They never tell me anything. But I should complain? Secrecy is
our armor. Need to know. All that crap. In our outfit it is the
iron rule of survival.
Our escort was not along just to help us break out of the Plain
of Fear. They had their own mission. What I had not been told was
that Whisper’s headquarters was to be attacked.
Whisper had no warning. Our companion windwhales dropped away
slowly as the edge of the Plain approached. Their mantas dropped
with them. They caught favorable winds and pulled ahead. We climbed
higher, into the pure shivers and gasp for breaths.
The mantas struck first. In twos and threes they crossed the
town at treelop level, loosing their bolts into Whisper’s
quarters. Rock and timbers flew like the dust around slamping
hooves. Fires broke out.
The monsters of the upper air rolled in behind as soldiers and
civilians hit the streets. They unleashed bolts of their own. But
the real horror was their tentacles.
The windwhales gorged upon men and animals. They ripped houses
and fortifications apart. They yanked trees out by their roots. And
they pounded away at Whisper with their bolts.
The mantas, meantime, rose a thousand feet and plunged again, in
their pairs and threes, this time to strike at Whisper as she
responded.
Her response, though it did set a broad patch of one
windwhale’s flank gruesomely aglow, pinpointed her for the
mantas. They slapped her around good, though she did bring one
down.
We passed over, the flash and fires illuminating our
monster’s belly. If anyone in the crucible spotted us, I
doubt they guessed we were going on. Goblin and One-Eye detected no
interest in anything but survival.
It continued as we lost sight of the town. Goblin said they had
Whisper on the run, too busy saving her own ass to help her
men.
“Glad they never pulled any of this crap on us,” I
said.
“It’s a one-shot,” Goblin countered.
“Next time they’ll be ready.”
“I’d have thought they’d be now, because of
Rust.”
“Maybe Whisper has an ego problem.”
No maybe about it. I had dealt with her. It was her weak spot.
She would have made no preparations because she believed we feared
her too much. She was, after all, the most brilliant of the
Taken.
Our mighty steed ploughed the night, back brushing the stars,
body gurgling, chugging, humming. I began to feel optimistic.
At dawn we dropped into a canyon in the Windy Country, another
big desert. Unlike the Plain, though, it is normal. A big emptiness
where the wind blows all the time. We ate and slept. When night
fell we resumed our journey.
We left the desert south of Lords, turned north over the Forest
of Cloud, avoiding settlements. Beyond the Forest of Cloud, though,
the windwhale descended. And we were on our own.
I wish we could have gone the whole way airborne. But that was
as far as Darling and the windwhales were willing to risk. Beyond
lay heavily inhabited country. We could not hope to come down and
pass the daylight hours unseen. So from there on we would travel
the old-fashioned way.
The free city of Roses was about fifteen miles away.
Roses has been free throughout history, a republican plutocracy.
Even the Lady did not see fit to buck tradition. One huge battle
took place nearby, during the northern campaigns, but the site was
of Rebel choosing, not ours. We lost. For several months Roses lost
its independence. Then the Lady’s victory at Charm ended
Rebel dominion. All in all, though unaligned, Roses is a friend of
the Lady.
Crafty bitch.
We hiked. Our journey was an all-day affair. Neither I nor
Goblin nor One-Eye were in good shape. Too much loafing. Getting
too old.
“This isn’t smart,” I said as we approached a
gate in Roses’ pale red walls, toward sunset.
“We’ve all been here before. You two should be
well-remembered, what with having robbed half the
citizens.”
“Robbed?” One-Eye protested. “Who
robbed? . . . ”
“Both of you clowns. Selling those damned
guaranteed-to-work amulets when we were after Raker.”
Raker was a one-time Rebel general. He had beaten the crap out
of the Limper farther north; then the Company, with a little help
from Soulcatcher, had sucked him into a trap in Roses. Both Goblin
and One-Eye had preyed on the populace. One-Eye was an old hand at
that. Back when we were in the south, beyond the Sea of Torments,
he had been involved in every shady scheme he could find. Most of
his ill-gotten gains he soon lost at cards. He is the world’s
worst cardplayer.
