This time Goblin did not reciprocate. He ignored One-Eye. The little black man got his feelings hurt. He got louder. We expected fireworks. What we got is bored. One-Eye could not get a rise. He started sulking.
A bit later, Goblin told me, “Keep your eyes peeled, Croaker. We’re in strange country. Anything could happen.” He giggled.
A horsefly landed on the haunch of One-Eye’s mount. The animal screamed, reared. Sleepy One-Eye tumbled over its tail. Everybody guffawed. The wizened little wizard came up out of the dust cursing and swatting with his battered old hat. He punched his horse with his free hand, connecting with the beast’s forehead. Then he danced around moaning and blowing on his knuckles.
His reward was a shower of catcalls. Goblin smirked.
Soon One-Eye was dozing again. It’s a trick you learn after enough weary miles on horseback. A bird settled on his shoulder. He snorted, swatted... The bird left a huge, fetid purple deposit. One-Eye howled. He threw things. He shredded his jerkin getting it off.
Again we laughed. And Goblin looked as innocent as a virgin. One-Eye scowled and growled but did not catch on.
He got a glimmer when we crested a hill and beheld a band of monkey-sized pygmies busily kissing an idol reminiscent of a horse’s behind. Every pygmy was a miniature One-Eye.
The little wizard turned a hideous look on Goblin. Goblin responded with an innocent, don’t look at me shrug.
“Point to Goblin,” I judged.
“Better watch yourself, Croaker,” One-Eye growled. “Or you’ll be doing the kissing right here.” He patted his fanny.
“When pigs fly.” He is a more skilled wizard than Goblin or Silent, but not half what he would have us believe. If he could execute half his threats, he would be a peril to the Taken. Silent is more consistent, Goblin more inventive.
One-Eye would lie awake nights thinking of ways to get even for Goblin’s having gotten even. A strange pair. I do not know why they have not killed one another.
Finding the Limper was easier said than done. We trailed him into a forest, where we found abandoned earthworks and a lot of Rebel bodies. Our path tilted downward into a valley of broad meadows parted by a sparkling stream.
“What the hell?” I asked Goblin. “That’s strange.” Wide, low, black humps pimpled the meadows. There were bodies everywhere.
“That’s one reason the Taken are feared. Killing spells. Their heat sucked the ground up.”
I stopped to study a hump.
The blackness could have been drawn with a compass. The boundary was as sharp as a penstroke. Charred skeletons lay within the black. Swordblades and spearheads looked like wax imitations left too long in the sun. I caught One-Eye staring. “When you can do this trick you’ll scare me.”
“If I could do that I’d scare myself.”
I checked another circle. It was a twin of the first.
Raven reined in beside me. “The Limper’s work. I’ve seen it before.”
I sniffed the wind. Maybe I had him in the right mood. “When was that?”
He ignored me.
He would not come out of his shell. Would not say hello half the time, let alone talk about who or what he was.
He is a cold one. The horrors of that valley did not touch him.
“The Limper lost this one,” the Captain decided. “He’s on the run.”
“Do we keep after him?” the Lieutenant asked.
“This is strange country. We’re in more danger operating alone.”
We followed a spoor of violence, a swath of destruction. Ruined fields fell behind us. Burned villages. Slaughtered people and butchered livestock. Poisoned wells. The Limper left nothing but death and desolation.
Our brief was to help hold Forsberg. Joining the Limper was not mandatory. I wanted no part of him. I did not want to be in the same province.
As the devastation grew more recent, Raven showed elation, dismay, introspection easing into determination, and ever more of that rigid self-control he so often hid behind.
When I reflect on my companions’ inner natures I usually wish I controlled one small talent. I wish I could look inside them and unmask the darks and brights that move them. Then I take a quick look into the jungle of my own soul and thank heaven that I cannot. Any man who barely sustains an armistice with himself has no business poking around in an alien soul.
I decided to keep closer watch on our newest brother.
We did not need Doughbelly coming in from the point to tell us we were close. All the forward horizon sprouted tall, leaning trees of smoke. This part of Forsberg was flat and open and marvelously green, and against the turquoise sky those oily pillars were an abomination.
