Free Foreign Devils by John Hornor Jacobs Page A

mosquitos, moths, mayflies – swarmed the lanterns. The ship’s cats prowled about, looking for rats and other vermin. Even here, moored on the eastern shore of the Big Rill, the sound of coyotes yipping and screeching reached our ears. Wasler and Winfried looked at me with faces open and eager for tales of the shoal plains. These two could use a little local lore. Or colour. ‘Let me tell you about them stretchers.’

    Later that night, after I’d eaten some dinner and fielded many questions and listened to statements of disbelief from the two Malfenians, I returned to our tent. Maskelyne’s watchful freemen had armed themselves with gigs, then lowered the lanterns close to the still surface of the river and waited, still as statues, as fat, smooth-bodied lickerfish rose to the surface to examine the lights. No exclamations as the gigs lanced out, hooking the thick, muscular fish with such force and surety that many only struggled weakly as the men hauled them aboard. Others, when the gig went slightly awry – enough to hook but not to stun – erupted in furious thrashing and splashing while the other freemen scrambled over to assist in the harvesting.
    I entered the tent in the dark, my dvergar sight was keen even under a starless sky and this one was brilliant and sprayed with wavering pinpricks of light.
    Fisk sat on his cot, holding the Quotidian in his hands, turning it over and over. He did not acknowledge me when I entered, nor did he say anything as I piled onto my bunk and closed my eyes.
    I don’t know how long he sat there, pondering the infernal thing.

    In the morning there was lamb stew; one of the sheep had expired in the night and before we woke, Maskelyne’s burly freemen had flayed and filleted the creature. The smell of the meat, mixed with the scents of coffee and chicory, perked up everyone – even the Lomaxes, who looked as if they had not slept well.
    The pacemaker began drumming, the wind picked up, and the Quiberon moved upstream, against the current.
    Fisk, unused to waiting or the wasting of time, busied himself in our tent in the maintenance of gear and guns, checking the integrity of wards, oiling the action on his carbine and disassembling his pistols and ammunition on a chamois cloth and inspecting all the warding very closely.
    The Lomaxes beckoned me to join them at their tea. For folks in a rough foreign country, far away from their own home and carrying limited supplies, they were quite nicely accoutred both on their persons – dressed neatly in sombre woollen suits, tailored in similar style that highlighted neither Wasler’s masculine traits nor Winifred’s feminine ones – and their gear, which was well maintained and quite clever. Light-weight folding chairs and tables, a chest that doubled as another table with interesting access points on the side and back for when the top was in use, folding umbrellas and stands that they’d arranged outside their tent, and a miniature portable stove which really captured my attention.
    As I joined them, Winfried pulled a teapot off the tiny stove and banked the flames. ‘Would you care for some tea, Mr Ilys?’ she asked, and gestured for me to sit, placed a curious metal device in a cup, and poured near-boiling water over it.
    I wasn’t much of a tea drinker, honestly. Coffee, whiskey, water and some cacique in a pinch when my spirits were low, and that’s about it. But I didn’t want to offend so I took her up on the offer.
    ‘That is clever,’ I said indicating the small stove, holding my tea a tad nervously. The steaming liquid was in a small, delicate little porcelain cup and hard to keep level on the ever-shifting deck of a boat, even one plying the relatively calm waters of a river. I sipped the tea – it wasn’t too bad, really – and chucked my head at the device. ‘There’s no daemon in that, is there?’
    Winfried laughed. ‘No, Mr Ilys, there’s no infernal presence here. Just an incredibly strong alcohol,