You’d think by one-fifty he would learn to count them.
The plan was for us to lay up at some sleazy no-questions-asked
inn. Tracker and I would go out next day and buy a wagon and team.
Then we would head out the way we had come, pick up what gear we
had been unable to carry, and circle the city by heading north.
That was the plan. Goblin and One-Eye did not stick to it.
Rule Number One for a soldier: Stick to the mission. The mission
is paramount.
For Goblin and One-Eye all rules are made to be broken. When
Tracker and I returned, with Toadkiller Dog loafing along behind,
it was late afternoon. We parked. Tracker stood by while I went
upstairs.
No Goblin. No One-Eye.
The proprietor told me they had left soon after I had,
chattering about finding some women.
My fault. I was in charge. I should have foreseen it. It had
been a long, long, long time. I paid for another two nights, just
in case. Then I turned animals and wagon over to the
hostler’s boy, had supper with a silent Tracker, and
retreated to our room with several quarts of beer. We shared it,
Tracker, me, and Toadkiller Dog.
“You going looking for them?” Tracker asked.
“No. If they haven’t come back in two days or pulled
the roof in on us, we’ll go ahead without them. I don’t
want to be seen around them. There’ll be people here who
remember them.”
We got pleasantly buzzed. Toadkiller Dog seemed capable of
drinking people under the table. Loved his beer, that dog. Actually
got up and moved around when he didn’t have to.
Next morning, no Goblin. No One-Eye. But plenty of rumors. We
entered the common room late, after the morning crowd and before
the noontime rush. The hostler had no other ears to bend.
“You guys hear about the ruckus over in the east end last
night?”
I groaned before he got to the meat of it. I knew.
“Yeah. Regular wahoo war party. Fires. Sorcery. Lynch mob.
Excitement like this old town hain’t seen since that time
they were after that General What’s-it the Lady
wanted.”
After he went to pester another customer, I told Tracker,
“We’d better get out now.”
“What about Goblin and One-Eye?”
“They can take care of themselves. If they got themselves
lynched, tough. I’m not going poking around and getting
myself a stretched neck, too. If they got away, they know the
plan. They can catch up.”
“I thought the Black Company didn’t leave its dead
behind.”
“We don’t.” I said it, but maintained my
determination to let the wizards stew in what juice they had
concocted. I did not doubt that they had survived. They had been in
trouble before, a thousand times. A good hike might have a salutary
effect on their feel for mission discipline.
Meal finished, I informed the proprietor that Tracker and I were
departing, but that our companions would keep the room. Then I led
a protesting Tracker to the wagon, put him aboard, and when the boy
had the hitch ready, headed for the western gate.
It was the long way, through tortuous streets, over a dozen
arched bridges spanning canals, but it led away from
yesterday’s silliness. As we went I told Tracker how we had
tricked Raker into a noose. He appreciated it.
“That was the Company’s trademark,” I
concluded. “Get the enemy to do something stupid. We were the
best when it came to fighting, but we only fought when nothing else
worked.”
“But you were paid to fight.” Things were
black-and-white to Tracker. Sometimes I thought he had spent too
much time in the woods.
“We were paid for results. If we could do the job without
fighting, all the better. What you do is, you study your enemy.
Find a weakness, then work on it. Darling is good at that. Though
working on the Taken is easier than you would think. They’re
all vulnerable through their egos.”
“What about the Lady?”
“I couldn’t say. She doesn’t seem to have a
handle. A touch of vanity, but I don’t see how to get hold of
it. Maybe through her drive to dominate. By getting her to
overextend herself. I don’t know. She’s cautious. And
smart. Like when she sucked the Rebel in at Charm. Killed three
birds with one stone. Not only did she eliminate the Rebel; she
exposed the unreliable among the Taken and squashed the
Dominator’s attempt to use them to get free.”
“What about him?”
“He isn’t a problem. He’s probably more
vulnerable than the Lady, though. He don’t seem to think.
He’s like a bull. So damned strong that’s all he needs.
Oh, a little guile, like at Juniper, but mostly just the
hammer-strokes type.”
Tracker nodded thoughtfully. “Could be something to what
you say.”
