"Cook, Glen - The Black Company 03 - The White Rose" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

Since our escape from Juniper they have been little more than a personal journal. The remnant of the Company generates little excitement. What outside news we get is so slim and unreliable I seldom bother recording it. Moreover, since her victory over her husband in Juniper, the Lady seems to be in stasis even more than we, running on inertia.

Appearances deceive, of course. And the Lady's essence is illusion.

"Croaker."

I looked up from a page of Old TelleKurre already studied a hundred times. Goblin stood in the doorway. He looked like an old toad. "Yeah?"

"Something happening up top. Grab a sword."

I grabbed my bow and a leather cuirass. I am too ancient for hand-to-hand. I'd rather stand off and plink if I have to fight at all. I considered the bow as I followed Goblin. It had been given me by the Lady herself, during the battle at Charm. Oh, the memories. With it I helped slay Soulcatcher, the Taken who brought the Company into the Lady's service. Those days now seemed almost prehistoric.

We galloped into sunlight. Others came out with us, dispersed amidst cactus and coral. The rider coming down the trail-the only path in here-would not see us.

He rode alone, on a moth-eaten mule. He was not armed. "All this for an old man on a mule?" I asked. Men scooted through coral and between cacti, making one hell of a racket. The old-timer had to know we were there. "We'd better work on getting out here more quietly."

"Yeah."

Startled, I whirled. Elmo was behind me, one hand shading his eyes. He looked as old and tired as I felt. Each day something reminds me that none of us are young anymore. Hell, none of us were young when we came north, over the Sea of Torments. "We need new blood, Elmo." He sneered.

Yes. We will be a lot older before this is done. If we last. For we are buying time. Decades, hopefully. The rider crossed the creek, stopped. He raised his hands.

Men materialized, weapons held negligently. One old man alone, at the heart of Darling's null, presented no danger.

Elmo, Goblin, and I strolled down. As we went I asked Goblin, "You and One-Eye have fun while you were gone?" They have been feuding for ages. But here, where Darling's presence forbids it, they cannot play sorcerous tricks.

Goblin grinned. When he grins, his mouth spreads from ear to ear. "I loosened him up."

We reached the rider. "Tell me later." Goblin giggled, a squeaking noise like water bubbling in a teakettle. "Yeah."

"Who are you?" Elmo asked the mule rider. "Tokens."

That was not a name. It was a password for a courier from the far west. We had not heard it for a long time. Western messengers had to reach the Plain through the Lady's most tamed provinces.

"Yeah?" Elmo said. "How about that? Want to step down?" The old man eased off his mount, presented his bonafides. Elmo found them acceptable. Then he announced, "I've got twenty pounds of stuff here." He tapped a case behind his saddle. "Every damn town added to the load." "Make the whole trip yourself?" I asked. "Every foot from Oar." "Oar? That'sЕ"

More than a thousand miles. I hadn't known we had anyone up there. But there, is a lot I do not know about the organization Darling has assembled. I spend my time trying to get those damned papers to tell me something that may not be there.

The old man looked at me as though subjecting my soul to an accounting. "You the physician? Croaker?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Got something for you. Personal." He opened his courier case. For a moment everyone was alert. You never know. But he brought out an oilskin packet wrapped to protect something against the end of the world. '"Rains all the time up there," he explained. He gave me the packet.

I weighed it. Not that heavy, oilskin aside. "Who's it from?"

The old man shrugged. "Where'd you get it?" "From my cell captain."

Of course. Darling has built with care, structuring her organization so that it is almost impossible for the Lady to break more than a fraction. The child is a genius.