I was supposed to know better. I was halfway an officer.

The prospect of careers cleaning the Company stables and heads did not intimidate Elmo or his corporals. Forward! they seemed to be thinking. Onward, for the glory of the band. Yech!

They were not stupid, just willing to pay the price of disobedience.

That idiot One-Eye actually started singing as we entered Oar. The song was his own wild, nonsensical composition sung in a voice utterly incapable of carrying a tune.

“Can it, One-Eye,” Elmo snarled. “You’re attracting attention.”

His order was pointless-We were too obviously who we were, and just as obviously were in vile temper. This was no turnip patrol. We were looking for trouble.

One-Eye whooped his way into a new song. “Can the racket!” Elmo thundered. “Get on your goddamned job.”

We turned a corner. A black fog formed around our horses’ fetlocks as we did. Moist black noses poked up and. out and sniffed the fetid evening air. They wrinkled. Maybe they had become as countrified as I. Out came almond eyes glowing like the lamps of Hell. A susurrus of fear swept the pedestrians watching from the streetsides.

Up they sprang, a dozen, a score, five score phantoms born in that snakepit One-Eye calls a mind. They streaked ahead, weasely, toothy, sinuous black things that darted at the people of Oar. Terror outpaced them. In minutes we shared the streets with no one but ghosts.

This was my first visit to Oar. I looked it over like I had just come in on the pumpkin wagon,

“Well, look here,” Elmo said as we turned into the street where the turnip patrol usually quartered. “Here’s old Cornie.” I knew the name, though not the man. Cornie kept the stable where the patrol always stayed.

An old man rose from his seat beside a watering trough.

“Heared you was coming,” he said. “Done all what I could, Elmo, Couldn’t get them no doctor, though.”

“We brought our own,” Though Cornie was old and had to hustle to keep pace, Elmo did not slow down.

I sniffed the air. It held a taint of old smoke.

Cornie dashed ahead, around an angle in the street. Weasel things flashed around his legs like surf foaming around a boulder on the shore. We followed, and found the source of the smoke smell.

Someone had fired Cornie’s stable, then jumped our guys as they ran out. The villains. Wisps of smoke still rose. The street in front of the stable was filled with casualties. The least injured were standing guard, rerouting traffic.

Candy, who commanded the patrol, limped toward us. “Where do I start?” I asked.

He pointed. “Those are the worst. Better begin with Raven, if he’s still alive.”

My heart jumped. Raven? He seemed so invulnerable.

One-Eye scattered his pets. No Rebel would sneak up on us now. I followed Candy to where Raven lay. The man was unconscious. His face was paper-white. “He the worst?”

“The only one I thought wouldn’t make it.”