The castle lulled us. Let us think we could slam the door without a squawk. For two days the labor crews ripped at the north ridge, gouging out a good deep trench, getting up much of the needed stockade, hammering out a nice beginning of a mine. Then they let us in on their displeasure.
It was a little bit chaotic and a whole lot hairy, and in retrospect, it seems it may not have started as what it became.
It was a moonless night, but labor crews were working by firelight, torchlight, lanternlight. The Lieutenant had wooden towers going up each hundred feet where the trench and palisade were complete, and nearby them small ballistae for mounting atop them. A waste of time, I thought. What value mundane siege equipment against minions of the Dominator? But the Lieutenant was our siege specialist. He was determined to do things properly, by the numbers, even if the ballistae never were used. They had to be available.
Sharp-eyed Company members were in the towers near-ing completion, trying to see into the castle. One detected movement at the gate. Instead of raising a fuss, he sent a message down. The Lieutenant went up. He decided that someone had left the castle and slipped around to One-Eye's side. He had drums sounded, trumpets blown, and fire arrows shot into the air.
The alarm wakened me. I rushed up to see what was happening. For a while there was nothing to see.
On the far slope One-Eye and Shaky stood to arms. Their workers panicked. Many were killed or crippled trying to flee across the brushy, rocky, steep slope. A minority had sense enough to stand fast.
The castle folks wanted to make a quick strike and catch some of One-Eye's workers, drag them inside, and complete whatever rites were necessary to bring the Dominator through. Once they were discovered, their strategy shifted. The men in the towers yelled that more were coming out. The Lieutenant ordered harassing fire. He had a couple of small trebuchets chuck balls of burning brush into the area near the gate. And he sent men to find Goblin and Silent, figuring they could do more than he to provide needed illumination.
Goblin was down in the Buskin. It would take him an hour to respond. I had no idea where Silent might be. I had not seen him, though he had been in Juniper a week. The Lieutenant had signal fires lighted to warn watchers on Ouretile's walls that we had a situation.
The Taken above finally came down to investigate. It proved to be the Limper. His first act was to take a handful of javelins, do something to them, then cast them to earth from above. They became pillars of chartreuse light between trench and castle.
On the far slope One-Eye provided his own illumination by spinning spiderwebs of violet and hanging their corners on the breeze. They quickly betrayed the approach of a half-dozen shapes in black. Arrows and javelins flew.
The creatures suffered several casualties before they took exception. Light blazed, then faded into a shimmer which surrounded each. They attacked.
Other shapes appeared atop the castle wall. They hurled objects down-slope. The size of a man's head, they bounded toward the minehead. One-Eye did something to alter their course. Only one escaped him. It left a trail of unconscious soldiers and workers. The castle creatures had, evidently, planned for every possibility but One-Eye. They were able to give the Limper hell, but did nothing about One-Eye at all.
He shielded his men and made them fight toe-to-toe when the castle creatures closed. Most of his men were killed, but they wiped out their attackers.
By then the castle creatures were mounting a sortie against the trench and wall, directly toward where I stood watching. I recall being more puzzled than fearful.
How many were there? Shed had given the impression the castle was practically untenanted. But a good twenty-five of them, attacking with wizardry backing them, made the trench and wall almost pointless.
They came out the gate. And something came over the castle wall, vast and bladder-like. It hit the ground, bounded twice, mashed down on the trench and palisade, crushing one and filling the other. The sortie streaked for the opening. Those creatures could move.
The Limper came down out of the night, shrieking with the fury of his descent, glowing ever more brightly as he dropped. The glow peeled off in flakes the size of maple seeds, which fluttered in his wake, spinning and twisting earthward, eating into whatever they contacted. Four or five attackers went down.
The Lieutenant launched a hasty counterattack, finished several of the injured, then had to retreat. Several of the creatures dragged fallen soldiers toward the castle. The others came on.
Without a heroic bone in my body, I picked up my heels and headed across the slope. And a wise move that proved.
The air crackled and sparked and opened like a window. Something poured through from somewhere else. The slope froze so cold and so fast the air itself turned to ice. The air around me rushed into the affected area, and it too froze. The cold took most of the castle creatures, enveloping them in frost. A random javelin struck one. The creature shattered, turning to powder and small shards. Men hurled whatever missiles were available, destroying the others.
The opening closed after only a few seconds. The relative warmth of the world sapped the bitter cold. Fogs boiled up, concealed the area for several minutes. When they cleared, no trace of the creatures could be found.
Meantime, three untouched creatures raced down the road toward Juniper. Elmo and an entire platoon raged in pursuit. Above, the Limper passed the apex of a climb and descended for a strike upon the fortress. As another band of creatures came out.
They grabbed up whatever bodies they could and hurried back. Limper adjusted his descent and hit them. Half went down. The others dragged at least a dozen dead men inside.
A pair of those flying balls came shrieking across from Duretile and impacted the castle wall, hurling up a shield of color. Another carpet dropped behind Limper. It released something which plunged into the black castle. There was a flash so brilliant it blinded people for miles around. I was facing away at the moment, but, even so, fifteen seconds passed before my vision recovered enough to show me the fortress afire.
This was not the shifting fire we had seen earlier. This was more like a conflagration actually consuming the stuff of the fortress itself. Strange screams came from inside. They set chills crawling my spine. They were screams not of pain but of rage. Creatures appeared on the battlements, flailing away with what looked like cats-o'-nine-tails. extinguishing the flames. Wherever the flames had burned, the fortress was visibly diminished.
A steady stream of ball pairs howled across the valley. I do not see that they contributed anything, yet I'm sure there was purpose behind them.
A third carpet dropped while Limper and the other were climbing. This one trailed a cloud of dust. Wherever the dust touched, it had an effect like Limper's maple seeds, only generalized. Exposed castle creatures shrieked in agony. Several seemed to melt. The others abandoned the walls. Events proceeded in like fashion for quite a while, with the black castle appearing to get the worst of it. Yet they had gotten those bodies inside, and I suspected that meant trouble.
Sometime during all this Asa made a getaway. I was unaware of it. So was everyone else, till hours later, when Pawnbroker spotted him going into the Iron Lily. But Pawnbroker was a good distance away, and the Lily was doing a booming business despite the hour, with everyone who could gathered for drinks while watching the fury on the north ridge. Pawnbroker lost him in the mob. I expect Asa spoke to Shed's sister-in-law and learned that he, too, had escaped. We never had time to interview her.
Meantime, the Lieutenant was getting things under control.
He had the casualties cleared away from the break in the circumvallation. He moved ballistae into position to fire into any further break-out attempt. He had pit traps dug, sent laborers around to replace those One-Eye had lost.
The Taken continued their harassment of the castle, though at a more leisurely pace. They had shot their best bolls early.
The occasional pair of balls howled over from Duretile.
I later learned that Silent was throwing them, having been taught by the Taken.
The worst of it seemed over. Except for the three escap-ees Elmo was hunting, we had contained the thing. The Limper peeled off to join the hunt for the three. Whisper returned to Duretile to refurbish her store of nasty tricks, Feather patrolled above the castle, dipping down occasion-ally when its denizens came out to battle the last consum-ing flames. Relative peace had returned.
Nobody rested, though. Bodies had been hauled inside. We all wondered if they had gleaned enough to bring the Dominator through.
But they were up to something else in there.
A group of creatures appeared on the wall, setting up a device pointing down-slope. Feather dove.
Bam! Smoke boiled around her, illuminated from within. She came out wobbling. Bam! And bam! again. And thrice more still. And after the last she could no longer hold it. She was afire, a comet arcing up, out, away, and down into the city. A violent explosion occurred where she hit. In moments a savage conflagration raged upon the waterfront. The fire spread swiftly among the tightly packed tenements.
Whisper was out of Duretile and hitting the black castle in minutes, with the vicious dust that melted and the fire that burned the stuff of the fortress itself. There was an intensity to her flying that betrayed her anger over Feather's fall.
The Limper, meantime, broke off hunting escapees to help fight the fire in the Buskin. With his aid it was controlled within hours. Without him the entire district might have burned.
Elmo got two of the fugitives. The third vanished utterly. When the hunt resumed with the help of the Taken, no trace could be found.
Whisper maintained her attack till she exhausted her resources. That came well after sunrise. The fortress looked more like a giant hunk of slag than a castle, yet she had not overcome it. One-Eye, when he came around seeking more tools, told me there was plenty of activity inside.
I caught a two-hour nap. The Lieutenant allowed half the troops and workers the same, then the other half. When I wakened, I found few changes, except that the Captain had sent Pockets over to establish a field hospital. Pockets had been down in the Buskin, trying to win friends with free medical attention. I looked in, found only a handful of patients and the situation under control, went on to check the siegework.
The Lieutenant had repaired the gap in the palisade and trench. He had extended both, intending to take them all the way around, despite the difficulty of the nether slope. New, heavier missile weapons were under construction.
He was not content to rely upon the Taken to reduce the place. He did not trust them to do the necessary.
Sometime during my brief sleep, drafts of Candy's prisoners came up. But the Lieutenant did not permit the civilians to leave. He put them to gathering earth while he scoped out a site for building a ramp.
I suggested, "You'd better get some sleep."
"Need to ride herd," he said. He had a vision. His talent had gone unused for years. He wanted this. I suspect he found the Taken an irritation, despite the formidable nature of the black castle.
"It's your show," I said. "But you won't be much good if they hit back and you're too exhausted to think straight."
We were communicating on a level outside words. Weariness had us all fragmented and choppy, neither our thoughts nor actions nor speech moving logically or linearly. He nodded curtly. "You're right." He surveyed the slope. "Seems to be clicking. I'll go down to the hospital. Have somebody get me if something happens."
The hospital tent was the nearest place out of the sun. It was a bright, clear, intense day, promising to be unseasonably warm. I looked forward to that. I was tired of shivering. "Will do."
He was right about things running smoothly. They usually do once the men know what has to be done.
From the viewpoint of the Limper, who again had the air patrol, the slope must have looked like an overturned anthill. Six hundred Company troops were supervising the efforts of ten times as many men from the city. The road uphill carried so much traffic it was being destroyed. Despite the night's excitement and their lack of sleep, I found the men in excellent spirits.
They had been on the march so long, doing nothing else, that they had developed a big store of violent energy. It was pouring out now. They worked with an eagerness which infected the locals. Those seemed pleased to participate in a task which required the concerted efforts of thousands. Some of the more thoughtful mentioned that Juniper had mounted no major communal effort in generations. One man suggested that that was why the city had gone to seed. He believed the Black Company and its attack on the black castle would be great medicine for a moribund body politic.
That, however, was not a majority opinion. Candy's prisoners, especially, resented being used as a labor force. They represented a strong potential for trouble.
I have been told I always look at the dark underbelly of tomorrow. Possibly. You're less likely to be disappointed that way.
The excitement I expected did not materialize for days. The castle creatures seemed to have pulled their hole in after them. We eased the pace slightly, ceased working as if everything had to be done before tomorrow.
The Lieutenant completed the circumvallation, including the back slope, looping around One-Eye's excavation. He then broke the front wall and began building his ramp. He did not use many mantlets, for he designed it to provide its own shielding. It rose steeply at our end, with steps constructed of stone from demolished buildings. The work crews downtown were now pulling down structures ruined in the fire following Feather's crash. There were more materials than could be used in the siege. Candy's outfit was salvaging the best to use in new housing planned for the cleared sites.
The ramp would rise till it overtopped the castle by twenty feet, then it would descend to the wall. The work went faster than I expected. So did One-Eye's project. He found a combination of spells which turned stone soft enough to be worked easily. He soon reached a point beneath the castle.
Then he ran into the material that looked like obsidian. And could go no farther. So he started spreading out.
The Captain himself came over. I had been wondering what he was doing. I asked.
"Finding ways to keep people busy," he said. He shambled around erratically. If we did not pay attention, we found ourselves wandering off after he made some sudden turn and went to inspect something apparently trivial. "Damned Whisper is turning me into a military governor."
"Uhm?"
"What, Croaker?"
"I'm the Annalist, remember? Got to get this all down somewhere."
He frowned, eyeballed a barrel of water set aside for animals. Water was a problem. A lot had to be hauled to augment the little we caught during the occasional shower. "She has me running the city. Doing what the Duke and city fathers should." He kicked a rock and said nothing more till it stopped rolling. "Guess I'm coping. Isn't anybody in town who isn't working. Aren't getting paid anything but keep, but they're working. Even got people lined up with projects they want done as long as we're making people work. The Custodians are driving me crazy. Can't tell them all their clean-ups may be pointless."
I caught an odd note in that. It underscored a feeling I'd had already, that he was depressed about what was happening.
"Why's that?"
He glanced around. No natives were within earshot. "Just a guess, mind. Nobody's put it in words. But I think the Lady plans to loot the Catacombs."
"People aren't going to like that."
"I know. You know; I know; even Whisper and Limper know. But we don't give the orders. There's talk about how the Lady is short of money."
In all the years we'd been in her service we'd never missed a payday. The Lady played that straight. The troops got paid, be they mercenaries or regulars. I suspect the various outfits could tolerate a few delays. It's almost a tradition for commanders to screw their troops occasionally.
Most of us didn't much care about money, anyway. We tended toward inexpensive and limited tastes. I suppose attitudes would shift if we had to do without, though.
"Too many men under arms on too many frontiers," the Captain mused. "Too much expansion too fast for too long. The empire can't take the strain. The effort in the Barrowland ate up her reserves. And it's still going. If she whips the Dominator, look for things to change."
"Maybe we made a mistake, eh?"
"Made a lot. Which one are you talking about?"
"Coming north, over the Sea of Torments."
"Yes. I've known that for years."
"And?"
"And we can't get out. Not yet. Someday, maybe, when our orders take us back to the Jewel Cities, or somewhere where we could leave the empire and still find ourselves in a civilized country." There was an almost bottomless yearning in his voice. "The longer I spend in the north, the less I want to end my days here, Croaker. Put that in your Annals."
I had him talking, a rare occurrence. I merely grunted, hoping he would continue filling the silence. He did. "We're running with the darkness, Croaker. I know that don't make no never-mind, really. Logically. We're the Black Company. We're not good or evil. We're just sol-diers with swords for sale. But I'm tired of having our work turned to wicked ends. If this looting thing happens, l may step aside. Raven had the right idea back at Charm. He got the hell out."
I then set forth a notion that had been in the back of my mind for years. One I'd never taken seriously, knowing it quixotic. "That doesn't contribute anything, Captain. We also have the option of going the other way." "Eh?" He came back from whatever faraway place ruled him and really looked at me. "Don't be silly, Croaker. That's a fool's game. The Lady squashes anybody who tries." He ground a heel into the earth. "Like a bug."
"Yeah." It was a silly idea, on several levels, not the least of which was that the other side could not afford us. I could not picture us in the Rebel role anyway. The majority of Rebels were idiots, fools or ambitious types hoping to grab a chunk of what the Lady had. Darling was the outstanding exception, and she was more symbol than substance, and a secret symbol at that.
"Eight years since the comet was in the sky," the Captain said. "You know the legends. She won't fall till the Great Comet is up there. You want to try surviving twenty-nine years on the run from the Taken? No, Croaker. Even if our hearts were with the White Rose, we couldn't make that choice. That's suicide. Getting out of the empire is the way."
"She'd come after us."
"Why? Why shouldn't she be satisfied with what she's had of us these ten years? We're no threat to her."
But we were. We very much were, if only because we knew of the existence of the reincarnation of the White Rose. And I was sure that, once we left the empire, either Silent or I would spill that secret. Of course, the Lady did not know that we knew.
"This chatter is an exercise in futility," the Captain said. "I'd rather not talk about it."
"As you wish. Tell me what we're going to do here."
"The Lady is coming in tonight. Whisper says we'll begin the assault as soon as the auspices are right."
I glanced at the black castle.
"No," he said. "It won't be easy. It may not be possible, even with the Lady helping."
"If she asks about me, tell her I'm dead. Or something," I said.
That won a smile. "But, Croaker, she's your. . . ."
"Raven," I snapped. "I know things about him that could get us all killed. So does Silent. Get him out of Duretile before she gets here. Neither one of us dares face the Eye."
"For that, neither do I. Because I know you know something. We're going to have to take our chances, Croaker."
"Right. So don't put notions into her head."
"I expect she's forgotten you long since, Croaker. You're just another soldier.''
The Lady hadn't forgotten me. Not even a little. Shortly after midnight a grim Elmo rousted me out. "Whisper is here. Wants you, Croaker."
"Eh?" I hadn't done anything to arouse her ire. Not for weeks.
"They want you over to Duretile. She wants you. Whisper is here to take you back."
Ever seen a grown man faint? I haven't. But I came close. I may have come close to having a stroke, too. My blood pressure must have soared. For two minutes I was vertiginous and unable to think. My heart pounded. My guts ached with fear. I knew she was going to drag me in for a session with the Eye, which sees every secret buried in a man's mind. And yet I could do nothing to evade her. It was too late to run. I wished I had been aboard the ship to Meadenvil with Pawnbroker.
