“You did all right. Did the tourniquets the way I taught you, didn’t you?” I looked Candy over. “You should be lying down yourself.” Back to Raven. He had close to thirty cuts on his face side, some of them deep. I threaded my needle.

Elmo joined us after a quick look around the perimeter. “Bad?” he asked.

“Can’t tell for sure. He’s full of holes. Lost a tot of blood. Better have One-Eye make up some of his broth.” One-Eye makes an herb and chicken soup that will bring new hope to the dead. He is my only assistant.

Elmo asked, “How did it happen, Candy?”

“They fired the stable and jumped us when we ran out.”

“I can see that.”

Cornie muttered, “The filthy murderers.” I got the feeling he was mourning his stable more than the patrol, though.

Elmo made a face like a man chewing on a green persimmon. “And no dead? Raven is the worst? That’s hard to believe.”

“One dead,” Candy corrected. “The old guy. Raven’s sidekick. From that village.”

“Flick,” Elmo growled. Flick was not supposed to have left the fortress at Deal. The Captain did not trust him. But Elmo overlooked that breach of regulations. “We’re going to make somebody sorry they started this,” he said. There wasn’t a bit of emotion in his voice. He might have been quoting the wholesale price of yams.

I wondered how Pickles would take the news. He was fond of Flick. Darling would be shattered. Flick was her grandfather.

“They were only after Raven,” Cornie said. “That’s why he got cut so bad.”

And Candy, “Flick threw himself in their way.” He gestured. “All the rest of this is because we wouldn’t stand back.”

Elmo asked the question puzzling me. “Why would the Rebel be that hot to get Raven?”

Doughbelly was hanging around waiting for me to get to the gash in his left forearm. He said, “It wasn’t Rebels, Elmo. It was that dumbshit captain from where we picked up Flick and Darling,”

I swore.

“You stick to your needlepoint, Croaker,” Elmo said. “You sure, Doughbelly?”

“Sure I’m sure. Ask Jolly. He seen him too. The rest was just street thugs. We whipped them good once we got going.” He pointed. Near the unburned side of the stable were a dozen bodies stacked like cordwood. Flick was the only one I recognized. The others wore ragged local costume.

Candy said, “I saw him too, Elmo. And he wasn’t top dog. There was another guy hanging around back in the shadows. He cleared out when we started winning.”

Cornie had been hanging around, looking watchful and staying quiet. He volunteered, “I know where they went. Place over to Bleek Street.”

I exchanged glances with One-Eye, who was putting his broth together using this and that from a black bag of his own. “Looks like Cornie knows our crowd,” I said.

“Know you well enough to know you don’t want nobody getting away with nothing like this.”