There was not much breeze. The afternoon promised to be scorching.
Doughbelly swung in beside the Lieutenant. Elmo and I stopped swapping tired old lies and listened. Doughbelly indicated a smoke spire. “Still some of the Limper’s men in that village, sir.”
“Talk to them?”
“No sir. Longhead didn’t think you’d want us to. He’s waiting outside town.”
“How many of them?”
“Twenty, twenty-five. Drunk and mean. The officer was worse than the men.”
The Lieutenant glanced over his shoulder. “Ah. Elmo. It’s your lucky day. Take ten men and go with Doughbelly. Scout around.”
“Shit,” Elmo muttered. He is a good man, but muggy spring days make him lazy. “Okay. Otto. Silent. Peewee. Whitey. Billygoat. Raven...”
I coughed discreetly.
“You’re out of your head, Croaker. All right.” He did a quick count on his fingers, called three more names. We formed outside the column. Elmo gave us the once-over to make sure we hadn’t forgotten our heads. “Let’s go.”
We hurried forward. Doughbelly directed us into a wood-lot overlooking the stricken town. Longhead and a man called Jolly waited there. Elmo asked, “Any developments?”
Jolly, who is professionally sarcastic, replied, “The fires are burning down.”
We looked at the village. I saw nothing that did not turn my stomach. Slaughtered livestock. Slaughtered cats and dogs. The small, broken forms of dead children.
“Not the kids too,” I said, without realizing I was speaking. “Not the babies again.”
Elmo looked at me oddly, not because he was unmoved himself but because I was uncharacteristically sympathetic. I have seen a lot of dead men. I did not enlighten him. For me there is a big difference between adults and’ kids. “Elmo, I have to go in there.”
“Don’t be stupid. Croaker. What can you do?”
“If I can save one kid...”
Raven said, “I’ll go with him.” A knife appeared in his hand. He must have learned that trick from a conjurer. He does it when he is nervous or angry.
“Think you can bluff twenty-five men?”
Raven shrugged. “Croaker is right, Elmo, It’s got to be done. Some things you don’t tolerate.”
Elmo surrendered. “We’ll all go. Pray they aren’t so drunk they can’t tell friend from foe.”
Raven started riding.
The village was good-sized. There had been more than two hundred homes before the Limper’s advent. Half were burned or burning. Bodies littered the streets. Flies clustered round their sightless eyes. “Nobody of military age,” I noted.
I dismounted and knelt beside a boy of four or five. His skull had been smashed, but he was breathing. Raven dropped beside me. “Nothing I can do,” I said.
“You can end his ordeal.” There were tears in Raven’s eyes. Tears and anger. “There’s no excuse for this.” He moved to a corpse lying in shadow.
This one was about seventeen. He wore the jacket of a Rebel Mainforcer. He had died fighting. Raven said, “He must have been on leave. One boy to protect them.” He pried a bow from lifeless fingers, bent it. “Good wood. A few thousand of these could rout the Limper.” He slung the bow and appropriated the boy’s arrows.
I examined another two children. They were beyond help
. Inside a burned hut I found a grandmother who had died trying to shield an infant. In vain.
Raven exuded disgust. “Creatures like the Limper create two enemies for every one they destroy.”
I became aware of muted weeping, and of cursing and laughter somewhere ahead. “Let’s see what that is.”
Beside the hut we found four dead soldiers. The lad had left his mark. “Good shooting,” Raven observed. “Poor fool.”
“Fool?”
“He should’ve had the sense to run. Might’ve gone easier on everyone.” His intensity startled me. What did he care about a boy from the other side? “Dead heroes don’t get a second chance.”
Aha! He was drawing a parallel with an event in his own mysterious past.
The cursing and weeping resolved into a scene fit to disgust anyone tainted with humanity.
There were a dozen soldiers in the circle, laughing at their own crude jokes. I remembered a bitch dog surrounded by males who, contrary to custom, were not fighting for mounting rights but were taking turns. They might have killed her had I not intervened.
Raven and I mounted up, the better to see.
