Tuesday is here! It’s time for Part Nine of The Shape of Family, where we’re gonna follow Claire and her Winged Riders a bit longer.
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The Shape of Family
Part Nine – Rally
by Rick Cook Jr
“How long for the Kingsguard?” Claire asked Private Hughes as she stepped out of the inn, Maggie trailing behind her, linens still clutched in her hands.
Hughes saluted. “I sent Tanner along to rouse them. We can head over now and they’ll be ready.”
“Good. Saddle the horses and bring them around.”
“Already on it,” she replied, turning to fulfill her orders.
“Wait.” She needed to do this first. She reached into the pouch at her side and drew out an insignia. “Lift your lapel.”
Hughes cocked her head at Claire but obeyed, staring at the pin. Claire fastened the small metal and smoothed the lapel down.
“You’re acting Sergeant until this is over, Hughes.”
“Ma’am?”
“Congratulations. Now get moving.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” She fingered the new metal on her lapel and darted off to the stables, shouting orders.
“Hard to believe Jeffrey would do something like this,” Maggie said beside her.
Claire sighed. She was so mad she could have put her sword through a peasant and not cared. “I can believe it, but I don’t want to.”
“What’s he need with your twin?”
“What’s anyone need with a girl hasn’t even had her first kiss yet?”
Maggie paled and Claire’s stomach lurched. He was a flirt and a womanizer but she’d never known him to like –
“It is what it is. We’ll catch him and bring her back. Them. Renee and Marie both.”
Maggie stole a quick glance around the inn-yard and threw her arms around Claire, dropping the linens in the dirt. Claire meant to fight her but instead embraced her. “This isn’t appropriate.”
“It’s all a bunch of tommyrot, you and your secrets.” Maggie pushed away from Claire and looked into her eyes. “We’re good together but you won’t let us be.”
“I’ve explained – ”
“To hell with your logic!” she hissed, gathering up the linens and heading back inside the inn. Claire stood there, the warmth on her cheek and the feel of Maggie’s body against her weakening her knees.
“It isn’t tommyrot,” she muttered, and Hughes said from behind, “What’s that, Captain?”
She stiffened, squaring her shoulders. “Nothing, Pr- Sergeant. The horses?”
“Rested and fed. They can run any time. What about Scout Mollen and Sergeant Combs’s horses?”
She considered. “Bring Amelia with us. I don’t know about Sergeant Combs yet. We might be dragging him behind on a rope.”
Hughes grimaced and saluted. “Yes, Ma’am.”
They rode to the Barracks at a trot, and Sergeant Hughes engaged her in conversation. “Captain, are we abandoning the primary mission?”
She glanced at her new Sergeant. “Betrayal and abduction take precedence over a cult, Hughes.”
“If we’re rallying the patrols, shouldn’t we let them chase Combs down?”
“You’ve been a Sergeant for three minutes and already you argue with me.”
Hughes had the good grace to blush but she didn’t back down. “I just think we can do both.”
Claire fought the notion, but it made a kind of sense. Furthermore it was part and parcel of this whole strange adventure. “I haven’t mentioned it, but this is the direction we’d be going anyway if we stayed on mission.”
“Really?”
Claire nodded, whispering, “The townsfolk may not be complicit but they know something they’re not telling us, and I got the distinct impression from Father Mason that we’ll find something along the Bottle Creek Road.”
“So we let the Kingsguard run ahead of us and we continue our investigation,” Hughes said. She nodded. “Is all of this connected, do you think?”
“I’ve been a soldier long enough that coincidences stopped surprising me. Keep your eyes open, Regina, we’re riding into danger.”
Sergeant Hughes nodded, swallowing hard.
The rest of her Wings waited with the dozen patrolmen in the Kingsguard not out on duty at the moment.
She sat her saddle with authority and a straight back as she approached the assembled soldiers. “Who leads you?”
She knew, had spoken with most of these men and women before, but it was protocol.
“Specialist Harbor, Ma’am.” He saluted her and she gave him a grim smile.
“Harbor, have you been briefed?”
“Briefly,” he said, grinning.
“You can wipe that smile off your face, Specialist. We have a traitor in possession of my scout and property of the Captaincy and I will see him hanged, or you in his place, do you understand me?”
That shut him up and he saluted. “Yes, Captain. Reports of the Sergeant fleeing on a dark horse match the description of last night’s patrols.”
“Explain.”
“They lost two men when the girl came bursting out of the woods on that great black beast, followed by a creature the size of a small bear, claws and fangs. The girl never stopped and they had a time of it with the creature.”
“Bandersnatch?”
“If we’re believing in folktales, and I am right now.”
She nodded. “Then we should begin there. Any of the patrolmen from last night here today?”
“A few. Roused from their naps and grumpy, but they’ll serve.”
She nodded, explaining the mission to them all. “You have your orders, then, Specialist Harbor. Take your men, and one of my Privates, and track down the traitor Jeffrey Combs.”
He nodded, saluted, and they mounted up. They were gone in a matter of minutes, leaving Claire and her diminished Wings in the dusty road.
“Time’s wasting and we’ve got a cult to find,” Claire said to her soldiers. “If we come upon the bandersnatch, or anything you’ve never seen before, we are not engaging. If we find Jeffrey he is to be taken alive if possible, but if you have to stick him with the pointy end so be it.”
They all nodded solemnly and she said, “And I shouldn’t have to say it, but if he does show up, don’t let him near your horse. You’ll end up with a broken back the way he has with the beasts.”
She kneed the side of her horse and they rode on, listening for the telltale signs of singing or chanting, or dead silence in the Bloody Wood where there should be birds and crickets, or anything at all.
It didn’t take long for them to find the first corpse of the Kingsguard, body smashed against a tree, neck ripped clean and still dribbling.
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Come on back for Part Ten in another week, where we’re gonna see what that ol’ bandersnatch is up to!
Panning For Clouds 