“Your stuff.”
“No time.”
“What about the wagon?” I lifted the other end.
“Forget it. I’m sure they found it. March.”
We marched, letting him lead the way. I asked, “What was all that uproar?”
“Caught them by surprise.”
“But …”
“Even the Taken can be surprised. Save your breath. He isn’t dead.”
For a few hours it was put one foot in front of the other and don’t look back. Tracker set a tough pace. In a corner of my mind where the observer still dwelt, I noted that Toadkiller Dog kept the pace with ease.
Goblin collapsed first. Once or twice he had tried to catch me and pass something along, but he just did not have the energy. When he went down, Tracker stopped, looked back irritably. Toadkiller Dog lay down in the wet leaves, rumbling. Tracker shrugged, set his end of the litter down.
That was my cue to drop. Like a stone. And damn the rain and mud. I couldn’t get any wetter.
Gods, my arms and shoulders ached. Needles of fire drove into me where the muscles start swooping up to the neck. “This isn’t going to work,” I said after I caught some breath. “We’re too old and weak.”
Tracker considered the forest. Toadkiller Dog rose, sniffed the wet wind. I struggled up long enough to look back the way we had come, trying to guess which direction we had run.
South, of course. North made no sense and east or west would have put us in the Barrowland or river. But if we kept heading south we would encounter the old Oar road where it curved in beside the Great Tragic. That stretch was sure to be patrolled.
With my breath partially restored and my breathing no longer roaring in my ears, I could hear the river. It was no more than a hundred yards away, churning and grumbling as always.
Tracker came out of a reflective mood. “Guile, then. Guile.”
“I’m hungry,” One-Eye said, and I realized I was too. “Reckon we’ll get a lot hungrier, though.” He smiled feebly. He now had enough strength to look Goblin over. “Croaker. Want to come check him out?”
Funny that they aren’t enemies when the pinch comes.
The Forest and Beyond
Two days passed before we ate, courtesy of Tracker’s skill as a hunter. Two days we spent dodging patrols. Tracker knew those woods well. We disappeared into their deeps and drifted southward at a more relaxed pace. After the two days Tracker felt confident enough to let us have a fire. It was not much, though, because finding burnable wood was a pain. Its value was more psychological than physical.
Misery balanced by rising hope. That was the story of our two weeks in the Old Forest. Hell, trekking overland, off the road, was as fast or faster than using the road itself. We felt halfway optimistic when we neared the southern verge.
I am tempted to dwell on the misery and the arguments about Raven. One-Eye and Goblin were convinced we were doing him no good. Yet they could come up with no alternative to dragging him along.
I carried another weight in my belly, like a big stone.
Goblin got to me that second night while Tracker and Toadkiller Dog were hunting. He whispered, “I got farther in than One-Eye did. Almost to the center. I know why Raven didn’t get out.”
“Yeah?”
“He saw too much. What he went to see, probably. The Dominator is not asleep. I …” He shuddered. It took him a moment to get hold of himself. “I saw him, Croaker. Looking back at me. And laughing. If it hadn’t been for One-Eye … I’d have been caught just like Raven.”
“Oh, my,” I said softly, mind abuzz with the implications. “Awake? And working?”
“Yes. Don’t talk about it. Not to anybody till you can tell Darling.”
There was a hint of fatalism in him then. He doubted he would be around long. Scary. “One-Eye know?”
“I’ll tell him. Got to make sure word gets back.”
“Why not just tell us all?”
“Not Tracker. There’s something wrong with Tracker.… Croaker. Another thing. The old-time wizard. He’s in there, too.”
“Bomanz?”
“Yes. Alive. Like he’s frozen or something. Not dead, but not able to do anything. … The dragon.…” He shut up.
Tracker arrived, carrying a brace of squirrels. We barely let them warm before we attacked them.