They never tell me anything. But I should complain? Secrecy is
our armor. Need to know. All that crap. In our outfit it is the
iron rule of survival.
Our escort was not along just to help us break out of the Plain
of Fear. They had their own mission. What I had not been told was
that Whisper’s headquarters was to be attacked.
Whisper had no warning. Our companion windwhales dropped away
slowly as the edge of the Plain approached. Their mantas dropped
with them. They caught favorable winds and pulled ahead. We climbed
higher, into the pure shivers and gasp for breaths.
The mantas struck first. In twos and threes they crossed the
town at treelop level, loosing their bolts into Whisper’s
quarters. Rock and timbers flew like the dust around slamping
hooves. Fires broke out.
The monsters of the upper air rolled in behind as soldiers and
civilians hit the streets. They unleashed bolts of their own. But
the real horror was their tentacles.
The windwhales gorged upon men and animals. They ripped houses
and fortifications apart. They yanked trees out by their roots. And
they pounded away at Whisper with their bolts.
The mantas, meantime, rose a thousand feet and plunged again, in
their pairs and threes, this time to strike at Whisper as she
responded.
Her response, though it did set a broad patch of one
windwhale’s flank gruesomely aglow, pinpointed her for the
mantas. They slapped her around good, though she did bring one
down.
We passed over, the flash and fires illuminating our
monster’s belly. If anyone in the crucible spotted us, I
doubt they guessed we were going on. Goblin and One-Eye detected no
interest in anything but survival.
It continued as we lost sight of the town. Goblin said they had
Whisper on the run, too busy saving her own ass to help her
men.
“Glad they never pulled any of this crap on us,” I
said.
“It’s a one-shot,” Goblin countered.
“Next time they’ll be ready.”
“I’d have thought they’d be now, because of
Rust.”
“Maybe Whisper has an ego problem.”
No maybe about it. I had dealt with her. It was her weak spot.
She would have made no preparations because she believed we feared
her too much. She was, after all, the most brilliant of the
Taken.
Our mighty steed ploughed the night, back brushing the stars,
body gurgling, chugging, humming. I began to feel optimistic.
At dawn we dropped into a canyon in the Windy Country, another
big desert. Unlike the Plain, though, it is normal. A big emptiness
where the wind blows all the time. We ate and slept. When night
fell we resumed our journey.
We left the desert south of Lords, turned north over the Forest
of Cloud, avoiding settlements. Beyond the Forest of Cloud, though,
the windwhale descended. And we were on our own.
I wish we could have gone the whole way airborne. But that was
as far as Darling and the windwhales were willing to risk. Beyond
lay heavily inhabited country. We could not hope to come down and
pass the daylight hours unseen. So from there on we would travel
the old-fashioned way.
The free city of Roses was about fifteen miles away.
Roses has been free throughout history, a republican plutocracy.
Even the Lady did not see fit to buck tradition. One huge battle
took place nearby, during the northern campaigns, but the site was
of Rebel choosing, not ours. We lost. For several months Roses lost
its independence. Then the Lady’s victory at Charm ended
Rebel dominion. All in all, though unaligned, Roses is a friend of
the Lady.
Crafty bitch.
We hiked. Our journey was an all-day affair. Neither I nor
Goblin nor One-Eye were in good shape. Too much loafing. Getting
too old.
“This isn’t smart,” I said as we approached a
gate in Roses’ pale red walls, toward sunset.
“We’ve all been here before. You two should be
well-remembered, what with having robbed half the
citizens.”
“Robbed?” One-Eye protested. “Who
robbed? . . . ”
“Both of you clowns. Selling those damned
guaranteed-to-work amulets when we were after Raker.”
Raker was a one-time Rebel general. He had beaten the crap out
of the Limper farther north; then the Company, with a little help
from Soulcatcher, had sucked him into a trap in Roses. Both Goblin
and One-Eye had preyed on the populace. One-Eye was an old hand at
that. Back when we were in the south, beyond the Sea of Torments,
he had been involved in every shady scheme he could find. Most of
his ill-gotten gains he soon lost at cards. He is the world’s
worst cardplayer.