Like a man walking to the gallows, I went out to Whisper's carpet, settled myself behind her, and dwindled into my thoughts as we rose and rushed through the chill night toward Duretile.
As we passed over the Port, Whisper called back, "You must have made quite an impression back when, physician. You were the first person she asked about when she got here."
I found enough presence of mind to ask, "Why?"
"I suspect because she wants her story recorded again. As she did during the battle at Charm."
I looked up from my hands, startled. How had she known that? I'd always pictured the Taken and Lady as uncommunicative among themselves.
What she said was true. During the battle at Charm the Lady had dragged me around with her so the events of the day would be recorded as they happened. And she did not demand special treatment. In fact, she insisted I write stuff as I saw it. There was just the faintest whiff of a hint that she expected to be toppled sometime, and, once she was, expected maltreatment by historians. She wanted a neutral record to exist. I hadn't thought about that for years. It was one of the more curious anomalies I'd noted about her. She did not care what people thought of her, but was frightened that the record would be bastardized to suit someone else's ends.
The tiniest spark of hope rose from that. Maybe she did want a record kept. Maybe I could get through this. If I could remain nimble enough to avoid the Eye.
The Captain met us when we landed on Duretile's northern wall. A glance at the carpets there told me all the Taken were on hand. Even Journey, whom I had expected to remain in the Barrowland. But Journey would have a grudge to soothe. Feather had been his wife.
A second glance told me the Captain was silently apologetic about my situation, that there were things he wanted to say but dared not. I fed him a tiny shrug, hoped we would get a moment later. We did not. Whisper led me from the wall directly into the Lady's presence.
She hadn't changed an iota since I had seen her last. The rest of us had aged terribly, but she remained twenty forever, radiantly gorgeous with stunning black hair and eyes into which a man could fall and die. She was, as always, such a focal point of glamor that she could not be physically described. A detailed description would be pointless anyway, as what I saw was not the true Lady. The Lady who looked like that hadn't existed for four centuries, if ever.
She rose and came to greet me, a hand extended. I could not tear my eyes away. She rewarded me with the slightly mocking smile I recalled so well, as though we shared a secret. I touched her hand lightly, and was astonished to find it warm. Away from her, when she vanished from mind except as a distant object of dread, like an earthquake, I could think of her only as cold, dead, and deadly. More on the order of a lethal zombie than a living, breathing, even possibly vulnerable person.
She smiled a second time and invited me to take a seat. I did so, feeling grotesquely out of place amidst a company which included all but one of the great evils of the world. And the Dominator was there in spirit, casting his cold shadow.
I was not there to contribute, that became obvious. The Captain and Lieutenant did the talking for the Company. The Duke and Custodian Hargadon were there, too, but contributed little more than I. The Taken carried the discussion, questioning the Captain and Lieutenant. Only once was I addressed, and that by the Captain, who inquired as to my readiness to treat casualties from the fighting.
The meeting had only one point so far as I was concerned. The assault was set for dawn, day after the one coming up. It would continue till the black castle was destroyed or we lost our capacity to attack.
"The place is a hole in the bottom of the ship of empire," the Lady said. "It has to be plugged or we all drown." She entertained no protests from the Duke or Hargadon, both of whom regretted asking her for help. The Duke was now impotent within his own domain, and Hargadon little better. The Custodian suspected he would be out of work entirely, once the threat of the castle ended. Few of the Company and none of the Taken had been at any pains to conceal their disdain for Juniper's odd religion. Having spent a lot of time among the people, I could say they took it only as seriously as the Inquisitors, Custodians and a few fanatics made them.
I hoped she went slow if she intended changes, though.
Like so slow the Company would be headed elsewhere before she started. You mess with people's religion and you mess with fire. Even people who don't much give a damn. Religion is something that gets hammered in early, and never really goes away. And has powers to move which go beyond anything rational.
Morning after the day coming up. Total war. All-out effort to eradicate the black castle. Every resource of the Lady, Taken, Company and Juniper to be bent to that end, for as long as it took.
Morning after the day coming up. But it did not work that way. Nobody told the Dominator he was supposed to wait.
He got in the first strike six hours before jump-off, while most of the troops and all the civilian laborers were asleep. While the only Taken patrolling was Journey, who was the least of the Lady's henchmen.
It began when one of those bladder-like things bounced over the wall and filled the gap remaining in the Lieutenant's ramp. At least a hundred creatures stormed out of the castle and crossed.
Journey was alert. He had sensed a strangeness in the castle and was watching for trouble. He came down fast and drenched those attackers with the dust that melted.
Bam! Bam-bam-bam! The castle hit him the way it had hit his one-time wife. He fishtailed through the air, evading the worst, but caught the edge of every crack, and went down smouldering, his carpet destroyed.
The banging wakened me. It wakened the entire camp, for it started the same time as the alarms and drowned them entirely.
I charged out of the hospital, saw the castle creatures boiling down the steps of the Lieutenant's ramp. Journey hadn't stopped more than a handful. They were enveloped by that protective glow One-Eye had encountered once before. They spread out, sprinting through a storm of missiles from the men who had the watch. A few more fell, but not many. They began extinguishing lights, I suppose because their eyes were more suited to darkness than ours.
Men were running everywhere, dragging their clothing on as they rushed toward or away from the enemy. The laborers panicked and greatly hampered the Company's response. Many were killed by our men, vexed at finding
Them in the way.
The Lieutenant charged through the chaos bellowing orders. First he got his batteries of heavy weapons manned and trained on the steps. He sent messengers everywhere, ordering every ballista, catapult, mangonel and trebuchet moved to a position where it could fire on the ramp. That baffled me only till the first castle creature headed home with a body under each arm. A storm of missiles hit him, tore the bodies to shreds, battered him to a pulp, and nearly buried him.
The Lieutenant had trebuchets throw cannisters of oil which smashed on the steps and caught fire when flaming balls were thrown after them. He kept the oil and fire flying. The castle creatures would not run through the flames.
So much for my thinking the Lieutenant was wasting
Time building useless engines.
The man knew his job. He was good. His preparation and quick response were more valuable than anything done by the Lady or Taken that night. He held the line in the critical minutes.
A mad battle began the moment the creatures realized they were cut off. They promptly attacked, trying to reach the engines. The Lieutenant signaled his under-officers and brought the bulk of his available manpower to bear. He had to. Those creatures were more than a match for any two soldiers, and they benefited from the protective glow as well.
Here, there, a brave citizen of Juniper grabbed a fallen weapon and jumped into the struggle. Most paid the ultimate price, but their sacrifice helped keep the enemy away from the engines.
It was obvious to everyone that if the creatures escaped with many bodies, our cause was lost. We'd soon be face-to-face with their master himself.
The ball pairs began coming over from Duretile, splashing the night with terrible color. Then Taken dropped from the night, Limper and Whisper each depositing an egg which hatched the fire that fed on the stuff of the castle. Limper dodged several attacks from the castle, swooped around, brought his carpet to ground near my hospital, where we were swamped by customers already. I had to retreat there to do the job for which I was paid. I kept the uphill tent flaps open so I could watch.
Limper left his aerial steed, marched uphill with a long, black sword that glimmered evilly in the light from the burning fortress. He radiated a glow not unlike that protecting the castle creatures. His, however, was far more puissant than theirs, as he demonstrated when he pushed through the press and attacked them. Their weapons could not reach him. His sliced through them as though they were made of lard.
The creatures, by that time, had slaughtered at least five hundred men. The majority were workers, but the Company had taken a terrible beating, too. And that beating went on even after the Limper turned the tide, for he could engage but one creature at a time. Our people strove to keep the enemy contained till the Limper could get to them.
They responded by trying to swamp the Limper, which they managed with some success, fifteen or twenty piling on and keeping him pinned by sheer body weight. The Lieutenant shifted the fire of the engines temporarily, pounded that seething pile till it broke up and the Limper regained his feet.
That ploy having failed, a band of the creatures clotted up and tried to break out to the west. I don't know whether they planned to escape entirely or meant to swing around and strike from behind. The dozen who made it through encountered Whisper, and a heavy fall of the melting dust. The dust killed a half-dozen workers for every castle creature, but it stopped the charge. Only five creatures survived it.
Those five immediately encountered the portal from elsewhere that expelled the cold breath of the infinite. They all perished.
Whisper, meantime, was scrambling for altitude. A drum-roll procession of bangs pursued her up the sky. She was a better flyer than Journey, but even so could not evade injury. Down she came, eventually touching down beyond
The fortress.
Within the castle itself creatures were out with the cats-o'-nine-tails, extinguishing the fires started by Whisper and the Limper. The structure had begun to look pathetic, so much of its substance had been consumed. Gone was the dark, dreadful grace of weeks before. It was one big, dark, glassy lump, and it seemed impossible that creatures could survive inside it, yet they did, and continued the fight. A handful came out on the ramp and did something which gnawed black chunks out of the Lieutenant's conflagration. All the creatures on the slope ran for home, not a one forgetting to scoop up at least one body.
The ice door opened again, its breath dumping on the steps. The fires died instantly. A score of the creatures died too, hammered to powder by the Lieutenant's missiles. The things inside took a tack I had anticipated fearfully since I had seen Feather crash. They turned their booming spell on the slope.
If it wasn't the thing that had pursued the Lieutenant, Elmo, One-Eye and me that day, it was a close cousin. There wasn't much flash or smoke when they used it on the slope, but huge holes appeared, often with bloody pulp smashed into their bottoms.
All this happened so swiftly, so dramatically, that nobody really had time to think. I don't doubt that even the Company would have run had events been stretched out enough to allow thinking time. As it was, in their confusion, the men had a chance only to pursue roles for which they had been preparing since reaching Juniper. They stood their ground and, too often, died.
The Limper scampered around the slope like an insane chicken, cackling and hunting creatures who hadn't died on the steps. There were a score of those, most surrounded by angry soldiers. Some of the creatures were slain by their own side, for those knots made tempting targets for the booming spell.
Teams of creatures appeared on the ramparts, assembling devices like the one we'd seen them try to use before. This time there was no Taken above to drop and give them hell.
Not till fool Journey came rushing past the hospital, looking cruelly battered, and stole the Limper's carpet.
It had been my notion that one Taken could not use another's vehicle. Not so, apparently, for Journey got the thing aloft and dove upon the castle again, dumping dust and another fire egg. The castle knocked him down again, and despite the tumult, I heard the Limper howling and cursing him for it.
Ever see how a child draws a straight line? None too straight. Something as shaky as a child's hand scribbled a wobbly line from Duretile to the black castle. It hung against the night like an improbable clothesline, wriggling, of indeterminate color, irridescent. Its tip threw sparks off the obsidian material, like the meeting of flint and steel magnified ten thousand times, generating an actinic glare too intense to view directly. The entire slope was bathed in wild bluish light.
I put aside my instruments and stepped out to better observe, for down in my gut I knew the Lady anchored the nether end of that scrawl, having entered the lists for the first time. She was the big one, the most powerful, and if the castle could be reduced at all, hers was the might that would do it.
The Lieutenant must have been distracted. For a few seconds his fires dwindled. A half-dozen castle creatures went up the steps, dragging two and three corpses apiece. A rush of their compatriots came out to meet the Limper, who was in hot pursuit. My guess is they got twelve bodies inside. Some might not have lost the spark of life entirely.
Chunks flew from the castle where the Lady's line touched, each blazing with that brilliant light. Thin cracks, in crimson, appeared against the black, spreading slowly. The creatures assembling the devices retreated, were replaced by others trying to lessen the effects of the Lady's attack. They had no luck. Several were knocked down by missiles from the Lieutenant's batteries.
The Limper reached the head of the stairs and stood limned against the glow of a section of castle still afire, sword raised high. A giant runt, if you will pardon the contradiction. He is a tiny thing, yet stood huge at that moment. He bellowed, "Follow me!" and charged down the ramp.
To my everlasting amazement, men followed him. Hundreds of men. I saw Elmo and the remnants of his company go roaring up, across, and disappear. Even scores of gutsy citizens decided to take part.
Part of the story of Marron Shed had come out recently, without names or such, but with heavy emphasis on how much wealth he and Raven had garnered. Obviously, the story had been planted against this moment, when a storm of manpower would be needed to subdue the castle. In ensuing minutes the call of wealth led many a man from the Buskin up those steps.
Down on the far side of the castle Whisper reached One-Eye's camp. One-Eye and his men, of course, had stood to arms, but had taken part in nothing yet. His mine operation had stalled once he was certain there was no way to get around or to breech the substance of the castle.
Whisper brought one of those eggs of fire, planted it against the obsidian exposed by One-Eye's mine. She set it off and let it gnaw at the fortress's underbelly.
That, I learned later, had been in the plan for some time. She had done some fancy flying to bring her crippled carpet down near One-Eye so she could carry it out.
Seeing the men pour into the castle, seeing the walls abandoned and being broken up by the Lady, seeing fires burning unchecked, I decided the battle was ours and was all over but the crying. I went back into the hospital and resumed cutting and stitching, setting and just plain shaking my head over men for whom there was nothing I could do. I wished One-Eye weren't on the far side of the ridge. He'd always been my principal assistant, and I missed him. While I could not denigrate Pockets' skill, he did not have One-Eye's talent. Often there was a man beyond my help who could be saved with a little magic.
A whoop and howl told me Journey was back, home from his latest crash and rushing his enemies once more. And not far behind him came those elements of the Company which had been stationed in the Buskin. The Lieutenant met Candy and prevented him from rushing over the ramp. Instead, he manned the perimeter and began rounding up those laborers who could be found still close to the action. He started putting things back together.
The bam! weapon had continued pounding away all along. Now it began to falter. The Lieutenant loudly cursed the fact that there were no carpets to drop fire eggs.
There was one. The Lady's. And I was sure she knew the situation. But she did not abandon her rope of irridescent light. She must have felt it to be more important.
Down in the mine the fire gnawed through the bottom of the fortress. A hole slowly expanded. One-Eye says there is very little heat associated with those flames. The moment Whisper considered it opportune, she led his force into the fortress.
One-Eye says he really considered going, but had a bad feeling about it. He watched the mob charge in, workers and all, then hiked around to our side. He joined me in the hospital and updated me as he worked.
Moments after he arrived, the backside of the castle collapsed. The whole earth rumbled. A long roar rolled down the thousand feet of the back slope. Very dramatic, but to little effect. The castle creatures were not inconvenienced at all.
Parts of the forewall were falling too, broken by the Lady's incessant attack.
Company members continued to arrive, accompanied by frightened formations of the Duke's men and even some Custodians rigged out as soldiers. The Lieutenant fed them into his lines. He allowed no one else to enter the castle.
Strange lights and fires, fell howls and noises, and terrible, terrible odors came out of that place. I don't know what happened in there. Maybe I never will. I gather that hardly anyone came back.
A strange, deep-throated, almost inaudible moaning began. It had me shuddering before I noted it consciously. It climbed in pitch with extreme deliberation, in volume much more rapidly. Soon it shook the whole ridge. It came from everywhere at once. After a while it seemed to have meaning, like speech incredibly slowed. I could detect a rhythm, like words stretched over minutes.
One thought. One thought alone. The Dominator. He was coming through.
For an instant I thought I could interpret the words. "Ardath, you bitch." But that went away, chased by fear. Goblin appeared at the hospital, looked us over, and seemed relieved to find One-Eye there. He said nothing, and I got no chance to ask what he had been up to recently. He returned to the night, parting with a wave.
Silent appeared a few minutes later, looking grim. Silent, my partner in guilty knowledge, whom I had not seen in more than a year, whom I had missed during my visit to Duretile. He looked taller, leaner and bleaker than ever. He nodded, began talking rapidly in deaf speech. "There is a ship on the waterfront flying a red banner. Go there immediately." "What?"
"Go to the ship with the red banner immediately. Stop only to inform others of the old Company. These are orders from the Captain. They are not to be disobeyed." "One-Eye. ..." "I caught it, Croaker," he said. "What the hell, hey,
Silent?"
Silent signed, "There will be trouble with the Taken. This ship will sail to Meadenvil, where loose ends must be tied off. Those who know too much must disappear. Come. We just gather the old brothers and go."
There weren't many old brothers around. One-Eye and I hurried around telling everyone we could find, and in fifteen minutes a crowd of us were headed toward the Port River bridge, one as baffled as another. I kept looking back. Elmo was inside the castle. Elmo, who was my best friend. Elmo, who might be taken by the Taken. . . .
Ninety-six men reported aboard, as ordered. A dozen were men for whom the order had not been meant, but who could not be sent away. Missing were a hundred brothers from the old days, before we crossed the Sea of Torments. Some had died on the slopes. Some were inside the castle. Some we hadn't been able to find. But none of the missing were men who had dangerous knowledge, except Elmo and the Captain.