We rested a day before tackling the tamed lands. Henceforth it would be scurry from one smidgen of cover to the next, mouselike, by night. I wondered what the hell the point might be. The Plain of Fear might as well be in another world.
That night I had a golden dream.
I do not recall anything except that she touched me, and somehow tried to warn me. I think exhaustion more than my amulet blocked the message. Nothing stuck. I wakened retaining only a vague sense of having missed something critical.
End of the line. End of the game. Two hours out of the Great Forest I knew our time was approaching. Darkness was inadequate insulation. Nor were my amulets sufficiënt.
The Taken were in the air. I felt them on the prowl once it was too late to turn back. And they knew their quarry was afoot. We could hear the distant clamor of battalions moving to bar retreat into the forest.
My amulet warned me of the near passage of Taken repeatedly. When it did not, as it seemed not always to do—perhaps because the new Taken did not affect it—Toadkiller Dog gave warning. He could smell the bastards coming a league away.
The other amulet did help. That and Tracker’s genius for laying a crooked trail.
But the circle closed. And closed. And we knew that it would not be long before there were no gaps through which we could slide.
“What do we do, Croaker?” One-Eye asked. His voice was shaky. He knew. But he wanted to be told. And I could neither give the order nor do it myself.
These men were my friends. We had been together all my adult life. I could not tell them to kill themselves. I could not cut them down.
But I could not allow them to be captured, either.
A vague notion formed. A foolish one, really. At first I thought it simple desperation silliness. What good?
Then something touched me. I gasped. The others felt it, too. Even Tracker and his mutt. They jumped as if stung. I gasped again, “It’s her. She’s here. Oh, damn.” But that made up my mind. I might be able to buy time.
Before I could reflect and thus chicken out, I shucked my amulets, shoved them into Goblin’s hands, pushed our precious documents at One-Eye. “Thanks, guys. Take care. Maybe I’ll see you.”
“What the hell you doing?”
Bow in hand—the bow she had given me so long ago—I leaped into darkness. Soft protests pursued me. I caught the edge of Tracker asking what the hell was going on. Then I was away.
There was a road not far off, and a little sliver of moon up top. I got onto the one and trotted by the light of the other, pushing my tired old body to its limit, trying to build as big a margin as possible before the inevitable befell me.
She would protect me for a time. I hoped. And once caught, I might stall on behalf of the others.
I felt sorry for them, though. Neither Goblin nor One-Eye was strong enough to help carry Raven. Tracker could not manage alone. If they made it to the Plain of Fear, they would not be able to evade the unenviable duty of explaining everything to Darling.
I wondered if any of them would have what it took to finish Raven.… Bile rose. My legs were going watery. I tried to fill my mind with nothingness, stared at the road three steps ahead of my feet, puffed hard, kept on. Count steps. By hundreds, over and over.
A horse, I could steal a horse, I kept telling myself that, concentrated on that, damning the stitch in my side, till shadows loomed before me and imperials began to shout, and I hared off into a wheat field with the Lady’s hounds abay behind me.
I nearly gave them the slip. Nearly, But then the shadow descended from the heavens. Air whistled past a carpet. And a moment later darkness devoured me.
&n
bsp; I welcomed it as the end of my miseries, hoping it was permanent.
It was light when I regained consciousness. I was in a cold place, but all places are cold in the north countries. I was dry. For the first time in weeks, I was dry. I harkened back to my run and recalled the sliver of moon. A sky clear enough for a moon. Amazing.
I cracked one eye. I was in a room with walls of stone. It had the look of a cell. Beneath me, a surface neither hard nor wet. How long since I had lain on a dry bed? Blue Willy,
I became aware of an odor. Food! Hot food, on a platter just inches from my head, atop a small stand. Some mess that looked like overcooked stew. Gods, did it smell good!
I rose so swiftly my head spun. I almost passed out. Food! The hell with anything else. I ate like the starved animal I was.