You’d think by one-fifty he would learn to count them.
The plan was for us to lay up at some sleazy no-questions-asked
inn. Tracker and I would go out next day and buy a wagon and team.
Then we would head out the way we had come, pick up what gear we
had been unable to carry, and circle the city by heading north.
That was the plan. Goblin and One-Eye did not stick to it.
Rule Number One for a soldier: Stick to the mission. The mission
is paramount.
For Goblin and One-Eye all rules are made to be broken. When
Tracker and I returned, with Toadkiller Dog loafing along behind,
it was late afternoon. We parked. Tracker stood by while I went
upstairs.
No Goblin. No One-Eye.
The proprietor told me they had left soon after I had,
chattering about finding some women.
My fault. I was in charge. I should have foreseen it. It had
been a long, long, long time. I paid for another two nights, just
in case. Then I turned animals and wagon over to the
hostler’s boy, had supper with a silent Tracker, and
retreated to our room with several quarts of beer. We shared it,
Tracker, me, and Toadkiller Dog.
“You going looking for them?” Tracker asked.
“No. If they haven’t come back in two days or pulled
the roof in on us, we’ll go ahead without them. I don’t
want to be seen around them. There’ll be people here who
remember them.”
We got pleasantly buzzed. Toadkiller Dog seemed capable of
drinking people under the table. Loved his beer, that dog. Actually
got up and moved around when he didn’t have to.
Next morning, no Goblin. No One-Eye. But plenty of rumors. We
entered the common room late, after the morning crowd and before
the noontime rush. The hostler had no other ears to bend.
“You guys hear about the ruckus over in the east end last
night?”
I groaned before he got to the meat of it. I knew.
“Yeah. Regular wahoo war party. Fires. Sorcery. Lynch mob.
Excitement like this old town hain’t seen since that time
they were after that General What’s-it the Lady
wanted.”
After he went to pester another customer, I told Tracker,
“We’d better get out now.”
“What about Goblin and One-Eye?”
“They can take care of themselves. If they got themselves
lynched, tough. I’m not going poking around and getting
myself a stretched neck, too. If they got away, they know the
plan. They can catch up.”
“I thought the Black Company didn’t leave its dead
behind.”
“We don’t.” I said it, but maintained my
determination to let the wizards stew in what juice they had
concocted. I did not doubt that they had survived. They had been in
trouble before, a thousand times. A good hike might have a salutary
effect on their feel for mission discipline.
Meal finished, I informed the proprietor that Tracker and I were
departing, but that our companions would keep the room. Then I led
a protesting Tracker to the wagon, put him aboard, and when the boy
had the hitch ready, headed for the western gate.
It was the long way, through tortuous streets, over a dozen
arched bridges spanning canals, but it led away from
yesterday’s silliness. As we went I told Tracker how we had
tricked Raker into a noose. He appreciated it.
“That was the Company’s trademark,” I
concluded. “Get the enemy to do something stupid. We were the
best when it came to fighting, but we only fought when nothing else
worked.”
“But you were paid to fight.” Things were
black-and-white to Tracker. Sometimes I thought he had spent too
much time in the woods.
“We were paid for results. If we could do the job without
fighting, all the better. What you do is, you study your enemy.
Find a weakness, then work on it. Darling is good at that. Though
working on the Taken is easier than you would think. They’re
all vulnerable through their egos.”
“What about the Lady?”
“I couldn’t say. She doesn’t seem to have a
handle. A touch of vanity, but I don’t see how to get hold of
it. Maybe through her drive to dominate. By getting her to
overextend herself. I don’t know. She’s cautious. And
smart. Like when she sucked the Rebel in at Charm. Killed three
birds with one stone. Not only did she eliminate the Rebel; she
exposed the unreliable among the Taken and squashed the
Dominator’s attempt to use them to get free.”
“What about him?”
“He isn’t a problem. He’s probably more
vulnerable than the Lady, though. He don’t seem to think.
He’s like a bull. So damned strong that’s all he needs.
Oh, a little guile, like at Juniper, but mostly just the
hammer-strokes type.”
Tracker nodded thoughtfully. “Could be something to what
you say.”