I was there. Silent, One-Eye and Goblin were there. The Lieutenant was there, more baffled than anyone else. Candy, Otto, Hagop. . . . The list goes on and on. They were all there.
But Elmo wasn't, and the old man wasn't, and there was a threat of mutiny when Silent passed the word to put out without them. "Orders," was all he would say, and that in the finger speech many of the men could not follow, though we had been using it for years. It was a legacy Darling had left the Company, a mode of communication useful on the hunt or battlefield.
The moment the ship was under way, Silent produced a sealed letter marked with the Captain's sign. Silent took the officers present into the cabin of the ship's master. He instructed me to read the letter aloud.
"You were right about the Taken. Croaker," I read. "They do suspect, and they do intend to move against the Company. I have done what I can to circumvent them by hiring a ship to take my most endangered brothers to safety. I will not be able to join you, as my absence would alert the Taken. Do not dawdle. I do not expect to last long once they discover your desertion. As you and Goblin can attest, no man hides from the Lady's Eye.
"I do not know that flight will present much hope. They will hunt you, for they will get things from me unless I am quick on my feet. I know enough to set them on the trail. . . ."
The Lieutenant interrupted. "What the hell is going on?" He knew there were secrets some of us shared, to which he was not privy. "I'd say we're past playing games and keeping things from each other."
I looked at Silent, said, "I think we should tell everybody, just so there's a chance the knowledge won't die."
Silent nodded.
"Lieutenant, Darling is the White Rose."
"What? But. ..."
"Yes. Silent and I have known since the battle at Charm. Raven figured it out first. That's why he deserted. He wanted to get her as far from the Lady as he could. You know how much he loved her. I think a few others guessed too.''
The announcement did not cause a stir. Only the Lieutenant was surprised. The others had suspected.
The Captain's letter hadn't much more to say. Farewells. A suggestion we elect the Lieutenant to replace him. And a final, private word to me.
"Circumstances seem to have dictated a shift to the option you mentioned, Croaker. Unless you can outrun the Taken back to the South." I could hear the sardonic chuckle that went with the comment.
One-Eye wanted to know what had become of the Company treasure chest. Way, way back in our service to the Lady we had grabbed off a fortune in coin and gems. It had traveled with us through the years, through good times and bad-our final, secret insurance against tomorrow.
Silent told us it was up in Duretile with the old man. There had been no chance to get it out.
One-Eye broke down and wept. That chest meant more to him than all vicissitudes past, present or promised.
Goblin got down on him. Sparks flew. The Lieutenant was about to take a hand when someone shoved through the door. "You guys better come topside and see this." He was gone before we could find out what he meant.
We hurried up to the main deck.
The ship was a good two miles down the Port, riding the current and tide. But the glow from the black castle illuminated both us and Juniper as brightly as a cloudy day.
The castle formed the base of a fountain of fire reaching miles into the sky. A vast figure twisted in the flames. Its lips moved. Long, slow words echoed down the Port. "Ardath. You bitch." I had been right.
The figure's hand rose slowly, lazily, pointed toward Duretile.
"They got enough bodies inside," Goblin squeaked. "The old bastard is coming through."
The men watched in rapt awe. So did I, able only to think we were lucky to escape in time. At the moment I felt nothing for the men we had left behind. I could think only of myself.
"There," somebody said softly. "Oh, look there."
A ball of light formed on Duretile's wall. It swelled rapidly, shedding many colors. It was gorgeous, like a giant moon of stained glass rotating slowly. It was at least two hundred yards in diameter when it separated from Duretile and drifted toward the black castle. The figure there reached, grabbed at the globe, was unable to affect it.
I giggled.
"What's so damned funny?" the Lieutenant demanded.
"Just thinking how the people of Juniper must feel, looking up at that. They've never seen sorcery."
The stained glass ball rolled over and over. For a moment it presented a side I hadn't noticed before. A side that was a face. The Lady's face. Those great glassy eyes stared right into me, hurting. Without thinking I said, "I didn't betray you. You betrayed me."
Swear to the gods there was some form of communication. Something in the eyes said she had heard, and was pained by the accusation. Then the face rolled away, and I did not see it again.
The globe drifted into the fountain of fire. It vanished there. I thought I heard the long, slow voice say, "I have you, Ardath."
"There. Look there," the same man said, and we turned to Duretile. And upon the wall where the Lady had begun moving toward her husband there was another light. For a while I could not make out what was happening. It came our way, faltering, rising, falling.
"That's the Lady's carpet," Silent signed. "I have seen it before."
"But who? ..." There was no one left who could fly one. The Taken were ail over at the black castle.
The thing began to move faster, converting rickety up-and-down into ever-increasing velocity. It came our way, faster and faster, dropping lower and lower.
"Somebody who doesn't know what they're doing," One-Eye opined. "Somebody who is going to get killed if. . . ."
It came directly toward us, now not more than fifty feet off the water. The ship had begun the long turn which would take her around the last headland to the open sea. I said, "Maybe it was sent to hit us. Like a missile. To keep us from getting away."
"No," One-Eye said. "Carpets are too precious. Too hard to create and maintain. And the Lady's is the only one left. Destroy it and even she would have to walk home."
The carpet was down to thirty feet, swelling rapidly, sending an audible murmur ahead. It must have been traveling a hundred fifty miles an hour.
Then it was on us, ripping through the rigging, brushing a mast, and spinning on to impact on the sound half a mile away. A gout of spray arose. The carpet skipped like a flat stone, hit again, bounced again, and smashed into the face of a cliff. The spell energies ruling the carpet degenerated in a violet flash.
And not a word was spoken by any member of the Company. For as that carpet had torn through the rigging, we had glimpsed the face of its rider.
The Captain.
Who knows what he was doing? Trying to join us? Probably. I suspect he went to the wall planning to disable the carpet so it could not be used to pursue us. Maybe he planned to throw himself off the wall afterward, to avoid being questioned later. And maybe he had seen the carpet in action often enough to have been tempted by the idea of using it himself.
No matter. He had succeeded. The carpet would not be used to chase us. He would not be exposed to the Eye.
But he had failed his personal goal. He had died in the North.
His flight and death distracted us while the ship moved down the channel till both Juniper and the north ridge dropped behind the headland. The fire over the black castle continued, its terrible flames extinguishing the stars, but it shrank slowly. Oncoming dawn lessened its brilliance. And when one great shriek rolled across the world, announcing someone's defeat, we were unable to determine who had won.
For us the answer did not matter. We would be hunted by either the Lady or her long-buried spouse.
We reached the sea and turned south, with sailors still cursing as they replaced lines torn by the Captain's passage. We of the Company remained very silent, scattered about the deck, alone with our thoughts. And only then did I begin to worry for comrades left behind.
We held a long service two days out. We mourned everyone left behind, but the Captain especially. Every survivor took a moment to eulogize him. He had been head of the family, patriarch, father to us all.
Fair weather and good winds carried us to Meadenvil in good time. The ship's master was pleased. He had been well-paid beforehand for his trouble, but was eager to shed a manifest of such vile temper. We had not been the best of passengers. One-Eye was terrified of the sea, a grand victim of seasickness, and insisted everyone else be as scared and sick as he. He and Goblin never let up on one another, though the Lieutenant threatened to throw the pair of them to the sharks. The Lieutenant was in such a foul temper himself that they took him half seriously.
In accordance with the Captain's wishes, we elected the Lieutenant our commander and Candy to become second. That position should have fallen to Elmo. . . . We did not call the Lieutenant Captain. That seemed silly with the outfit so diminished. There weren't enough of us left to make a good street gang.
Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. Four centuries of brotherhood and tradition reduced to this. A band on the run. It did not make sense. Did not seem right. The great deeds of our forebrethren deserved better of their successors. The treasure chest was lost, but the Annals themselves had, somehow, found their way aboard. I expect Silent brought them. For him they were almost as important as for me. The night before we entered Meadenvil harbor, I read to the troops, from the Book of Woeg, which chronicled the Company's history after its defeat and near destruction in the fighting along the Bake, in Norssele. Only a hundred four men survived that time, and the Company had come back. They were not ready for it. The pain was too fresh. I gave it up halfway through.
Fresh. Meadenvil was refreshing. A real city, not a colorless berg like Juniper. We left the ship with little but our arms and what wealth we'd carried in Juniper. People watched us fearfully, and there was no little trepidation on our part, too, for we were not strong enough to make a show if the local Prince took exception to our presence. The three wizards were our greatest asset. The Lieutenant and Candy had hopes of using them to pull something that would provide the wherewithal to move on, aboard another ship, with further hopes of returning to lands we knew on the southern shore of the Sea of Torments. To do that, though, meant an eventual overland journey at least partly through lands belonging to the Lady. I thought we would be wiser to move down the coast, confuse our trail, and hook on with someone out here, at least till the Lady's armies closed in. As they would someday.
The Lady. I kept thinking of the Lady. It was all too likely that her armies now owed allegiance to the Dominator. We located both Pawnbroker and Kingpin within hours of going ashore. Pawnbroker had arrived only two days before us, having faced unfavorable seas and winds during his journey. The Lieutenant started on Kingpin immediately. "Where the hell you been, boy?" It was a sure thing Kingpin had turned his assignment into an extended vacation. He was that sort. "You were supposed to come back when ..."
"Couldn't, sir. We're witnesses in a murder case. Can't leave town till after the trial." "Murder case?"
"Sure. Raven's dead. Pawn says you know that. Well, we fixed it so that Bullock guy took the rap. Only we've got to hang around and get him hanged."
"Where is he?" I asked.
"In jail."
The Lieutenant reamed him good, cussing and fussing while passersby nervously eyed the hard guys abusing each other in a variety of mystery tongues.
I suggested, "We ought to get off the street. Keep a low profile. We got trouble enough without attracting attention. Lieutenant, if you don't mind, I'd like a chat with Kingpin. Maybe these other guys can show you places to hole up. King, come with me. You, too." I indicated Silent, Goblin and One-Eye.
"Where we going?" Kingpin asked. "You pick it. Someplace where we can talk. Serious like."
"Right." He led the way, setting a brisk pace, wanting to put distance between himself and the Lieutenant. "That really true? What happened up there? The Captain dead and everything?" "Too damned true."
He shook his head, awed by the idea of the Company having been destroyed. Finally, he asked, "What do you want to know, Croaker?"
"Just everything you found out since you been here. Especially about Raven. But also about that guy Asa. And the tavern-keeper."
"Shed? I saw him the other day. At least I think I did. Didn't realize it was him till later. He was dressed different. Yeah. Pawn told me he got away. The Asa guy, too. Him I think I know where to find. The Shed guy, though. . . . Well, if you really want him, you'll have to start looking where I thought I saw him." "He see you?"
That idea caught Kingpin by surprise. Apparently, it hadn't occurred to him to wonder. He isn't the brightest fellow sometimes. "I don't think so."
We went into a tavern favored by foreign sailors. The customers were a polyglot lot and as ragged as we were. They spoke a dozen languages. We settled in at a table, used the language of the Jewel Cities. Kingpin did not speak it well, but understood it. I doubted that anyone else there could follow our discussion.
"Raven," I said. "That's what I want to know about, Kingpin."
He told us a story which matched Asa's closely, the edges being about as uneven as you would expect from someone who hadn't been an eyewitness.
"You still think he faked it?" One-Eye asked.
"Yeah. It's half hunch, but I think he did. Maybe when we go look the place over, I'll change my mind. There a way you guys could tell if he's in town?"
They put their heads together, returned a negative opinion. "Not without we had something that belonged to him to start with," Goblin opined. "We don't got that."
"Kingpin. What about Darling? What about Raven's ship?" "Huh?" "What happened to Darling after Raven supposedly died? What happened to his ship?''
"I don't know about Darling. The ship is tied up down at its dock."
We exchanged glances around the table. I said, "That ship gets visited if we have to fight our way aboard. Those papers I told you about. Asa couldn't account for them. I want them to turn up. They're the only thing we got that can get the Lady off our back."
"If there is a Lady," One-Eye said. "Won't be much pumpkin if the Dominator broke through."
"Don't even think that." For no sound reason I had convinced myself that the Lady had won. Mostly, it was wishful thinking, I'm sure. "Kingpin, we're going to visit that ship tonight. What about Darling?"
"Like I said. I don't know."
"You were supposed to look out for her."
"Yeah. But she kind of vanished."
"Vanished? How?"
"Not how, Croaker," One-Eye said, in response to vigorous signing from Silent. "How is irrelevant now. When."
"All right. When, Kingpin?"
"I don't know. Nobody's seen her since the night before Raven died."
"Bingo," Goblin said in a soft, awed voice. "Damn your eyes, Croaker, your instincts were right."
"What?" Kingpin asked.
"There's no way she would have disappeared beforehand unless she knew something was going to happen."
"Kingpin," I said, "did you go look at the place they were staying? Inside, I mean."
"Yeah. Somebody got there before me."
"What?"
"The place was cleaned out. I asked the innkeeper. He said they didn't move out. They was paid up for another month. That sounded to me like somebody knew about Raven getting croaked and decided to clean his place out. I figured it was that Asa. He disappeared right after."
"What did you do then?"
"What? I figured you guys didn't want Bullock back in Juniper, so we got him charged with Raven's murder. There was plenty of witnesses besides us saw them fighting. Enough to maybe convince a court we really saw what we said."
"You do anything to trace Darling?"
Kingpin had nothing to say. He stared at his hands. The rest of us exchanged irritated glances. Goblin muttered, "I told Elmo it was dumb to send him."
I guess it was. In minutes we had come up with several loose ends overlooked by Kingpin.
"How come you're so damned worried about it, anyway, Croaker?" Kingpin demanded. "I mean, it all looks like a big so-what to me."
"Look, King. Like it or not, when the Taken turned on us, we got pushed over to the other side. We're White Rose now. Whether we want it or not. They're going to come after us. The only thing the Rebel has going is the White Rose. Right?"
"If there is a White Rose."
"There is. Darling is the White Rose."
"Come on, Croaker. She's a deaf-mute."
One-Eye observed, "She's also a magical null-point."
"Eh?"
"Magic won't work around her. We noticed that clean back at Charm. And if she follows true for her sort, the null will get stronger as she gets older."
I recalled noting oddities about Darling during the battle of Charm, but hadn't made anything of it then. "What are you talking about?"
"I told you. Some people are negatives. Instead of having a talent for sorcery, they go the other way. It won't work around them. And when you think about it, that's the only way the White Rose makes sense. How could a deaf and dumb kid grow up to challenge the Lady or Dominator on their own ground? I'll bet the original White Rose didn't."
I didn't know. There had been nothing in the histories about her powers or their noteworthy absence. "This makes it more important to find her."
One-Eye nodded.
Kingpin looked baffled. It was easy to fuddle King, I decided. I explained. "If magic won't work around her, we've got to find her and stay close. Then the Taken won't be able to hurt us."
One-Eye said, "Don't forget that they have whole armies they can send after us."
"If they want us that bad. ... Oh my."
"What?"
"Elmo. If he didn't get killed. He knows enough to put the whole empire on our trail. Maybe not so much for us as in hopes we'll lead them to Darling."
"What're we going to do?"
"Why're you looking at me?"
"You're the one seems to know what's going on, Croaker."
"Okay. I guess. First we find out about Raven and Darling. Especially Darling. And we ought to catch Shed and Asa again, in case they know something useful.
We got to move fast and get out of town before the empire closes in. Without upsetting the locals. We better have a sit-down with the Lieutenant. Get everything on the table for everybody, then decide exactly what we'll do."
Ours, apparently, was the last ship out of Juniper. We kept waiting for a later vessel to bring news. None came. The crew of our vessel did us no favor, either. They yammered all over town. We were buried by nosy locals, people concerned about relatives in Juniper, and the city government, concerned that a group of tough refugees might cause trouble. Candy and the Lieutenant dealt with all that. The struggle for survival devolved on the rest of us.
The three wizards, Otto, Kingpin and Pawnbroker, and I stole through the shadowed Meadenvil waterfront district after midnight. There were strong police patrols to dodge. We evaded them with help from One-Eye, Goblin and Silent. Goblin was especially useful. He possessed a spell capable of putting men to sleep.
"There she is," Kingpin whispered, indicating Raven's ship. Earlier I'd tried to find out how her docking fees were being paid. I'd had no luck.
She was a fine, big ship with a look of newness the darkness could not conceal. Only the normal lights burned aboard her: bow, stern masthead, port and starboard, and one at the head of the gangway, where a single bored sailor stood watch.
"One-Eye?"
He shook his head. "Can't tell."
I polled the others. Neither Silent nor Goblin detected anything remarkable, either.
"Okay, Goblin. Do your stuff. That'll be the acid test, won't it?"
He nodded. If Darling was aboard, his spell would not affect the watch.
