identity
known.

Tats’ thugs seemed intrigued about the
missing word and as though they were attempting to guess it
themselves.

“What he asks for he gets, you hear?”
Tats said sharply.

“Yes, sir,” they quickly
replied.

Righty felt worried his day might not
be as close to ending as he had hoped when he noticed to his
surprise Tats was walking rather quickly towards his basement and
urging him along all the while.

Once they reached the basement, Tats
sent four more bodyguards packing, all of whom seemed as interested
as their counterparts above regarding the identity of their
unexpected guest.

Tats handed Righty an ice-cold lemonade
while he took a shot of brandy for himself.

“What’s up, Tats? Police heat back? I
went to town earlier today, and everything seemed back to
normal.”

“On the police side, yes.”

“On the
police
side?” Righty inquired with a
curiosity now far greater than that of the hulking bodyguards whose
footsteps had now faded away.

“We’ve got problems, Mr. Brass. Maybe
not as bad as I’m thinkin’, but bad enough I was hopin’ you’d drop
by.”

Chapter 17

At 10:50 p.m., as Rob strode into the
alley next to Georgie’s Pub, ten bodyguards leading the way, five
bodyguards on either side, and around thirty toughs scouring a
block in each direction from the entrance to the alley, looking for
sign of any faces that spelled trouble, Rob told himself he
shouldn’t feel particularly vulnerable.

He had ten men on top of each building
adjacent to the alley, and though he suspected it to be overkill,
he had even sent ten men on top of the building on the opposite
side of the street. All men on top of the buildings had searched
every nook and cranny starting an hour before he even began heading
this way, and they gave an “all’s clear” whistle as he approached
the entrance of the alley.

They were all armed with crossbows, and
while they were no crack shots, he had only selected them for the
mission after they demonstrated reasonable proficiency shooting
melons at around twenty yards. Nonetheless, he had warned them not
to shoot at anyone closer than three feet to him. He would rather
die by an assassin’s knife than a crossbow bolt from one of his
underlings.

But in spite of all these precautions,
he felt butterflies he hadn’t felt since he had ambushed Fred
Pfeiffer, the man who used to hold his current position. These guys
Thin Tim had described seemed like something from a campfire ghost
story. But having seen the slashed throats and the entry wounds of
some sharp projectiles in the vitals of the numerous guards in his
stash house, passing it all off as a ghost story wouldn’t
fly.

And yet the fact the men had stolen
none of the several hundred pounds of Smokeless Green stashed there
seemed to pull the story back into the realm of fantasy, as no
thugs he could imagine would have left that much wealth
untouched.

He had a lot more men with him than
there had been guarding the stash house, and all of his crew
tonight was primed for action. He looked in disgust at a man passed
out drunk lying next to the wall. Vomit surrounded his head, and a
nearly finished bottle of rum was still clutched in his hand, like
a toy clutched by a baby. He had long hair and looked around sixty
years old.

“What’s this place comin’ to?” Rob
piped self-righteously. He had spent his share of nights passed out
drunk on the street in his teenage years and even a few times in
his twenties, but he had found his calling in life with the passage
of SISA and had gotten serious about his future.

He had cut his alcohol consumption to a
shadow of its former glory, and he sure as hell didn’t plan on
spending the rest of his life with a couple minor wholesalers
underneath him. He was looking to move up in the world. He was
pulling in over a million falons per month, but he knew he hadn’t
reached the ceiling yet.