The victim was a child of nine. Welts covered her. She was terrified, yet making no sound. In a moment I understood. She was a mute.
War is a cruel business prosecuted by cruel men. The gods know the Black Company are no cherubim. But there are limits.
They were making an old man watch. He was the source of both curses and weeping.
Raven put an arrow into a man about to assault the girl.
“Dammit!” Elmo yelled. “Raven!...”
The soldiers turned on us. Weapons appeared. Raven loosed another arrow. It dropped the trooper holding the old man. The Limper’s men lost any inclination to fight. Elmo whispered, “Whitey, go tell the old man to haul ass over here.”
One of the Limper’s men took a like notion. He scampered off. Raven let him run.
The Captain would have his behind on a platter.
He did not seem concerned. “Old timer. Come here. Bring the child. And get some clothes on her.”
Part of me could not help but applaud, but another part called Raven a fool.
Elmo did not have to tell us to watch our backs. We were painfully aware that we were in big trouble. Hurry, Whitey, I thought.
Their messenger reached their commander first. He came tottering up the street. Doughbelly was right. -He was worse than his men.
The old timer and girl clung to Raven’s stirrup. The old man scowled at our badges. Elmo nudged his mount forward, pointed at Raven. I nodded.
The drunken officer stopped in front of Elmo. Dull eyes assayed us. He seemed impressed. We have grown hard in a rough trade, and look it.
“You!” he squealed suddenly, exactly the way Whiny-voice had done in Opal. He stared at Raven. Then he spun, ran.
Raven thundered, “Stand still, Lane! Take it like a man, you gutless thief!” He snatched an arrow from his quiver.
Elmo cut his bowstring.
Lane stopped. His response was not gratitude. He cursed. He enumerated the horrors we could expect at the hand of his patron.
I watched Raven.
He stared at Elmo in cold fury. Elmo faced it without flinching. He was a hard guy himself.
Raven did his knife trick. I tapped his blade with my swordtip. He mouthed one soft curse, glared, relaxed. Elmo said, “You left your old life behind, remember?”
Raven nodded once, sharply. “It’s harder than I thought.” His shoulders sagged. “Run away, Lane. You’re not important enough to kill.”
A clatter rose behind us. The Captain was coming.
That little wart of the Limper’s puffed up and wriggled like a cat about to pounce. Elmo glared at him down the length of his sword. He got the hint.
Raven muttered, “I should know better anyway. He’s only a butt boy.”
I asked a leading question. It drew a blank stare.
The Captain rattled up. “What the hell is going on?”
Elmo began one of his terse reports. Raven interrupted. “Yon sot is one of Zouad’s jackals. I wanted to kill him. Elmo and Croaker stopped me.”
Zouad? Where had I heard that name? Connected with the Limper. Colonel Zouad. The Limper’s number one villain. Political liaison, among other euphemisms. His name had occurred in a few overheard conversations between Raven and the Captain. Zouad was Raven’s intended fifth victim? Then the Limper himself must have been behind Raven’s misfortunes.
Curiouser and curiouser. Also scarier and scarier. The Limper is not anybody to mess with.
The Limper’s man shouted, “I want this man arrested.” The Captain gave him a look. “He murdered two of my men.”
The bodies were there in plain sight. Raven said nothing. Elmo stepped out of character and volunteered, “They were raping the child. Their idea of pacification.”
The Captain stared at his opposite number. The man reddened. Even the blackest villain will feel shame if caught unable to justify himself. The Captain snapped, “Croaker?”
“We found one dead Rebel, Captain. Indications were this sort of thing started before he became a factor.”
He asked the sot, “These people are subjects of the Lady? Under her protection?” The point might be arguable in other courts, but at the moment it told. By his lack of a defense the man confessed a moral guilt.
“You disgust me.” The Captain used his soft, dangerous voice. “Get out of here. Don’t cross my path again. I’ll leave you to my friend’s mercy if you do.” The man stumbled away.
The Captain turned to Raven. “You mother-lorn fool. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Wearily, Raven replied, “Probably better than you do, Captain. But I’d do it again.”
