Painfully, he dragged himself out of the ditch, stood on wobbly legs looking around, the old hip wound gnawing. Things had changed. There were monsters in the sky and witch fires flaring in the distance.
The Limper had come. Darling would be in the middle of it. And he wasn’t there.
She would think he had run out again.
* * *
Raven reached the center of excitement in time to witness Gossamer’s fall. Everyone seemed to relax after the incident. The Limper must not be a threat right now.
The crowd came down off the wall. Soldiers brought horses for Exile and Brigadier Wildbrand. A platoon of Nightstalkers fell in around them and they started moving north. Raven wondered what the hell was happening. It looked like Darling and Exile had cut a deal.
He could not catch them now, wobbly as he was.
The twins had their heads together. They threw dark looks after the departing company. They radiated a stench of wickedness about to break loose.
Better stick with them.
75
When the monsters began sliding across the sky Smeds suffered an attack of caution. Able to think of nowhere else to run, he headed back to the ditch.
The guy he had kicked was still there, twitching once in a while. He backed off and watched, waiting to see what the guy would do. After a while the guy woke up, dragged himself out, and tottered off. Good. Now he had a place to wait for Fish. He went over and around and entered the culvert from the northern end, passed through, and sat down to wait.
Fish showed up a forever later, standing over there on the footbridge.… He didn’t have the other blue bag. Damn. Smeds whistled just loud enough to carry to Fish, waved cautiously.
“What happened?” he asked when Fish arrived. “Where’s the other bag?”
Fish explained.
Smeds told his story.
Fish said, “We need to get out of here, then. Let’s get the stuff. We might be able to get out one of the breaches if there’s any more excitement. With the spike up for grabs we can count on that.”
They got the blue bags, which they rubbed up with dirt, and Smeds’s pack, and headed for the area where the wall had been breached. The city was a place of ghosts. The living cowered behind locked doors and barred windows, praying their gods would keep them safe from the terrors without and the cholera within.
The occasional cry of a cholera victim made Smeds think more of haunts bedamned than of the living in pain.
76
Exile wouldn’t say where the spike was hid. He didn’t act like he wanted to pull something, just like he wanted to be in on the whole thing. Like he wanted a look at the cause for all the fuss. Can’t say I blame him. I saw it back when it was just a big nail. I wanted to see how it had changed.
He led us up toward Oar’s North Gate, got up on the wall, and started marching back and forth. We stuck tight. Outside, the friendly troops had begun a shift to the north. Exile took inspiration, told Brigadier Wildbrand to seal off the area inside the wall. We’d had enough trouble over that hunk of metal already. He asked for masons and heavy lifting equipment to be brought, too.
The damned spike was in the wall! No wonder nobody ever found it.
Wildbrand sent messages. Nightstalkers moved in. I was concerned. I would’ve been more concerned if the sky wasn’t filled with monsters.
It took two hours to assemble machinery and workmen, and another for them to get set up to start pulling the wall apart. Nobody could stay tense all that time.
Sometime during the wait Bomanz asked Exile, “What arrangements did you make to keep your fire fueled? Rendering the Limper was a good idea but you’ll have to pressure-cook him for days. The fire seems to be failing.”
Exile looked down south. Bomanz was right. Exile frowned, muttered, grumbled at Brigadier Wildbrand. Next time I looked some of my scabrous old buddies from the militia were running firewood to the pot. And not doing a very good job.
Once everything was set and the spike’s hiding place was sealed off inside the city and out, Exile asked Darling if she was ready to see it brought to light. She told him to get on with it.
There was a new kind of tension around, like everyone’s temper was short and we were all waiting for somebody to do something inexcusable so we could let off steam by kicking his butt.
Guys started banging away with sledges and wedges and pry bars and ten minutes later the first stone rose out of its setting.
The day got on into late afternoon before the workmen exposed the layer of mortar supposed to contain the spike. For a moment everyone forgot enmities and allegiances and crowded up to stare at the blackened half of the spike that lay exposed. Darling told Silent to go get it.
He borrowed a mason’s hammer, put on heavy leather gloves, took along a lined leather sack and somebody’s old shirt to wrap and pack it in. He wasn’t going to take any chances with the damned thing.
Darling readied a small wooden chest.
About the time Silent chopped the spike loose I glanced toward that giant pot. So I missed the beginning of the excitement around me but not its start at the pot, where the men feeding the fire suddenly scattered, like a school of minnows when a large hungry fish appears.
The top blew off the pot.
Something made of pieces of all the things that had gone into the pot, with way too many limbs and those in all the wrong places, crawled over the pot’s lip, fell into the fire.
Someone screamed behind me. I whirled.
One slight Nightstalker had knocked Brigadier Wildbrand off the back of the wall. Another had stuck a knife into Exile. The first was hurtling toward Bomanz.
Gossamer and Spidersilk!
Bomanz went over backward, flailing the air, and plunged headfirst into the snow that had drifted against the wall.
Only Darling retained any presence of mind. She let go the White Rose banner, yanked out her sword, gave Bomanz’s attacker a hearty chop, and followed him over the edge.