Now that everyone had accepted my suspicions about Raven being alive, I'd begun to question them. I could see no sense in his not having slipped away by now, taking his very expensive ship somewhere far away. Perhaps out to the islands.
Those islands intrigued me. I thought we might grab a ship and head out there. Had to take someone who knew the way, though. The islands were a long way out and there was no regular commerce. No way to get there by guess work.
"Okay," Goblin said. "He's out."
The sailor on the quarterdeck had slumped onto a handy stool. He had his arms folded on the rail and his forehead on his arms.
"No Darling," I said.
"No Darling."
"Anybody else around?"
"No."
"Let's go, then. Keep low, move fast, all that."
We crossed the pier and scampered up the gangway. The sailor stirred. Goblin touched him and he went out like the dead. Goblin hustled forward, then aft, to the men on the rat guards. He returned nodding. "Another eight men below, all asleep. I'll put them under. You go ahead."
We started with the biggest cabin, assuming it would be the owner's. It was. It sat in the stern, where the master's cabin usually is, and was split into sections. I found things in one indicating that it had been occupied by Darling. On Raven's side we found soiled clothing discarded some time ago. There was enough dust to indicate that no one had visited the cabin for weeks.
We did not find the papers I sought.
We did find money. Quite a substantial amount. It was cunningly hidden, but One-Eye's sense for those things is infallible.
Out came a chest brimming with silver.
"I don't reckon Raven is going to need that if he's dead," One-Eye said. "And if he ain't-well, tough. His old buddies are in need."
The coins were odd. After studying them, I recognized what that oddness was. They were the same as the coins Shed had received at the black castle. "Sniff these things," I told One-Eye. "They're black castle. See if there's anything wrong with them."
"Nope. Good as gold." He chuckled.
"Uhm." I hadn't any scruples about lifting the money. Raven had obtained it by foul means. That put it up for grabs. It had no provenance, as they say in Juniper. "Gather round here. I got an idea." I backed up to the stern lights, where I could watch the dock through the glass window.
They crowded in on me and the chest. "What?" Goblin demanded.
"Why settle for the money? Why not take the whole damned ship? If Raven's dead, or even faking he's dead, what's he going to say about it? We could make it our headquarters."
Goblin liked the idea. So One-Eye didn't. The more so because ships had to do with water. "What about the crew?" he asked. "What about the harbormaster and his people? They'd get the law down on us."
"Maybe. But I think we can handle it. We move in and lock the crew up, there's nobody to complain. Nobody complains, why should the harbormaster be interested?" "The whole crew ain't aboard. Some's out on the town." "We grab them when they come back. Hell, man, what better way to be ready to move out in a hurry? And what better place to wait for Raven to turn up?"
One-Eye gave up objecting. He is essentially lazy. Too, there was a gleam in his eye which said he was thinking ahead of me. "Better talk to the Lieutenant," he said. "He knows ships."
Goblin knew One-Eye well. "Don't look at me if you're thinking about going pirate. I've had all the adventure I want. I want to go home."
They got into it, and got loud about it, and had to be shut up.
"Let's worry about getting through the next few days," I growled. "What we do later we can worry about later. Look. We got clothes that belonged to Darling and Raven. Can you guys find them now?"
They put their heads together. After some discussion Goblin announced, "Silent thinks he can. Trouble is, he has to do it like a dog. Lock on the trail and follow around everywhere Raven went. Right up till he died. Or didn't. If he didn't, right on to where he is now."
"But that. . . . Hell. You're spotting him a couple months lead."
"People spend a lot of time not moving around, Croaker. Silent would skip over that." "Still sounds slow."
"Best you can get. Unless he comes to us. Which maybe he can't."
"All right. All right. What about the ship?" "Ask the Lieutenant. Let's see if we can find your damned papers."
There were no papers. One-Eye was able to detect nothing hidden anywhere. If I wanted to trace the papers, I'd have to start with the crew. Someone had to help Raven take them off.
We left the ship. Goblin and Pawnbroker found a good spot from which they could watch it. Silent and Otto took off on Raven's trail. The rest of us went back and wakened the Lieutenant. He thought taking the ship was a good idea.
He'd never liked Raven much. I think he was motivated by more than practical considerations.
The rumors and incredible stories swept through Meadenvil rapidly. Shed heard about the ship from Juniper within hours of her arrival. He was stunned. The Black Company run out? Crushed by their masters? That made no sense. What the hell was going on up there?
His mother. Sal. His friends. What had become of them? If half the stories were true, Juniper was a desolation. The battle with the black castle had consumed the city.
He wanted desperately to go find somebody, ask about his people. He fought the urge. He had to forget his homeland. Knowing that Croaker and his bunch, the whole thing could be a trick to smoke him out.
For a day he remained in hiding, in his rented room, debating, till he convinced himself that he should do nothing. If the Company was on the run, it would be leaving again. Soon. Us former masters would be looking for it.
Would the Taken come after him, too? No. They had no quarrel with him. They did not care about his crimes. Only the Custodians wanted him. ... He wondered about Bullock, rotting in prison, accused of Raven's murder. He did not understand that at all, but was too nervous to investigate. The answer was not significant in the equation of Marron Shed's survival.
After his day in isolation he decided to resume his quest for a place of business. He was looking for a partnership in a tavern, having decided to stick with what he knew.
It had to be a better place. One that would not lead him into financial difficulties the way the Lily had. Each time he recalled the Lily, he suffered moments of homesickness and nostalgia, of bottomless loneliness. He had been a loner all his life, but never alone. This exile was filled with pain.
He was walking a narrow, shadowed street, slogging uphill through mud left by a nighttime rain, when something in the corner of his eye sent chills to the deeps of his soul. He stopped and whirled so swiftly he knocked another pedestrian down. As he helped the man rise, apologizing profusely, he glared into the shadows of an alley.
"Conscience playing tricks on me, I guess," he murmured, after parting with his victim. But he knew better. He had seen it. Had heard his name called softly. He went to the mouth of the gap between buildings. But it had not waited for him.
A block later he laughed nervously, trying to convince himself it had been a trick of imagination after all. What the hell would the castle creatures be doing in Meadenvil? They'd been wiped out. . . . But the Company guys who had fled here didn't know that for sure, did they? They had run off before the fight was over. They just hoped their bosses had won, because the other side was even worse than theirs.
He was being silly. How could the creature have gotten here? No ship's master would sell passage to a thing like that.
"Shed, you're worrying yourself silly about nothing." He entered a tavern called The Ruby Glass, operated by a man named Selkirk. Shed's landlord had recommended both.
Their discussions were fruitful. Shed agreed to return the following afternoon.
Shed was sharing a beer with his prospective partner. His proposition seemed beneficial, for Selkirk had satisfied himself as to his character and now was trying to sell him on the Ruby Glass. "Night business will pick up once the scare is over."
"Scare?"
"Yeah. Some people have disappeared around the neighborhood. Five or six in the last week. After dark. Not the kind usually grabbed by the press gangs. So people have been staying inside. We aren't getting the usual night
Traffic."
The temperature seemed to drop forty degrees. Shed sat rigid as a board, eyes vacant, the old fear sliding through him like the passage of snakes. His fingers rose to the shape of the amulet hidden beneath his shirt. "Hey, Marron, what's the matter?" "That's how it started in Juniper," he said, unaware that he was speaking. "Only it was just the dead. But they wanted them living. If they could get them. I have to go." "Shed? What the hell is wrong?" He came out of it momentarily. "Oh. Sorry, Selkirk. Yeah. We have a deal. But there's something I have to do first. Something I need to check on." "What?"
"Nothing to do with you. With us. We're ready to go. I'll bring my stuff up tomorrow and we can get together with the people we need to close the deal legally. I just have something else to do right now."
He went out of the place practically running, not sure what he could do or where he could start, not even if he was sane in his assumption. But he was sure that what had happened in Juniper would reoccur in Meadenvil. And a lot faster if the creatures were doing their own collecting. He touched his amulet again, wondering how much protection it afforded. Was it puissant? Or just a promise? He hurried to his rooming house, where people were patient with his questions, knowing he was from out of town. He asked about Raven. The murder had been the talk of the town, what with a foreign policeman having been charged on the accusation of his own men. But nobody knew anything. There was no eyewitness to Raven's death except Asa. And Asa was in Juniper. Probably dead.
The Black Company would not have wanted him turning witness against them.
He shed an impulse to contact the survivors. They might want him out of the way, too.
He was on his own with this.
The place where Raven had died seemed a likely place to start. Who knew where that was? Asa. Asa was not available. Who else? How about Bullock?
His guts knotted. Bullock represented everything he feared back home. In a cage here, but still very much a symbol. Could he face the man?
Would the man tell him anything?
Finding Bullock was no problem. The main prison did not move. Finding the courage to face him, even from beyond bars, was another matter. But this entire city lay under a shadow.
Torment racked Shed. Guilt cut him apart. He had done things that left him unable to endure himself. He had committed crimes for which there was no way of making restitution. Yet here was something. . . .
"You're a fool, Marron Shed," he told himself. "Don't worry about it. Meadenvil can look out for itself. Just move on to another city."
But something deeper than cowardice told him he could not run. And not just from himself. A creature from the black castle had appeared in Meadenvil. Two men who had had dealings with the castle had come here. That could not be coincidence. Suppose he moved on? What was to keep the creatures from turning up again, wherever he went?
He had made a deal with a devil. On a gut level he sensed that the net in which he had been taken had to be unwoven strand by strand.
He moved the every-day, cowardly Shed to a throne far behind his eyes and brought forward the Shed who had hunted with Krage and eventually killed his tormentor.
He did not recall the cock-and-bull story he used to get past the wards, but did bullshit his way in to see Bullock.
The Inquisitor had lost none of his spirit. He came to the bars spitting and cursing and promising Shed an excruciating death.
Shed countered, "You ain't never going to punish nobody but maybe a cockroach in there. Shut up and listen. Forget who you were and remember where you are. I'm the only hope you got of getting out." Shed was amazed. Could he have been half as firm without the intervening bars?
Bullock's face went blank. "Go ahead. Talk."
"I don't know how much you hear in here. Probably nothing. I'll run it down. After you left Juniper, the rest of the Black Company showed up. They took over. Their Lady and what-not came to town. They attacked the black castle. I don't know how that turned out. What word there is makes it sound like the city was wiped out. During the fighting some of the Company guys grabbed a ship and got out on account of their masters were going to turn on them. Why I don't know."
Bullock stared at him, considering. "That's the truth?"
"From what I've heard second-hand."
"It was those Black Company bastards got me in here. Framed me. I only had a fight with Raven. Hell, he almost killed me."
"He's dead now." Shed described what Asa had seen. "I have a notion what killed him and why. What I need to know is where it happened. So I can make sure. You tell me that and I'll try to get you out."
"I only know approximately. I know where I caught up with him and which way him and Asa went when they got away. That should pin it down pretty close. Why do you want to know?"
"I think the castle creatures planted something on Raven. Like a seed. I think that's why he died. Like the man who brought the original seed to Juniper.''
Bullock frowned.
"Yeah. Sounds tall. But listen to this. The other day I saw one of the creatures near where I'm staying. Watching me. Wait! I know what they look like. I met them. Also, people are disappearing. Not too many yet. Not enough to cause a big stink. But enough to scare people."
Bullock moved to the back of his cell, settled on the floor, placed his back against the wall. He was quiet for more than a minute. Shed waited nervously. "What's your interest, innkeeper?" "Repayment of a debt. Bullock, the Black Company kept me prisoner for a while. I learned a lot about that castle. It was nastier than anybody guessed. It was a doorway of sorts. Through which a creature called the Dominator was trying to get into the world. I contributed to the growth of that thing. I helped it reach the point where it attracted the Black Company and its sorcerer friends. If Juniper has been destroyed, it's as much my fault as anybody's. Now the same fate threatens Meadenvil. I can do something to stop it. If I can find it."
Bullock sniggered. Sniggers turned into chuckles. Chuckles became laughter.
"Then rot here!" Shed shouted, and started to leave. "Wait!" Shed turned.
Bullock stifled his mirth. "Sorry. It's so incongruous. You, so righteous. I mean, I really believe you mean it. All right, Marron Shed. Give it a shot. And if you manage it and you get me out of here, I might not drag you back to Juniper."
"There's no Juniper to drag me to, Bullock. Rumor says the Lady planned to loot the Catacombs after she finished the black castle. You know what that means. All-out rebellion."
Bullock's humor vanished. "Straight down the Shaker Road, past the twelfth mile marker. Left on the first farm track, under a dead oak tree. You go at least six miles on that. Way past the farms. That's wild country. You better go armed."
"Armed?" Shed grinned a big, self-conscious grin. "Marron Shed never had guts enough to learn to use a weapon. Thanks."
"Don't forget me, Shed. My trial comes up first week next month." "Right."
Shed dismounted and began leading the rented mule when he reached a point he estimated to be six miles from the Shaker Road. He went on another half-mile. The track was little more than a game trail, winding through rugged country densely covered with hardwood. He saw no evidence man ever traveled this way. Odd. What had Raven and Asa been doing out here? He could think of no reason that made sense. Asa had claimed they were running from Bullock. If so, why hadn't they kept on going down the Shaker Road?
His nerves tautened. He touched the amulet, the knife hidden up his sleeve. He had splurged and bought himself two good short weapons, one for his belt and one for his sleeve.
They did little to boost his confidence.
The trail turned downhill, toward a brook, ran beside that for several hundred yards, and debouched into a broad clearing. Shed almost walked into that. He was a city boy.
Never before had he been into country more wild than the Enclosure.
Some innate sense of caution stopped him at the clearing's edge. He dropped to one knee, parted the undergrowth, cursed softly when the mule nudged him with its nose.
He had guessed right.
A great black lump stood out there. It was the size of a house already. Shed stared at faces frozen in screams of terror and agony.
A perfect place for it, out here. Growing this fast, it would become complete before anyone discovered it. Unless by accident. And the accidental discoverer would become one with it.
Shed's heart hammered. He wanted nothing more than to race back to Meadenvil and cry the city's danger in the streets. He had seen enough. He knew what he had come to learn. Time to get away.
He went forward, slowly. He dropped the mule's reins, but it followed, interested in the tall grass. Shed approached the black lump carefully, a few steps at a time. Nothing happened. He circled it.
The shape of the thing became more evident. It would be identical to the fortress overlooking Juniper, except for the way its foundations conformed to the earth. Its gate would face south. A well-beaten path led to a low hole there. Further confirmation of his suspicions.
Where had the creatures come from? Did they roam the world at will, hidden on the edge of night, seen only by those who bargained with them?
Returning to the side from which he had approached, he stumbled over something.
Bones. Human bones. A skeleton-head, arms, legs, with part of the chest missing. Still clad in tatters he'd seen Raven wear a hundred times. He knelt. "Raven. I hated you. But I loved you, too. You were the worst villain I ever knew. And as good a friend as I ever had. You made me start thinking like a man." Tears filled his eyes.
He searched childhood memories, finally found the prayer for the passage of the dead. He began to sing in a voice that had no notion how to carry a tune.
The grass swished only once, just on the edge of audibility. A hand closed on his shoulder. A voice said, "Marron Shed."
Shed shrieked and grabbed for his belt knife.
I did not have a good night after visiting Raven's ship. It was a night of dreams. Of nightmares, if you will. Of terrors I dared not mention when I wakened, for the others had troubles and fears enough.
She came to me in my sleep, as she had not done since our grim retreats when the Rebel was closing in on Charm, so long ago. She came, a golden glow that might have been no dream at all, for it seemed to be there in the room I shared with five other men, illuminating them and the room while I lay with heart hammering, staring in disbelief. The others did not respond, and later I was not sure I had not imagined the whole thing. It had been that way with the visits in the way back when.
"Why did you abandon me, physician? Did I treat you less than well?"
Baffled, confused, I croaked out, "It was run or be killed. We would not have fled had there been a choice. We served you faithfully, through hazards and horrors greater than any in our Company's history. We marched to the ends of the earth for you, without complaint. And when we came to the city Juniper, and spent half our strength storming the black castle, we learned that we were to be rewarded by being destroyed."
That marvelous face formed in the golden cloud. That marvelous face drawn in sadness. "Whisper planned that. Whisper and Feather. For reasons of their own. But Feather is gone and Whisper has been disciplined. I would not have allowed such a crime in any case. You were my chosen instruments.
I would permit no machination of the Taken to harm you. Come back."
"It's too late, Lady. The die is cast. Too many good men have been lost. Our heart is gone. We have grown old. Our only desire is to return to the South, to rest in the warm sun and forget."
"Come back. There is much to be done. You are my chosen instruments. I will reward you as no soldiers have ever been rewarded."
I could detect no hint of treachery. But what did that mean? She was ancient. She had deluded her husband, who was far harder to fuddle than I. "It's too late, Lady."
"Come back, physician. You, if no one else. I need your pen."