“And you wonder why we dragged our feet taking you on?” He shifted subject. “What are you going to do with these people, noble rescuer?”
That question had not occurred to Raven. Whatever the upheaval in his life, it had left him living entirely in the present. He was compelled by the past and oblivious to the future. “They’re my responsibility, aren’t they?”
The Captain gave up trying to catch the Limper. Operating independently now seemed the lesser evil.
The repercussions began four days later.
We had just fought our first significant battle, having crushed a Rebel force twice our size. It had not been difficult. They were green, and our wizards helped. Not many escaped.
The battlefield was ours. The men were looting the dead. Elmo, myself, the Captain, and a few others were standing around feeling smug. One-Eye and Goblin were celebrating in their unique fashion, taunting one another through the mouths of corpses.
Goblin suddenly stiffened. His eyes rolled up. A whine slipped past his lips, rose in pitch. He crumpled.
One-Eye reached him a step ahead of me, began slapping his cheeks. His habitual hostility had vanished.
“Give me some room!” I growled.
Goblin wakened before I could do more than check his pulse. “Soulcatcher,” he murmured. “Making contact.”
At mat moment I was glad I did not own Goblin’s talents. Having one of the Taken inside my mind seemed a worse violation than rape. “Captain,” I called. “Soul-catcher.” I stayed close.
The Captain ran over. He never runs unless we are in action. “What is it?”
Goblin sighed. His eyes opened. “He’s gone now.” His skin and hair were soaked with sweat. He was pale. He started shaking.
“Gone?” the Captain demanded. “What the hell?”
We helped Goblin get comfortable. “The Limper went to the Lady instead of coming at us head on. There’s bad blood between him and Soulcatcher. He thinks we came out here to undermine him. He tried to turn the tables. But Soulcatcher is in high favor since Beryl, and the Limper isn’t because of his failures. The Lady told him to leave us alone. Soulcatcher didn’t get the Limper replaced, but he figures he won the round.”
Goblin
paused. One-Eye handed him a long drink. He drained it in an instant. “He says stay out of the Limper’s way. He might try to discredit us somehow, or even steer the Rebel toward us. He says we should recapture the fortress at Deal. That would embarrass the Rebel and the Limper both.”
Elmo muttered, “He wants flashy, why don’t he have us round up the Circle of Eighteen?” The Circle is the Rebel High Command, eighteen wizards who think that between them they have what it takes to challenge the Lady and the Taken. Raker, the Limper’s nemesis in Forsberg, belonged to the Circle.
The Captain looked thoughtful. He asked Raven, “You get the feeling there’s politics involved?”
“The Company is Soulcatcher’s tool. That’s common knowledge. The puzzle is what he plans to do with it.”
“I got that feeling in Opal.”
Politics. The Lady’s empire purports to be monolithic. The Ten Who Were Taken expend terrible energies keeping it that way. And spend as much more squabbling among themselves like toddlers fighting over toys, or competing for Mother’s affection.
“Is that it?” the Captain grumbled.
“That’s it. He says he’ll keep in touch.”
So we went and did it. We captured the fortress at Deal, in the dead of night, within howling distance of Oar. They say both Raker and the Limper flew into insane rages. I figure Soulcatcher ate that up.
One-Eye flipped a card into the discard pile. He muttered, “Somebody’s sandbagging.”
Goblin snapped the card up, spread four knaves and discarded a queen. He grinned. You knew he was going down next time, holding nothing heavier than a deuce. One-Eye smacked the tabletop, hissed. He hadn’t won a hand since sitting down.
“Go low, guys,” Elmo warned, ignoring Goblin’s discard. He drew, scrunched his cards around just inches from his face, spread three fours and discarded a deuce. He tapped his remaining pair, grinned at Goblin, said, “That better be an ace, Chubby.”
Pickles snagged Elmo’s deuce, spread four of a kind, discarded a trey. He plied Goblin with an owl-like stare that dared him to go down. It said an ace would not keep him from getting burned.
I wished Raven were there. His presence made One-Eye too nervous to cheat. But Raven was on turnip patrol, which is what we called the weekly mission to Oar to purchase supplies. Pickles had his chair.
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