Free A Company of Heroes Book Four: The Scientist by Ron Miller Page B

superabundance of malignity. For all she knew, and suspected, advancement in the Ibrailan army was based solely upon the distance one could insinuate existed between oneself and humanity. Oddly, the officer seemed to be in his turn under the orders of a man neither particularly ugly nor particularly dangerous-looking. This person looked more like a elderly weasel, one ill-preserved by an amateur taxidermist, shriveled and wizened, with little bits of stuffing leaking through seams here and there, who had fluttered around what was to have been Rykkla’s funeral pyre, waving his skinny hands and piping orders in a reedy, high-pitched voice, like an outraged grandmother or a Punch-and-Judy man. The surly and disappointed villagers cowed beneath his wrath, even unto the burly thugs who had manhandled Rykkla. Meanwhile, the armed men who accompanied him untied the three-quarter-suffocated girl and helped her as she staggered down the still-smoldering pile of wood.
    The weasel had turned to her, wringing his hands obsequiously after she had taken the long robe he offered, and said, surprisingly, “Miss Woxen, I presume?” When she assented, he introduced himself as Dubar ak-Poom, chamberlain of the court of the Baudad Alcatode, whose sincerely heartfelt apologies he offered, along with, by way of modest and insufficient restitution, the eradication of the village and all of its inhabitants.
    “That won’t be necessary,” she replied, her voice momentarily muffled by the folds of the singed and still-smoking robe as she pulled it over her head. Her dark, hawkish face, scowling above the striped desert garment, made her look far more like an Ibrailan native than she would ever have cared to know. She was as disturbed by the eagerness of the man’s suggestion as by the appearance of sincere disappointment on his shriveled face. Had it not looked like it would have pleased him so much, she might have assented.
    “We should at least punish those particular individuals responsible for your ill-treatment, Miss Woxen, don’t you think?”
    “I’d just like to get out of here, if you don’t mind.”
    “We should execute one ,” he whined. “At least one, for discipline’s sake.”
    “Look here, ak-Poom,” she said, suddenly serious, “there’s a friend of mine that the villagers left up there in a crater. He was hurt. For all I know he may be dying; I’m sure he must be. Can’t we go look for him?”
    “They tried to kill your friend?”
    “They stoned him and pushed him into the crater.”
    “If they killed him, shouldn’t some of them be destroyed, then? It’d be well within the letter of the law, really, you know. And the spirit of the law certainly demands it.”
    “Look, I really don’t care what you do with these miserable people . . . they’re your problem, not mine; I’m not a citizen, thank Musrum, of this benighted country. All I want to do is find my friend and get out of here.”
    “Where did you say this odious crime took place?”
    “Up there,” she replied, pointing to the rim of the distant excavation.
    “I’ll send some of my men with you,” ak-Poon agreed, grudgingly, “they’ll help search for your friend.”
    Six of the chamberlain’s soldiers accompanied Rykkla back up the rubbly slope, where they discovered no sign of the big man. The interior of the bowl-shaped depression was lined with pulverized stone and rocks, none larger than Rykkla’s fist. There certainly was nothing as large as Thud, who would have stood out like a hogshead in a room full of thimbles. Nevertheless, she searched until Chamberlain ak-Poom began to pipe shrilly from the base of the crater rim and, in turn, his men began to insist that she abandon her search. She went with them, relunctantly, having already admitted to herself that her hopes were groundless.
    As she now jounced along the road to Spondula, Rykkla wondered: If Thud’s body wasn’t in the crater, then where is it? He’s obviously either dead