“Slats,” Froggie said aloud, “please inform our Commander that I hear him talking.”
Some things translate, others—with luck—don’t. Nodding to Three-Spire, Froggie turned and strode into the village behind his last squad.
* * *
The temple or whatever was built even stranger on the inside, but it was comfortable enough if you avoided thinking of it as the setup for the world’s biggest funeral pyre. You could look up to the open sky from the central court. At the back of the ground floor was a sanctum set off by heavy doors; inside was a black stone on a plinth. At six levels above the ground were rooms for sleeping and storage, reached by stairs that snaked up both sides of the walls.
Froggie was overseeing the squad that stowed the century’s gear when one of the pair of guards at the entrance called, “Hey Top? The bug wants to come in.”
“Well, let him in, Calamus,” Froggie said with a touch of irritation in his tone. He strode toward the door, his feet drumming thump/squeal on floor timbers. “He’s our commanding officer, remember.”
“Right, Froggie,” a trooper called from halfway up the open staircase. “And I’m Venus rising from the seafoam!”
Froggie really hadn’t meant Slats when he said not to let any but their own people into the billets even if that meant putting twelve inches of steel through a few of them. He’d damned well meant it about the barbs, though. He guessed he ought to be glad Slats wasn’t the sort who’d try to push through a door when a guard stopped him.
Slats entered, his middle limbs quivering. “Centurion Froggie,” he said, “the village chief says—”
He turned, apparently expecting to see the barb following him. Instead, the guards had locked their shields across the entrance. The chief jumped back like he’d stepped on a hot griddle, but the four axemen who tagged along might have been inclined to try something.
Calamus and Baldy both had their swords drawn; door-guard was no job for javelins. The barb soldiers backed away, looking angry but not afraid.
“Slats, tell the barbs that this building is now Guild territory,” Froggie said. “Tell them that any attempt to enter it while we’re billeted here is an attack on the Guild, to which we’ll respond with all necessary force.”
“Well, really, Centurion Froggie,” the administrator said. “I don’t think—”
“Tell them!” Froggie said.
Slats spread his limbs, then clicked to the barbs through his translator. The chief twisted his throat back. His bodyguards’ faces didn’t change a bit, but Froggie figured those boys had understood the deal before they were told.
Slats turned to Froggie. He went into his submissive posture again and said, “The chief informs me that your men are constructing a camp outside the walls. The Commander—we must accept that it was the Commander speaking—was explicit that you warriors and I live within Kascanschi. Please, Centurion Froggie!”
“Sirmius?” Froggie called to the squad leader. Poor Slats was scared enough to turn into a pile of the little green pellets he shit. “Finish up here. I’m going to take our leader on a tour of the make-work I’ve got the other squads doing.”
He put his arm around the administrator and walked him into the evening. There were a lot of women and children in the town; they’d come out a few at a time and headed for the fields when they saw the century was settling into a routine that didn’t include rape and slaughter. Now they were returning.
There weren’t many males, though, except for the forty axemen who’d escorted the chief and elders. Those were keeping pretty much out of the way since they and the century had sized each other up. The four shepherding the chief in the wake of Froggie and Slats were the only ones in sight now.
“You see, sir,” Froggie said to the administrator as they walked through the gate, “I’ve got to keep the men busy. You’ll recall the Commander gave me specific orders about that when he sent us out. I’ve got the boys building a fort in this waste ground, just for the exercise. They’ve got a good start, wouldn’t you say?”