Weak Links: The Many Deaths of the Company of the Chain

Turkey Shoot

From the Book of Minnow

So, no shit, there we were. Mud to the eyeballs, rainwater in our boots, leeches on our goolies, and a commission on a clutch of bandit sumbitches in our collective red right hands. It was a beautiful day to be a war hound.

Slight belly-crawled back through the low brush, giving only the faintest feather-rustle to the clinging bramble that grew thick enough to choke a cherub. His hands flashed through signs. Target. Blockade. Road. Ten. West. He circled a fist over his head and we moved up.

Six of us had drawn the black balls and got to go out on the cattle-drive. The bandits were bird-dogging a township in the hinterlands north of Awl. Our current patron, the corpulent Count of Awl was concerned about a drop in tax revenue if all of his serfs wound up taking the dirt nap. Or worse, what if they decided to hand their meager fortunes over to bushwhacking strongmen? So he unleashed the hounds.

The Chain needed the exercise anyhow. It's a shame to pay for soldiers that don't do any soldiering. We were getting paunchy around the middle. Too much time in garrison does that. Sitting around on your thumb, no matter how much vigorous exercise is doled out by the sergeants, tends to see you going soft while the world's out there getting hard.

Top had asked for volunteers to do a quick flush-out on the highwaymen. None of us had been stupid enough to raise our hands. Well, Mercy had. But Mercy's got that way about him. It wasn't that the big man was stupid, really. It's just that Mercy hadn't gotten a chance to kill a man in a while.

So we'd drawn lots. By which I mean that Top had assembled us on the parade grounds, given an impassioned speech about how the Chain was going to go and play big damn heroes for the oppressed potato-diggers up north, and given us all the eyeball. I think he thought my sneeze was a laugh, so I'd been the first one called out of ranks. Slight was a no-brainer, being that he was the best tracker in the outfit. Pocket came along because he'd been caught filching the silver from the Quality and didn't want to catch a lashing for it. Wheeze came a-sidling out because he's just got a face that attracts trouble. And then there was Nugget. Poor Nugget.

Nugget was the youngest man on the Company's rolls. We'd picked him up in Whistler's Ridge only three months prior, and I don't think he'd lied to us about his age so much as not known it for certain. He was gangly in the way of a foal on his first trip to the ground, and the apple of his throat tended to bob whenever there was real work to be done. He was green. I mean, spring and sunshine green. So green he wouldn't even blend in in the Drowners, the swamp-flooded bramble-choked forest north of Awl.

Maybe Top just wanted to get him wet somewhere other than his ears.

So that made the six of us. Off we went on a high-stepping, grand adventure to rescue some dirt-farmers from bad men in the woods. Slight, in nominal command, had been given the briefing, and full tactical control as to the nature of our carefully-wrought engagement strategy. It went thusly: we were going to hit them. Hard. And a lot. And when they'd stopped gurgling, we'd hit them again just to make sure they really knew they'd been hit.

Of course, even the simplest of plans have a tendency to go pear-shaped in this business.

We'd taken the Spear Road north into the hinterlands, but not being complete nuggets we'd turned off into the wilderness before we ran afoul of any of the strong-men we were hunting. It wouldn't do for we fine and few to come against them before we were ready. We wanted to get a lay of the land, assess our enemies, and commence the hitting when we had every advantage.

The thing about the Chain, see, is that we believe that fair fights are the province of the unimaginative. Never stand and scrap with anyone you can sneak around. Never come in the front when no one's watching the back. Never agree to a fistfight with anyone you can break a chair over.