The one after Exile screeched.
That screech plain demolished everybody. We all just collapsed.
She jumped down and started hacking and slashing at Silent. She took the spike away, climbed back up, raised it overhead, and howled triumphantly.
Raven appeared out of nowhere, stuck her in the brisket, tried to knock the spike away, failed on his first try but got it his second. It tumbled down into the snow outside. Raven and whichever twin followed it a moment later, Raven grinding his knife into her belly while she screamed and tried to strangle him.
And outside the wall the thing from the pot humped and waddled and dragged itself toward us, oblivious to the resistance of the Plain creatures.
77
“Time to go,” Fish told Smeds.
They stepped out of hiding and strode toward the nearest breach like they were on a mission from the gods. Men wild-eyed with panic paid them no heed. They scrambled over rubble, dropped down outside, and started moving southward.
Smeds expected disaster every step. Not till they crossed the first low ridge and Oar disappeared did he begin to feel at all positive. “We did it! Goddamn! We really got out!”
“It could still go to hell on us,” Fish cautioned. Then he grinned. “But I’ll tell you, the future looks brighter than it has for months.”
78
Impressions swirled as Raven toppled from the wall with the screaming sorceress: ground turning and rushing upward, a windwhale making its booming protest as its attempt to grab the thing from the pot was rebuffed.
Impact! He felt his blade reach her spine, going between vertebrae. He felt his right leg twist beneath her and snap. They screamed at one another as their faces smashed together.
He got the better of it. He retained consciousness and even a fragment of will. He dragged himself away, a few feet, started trying to guess the damage to his leg. Didn’t feel like a compound fracture. Hurt bad enough, though.
Bodies lay all around him. Only Bomanz seemed to be breathing.
Packing snow around the leg helped numb it a little.
People were yelling above. He saw Case jumping around, waving, pointing. He looked.
The thing from the pot was coming. It wasn’t a hundred yards away. And nothing seemed able to stop it. Mantas pounded it with their lightnings. It didn’t pay them any attention. It had only one thought: the silver spike.
Case was trying to get him to get the spike and get it up top before the thing got hold of it.
Bomanz rolled over, got to his hands and knees, shook his head, looked around dumbly, spotted the thing, turned almost as pale as the snow. He croaked, “I’ll try to hold it off. Find the spike. Get it up to Darling.”
He staggered to his feet, tottered toward the thing.
Raven supposed it really could not be called the Limper anymore, though the Taken’s insanity, ambition, and rage drove it.
He looked for some sign of the spike. The pain in his leg was the worst he had felt since Croaker had got him with the Lady’s arrow.
79
Raven finally seemed to get it through his skull what we wanted. I’d already volunteered to go down. Darling wouldn’t let me. Now I signed, “Looks like his leg is broke.”
She nodded.
Bomanz hit the thing from the pot with a grandpa power spell. It stopped the thing in its tracks. It went down on its belly, lay there glowing biliously, making a nasty whining noise.
A couple of Nightstalkers brought Brigadier Wildbrand back up. She had a busted arm and some busted ribs and looked like death on a stick, but she was ready to fight. I told her, “I think you’re the top imperial left.”
She looked at the mess, said, “Yes,” but seemed fresh out of ideas.
A talking stone dropped out of the sky, hit the rampart. It was my old buddy with the scar. He wanted orders from the White Rose. The White Rose didn’t have any orders.
Raven scrabbled around in the snow. The thing from the pot started moving again. Centaurs raced around it, throwing javelins. Bomanz’s spell had softened its protection. Most of the javelins got through. The thing looked like a porcupine. But it didn’t seem to notice or care about the missiles.
Talk about your single-minded obsessions!
Bomanz popped it again.
Stopped it in its tracks again, too. It smoldered. The javelins burned. But it was not out of the game, it was just stalled. Bomanz looked up, shrugged. What more could he do?
Raven kept digging in the snow, dragging his broken leg. He didn’t bother looking around to see what was gaining on him. He’d find it in time or he wouldn’t.
I told Wildbrand, “Long as we’re standing around not doing anything, why don’t we get some ropes down there so we can hoist my buddies up?” Silent was on his feet now but looked like he was only maybe ten percent in this world. In fact, he looked like a lunatic, foaming at the mouth.
Wildbrand looked at me like I had brain fever if I thought she was going to lift a finger to save any Rebel. I reminded her, “We got a whole gang of hungry windwhales up there.” Scar flashed away to cue the nearest. It started dropping. Scar reappeared, chuckling.
Wildbrand gave me a classic dirty look, put some of her boys to work on one of the cranes that had been used to pull the wall apart.
I yelled at Silent, “Get ready to come up!” He ignored me. He was getting ready to give the Limper thing some kind of surprise.
Old man Bomanz yelled, cut loose with his best shot, and tried to dive out of the way all at the same time. None of it did him any good.
The thing smashed into him, flowed over him. He screamed once, more in outrage than pain or terror, then tried to fight.
Silent looked up at Darling, smiling through tears. He sort of bowed with just his head … and jumped.
Goddamned madman!