I do not know why I said what I did next. It was not the wisest thing to do, if she was feeling the least benevolent toward us, the least disinclined to come howling after us. "We will do one more thing for you. Because we are old and tired and want to be done with war. We will not stand against you. If you do not stand against us."
Sadness radiated from the glow. "I am sorry. Truly sorry. You were one of my favorites. A mayfly who intrigued me. No, physician. That cannot be. You cannot remain neutral. You never could. You must stand with me or against me. There is no middle ground."
And with that the golden cloud faded, and I fell into a deep sleep-if ever I had been awake.
I woke feeling rested but worried, at first unable to recall the visit. Then it slammed back into consciousness. I dressed hurriedly, raced to the Lieutenant. "Lieutenant, we got to start moving faster. She won. She's going to come after us."
He looked startled. I told him about the night vision. He took it with a pound of salt till I told him that she had done the same before, during the long retreat and series of encounters that had brought the Rebel main forces to the gates of Charm. He did not want to believe me, but he dared not do otherwise. "Get out there and find that Asa, then," he said. "Candy, we move on that ship tonight. Croaker, you pass the word. We're pulling out in four days, whether you guys find Raven or not."
I sputtered a protest. The critical thing now was to find Darling. Darling was our hope. I asked, "Why four days?" "It took us four days to sail here from Juniper. Good winds and seas all the way. If the Lady left when you turned her down, she couldn't get here any quicker. So I'll give you that long. Then we hit the sea. If we have to fight our way out."
"All right." I didn't like it, but he was the man who made the decisions. We had elected him to do that. "Hagop, find Kingpin. We're going looking for Asa."
Hagop hurried away like his tail was aflame. He brought Kingpin back in minutes, King crabbing because he hadn't yet eaten, hadn't yet gotten his eight hours of sleep.
"Shut up, King. Our ass is in a vise." I explained, though it wasn't necessary. "Grab something cold and eat on the run. We've got to find Asa."
Hagop, Kingpin, One-Eye and I hit the street. As always, we drew a lot of attention from morning marketers, not only because we had come from Juniper, but because One-Eye was an oddity. They'd never seen a black man in Meadenvil. Most people hadn't heard of blacks.
Kingpin led us a mile through twisting streets. "I figure he'll hole up in the same area as before. He knows it. He's not very bright, either, so it wouldn't occur to him to move because you guys came to town. Probably just plans to keep his head down till we pull out. He's got to figure we have to keep moving."
His reasoning seemed sound. And so it proved. He interviewed a few people he had met in the course of previous poking around, quickly discovered that Asa was, indeed, hiding out in the area. Nobody was sure where, though.
"We'll take care of that in a hurry," One-Eye said. He parked himself on a doorstep and performed a few cheap magic tricks that were all flash and show. That arrested the attention of the nearest urchins. Meadenvil's streets are choked with children all the time.
"Let's fade," I told the others. We had to be intimidating to small eyes. We moved up the street and let One-Eye draw his crowd.
He gave the kids their money's worth. Of course. And fifteen minutes later he rejoined us, trailed by an entourage of street mites. "Got it," he said. "My little buddies will show us where."
He amazes me sometimes. I would have bet he hated kids. I mean, when he mentions them at all, which is about once a year, it is in the context of whether they are tastier roasted or boiled.
Asa was holed up in a tenement typical of slums the world over. A real rat- and firetrap. I guess having come into money hadn't changed his habits. Unlike old Shed, who had gone crazy when he had money to spend.
There was but one way out, the way we went in. The children followed us. I did not like that, but what could I do?
We pushed into the room Asa called home. He was lying on a pallet in a corner. Another man, reeking of wine, lay nearby, in a pool of vomit. Asa was curled into a ball, snoring. "Time to get up, sweetheart." I shook him gently.
He stiffened under my hand. His eyes popped open. Terror filled them. I pressed down as he tried to jump up. "Caught you again," I said. He gobbled air. No words came out. "Take it easy, Asa. Nobody's going to get hurt. We just want you to show us where Raven went down." I withdrew my hand. He rolled over slowly, watched us like a cat cornered by dogs. "You guys are always saying you just want something."
"Be nice, Asa. We don't want to play rough. But we will if we have to. We have four days before the Lady gets here. We're going to find Darling before then. You're going to help. What you do afterward is your own business."
One-Eye snorted softly. He had visions of Asa with a cut throat. He figured the little man deserved no better.
"You just go down the Shaker Road. Turn left on the first farm road past the twelfth milestone. Keep heading east till you get to the place. It's about seven miles. The road turns into a trail. Don't worry about that. Just keep going and you'll get there." He closed his eyes, rolled over, and pretended to snore.
I indicated Hagop and Kingpin. "Get him up."
"Hey!" Asa yelped. "I told you. What more do you want?"
"I want you to come along. Just in case."
"In case what?"
"In case you're lying and I want to lay hands on you fast."
One-Eye added, "We don't believe Raven died."
"I saw him."
"You saw something," I countered. "I don't think it was Raven. Let's go." We grabbed his arms. I told Hagop to see about rounding up horses and provisions. I sent Kingpin to tell the Lieutenant we wouldn't be back till tomorrow. Hagop gave a fistful of silver from Raven's chest. Asa's eyes widened slightly. He recognized the mintage, if not the immediate source.
"You guys can't push me around here," he said. "You're not anything more than I am. We go out in the street, all I have to do is yell and ..."
"And you'll wish you hadn't," One-Eye said. He did something with his hands. A soft violet glow webbed his fingers, coalesced into something serpent-like that slithered over and under his digits. "This little fellow here can crawl into your ear and eat out your eyes from behind. You can't yell loud enough or fast enough to keep me from siccing him on you."
Asa gulped and became amenable.
"All I want is for you to show me the place," I said. "Quickly. I don't have much time."
Asa surrendered. He expected the worst of us, of course. He had spent too much time in the company of villains nastier than us.
Hagop had the horses within half an hour. It took Kingpin another half-hour to rejoin us. Being Kingpin, he dawdled, and when he appeared, One-Eye gave him such a look he blanched and half drew his sword.
"Let's get moving," I growled. I did not like the way the Company was turning upon itself, like a wounded animal snapping at its own flank. I set a stiff pace, hoping to keep everybody too tired and busy to fuss.
Asa's directions proved sound and were easily followed. I was pleased, and when he saw that, he asked permission to turn back.
"How come you're so anxious to stay away from this place? What's out there that's got you scared?"
It took a little pressure, with One-Eye conjuring his violet snake again, to loosen Asa's jaw.
"I came out here right after I got back from Juniper. Because you guys didn't believe me about Raven. I thought maybe you were right and he'd fooled me somehow. So I wanted to see how he maybe did it. And. ..."
"And?"
He checked us over, estimating our mood. "There's another of those places out there. It wasn't there when he died. But it is now."
"Places?" I asked. "What kind of places?"
"Like the black castle. There's one right where he died. Out in the middle of the clearing."
"Tricky," One-Eye snarled. "Trying to send us into that. I'm going to cut this guy, Croaker."
"No, you're not. You let him be." Over the next mile I questioned Asa closely. He told me nothing more of importance.
Hagop was riding point, being a superb scout. He threw up a hand. I joined him. He indicated droppings in the trail. "We're following somebody. Not far behind." He swung down, poked the droppings with a stick, duck walked up the trail a way. "He was riding something big. Mule or plowhorse."
"Asa!"
"Eh?" the little man squeaked.
"What's up ahead? Where is this guy headed?"
"Nothing's up there. That I know of. Maybe it's a hunter. They sell a lot of game in the markets."
"Maybe."
"Sure," One-Eye said, sarcastic, playing with his violet snake.
"How about you put a little silence on the situation, One-Eye? No! I mean so nobody can hear us coming. Asa. How far to go?"
"Couple miles, anyway. Why don't you guys let me head back now? I can still get to town before dark."
"Nope. You go where we go." I glanced at One-Eye. He was doing as I had requested. We would be able to hear one another talk. That was all. "Saddle up, Hagop. He's only one guy."
"But which guy, eh, Croaker? Suppose it's one of them creepy things? I mean, if that place in Juniper had a whole battalion that came out of nowhere, why shouldn't this place have some?"
Asa made sounds that indicated he had been having similar thoughts. Which explained why he was anxious to get back to town.
"You see anything when you were there, Asa?" "No. But I seen where the grass was trampled like something was coming and going."
"You pay attention when we get there, One-Eye. I don't want no surprises."
Twenty minutes later Asa told me, "Almost there. Maybe two hundred yards up the creek. Can I stay here?"
"Quit asking stupid questions." I glanced at Hagop, who pointed out tracks. Somebody was ahead of us still. "Dismount. And stow the chatter. Finger talk from here on in. You, Asa. don't open your mouth for nothing.
Understand?"
We dismounted, drew our weapons, went forward under cover of One-Eye's spell. Hagop and I reached the clearing first. I grinned, waved One-Eye forward, pointed. He grinned too.
I waited a couple of minutes, for the right time, then strode out, stepped up behind the man, and grabbed his shoulder. "Marron Shed."
He shrieked and tried to pull a knife, tried to run at the same time. Kingpin and Hagop headed him off and herded him back. By that time I was kneeling where he had knelt, examining the scatter of bones.
I looked up at Shed. He looked resigned. "Caught up faster than you expected, eh?"
He babbled. I could make little sense of what he said because he was talking about several things at once. Raven. Black castle creatures. His chance to make a new life.
What-not.
"Calm down and be quiet. Shed. We're on your side." I explained the situation, telling him we had four days to find Darling. He found it difficult to believe that the girl who had worked in the Iron Lily could be the Rebel's White Rose. I did not argue, just presented the facts. "Four days. Shed. Then the Lady and Taken could be here. And I guarantee you she'll be looking for you. too. By now they know we faked your death. By now they've probably questioned enough people to have an idea what was going on. We're fighting for our lives, Shed." I looked at the big black lump and said to no one in particular. "And that thing don't help one damned bit."
I looked at the bones again. "Hagop, see what you can make of this. One-Eye, you and Asa go over exactly what he saw that day. Walk through it. Kingpin, you play Raven for them. Shed, come here with me."
I was pleased. Both Asa and Shed did as they were told. Shed, though shaken by our return to the stage of his life, did not seem likely to panic. I watched him as Hagop examined the ground inch by inch. Shed seemed to have grown, to have found something in himself that had not had a chance in the sterile soil of Juniper.
He whispered, "Look, Croaker. I don't know about that stuff about the Lady coming and how you got to find Darling. I don't much care." He indicated the black lump. "What're you going to do about that?"
"Good question." He did not have to explain what it meant. It meant the Dominator had not endured final defeat in Juniper. He had hedged his bet beforehand. He had another gateway growing here, and growing fast. Asa was right to be afraid of castle creatures. The Dominator knew he had to hurry-though I doubted he had expected to be found out so soon. "There isn't much we can do, when you get down to it."
"You got to do something. Look, I know. I dealt with those things. What they did to me and Raven and Juniper. . . . Hell, Croaker, you can't let that happen again here."
"I didn't say I didn't want to do something. I said I can't. You don't ask a man with a penknife to chop down a forest and build a city. He doesn't have the tools." "Who does?" "The Lady." "Then. . . ."
"I have my limits, friend. I'm not going to get myself killed for Meadenvil. I'm not going to get my outfit scrubbed for people I don't know. Maybe we owe a moral debt. But I don't think it's that big."
He grunted, understanding without accepting. I was surprised. Without his having said as much, I sensed that he had launched a crusade. A grand villain trying to buy redemption. I did not begrudge him in the least. But he could do it without the Company and me.
I watched One-Eye and Asa walk Kingpin through everything Raven had done the day he died. From where I sat I could see no flaw in Asa's story. I hoped One-Eye had a better view. He, if anyone, could find the angle. He was as good at stage magic as at true wizardry.
I recalled that Raven had been pretty good with tricks.
His biggie had been making knives appear out of thin air. But he had had other tricks with which he had entertained Darling.
Hagop said, "Look here, Croaker."
I looked. I did not see anything abnormal. "What?"
"Going through the grass toward the lump. It's almost gone now, but it's there. Like a trail." He held blades of grass parted.
It took me a while to see it. Just the faintest hint of a sheen, like an old snail track. A closer scrutiny showed that it should have started roughly where the corpse's heart would have lain. It took a little work to figure, because scavengers had torn the remains.
I examined a fleshless hand. Rings remained on the fingers. Various metal accoutrements and several knives also lay around.
One-Eye worked Kingpin over to the bones. "Well?" I asked.
"It's possible. With a little misdirection and stage magic. I couldn't tell you how he did it. If he did."
"We got a body," I said, indicating the bones.
"That's him," Asa insisted. "Look. He's still wearing his rings. And that's his belt buckle and sword and knives." But a shadow of doubt lingered in his voice. He was coming around to my way.
And I still wondered why the nice new ship had not been claimed.
"Hagop. Hunt around for signs somebody went off in another direction. Asa. You said you lit out as soon as you saw what was happening?"
"Yeah."
"So. Let's quit worrying about that and try to figure what happened here. Just to look at it, this dead man had something that became that." I indicated the lump. I was surprised I had so little trouble ignoring it. I guess you can get used to anything. I'd paraded around the big one in Juniper till I'd lost that cold dread that had moved me for a while. I mean, if men can get used to slaughterhouses, or my business-soldier or surgeon-they can get used to anything.
"Asa, you hung around with Raven. Shed, he lived at your place for a couple years, and you were his partner. What did he bring from Juniper that could have come to life and become that?"
They shook their heads and stared at the bones. I told them, "Think harder. Shed, it had to be something he had when you knew him. He stopped going up the hill a long time before he headed south."
A minute or two passed. Hagop had begun working his way along the edge of the clearing. I had little hope he would find traces this long after the fact. I was no woodsman, but I knew Raven.
Asa suddenly gasped.
"What?" I snapped.
"Everything is here. You know, all the metal. Even his buttons and stuff. But one thing."
"Well?"
"This necklace he wore. I only seen it a couple times. . . . What's the matter, Shed?"
I turned. Shed was gripping his chest over his heart. His face was marble white. He gobbled for words that would not come. He started trying to rip his shirt.
I thought he was having an attack. But as I reached him, to help, he opened his shirt and grabbed something he was wearing around his neck. Something on a chain. He tried to get it off by main force. The chain would not break.
I forced him to take it off over his head, pried it out of stiff fingers, held it out to Asa.
Asa looked a little pale. "Yeah. That's it."
"Silver," One-Eye said, and looked at Hagop meaningfully.
He would think that way. And he might be right. "Hagop! Come here."
One-Eye took the thing, held it to the light. "Some craftsmanship," he mused. . . . Then flung it down and dived like a frog off his lily pad. As he arced through the air, he barked like a jackal.
Light flashed. I whirled. Two castle creatures stood at the side of the black lump, frozen in midstep, in the act of rushing us. Shed cursed. Asa shrieked. Kingpin zipped past me and drove his blade deep into a chest. I did the same, so rattled I did not recall the difficulty I'd had during our previous encounter.
We both hit the same one. We both yanked out weapons free. "The neck," I gasped. "Go for the vein in the neck."
One-Eye was up again, ready for action. He told me later he had glimpsed motion in the corner of his eye, jumped just in time to evade something thrown. They had known who to take first. Who was most potent.
Hagop came up from behind as the things started moving, added his blade to the contest. As did Shed, to my surprise. He jumped in with a knife about a foot long, got low, went for a hamstring.
It was brief. One-Eye had given us the moment we needed. They were stubborn about it, but they died. The last to go looked up at Shed, smiled, and said, "Marron Shed. You will be remembered." Shed started shaking. Asa said, "He knew you, Shed." "He's the one I delivered bodies to. Every time but one."
"Wait a minute," I countered. "Only one creature got away at Juniper. Don't seem likely it would be the one who knew you. ..." I stopped. I had noticed something disturbing. The two creatures were identical. Even to a scar across the chest when I peeled back their dark clothing. The creature the Lieutenant and I had hauled down the hill, after having slain it before the castle gate, had had such a scar.
While everyone else was suffering post-combat shakes, One-Eye asked Hagop, "You see anything silver around Old Bones? When you were checking first?" "Uh. . . ."
One-Eye held up Shed's necklace. "It might have looked something like this. It was what killed him."
Hagop gulped and dug into a pocket. He handed over a necklace identical to Shed's, except that the serpents had no eyes.
"Yeah," One-Eye said, and again held Shed's necklace to the light. "Yeah. The eyes it was. When the time was right. Time and place."
I was more interested in what else might come out of the black lump. I pulled Hagop around the side, found the entrance. It looked like the entrance to a mud hut. I supposed it wouldn't become a real gate till the place grew up. I indicated the tracks. "What do they tell you?"
"They tell me it's busy and we ought to get out of here. There's more of them."
"Yeah."
We rejoined the others. One-Eye was wrapping Shed's necklace in a piece of cloth. "We get back to town, I'm sealing this in something made of steel and sinking it in the harbor.''