I had not quite finished when the door slammed inward. Exploded inward, ringing off the wall. A huge dark form stamped through. For a moment I sat with spoon halfway between bowl and mouth. This thing was human? It stepped to one side, weapon ready.
Four imperials followed, but I hardly noticed, so taken was I with the giant. Man, all right, but bigger than any I’d ever seen. And looking lithe and spritely as an elf for all his size.
The imperials paired to either side of the doorway, presented arms.
“What?” I demanded, determined to go down with a defiant grin. “No drumrolls? No trumpets?” I presumed I was about to meet my captor.
I can call them when I call them. Whisper came through the doorway.
I was more startled by seeing her than by the dramatic advent of her giant thug. She was supposed to be holding the western boundary of the Plain.… Unless.… I could not think it. But the worm of doubt gnawed anyway. I had been out of touch a long time.
“Where are the documents?” she demanded, without preamble.
A grin smeared my face. I had succeeded. They had not caught the others.… But elation faded swiftly. There were more imperials behind Whisper, and they bore a litter. Raven. They dumped him roughly onto a cot opposite mine.
Their hospitality was not niggardly. It was a grand cell. Plenty of room for the prisoner to stretch his legs.
I found my grin. “Now, you shouldn’t ask questions like that. Mama wouldn’t like it. Remember how angry she became last time?”
Whisper was always a cool one. Even when she led the Rebel, she never let emotion get in the way. She did remind me, “Your death can be an unpleasant one, physician.”
“Dead is dead.”
A slow smile spread upon her colorless lips. She was not a lovely woman. That nasty smile did not improve her looks.
I got the message. Down in the dark inside me something howled and gibbered like a monkey getting roasted. I resisted its call to terror. Now, if ever there was one, was a time to act as a brother of the Black Company. I had to buy time. Had to give the others the longest head start possible.
She might have read my mind as she stood there staring, smiling. “They won’t get far. They can hide from witchery, but they cannot hide from the hounds.”
My heart sank.
As if cued, a messenger arrived. He whispered to Whisper. She nodded. Then she turned to me. “I go to collect them now. Think on the Limper in my absence. For once I have drained you of knowledge, I may deliver you to him.” Smile again.
“You never were a nice lady,” I said, but it came feebly and got said to her departing back. Her menagerie went with her.
I checked Raven. He seemed unchanged.
I lay on my cot, closed my eyes, tried to push everything out of my mind. It had worked once before when I needed contact with the Lady.
Where was she? I knew she was near enough to sense last night. But now? Was she playing some game?
But she had said no special consideration.… Still. There is consideration andconsideration.
The Fortress at Deal
Bam! The old door trick. This time I had heard the man-mountain stomping down the hall, so I did not react except to ask, “Don’t you ever knock, Bruno?”
No response. Till Whisper stepped inside. “Get up, physician.”
I would have made a crude remark, but something in her voice chilled me beyond the chill due my straits. I rose.
She looked terrible. Not that she was much different physically. But something inside had gone dead and cold and frightened. “What was that thing?” she demanded.
I was baffled. “What thing?”
“The thing you were traveling with. Speak.”
I could not, for I hadn’t the slightest notion what she was blathering about.
“We caught up. Or my men did. I arrived only in time to count the bodies. What shreds twenty hounds and a hundred men in armor, in minutes, then disappears from mortal ken?”
Gods, One-Eye and Goblin must have outdone themselves.
Still I did not speak.
“You came from the Barrowland. Where you were tampering. Did you call something forth?” She sounded as though she were musing. “It’s time we found out. It’s time we found out how tough you really are, soldier.”
She faced the giant. “Bring him.”
I gave it my best shot by playing my dirtiest. I pretended meek for just long enough to let him relax. Then I stomped his foot, running the side of my boot down his shin. Then I spun away and kicked at his crotch.
Guess I’m getting old and slow. Course, he was a lot faster than a man his size should be. He leaned back, caught my foot, and threw me across the room. Two imperials got me up and started dragging me. I went with the satisfaction of seeing the big man limp.