He hit the thing’s back. Flesh splashed like water and burned like naphtha, though the flame was green. The thing started rolling over and over and over, leaving pieces of itself behind.
Raven kept on looking for the spike.
Darling started hammering stone with her fist, shedding silent tears. I was afraid she’d break something she was so violent.… She stopped, whirled, signed, “Have the windwhale take it now. It will never be weaker.”
I didn’t have to tell Scar. He read sign. He flashed away. By the time he got back the windwhale was pulling the thing apart again.
I asked Wildbrand, “You think you can keep the pot boiling this time, if we put the pieces back in?”
She got a face like a fishwife looking for a fight. “You do your part, I’ll take care of mine. How do you plan to get the lid back on?”
That was easy. “Scar, have one of the big guys put the top back on the pot. Maybe carry a few hundred tons of firewood, too.”
Wildbrand gave me the look, checked her temper, said “Maybe you aren’t stupid,” and had her men help her down to the street.
Down south, where the breaches were, there was mass confusion. People were heading out, a flood the grays could not stem if they were bothering to try.
The thing tumbled into the pot. The lid went on with a big, final clang.
* * *
Raven screamed.
He had found the silver spike. Or it had found him.
By the time I looked at her Darling was hammering the wall again, both fists bloody.
He had gotten hold of the thing with his naked hand.
He got to his feet. On a broken leg! He held the spike up toward us. I yelled.
He looked at me. I did not know him. A terrible change had come over him. He laughed horribly. “It’s mine!”
His eyes were the Dominator’s eyes. Eyes of insanity and power, that I had seen in the Barrowland the day the Lady had brought her husband down. They were the eyes of the Limper, ready to be entertained by the agony of a world that had given him nothing but pain. They were the eyes of everyone who ever nursed a grudge and suddenly found it within their power to do whatever they wanted, without fear of reprisal.
“Mine!” He laughed.
I looked at Darling, as sour with despair as ever I’d been.
She turned off the water, started signing. She was as pale as a sheet of paper. I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”
“We have to.” Tears streaked her face. She didn’t want to do it, either. But it had to be done or the hell we’d put ourselves through would have been time and pain utterly wasted.
Raven had studied sorcery long ago. Just enough to blot his soul, a taint the spike could rip into and use as a channel for its evil.
“Do it!” she signed.
Damn her! He was my best friend. Damn that rock Scar. He could have given the order anytime, but he waited and made us do it so we couldn’t lay off the blame on his precious tree god.
“Kill him,” I said. “Before it possesses him completely.”
Near as I could tell Scar didn’t do a damned thing.
But down there a centaur’s arm shot forward. A javelin flashed. The shaft smashed in through one of Raven’s temples and out the other.
This time he would not be back from the dead. This time he wasn’t faking.
I sat down and turned inside myself, wondering if I hadn’t dragged my feet so much while we were headed south would we have caught up with Croaker and so maybe never have gotten into this spot. This monster was going to be riding my shoulders for the rest of my life.
Darling did her own version of going into a pout.
Only Torque kept his mind on the job. He got the wooden chest from Darling, shinnied down the crane rope, got the spike away from Raven. He climbed back up, set the box down by Darling, came over to me and said, “Tell her I’m out of it, Case. Tell her I just couldn’t take it no more.” He walked away, maybe going looking for the brother who had left with Raven and hadn’t come back.
I didn’t much blame him for going.
80
Smeds laid the last stone on the old man’s cairn. The tears were gone. The anger
was quiet. It was not right that Fish should have fallen to cholera after taking the worst that could be thrown by the world’s nastiest villains. But there was no justice in this existence.
If there was, Timmy Locan would be here, not Smeds Stahl.
Smeds went on, into the city Roses. A year later he was a respected member of the community, owner of a struggling brewery. He lived well but without ostentation that would excite unwanted curiosity. He never told his story to a soul.
Epilogue
No matter how many times I walked around it, the hole into the tree god’s “abyss” still looked like a piece of black silk suspended a yard above the ground. It refused to have more than two dimensions.
Darling brought the little chest containing the silver spike, threw it through. It took both of us to do the coffin that contained all that had been left in the big pot when, after a week of cooking, it had been allowed to boil dry. The black circle vanished as though a stage magician had sucked the cloth up his sleeve.
We went and got clean for what seemed like the first time in years, then Darling showed me around the rabbit warren that had been home for the Black Company and Rebel movement for so many years. Fascinating. And repellent. That people should put themselves through such hell … I wished them better times than mine, wherever they were.
Somehow we ended up doing what men and women seem unable to avoid. Afterward, she dressed in the clothing of a peasant woman, without a hint of mail or a single hidden blade.
“What goes?” I asked.
She signed, “The White Rose is dead. There is no place for her anymore. No need.”
I didn’t argue. I never was on that side.
For want of anything better to do we got Old Father Tree to give us a ride to where we could check out the progress of the potato industry.
It hadn’t changed a whole lot, except the people I knew had got older.
The grandkids wouldn’t believe a word of our stories but they’d fight anybody who didn’t agree that we told the most exciting lies in the world.