"Destroy it, One-Eye. Evil always finds its way back. The Dominator is a perfect example."
"Yeah. All right. If I can."
Elmo's rush into the black castle came to mind while I was getting everybody organized to get out of there. I had changed my mind about overnighting. We could get most of the way back before nightfall. Meadenvil, like Juniper, had neither walls nor gates. We would not be locked outside.
I let Elmo lie in the back of my mind till the thought ripened. When it did, I was aghast.
A tree ensures reproduction by shedding a million seeds. One certainly will survive, and a new tree will grow. I pictured a horde of fighters bursting into the guts of the black castle and finding silver amulets everywhere. I pictured them filling their pockets.
Had to be. That place was doomed. The Dominator would have known that even before the Lady.
My respect for the old devil rose. Crafty bastard.
It was not till we were back on the Shaker Road that I thought to ask Hagop if he had seen any evidence that anyone had left the clearing by another route.
"Nope," he said. "But that don't mean anything.
"Let's not spend so much time yakking," One-Eye said. "Shed, can't you make that damned mule go any faster?"
He was scared. And if he was, I was more so.
We made the city. But I swear I could sense something sniffing along our backtrail before we reached the safety of the lights. We returned to our lodgings only to find most of the men gone. Where were they? Off to take over Raven's ship, I learned.
I had forgotten about that. Yes. Raven's ship. . . . And Silent was on Raven's trail. Where was he now? Damn! Sooner or later Raven would lead him to the clearing. . . . A way to find out if Raven had left it, for sure. Also a way to lose Silent. "One-Eye. Can you get hold of Silent?"
He looked at me strangely. He was tired and wanted to sleep.
"Look, if he follows Raven's every move, he's going to head out to that clearing."
One-Eye groaned and went through several dramatic shows of disgust. Then he dug into his magic sack for something that looked like a desiccated finger. He took it to a corner and communed with it, then returned to say, "I got a line on him. I'll find him."
"Thanks."
"Yeah. You bastard. I ought to make you come with me."
I settled by the fire, with a big beer, and lost myself in thought. After a while, I told Shed: "We have to go back out there."
"Eh?"
"With Silent."
"Who's Silent?"
"Another guy from the Company. Wizard. Like One-Eye and Goblin. He's on Raven's trail, tracing every move he made from the minute he arrived. He figured he could track him down, or at least tell from his movements if he was planning to trick Asa.''
Shed shrugged. "If we have to, we have to."
"Hunh. You amaze me, Shed. You've changed."
"I don't know. Maybe I could have done it all along. I just know that this thing can't happen again, to anybody else."
"Yeah." I did not mention my visions of hundreds of men looting amulets from the fortress at Juniper. He did not need that. He had a mission. I couldn't make it sound hopeless.
I went downstairs and asked the landlord for more beer. Beer makes me sleepy. I had a notion. A possibility. I did not share it with anyone. The others would not have been pleased.
After an hour I took a leak and dragged off to my room, more intimidated by the thought of returning to that clearing than by what I hoped to accomplish now.
Sleep was a time coming, beer or not. I could not relax. I kept trying to reach out and bring her to me. Which meant nothing at all.
It was a weak fool's hope that she would return so soon. I had put her off. Why should she? Why shouldn't she forget me till her minions caught up and could bring me to her in chains?
Maybe there is a connection on a level I do not understand. For I wakened from a drowse, thinking I needed to visit the head again, and found that golden glow hanging above me. Or maybe I did not waken, but only dreamed that I did. I can't get that straight. It always seems so dream-like in retrospect.
I did not wait for her to start. I started talking. I talked fast and told her everything she needed to know about the lump in Meadenvil and about the possibility the troops had carried hundreds of seeds out of the black castle.
"You tell me this when you are determined to be my enemy, physician?"
"I don't want to be your enemy. I'll be your enemy only if you leave me no option." I abandoned debate. "We can't handle this. And it has to be handled. All its like must be handled. There is evil enough in the world as it is." I told her we had found an amulet upon a citizen of Juniper. I named no name. I told her we would leave it where she could be sure to find it when she arrived.
"Arrive?"
"Aren't you on your way here?"
Thin smile, secretive, perfectly aware that I was fishing. No answer. Just a question. "Where will you be?"
"Gone. Long gone, and headed far away."
"Perhaps. We shall see." The golden glow faded.
There were things I wanted to say yet, but they had nothing to do with the problem at hand. Questions I wanted to ask. I did not.
The last golden mote left me with a whispered, "I owe you one, physician."
One-Eye rambled into the place shortly after sunrise, looking a lot worse for wear. Silent came along behind him, looking pretty beaten himself. He had been on Raven's trail without let-up. One-Eye said, "I caught him just in time. Another hour and he would have headed out. I conned him into waiting till daylight.''
"Yeah. You want to wake the troops? We get an earlier start today, we ought to be able to get back before dark."
"What?"
"I thought I was pretty clear. We've got to go back out there. Now. We've used one of our days."
"Hey, man, I'm ripped. I'll die if you make me. . . ."
"Sleep in the saddle. That's always been one of your big talents. Sleep anywhere, any time."
"Oh, my aching butt."
An hour later I was headed down the Shaker Road again, with Silent and Otto added to the crew. Shed insisted on coming along, though I was willing to excuse him. Asa decided he wanted in, too. Maybe because he thought Shed would extend an umbrella of protection. He had started talking mission like Shed, but a deaf man could hear its false ring.
We moved faster this time, pressed harder, and had Shed on a real horse. We got down to the clearing by noon. While Silent sniffed around, I worked myself up and took a closer look at the lump.
No change. Except the two dead creatures were gone. I did not need Hagop's eye to see that they had been dragged through the entry hole.
Silent worked his way around the clearing to a point almost identical with that where the creature trail entered the forest. Then he threw up an arm, beckoned. I hurried over, and did not have to read the dance of his fingers to know what he had found. His face revealed the answer.
"Found it, eh?" I asked more brightly than I felt. I had started to count on Raven being dead. I did not like what the skeleton implied. Silent nodded.
"Yo!" I called. "We found it. Let's go. Bring the horses."
The others gathered. Asa looked a little peaked. He asked, "How did he do it?"
Nobody had an answer. Several of us wondered whose skeleton lay in the clearing and how it had come to wear Raven's necklace. I wondered how Raven's plot for vanishing had dovetailed so neatly with the Dominator's for seeding a new black castle.
Only One-Eye seemed in a mood to talk, and that all complaint. "We follow this and we're not going to get back to town before dark," he said. He said a lot more, mostly about how tired he was. Nobody paid attention. Even those of us who had rested were tired.
"Lead off, Silent," I said. "Otto, you want to take care of his horse? One-Eye, bring up the rear. So we don't get any surprises from behind."
The track was no track at ail for a while, just a straight shot through the brush. We were winded by the time it intercepted a game trail. Raven, too, must have been exhausted, for he had turned onto that trail and followed it over a hill, along a creek, up another hill. Then he had turned onto a less traveled path which ran along a ridge, toward the Shaker Road. Over the next two hours we encountered several such forkings. Each time Raven had taken the one which tended more directly westward.
"Bastard was headed back to the high road," One-Eye said. "Could have figured that, gone the other way, and saved all this tramping through the brush."
Men growled at him. His complaints were grating. Even Asa tossed a nasty look over one shoulder.
Raven had taken the long way, no doubt about it. I would guess we walked at least ten miles before coming across a ndgeline and viewing cleared land which descended to the high road. A number of farms lay on our right. In the distance ahead lay the blue haze of the sea. The countryside was mostly brown, for autumn had come to Meadenvil. The leaves were turning. Asa indicated a stand of maples and said they would look real pretty in another week. Odd. You don't think of guys like him as having a sense of beauty.
"Down there." Otto indicated a cluster of buildings three-quarters of a mile south. It did not look like a farm. "Bet that's a roadside inn," he said. "What do you want to bet that was where he was headed?"
"Silent?"
He nodded, but hedged. He wanted to stick to the track to make sure. We mounted up, let him do what walking remained to be done. I, for one, had had enough tramping around.
"How about we stay over?" One-Eye asked.
I checked the sun. "I'm considering it. How safe you figure we'd be?"
He shrugged. "There's smoke coming up down there. Don't look like they had any trouble yet."
Mind-reader. I had been examining farmsteads as we passed, seeking indications that the lump creatures were raiding the neighborhood. The farms had seemed peaceful and active.
I suppose the creatures confined their preda-tions to the city, where they would cause less excitement. Raven's track hit the Shaker Road a half-mile above the buildings Otto thought an inn. I checked landmarks, could not guess how far south of the twelfth mile we were. Silent beckoned, pointed. Raven had indeed turned south. We followed and soon passed milestone sixteen.
"How far are you going to follow him, Croaker?" One-Eye asked. "Bet you he met Darling out here and just kept hiking."
"I suspect he did. How far to Shaker? Anybody know?" "Two hundred forty-seven miles," Kingpin replied. "Rough country? Likely to have trouble along the way. Bandits and such?"
King said, "Not that I ever heard of. There's mountains, though. Pretty rough ones. Take a while to get through them."
I did some calculating. Say three weeks to cover that distance, not pushing. Raven wouldn't push, what with Darling along, and the papers. "A wagon. He'd have to have a wagon."
Silent, too, was mounted now. We reached the buildings quickly. Otto proved right. Definitely an inn. A girl came outside as we dismounted, looked at us with wide eyes, raced inside. I guess we were a rough-looking lot. Those who did not show tough looked nasty.
A worried fat man came out strangling an apron. His face could not decide if it wanted to remain ruddy or to go pallid. "Afternoon," I said. "We get a meal and some fodder for the animals?"
"Wine," One-Eye called out as he loosened his cinch. "I need to dive into a gallon of wine. And a feather bed." "I reckon," the man said. His speech proved difficult to follow. The language of Meadenvil is a dialect of that spoken in Juniper. In the city it wasn't hard to get along, what with the constant intercourse between Meadenvil and Juniper. But this fellow spoke a country dialect with an altered rhythm. "And you can afford it."
I produced two of Raven's silver pieces, handed them over. "Let me know when we're over that limit." I dropped my reins over the hitching rail, climbed the steps, patted his arm as I passed. "Not to worry. We're not bandits. Soldiers. Following somebody who passed this way a while back."
He rewarded me with a frown of disbelief. It was obvious we did not serve the Prince of Meadenvil.
The inn was pleasant, and though the fat man had several daughters, everyone stayed in line. After we had eaten and most had gone off to rest, the innkeeper began to relax. "You answer me some questions?" I asked. I placed a silver piece upon my table. "Might be worth something."
He settled opposite me, regarded me narrowly over a gigantic beer mug. He had drained the thing at least six times since our arrival, which explained his girth. "What do you want to know?"
"The tall man who can't talk. He's looking for his daughter.''
"Eh?"
I indicated Silent, who had made himself at home near the fire, seated on the floor, folded forward in sleep. "A deaf and dumb girl who passed this way a while back. Probably driving a wagon. Met a guy here, maybe." I described Raven.
His face went blank. He remembered Raven. And did not want to talk about it.
"Silent!"
He snapped out of sleep as if stung. I sent a message with finger signs. He smiled nastily. I told the innkeeper, "He don't look like much, but he's a sorcerer. Here's how it stands. The man who was here maybe told you he'd come back and cut your throat if you said anything. That's a remote risk. On the other hand, Silent there can cast a few spells and make your cows go dry, your fields barren, and all your beer and wine go sour."
Silent did one of those nasty little tricks which amuse him, One-Eye and Goblin. A ball of light drifted around the common room like a curious puppy, poking into things.
The innkeeper believed me enough not to want to call my bluff. "All right. They was here. Like you said. I get a lot of people through in the summer, so I wouldn't have noticed except like you say, the girl was deaf and the guy was a hard case. She come in in the morning, like she traveled all night. On a wagon. He come in the evening, walking. They stayed off in the corner. They left next morning." He looked at my coin. "Paid in that same funny coin, come to think."
"Yeah."
"Come from a long way off, eh?"
"Yeah. Where'd they go?"
"South. Down the road. Questions I heard the guy ask, I figure they was headed for Chimney.''
I raised an eyebrow. I'd never heard of any place called Chimney.
"Down the coast. Past Shaker. Take the Needle Road out of Shaker. The Tagline Road from Needle. Somewhere south of Tagline there's a crossroad where you head west. Chimney is on the Salada Peninsula. I don't know where for sure. Only what I heared from travelers."
"Uhm. Long hike. How far, you think?"
"See. Two hundred twenty-four miles to Shaker. Round two hundred more to Needle. Tagline is about one eighty on from Needle, I think. Or maybe it's two eighty. I don't rightly recollect. That crossroad must be another hundred down from Tagline, then out to Chimney. Don't know how far that would be. Least another hundred. Maybe two, three. Seen a map oncet, that a fellow showed me. Peninsula sticks way out like a thumb."
Silent joined us. He produced a scrap of paper and a tiny, steel-tipped pen. He had the innkeeper run through it again. He drew a crude map that he adjusted as the fat man said it did or did not resemble the map he had seen. Silent kept juggling a column of figures. He came up with an estimate in excess of nine hundred miles from Meadenvil. He knocked off the last digit, then wrote the word days and a plus sign. I nodded.
"Probably a four-month trip at least," I said. "Longer if they spend much time resting up in any of those cities."
Silent drew a straight line from Meadenvil to the tip of the Salada Peninsula, wrote, est. 600 mi. a. 6 knots = 100 hrs.
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah. That's why the ship never left. Had to give him a head start. Think we'll have a talk with the crew tomorrow. Thanks, innkeeper." I pushed the coin over. "Anything odd happened around here lately?"
A weak smiled stretched his lips. "Not till today."
"Right. No. I mean like neighbors disappearing, or what-not."
He shook his head. "Nope. Less you count Moleskin. Hain't seen him in a while. But that don't make no never-mind."
"Moleskin?"
"Hunter. Works the forest over east. Mainly for furs and hides, but brings me game when he needs salt or something. He don't come around regular, but I reckon he's overdue. Usually comes in come fall, to get staples for the winter. Thought it was him when your friend come through the door.''
"Eh? Which friend?"
"The one you're hunting. That carried off this feller's daughter.''
Silent and I exchanged glances. I said, "Better not count on seeing Moleskin again. I think he's dead."
"What brings you to say that?"
I told him a little about Raven faking his own death and leaving a body that had been confused for his.
"Bad thing, that. Yep. Bad thing, doing like that. Hope you catch him up." His eyes narrowed slightly, cunning. "You fellers wouldn't be part of that bunch come down from Juniper, would you? Everybody headed south talks about how. ..." Silent's glower shut him up.
"I'm going to get some sleep," I said. "If none of my men are up yet, roust me out at first light."
"Yes, sir," the innkeeper said. "And a fine breakfast we'll fix you, sir."
And a fine breakfast we had. I tipped the innkeeper another piece of silver. He must have thought me mad.
Half a mile up the road One-Eye called a halt. "You just going to leave them?" he asked.
"What?"
"Those people. First Taken comes down this way is going to find out everything we did."
My heart flip-flopped. I knew what he was getting at. I had thought about it earlier. But I could not order it. "No point," I said. "Everybody in Meadenvil is going to see us put out."
"Everybody in Meadenvil don't know where we're headed. I don't like the idea any better than you do, Croaker. But we have to cut the trail somewhere. Raven didn't. And we're on to him."
"Yeah. I know." I glanced at Asa and Shed. They were not taking it well. Asa, at least, figured he was next.
"Can't take them with us, Croaker."
"I know."
He swung around, started back. Alone. Not even Otto joined him, and Otto has very little conscience.
"What's he going to do?" Asa asked.
"Use his magic to make them forget," I lied. "Let's move along. He can catch up."
Shed kept giving me looks. Looks like he must have given Raven when he first found out Raven was in the body business. He did not say anything.
One-Eye caught up an hour later. He busted out laughing. "They were gone," he said. "Every blessed one, with all their dogs and cattle. Into the woods. Damned peasants." He laughed again, almost hysterically. I suspect he was relieved.
"We got two days and some gone," I said. "Let's push it. The bigger head start we have, the better."
We reached the outskirts of Meadenvil five hours later, not having pressed as hard as I wanted. As we penetrated the city, our pace lagged. I think we all sensed it. Finally, I stopped. "King, you and Asa wander around and see what you hear. We'll wait at yonder fountain." There were no children in the streets. The adults I saw seemed dazed. Those who passed us moved by as widely as they could navigate.
King was back in two minutes. No lollygagging. "Big trouble, Croaker. The Taken got here this morning. Big blowout down at the waterfront."
I glanced in that direction. A ghost of smoke rose there, as if marking the aftermath of a major fire. The sky to the west, in the direction the wind was blowing, had a dirty look.
Asa returned a minute later with the same news and more. "They got in a big fight with the Prince. Not over yet, some say."