I tried a few more tricks, just to slow things up. They did little more than get me knocked around. The imperials strapped me down in a high-backed wooden chair in a room where Whisper had set up to practice her magicks. I saw nothing especially villainous. That only made the anticipation worse.
They got two or three good screams out of me and were working themselves up to get unpleasant when the tableau suddenly broke up. The imperials ripped me out of the chair, hustled me toward my cell. I was too foggy to wonder.
Till, in the hallway a few yards short of that cell, we encountered the Lady.
Yes. So. My message had gotten through. I’d thought the brief touch I’d received was wishful thinking at the time. But here she was.
The imperials ran. Is she that terrible to her own people?
Whisper stood her ground.
Whatever passed between them did so unspoken. Whisper helped me to my feet, pushed me into the cell. Her face was stone but her eyes were asmoulder.
“Curses. Foiled again,” I croaked, and fell onto my cot.
It was plain daylight when the door closed. It was night when I wakened and she was standing over me, wearing her guise of beauty. She said, “I warned you,”
“Yes.” I tried to sit up. I had aches everywhere, both from maltreatment and from pushing an old body beyond its limits before my capture.
“Stay. I would not have come had my own interests not demanded it.”
“I would not have called otherwise.”
“Again you do me a favor.”
“Only in the interest of self-preservation.”
“You may, as they say, have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Whisper lost many men today. To what?”
“I don’t know. Goblin and One-Eye.…” I shut up. Damn groggy head. Damn sympathetic voice. Said too much already.
“It wasn’t them. They haven’t the skill to raise anything like that. I saw the bodies.”
“I don’t know, then.”
“I believe you. Even so.… I’ve seen wounds like those before. I’ll show you before we leave for the Tower.” Was there ever any doubt about that? “When you make your examination, reflect on the fact that the last time men died in such fashion my husband ruled the world.”
None of this added up. But I was not worried about it. I was worried about my own future.
“He has begun to move already. Long before I
expected. Will he never lie quietly and let me get on with my work?”
Some sums started toting. One-Eye saying something had gotten out. Raven having been caught because of it.… “Dumb shit Raven, you did it again.” On his own, trying to care for Darling, he had damned near let the Dominator break through at Juniper. “What did you do this time?”
Why would it follow and protect One-Eye and them?
“This is Raven, then?”
Screwup Number Two for Croaker. Why can’t I keep my big damned mouth shut?
She bent over him, rested a hand on his forehead. I watched from beneath my brows, unfocused. I could not look at her direct. She did have the power to sway stone.
“I will return soon,” she said, heading for the door, “Fear not. You will be safe in my absence.”
The door closed.
“Sure,” I murmured. “Safe from Whisper, maybe. But how safe from you?” I looked around the room, wondering if I might end my life.
Whisper took me out to look at the carnage where hounds and imperials had overhauled One-Eye and Goblin. Not pleasant, I’ll tell you. The last I saw the like was when we went up against the forvalaka in Beryl, ere we joined the Lady. I wondered if that monster was back and tracking One-Eye again. But he had slain it during the Battle at Charm. Hadn’t he?
But the Limper survived.…
Hell, yes, he did. And two days after the Lady took off—I was imprisoned in the old fortress at Deal, I’d learned—he made an appearance. A little friendly visit, just for old time’s sake.
I sensed his presence before I actually saw him. And terror nearly unmanned me.
How had he known?… Whisper. Almost certainly Whisper.
He came to my cell, buoyed on a miniature carpet. His name no longer really described him. He could not get around without that carpet. He was but the shadow of a being, human wreckage animated by sorcery and a mad, burning will.
He floated into my cell, hovered there considering me. I did my best to appear unintimidated, failed.
A ghost of a voice stirred the air. “Your time has come. It will be a prolonged and painful ending to your tale. And I will enjoy every moment.”