"Wouldn't be much of a fight," One-Eye said.
"I don't know," I countered. "Even the Lady can't be everywhere at once. How the hell did they get here so fast? They didn't have any carpets."
"Overland," Shed said.
"Overland? But ..."
"It's shorter than the sea trip. Road cuts across. If you ride hard, day and night, you can make it in two days. When I was a kid, they used to have races. They stopped that when the new Duke took over."
"Guess it doesn't matter. So. What now?"
"Got to find out what happened," One-Eye said. He muttered, "If that bastard Goblin got himself killed, I'll wring his neck."
"Right. But how do we do that? The Taken know us."
"I'll go," Shed volunteered.
Harder looks you cannot imagine than those we bent upon Marron Shed. He quailed for a moment. Then: "I won't let them catch me. Anyway, why should they bother me? They don't know me."
"Okay," I said. "Get moving."
"Croaker. ..."
"Got to trust him, One-Eye. Unless you want to go yourself."
"Nope. Shed, you screw us over and I'll get you if I have to come back from the grave."
Shed smiled weakly, left us. On foot. Not many people rode through Meadenvil's streets. We found a tavern and made ourselves at home, two men staying in the street to watch. It was sundown before Shed returned.
"Well?" I said, signaling for another pitcher of beer.
"It's not good news. You guys are stuck. Your Lieutenant took the ship out. Twenty, twenty-five of your guys were killed. The rest went out on the ship. The Prince lost. ..."
"Not all of them," One-Eye said, and tipped a pointing finger over the top of his mug. "Somebody followed you, Shed."
Shed whirled, terrified.
Goblin and Pawnbroker stood in the doorway. Pawn had been carved up some. He limped over and collapsed into a chair. I checked his wounds. Goblin and One-Eye exchanged looks that might have meant anything, but probably meant they were glad to see one another.
The tavern's other customers began to fade. Word who we were had gotten out. They knew some bad people were hunting us.
"Sit, Goblin," I said. "King, you and Otto go get some fresh horses." I gave them most of the money I had. "All the staples that will buy, too. I think we got a long ride ahead. Right, Goblin?"
He nodded.
"Let's hear it."
"Whisper and Limper turned up this morning. Came with fifty men. Company men. Looking for us. Made enough fuss we heard them coming. The Lieutenant sent word to everybody ashore. Some didn't get aboard in time. Whisper headed for the ship. The Lieutenant had to cut loose. We left nineteen men behind."
"What're you doing here?"
"I volunteered. Went over the side off the point, swam to shore, came back to wait for you guys. Supposed to tell you where to meet the ship. Ran into Pawn by accident. I was patching him up when I seen Shed poking around. We followed him back here."
I sighed. "They're headed for Chimney, right?"
He was surprised. "Yeah. How'd you know that?"
I explained briefly.
He said, "Pawn, better tell them what you know. Pawn was caught ashore. Only survivor I could find."
"This is a private adventure with the Taken," Pawn said. "They snuck down here. Supposed to be somewhere else. Figured it was a chance to get even, I guess, now we're not on the list of the Lady's favorites."
"She doesn't know they're here?"
"No."
I chuckled. Despite the gravity of the situation, I could not help that. "They're in for a surprise, then. The old bitch herself is going to turn up. We got another black castle growing here."
Several of them looked at me askance, wondering how I would know what the Lady was doing. I had not explained my dream to anyone but the Lieutenant. I finished patching Pawnbroker. "You'll be able to travel, but take it easy. How'd you find that out?"
"Shaky. We talked some before he tried to kill me."
"Shaky!" One-Eye snarled. "What the hell?"
"I don't know what the Taken told those guys. But they were cranked up. Wanted our asses bad. Suckers. Most of them got killed for their trouble."
"Killed?"
"Prince what's-it got righteous about the Taken walking in like they owned the place. There was a big fight'with the Limper and our boys. Our guys practically got wiped out. Maybe they'd have done better if they could've rested first.
"Funny. We talked it over like those men and we had not somehow become mortal enemies, sympathizing. And, in my case, feeling bitter toward the Taken for having turned and squandered them.
"Shaky say anything about Juniper?"
"Yeah. They had a real old-fashioned blood bath up there. Not much left of anything. Counting us, the Company was down six hundred guys when the Lady finished with the castle. Lot more guys was killed in the riots that came after, when she cleaned out the Catacombs. The whole damned city went crazy, with that Hargadon leading the rebellion. Had our guys trapped in Duretile. Then the Lady lost her temper. She wrecked what was left of the town."
I shook my head. "The Captain guessed right about the Catacombs."
"Journey took over what was left of the Company," Goblin said. "They was supposed to pull out with the plunder as soon as they got it all together. City is so wrecked there isn't no reason to stay around."
I looked at Shed. A bleaker face could not be imagined. Pain and questions twisted inside him. He wanted to know about his people. Did not want to speak for fear someone would accuse him. "Not your fault, man," I told him. "The Duke asked the Lady in before you got involved. It would have happened no matter what you did."
"How can people do stuff like that?"
Asa gave him the odd look. "Shed, that's dumb. How could you do all the stuff you did? Desperate, that's what. Everybody's desperate. They do crazy things."
One-Eye gave me a how-about-that? look. Even Asa could think sometimes.
"Pawn. Shaky say anything about Elmo?" Elmo remained my main regret.
"No. I didn't ask. We didn't have much time."
"What's the plan?" Goblin said.
"We'll head south when King and Otto get here with the horses and supplies." A sigh. "Going to be hard times. I got maybe two leva. How about you guys?"
We catalogued our resources. I said, "We're in trouble."
"The Lieutenant sent this." Goblin deposited a small sack on the table. It contained fifty silver castle coins from Raven's horde.
"That'll help. Still going to make it on prayer, though."
"I have some money," Shed volunteered. "Quite a bit. It's back where I was staying."
I eyeballed him. "You don't have to go. You're not part of this."
"Yes, I am."
"For as long as I've known you, you've been trying to run away. ..."
"Got something to fight for now, Croaker. What they did to Juniper. I can't let that go."
"Me, too," Asa said. "I still got most of the money Raven gave me after we raided the Catacombs."
I polled the others silently. They did not respond. It was up to me. "All right. Get it. But don't dawdle. I want to pull out as soon as I can."
"I can catch you one the road," Shed said. "I don't see why Asa can't too." He rose. Shyly, he extended a hand. I hesitated only a moment.
"Welcome to the Black Company, Shed."
Asa did not make the same offer.
"Think they'll come back?" One-Eye asked after they left.
"What do you think?"
"Nope. I hope you know what you're doing, Croaker. They could get the Taken after us if they get caught."
"Yeah. They could." I was counting on it, in fact. A vicious notion had come to me. "Let's have another round here. Be our last for a long time."
Very much to my amazement, Shed overtook us ten miles south of Meadenvil. And he was not alone.
"Holy shit!" I heard One-Eye yell from the rear, and: "Croaker, come and look at this."
I turned back. And there was Shed. With a bedraggled Bullock. Shed said, "I promised to get him out if I could. Had to bribe some people, but it wasn't that hard. It's every man for himself up there right now."
I looked at Bullock. He looked at me. "Well?" I said.
"Shed gave me the word, Croaker. I guess I'm in with you guys. If you'll take me. I don't have anywhere else to go."
"Damn. Asa shows up, I'll lose my faith in human nature. Also blow an idea I have. Okay, Bullock. What the hell. Just remember we're not in Juniper. None of us. We're on the run from the Taken. And we don't have time to fuss over who did what to whom. You want a fight, save it for them."
"You're the boss. Just give me a shot at evening things up." He followed me back to the head of the column. "Not much difference between your Lady and somebody like Krage, is there?"
"Matter of proportion," I said. "Maybe you'll get your shot sooner than you think."
Silent and Otto came trotting out of the darkness. "You did good," I said. "Dogs never barked." I had sent Silent because he handled animals well.
"They're all back out of the woods and tucked in their beds," Otto reported.
"Good. Let's move in. Quietly. And I don't want anybody hurt. Understand? One-Eye?"
"I hear you."
"Goblin. Pawnbroker. Shed. You watch the horses. I'll signal with a lantern."
Occupying the inn was easier than planning it. We caught everyone asleep because Silent had fuddled their dogs. The innkeeper wakened puffing and blowing and terrified. I took him downstairs while One-Eye watched everybody else, including some northbound travelers who represented a complication, but who caused no trouble.
"Sit," I told the fat man. "You have tea or beer in the morning?"
"Tea," he croaked.
"It's making. So. We're back. We didn't expect to be, but circumstances dictated an overland trip. I want to use your place a couple days. You and me need to make an accommodation."
Hagop brought out tea so strong it reeked. The fat man drained a mug the size of that from which he drank his beer.
"I don't want to hurt anybody," I continued, after taking a sip myself. "And I'll pay my way. But if you want it that way, you'll have to cooperate."
He grunted.
"I don't want anybody to know we're here. That means no customers leave. People who come through have to see things looking normal. You get my drift?"
He was smarter than he looked. "You're waiting for somebody." None of the men had figured that out, I don't think.
"Yes. Somebody who will do unto you as you expect me to, just for being here. Unless my ambush works." I had a crazy idea. It would die if Asa turned up.
I think he believed me when I claimed no wicked plans for his family. Now. He asked, "That the same somebody who kicked up the ruckus in the city yesterday?" "News travels fast." "Bad news does."
"Yes. The same somebody. They killed about twenty of my people. Busted the city up pretty good, too."
"I heard. Like I said, bad news travels fast. My brother was one of the people they killed. He was in the Prince's guard. A sergeant. Only one of us ever amounted to anything. He was killed by something that ate him, I beared. Sorcerer sicced it on him."
"Yeah. He's a bad one. Nastier than my friend who can't talk." I did not know who would come after us. I was counting on someone doing so, with Asa to point the way. I also figured the pursuit would develop quickly. Asa would tell them the Lady was on her way to Meadenvil.
The fat man eyed me cautiously. Hatred smouldered behind his eyes. I tried to direct it. "I'm going to kill him."
"All right. Slow? Like my brother?" "I don't think so. If it isn't fast and sneaky, he wins. Or she. There's two of them, actually. I don't know which one will come." I figured we could buy a lot of time if we could take out one of the Taken. The Lady would be damned busy with black castles for a while with only two pairs of hands to help her. Also, I had an emotional debt to pay, and a message to make clear.
"Let me send the wife and kids away," he said. "I'll stand in with you."
I let my gaze flick to Silent. He nodded slightly. "All right. What about your guests?" "I know them. They'll sit tight." "Good. Go take care of your part." He left. Then I had it out with Silent and the others. I had not been elected to command. I was running on momentum as senior officer present. It got angry for a while. But I won my point. Fear is a wonderful motivator. It moved Goblin and
One-Eye like nothing I've ever seen. Moved the men, too. They set up every gimmick they could imagine. Booby traps. Hiding places prepared from which an attack could be carried out, each glossed with a concealing spell. Weapons prepared with fanatical attention.
The Taken are not invulnerable. They're just hard to reach, and more so when they're ready for trouble. Whoever came would be.
Silent went into the woods with the fat man's family. He returned with a hawk that he tamed in record time, and cast it aloft to patrol the road between Meadenvil and the inn. We would be forewarned.
The landlord prepared dishes tainted with poison, though I advised him that the Taken seldom eat. He petitioned Silent for advice concerning his dogs. He had a whole pack of savage mastiffs and wanted them in on the action. Silent found them a spot in the plan. We did everything we could, and then settled in to wait. When my shift came, I took my turn getting some rest.
She came. Almost the moment my eyes closed, it seemed. I was in a panic for a moment, trying to banish my location and plan from my mind. But what was the point? She had found me already. The thing to conceal was the ambush.
"Have you reconsidered?" she asked. "You cannot outrun me. I want you, physician."
"That why you sent Whisper and the Limper? To return us to the fold? They killed half our men, lost most of theirs, wrecked the city, and didn't make a single friend. Is that how you win us back?"
She had not been party to that, of course. Pawnbroker had said the Taken were acting on their own. I wanted her angry and distracted. I wanted to know her reaction.
She said, "They're supposed to be headed back to the Barrowland."
"Sure they are. They just go off on their own any time they feel like it, to settle grudges ten years old."
"Do they know where you are?"
"Not yet." I now had the feeling she could not locate me precisely. "I'm outside the city, lying low."
"Where?"
I let an image seep through. "Near the place where the new castle is growing. It was the nearest place we could put up." I figured a strong thread of truth was in order. Anyway, I wanted her to find the gift I meant to leave.
"Stay where you are. Do not attract attention. I will be there soon." "Thought so."
"Do not test my patience, physician. You amuse me, but you are not invulnerable. I am short of temper these days. Whisper and Limper have pressed their luck one time too many."
The door of the room opened. One-Eye said, "Who you talking to, Croaker?"
I shuddered. He stood on the far side of the glow without seeing it. I was awake. I replied, "My girlfriend," and giggled.
An instant later I endured a moment of intense vertigo. Something parted from me, leaving a flavor both of amusement and irritation. I recovered, found One-Eye kneeling, frowning. "What's the matter?" he demanded.
I shook my head. "Head feels like it's on backwards. Shouldn't have had that beer. What's up?"
He scowled suspiciously. "Silent's hawk came in. They're coming. Come on downstairs. We need to redo the plan." "They?"
"The Limper and nine men. That's what I mean, we need to redo. Right now the odds look too good for the other side."
"Yeah." Those would be Company men. The inn wouldn't fool them. Inns are the axes of life in the hinterlands. The Captain used them frequently to draw the Rebel.
Silent did not have much to add, except that we had only as long as it would take our pursuers to cover six miles.
"Hey!" The old comes-the-dawn. Suddenly I knew why the Taken had come to Meadenvil. "You got a wagon and team?" I asked the innkeeper. I still did not know his name.
"Yeah. Use it to haul supplies down from Meadenvil, from the miller's, from the brewer's. Why?"
"Because the Taken are looking for those papers I've been on about." I had to reveal their provenance.
"The same ones we dug up in the Forest of Cloud?" One-Eye asked.
"Yes. Look. Soulcatcher told me they have the Limper's true name in them. They also include the wizard Bomanz's secret papers, where the Lady's true name is supposedly encoded."
"Wow!" Goblin said.
"Right."
One-Eye demanded, "What's that got to do with us?"
"The Limper wants his name back. Suppose he sees a bunch of guys and a wagon light out of here? What's he going to figure? Asa gave him bum dope about them being with Raven. Asa doesn't know everything we've been up to."
Silent interjected, in sign, "Asa is with the Limper."
"Fine. He did what I wanted. Okay. The Limper figures that's us making a run for it with the papers. 'Specially if we let a few pieces go fluttering around."
"I get it," One-Eye said. "Only we don't have enough men to work it. Only Bullock and the landlord that Asa don't know about."
Goblin said, "I think you better stop talking and start doing. They're getting closer."
I called the fat man. "Your friends from the South have to do us a favor. Tell them it's their only chance of getting out of this alive."
The four southerners were shaking and sweating. They did not know what was going on, did not like what they saw. But they had become convinced that cooperation was their only hope. "Goblin!" I shouted upstairs. "Can you see them yet?"
"Almost time. Count to fifty, then turn it loose."
I counted. Slowly, forcing myself to keep the pace down. I was as scared as the southerners.
"Now!"
Goblin came boiling downstairs. We all roared out to the barn, where the animals and wagon were waiting, whooped out of there, stormed into the road, and went howling off south like eight men very nearly taken by surprise. Behind us the Limper's party halted momentarily, talked it over, then came after us. I noted that the Limper was setting the pace. Good. His men were not eager to tangle with their old buddies.
I brought up the rear, behind Goblin and One-Eye and the wagon. One-Eye was driving. Goblin kept his mount right beside the wagon.
We roared into a rising curve where the road began climbing a wooded hill south of the inn. The innkeeper said the forest went on for miles. He had gone ahead with Silent and Bullock and the men the southerners were pretending to be.
"Yo!" someone shouted back. A scrap of red cloth whipped past. One-Eye stood up on the wagon, clinging to the traces as he edged over. Goblin swung in close. One-Eye jumped.
For a moment I did not think he would make it. Goblin almost missed. One-Eye's feet trailed in the dust. Then he scrambled up, lay on his stomach behind his friend. He glared back at me, daring me to grin.
I grinned anyway.
The wagon hit the timber prepared, flung up, twisted. Horses screamed, fought, could not hold it. Wagon and team went thrashing off the road, crashed against trees, the animals screaming in pain and terror while the vehicle disintegrated. The men who had upset the wagon vanished immediately.
I spurred my mount forward, past Goblin and One-Eye and Pawnbroker, yelled at the southerners, gave them the sign to go on, keep riding, get the hell away.
A quarter mile father on I swung onto the track the fat man had told me about, got down into the woods far enough not to be seen, halted long enough for One-Eye to get himself seated. Then we moved on hurriedly, headed for the inn.
Above us, Limper and his bunch came pounding up to where the wrecked wagon lay, the animals still crying their distress.
It started.
Cries. Shrieks. Men dying. Hiss and howl of spells. I didn't think Silent stood a chance, but he had volunteered. The wagon was supposed to distract the limper long enough for the massed attack to reach him.
The clangor was still going on, muted by distance, when we reached open country. "Can't be going all wrong," I shouted. "Been going on a while."
I did not feel as optimistic as I pretended. I did not want it to go on. I'd wanted them to hit quick, hurt the Limper, and fade away, doing enough damage to make him retreat to the inn to lick his wounds.
We hustled the animals into the barn and headed for our hiding places. I muttered, "You know, we wouldn't be in
this spot if Raven had killed him when he had a chance." Way back, when I had helped capture Whisper, when she was trying to bring Limper over to her side, Raven had had a fantastic opportunity to finish him off. He had not been able, though he had had grievances against the Taken. His mercy had come back to haunt us all.
Pawnbroker went into the pig shed, where we had installed a crude, light ballista built as part of our earlier plan. Goblin cast a weak spell that made him seem like just another hog. I wanted him to stay out of it if possible. I doubted the ballista would get used.
Goblin and I raced upstairs to watch the road and the ridgeline to the east. Once he broke off, which he had not done when he was supposed to, Silent would fake in the direction taken by the southerners, retreat through the wood to that ridge, watch what happened at the inn. It was my hope that some of the Limper's men would keep after the southerners. I hadn't told those guys that. I hoped they had sense enough to keep running.
"Ho!" Goblin said. "There's Silent. He made it."
The men appeared briefly. I could not tell who was who. "Only three of them," I muttered. That meant four had not made it. "Damn!"
"It had to work," Goblin said. "Else they wouldn't be up there."
I did not feel reassured. I hadn't had many shots at field command. I hadn't learned to deal with the feelings that come when you know men have been killed trying to carry out your orders.
"Here they come."
Riders left the woods, coming up the Shaker Road amidst lengthening shadows. "I make it six men," I said. "No. Seven. They must not have gone after those guys."
"Looks like they're all hurt."
"Element of surprise. The Limper with them? Can you tell?"
"No. That one. . . . That's Asa. Hell, that's old Shed on the third horse, and the innkeeper next to last."
A slight positive, then. They were half as strong as they had been. I'd lost only two of seven committed.
"What do we do if the Limper ain't with them?" Goblin asked.
"Take what comes to us." Silent had vanished off the far ridge.
"There he is, Croaker. In front of the innkeeper. Looks like he's unconscious."
That was too much to hope. Yet it did indeed look like the Taken was out. "Let's get downstairs."
I watched through a cracked shutter as they turned into the yard. The only member of the group uninjured was Asa. His hands were bound to his saddle, his feet to his stirrups. One of the injured men dismounted, released Asa, held a knife on him while he helped the others. A variety of injuries were evident. Shed looked like he shouldn't be alive at all. The innkeeper was in better shape. Just seemed to have been knocked around a lot.
They made Asa and the fat man get the Limper off his animal. I nearly gave myself away then. The Taken was missing most of his right arm. He had several additional wounds. But, of course, he would recover if he remained protected by his allies. The Taken are tough.
Asa and the fat man started toward the door. Limper sagged like a wet rope. The man who had covered Asa pushed the door open.
The Limper wakened. "No!" he squeaked. "Trap!"
Asa and the innkeeper dropped him. Asa began heeling and toeing it, eyes closed. The innkeeper whistled shrilly. His dogs came raging out of the barn.
Goblin and One-Eye cut loose. I jumped out and went for the Limper as he tried to gain his feet.
My blade bit into the Limper's shoulder above the stump of his right arm. His remaining fist came up and brushed me across the belly.
The air exploded out of me. I nearly passed out. I settled to the ground, heaving my guts out, only vaguely aware of my surroundings.
The dogs boiled over the Limper's men, mauling them
savagely. Several hit the Taken. He hammered them with his fist, each blow leaving an animal dead.
Goblin and One-Eye charged out, hit nim with everything they had. He shed their spells like rainwater, punched One-Eye, turned on Goblin.
Goblin ran. The Limper trundled after him, weaving, the surviving mastiffs snapping at his back.
Goblin raced toward the pig shed. He went sprawling before he reached it, twitched feebly in the mire. Limper rolled up behind him, fist raised for the kill.
Pawnbroker's shaft split his breastbone, stood three feet out of his back. He stood there swaying, a ragged little man in brown picking at the shaft. His whole will seemed to focus upon that. Goblin wriggled away. Inside the shed Pawn cranked the ballista back and dropped another javelin into its trough.
Whomp! This one ripped all the way through the Limper. It knocked him off his feet. The dogs went for his throat.
I regained my breath. I looked for my sword. Vaguely, I was aware of screeching from a patch of blackberries along a ditch two hundred feet north. A lone dog trotted back and forth, snarling. Asa. He had ducked into the only cover available.
I got my feet under me. The fat man helped One-Eye get up, then snagged a fallen weapon. We three closed in on the Limper. He lay in the mire, twisted slightly sideways, his mask slipped so we could see the ruined face it had concealed. He could not believe what was happening. Feebly, he waved at the dogs.
"All for nothing," I told him. "The papers haven't been here for months."
And the fat man: "This is for my brother." He swung his weapon. He was so badly bruised, and getting so stiff, that he did not get much into it.
The Limper tried to strike back. He did not have anything left. He realized that he was going to die. After all those centuries. After having survived the White Roses, and the anger of the Lady after he had betrayed her in the battle at Roses and in the Forest of Cloud.
His eyes rolled up and he went away, and I knew he was yelling for Mama's help.
"Kill him quick," I said. "He's calling the Lady."
We hacked and slashed and chopped. The dogs snarled and bit. He would not die. Even when we ran out of energy, a spark of life remained.
"Let's drag him around front."
We did. And I saw Shed, lying on the ground with men who used to be brothers in the Black Company. I looked up at the waning light, saw Silent approaching, followed by Hagop and Otto. I felt a numb pleasure because those two had survived. They had been best friends for as long as I could recall. I could not picture one surviving without the other.
"Bullock's gone, eh?"
The fat man said, "Yeah. Him and this Shed. You should have seen them. They jumped into the road and pulled the sorcerer off his horse. Bullock chopped his arm off. Between them they killed four men."
"Bullock?"
"Somebody split his head open. Like hitting a melon with a cleaver.''
"Kingpin?"
"Got trampled to death. But he got his licks in."
I levered myself down beside Shed. One-Eye did the same. "How'd they catch you?" I asked the innkeeper.
"Too fat to run fast." He managed a feeble smile. "Never was meant to be a soldier."
I smiled. "What do you think, One-Eye?" A glance told me there was nothing I could do for Shed.
One-Eye shook his head.
Goblin said, "Two of these guys are still alive, Croaker. What you want we should do?"
"Take them inside. I'll patch them up." They were brothers. That the Taken had twisted them and made them enemies did not make them less deserving of my help.
Silent came up, looming tall in the twilight. He signed, "A maneuver worthy of the Captain, Croaker."
"Right." I stared at Shed, moved more than I thought I should be.
A man lay before me. He had sunk as low as any I'd ever known. Then he had fought his way back, and back, and had become worthy. A man far better than I, for he had located his moral polestar and set his course by it, though it had cost his life. Maybe, just a little, he had repaid his debt.
He did another thing by getting himself killed in a fight I did not consider his. He became a sort of patron saint of mine, an example for days to come. He set a high standard in his last few days.
He opened his eyes before the end. He smiled. "Did we do it?" he asked.
"We did it, Shed. Thanks to you and Bullock."
"Good." Still smiling, he closed his eyes.
Hagop hollered, "Hey, Croaker. What you want to do about this Asa creep?"
Asa was still in the blackberries, yelling for help. The dogs had the patch surrounded.
"Put a couple javelins in him," One-Eye muttered.
"No," Shed said in a tiny whisper. "Let him be. He was my friend. He tried to get back, but they caught him. Let him go."
"AH right, Shed. Hagop! Dig him out and turn him loose."
"What?"
"You heard me." I looked back at Shed. "Okay, Shed?"
He didn't say anything. He couldn't. But he was smiling.
I got up and said, "At least somebody died the way he wanted. Otto. Get a damned shovel."
"Aw, Croaker. . . ."
"Get a goddamned shovel and get to work. Silent, One-Eye, Goblin, inside. We got plans to make."
The light was nearly gone. By the Lieutenant's estimate it would be but hours before the Lady reached Meadenvil.
"We need rest," One-Eye protested.
"There won't be any rest till we're dead," I countered. "We're on the other side now, One-Eye. We did what the Rebel couldn't. We've done in the Limper, the last of the original Taken. She'll be after us hard as soon as she's cleaned up these black castle leavings. She has to. If she doesn't get us fast, every Rebel in five thousand miles will get worked up to try something. There are only two Taken left, and only Whisper worth much."
"Yeah. I know. Wishful thinking. Can't stop a man wishing, Croaker."
I stared at the necklace Shed had worn. I had to leave it for the Lady, yet the silver in it might become a lifesaver down the long road we had to travel. I screwed up my courage and began digging out the eyes.
"What the hell you doing?"
"Going to leave these with the Limper. Going to feed them to him. I figure they'll hatch."
"Ha!" Goblin said. "Ironic. Fitting."
"I thought it an interesting turn of justice. Give him back to the Dominator."
"And the Lady will have to destroy him. I like it."
Grudgingly, One-Eye agreed.
"Thought you guys would. Go see if they've got everybody buried."
"Only been ten minutes since they got back with the bodies."
"All right. Go help." I levered myself up and went to check on the men I had patched up. I don't know if everyone Hagop and Otto brought back from the ambush site was dead when they got there. They certainly were now. Kingpin had been dead for a long time, though they had brought him to me to examine.
My patients were doing fine. One was aware enough to be frightened. I patted his arm and limped outside.
They had King in the ground now, beside Shed and Bullock and the Limper's boy they had buried earlier. Only two corpses remained unburied. Asa was making the dirt fly. Everyone else stood and watched. Till they saw me glowering.
"What's the take?" I asked the fat man. I'd had him strip the dead of valuables.
"Not a lot." He showed me a hat filled with odds and ends.
"Take what you need to cover the damages." "You guys will need it more than me." "You're out a wagon and a team, not to mention the dogs. Take what you need. I can always rob somebody I don't like." No one knew that I had filched Shed's purse. Its weight had surprised me. It would be my secret reserve. "Take a couple horses, too."
He shook his head. "I'm not getting caught with somebody else's animals after the dust settles and the Prince starts looking for scapegoats." He selected a few silver coins. "I got what I wanted."
"Okay. You'd better hide in the woods for a while. The Lady will come here. She's nastier than the Limper." "Will do."
"Hagop. If you're not going to dig, go get the horses ready. Move!" I beckoned Silent. He and I dragged the Limper to a shade tree out front. Silent tossed a rope over a limb. I forced the eyes of the serpents down the Taken's throat. We hoisted him up. He turned slowly in the chill moonlight. I rubbed my hands together and considered him. "Took a while, guy, but somebody finally got you." For ten years I had wanted to see him go down. He had been the most inhuman of the Taken.
Asa came to me. "All buried, Croaker."
"Good. Thanks for the help." I started toward the barn.
"Can I go with you guys?"
I laughed.
"Please, Croaker? Don't leave me here where. . . ."
"I don't give a damn, Asa. But don't expect me to look out for you. And don't try any slick tricks. I'd as soon kill you as look at you."
"Thanks, Croaker." He raced ahead, hastily saddled another horse. One-Eye looked at me and shook his head.
"Mount up, men. Let's go find Raven."
Though we pushed hard, we were not twenty miles south of the inn when something hit my mind like a fighter's fist. A golden cloud materialized, radiating anger. "You have exhausted my patience, physician."
"You exhausted mine a long time ago."
"You'll rue this murder."
"I'll exult in it. It's the first decent thing I've done this side of the Sea of Torments. Go find your castle eggs. Leave me alone. We're even."
"Oh, no. You will hear from me again. As soon as I close the last door on my husband."
"Don't press your luck, old witch. I'm ready to get out of the game. Push and I'll learn TelleKurre."
That caught her from the blind side. "Ask Whisper what she lost in the Forest of Cloud and hoped to recover in Meadenvil. Then reflect upon what an angry Croaker could do with it if he knew where to find it."
There was a vertiginous moment as she withdrew.
I found my companions looking at me weirdly. "Just saying good-bye to my girl," I told them. We lost Asa in Shaker. We took a day off there, to prepare for the next leg, and when it came time to leave, Asa was not to be seen. Nobody bothered looking for him. On Shed's behalf I left him with a wish for luck. Judging from his past, he probably had it, and all bad. My farewell to the Lady did not take. Three months to the day after the Limper's fall, as we were resting prior to hazarding the last range of hills between us and Chimney, the golden cloud visited me again. This time the Lady was less belligerent. In fact, she seemed mildly amused.
"Greetings, physician. I thought you might want to know, for the sake of your Annals, that the threat of the black castle no longer exists. Every seed has been located and destroyed." More amusement. "There is no way my husband can rise short of exhumation. He is cut off, totally incapable of communicating with his sympathizers. A permanent army occupies the Barrowland."
I could think of nothing to say. It was no less than I had expected, and had hoped she would accomplish, for she was the lesser evil, and, I suspect, remained possessed of a spark that had not committed itself to the darkness. She had shown restraint on several occasions when she could have indulged her cruelty. Maybe if she felt unchallenged, she would drift toward the light rather than farther toward the shadow.
"I interviewed Whisper. With the Eye. Stand clear, Croaker.''
Never before had she called me by name. I sat up and took notice. There was no amusement in her now.
"Stand clear?"
"Of those papers. Of the girl."
"Girl? What girl?"
"Don't come the innocent. I know. You left a wider trail than you thought. And even dead men answer questions for one who knows how they must be asked. Such of your Company as remained when I returned to Juniper told most of the story. If you wish to live out your days in peace, kill her. If you don't, I will. Along with anyone near her."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Amusement again, but a hard sort. A malignant sort. "Keep your Annals, physician. I will be in touch. I will keep you apprised of the advance of the empire." Puzzled, I asked, "Why?" "Because it amuses me. Behave yourself." She faded away.
We went down into Chimney, tired men three-quarters dead. We found the Lieutenant and the ship and-Lo! -Darling, who was living aboard with the Company. The Lieutenant had taken employment with the private constabulary of a mercantile factor. He added our names to the roll as soon as we recuperated. We did not find Raven. Raven had evaded reconciliation or confrontation with his old comrades by cheating his way out. Fate is a fickle bitch who dotes on irony. After all he had been through, all he had done, all he had survived, the very morning the Lieutenant arrived he slipped on a wet marble diving platform in a public bath, split his head open, fell into the pool, and drowned.
I refused to believe it. It could not be true, after what he had pulled up north. I dug around. I poked. I pried. But there were scores of people who had seen the body. The most reliable witness of all, Darling, was absolutely convinced. In the end, I had to give in. This time no one would hear my doubts. The Lieutenant himself claimed to have seen and recognized the corpse as the flames of a pyre had risen about it the morning of his arrival. It was there he had encountered Darling and had brought her back into the keeping of the Black Company.
What could I say? If Darling believed, it must be true. Raven could never lie to her. Nineteen days after our arrival in Chimney, there was another arrival, which explained the Lady's nebulous remark about interviewing only those she could find when she returned to Juniper. Elmo rode into town with seventy men, many brethren from the old days, whom he had spirited out of Juniper while all the Taken were absent but Journey, and Journey was in such a state of confusion due to conflicting orders from the Lady that he let slip the true state of affairs in Meadenvil. He followed me down the coast.
So, in two years, the Black Company had crossed the breadth of the world, from the nethermost east to the farthest west, close to four thousand miles, and in the process had come near destruction, and had found a new purpose, a new life. We were now the champions of the White Rose, a bedraggled joke of a nucleus for the force legend destined to bring the Lady down.
I did not believe a word of that. But Raven had told Darling what she was, and she, at least, was ready to play her part.
We could but try.
I hoisted a glass of wine in the master's cabin. Elmo, Silent, One-Eye, Goblin, the Lieutenant and Darling raised theirs. Above, men prepared to cast off. Elmo had brought the Company treasure chest. We had no need to work. I proposed my toast. "To the twenty-nine years." Twenty-nine years. According to legend it would be that long before the Great Comet returned and fortune would smile upon the White Rose.
They responded, "The twenty-nine years."
I thought I detected the faintest hint of gold in the comer of my eye, felt the faintest hint of amusement.
REVISION HISTORY
v2.0 - 30 mar 02 by wg
-reformat to standard html
-added chapter links
-lots of broken line fixes, but not proofread