“Harden’s army is bigger than any we’ve yet faced up here. And it’s only one of the groups that are on the move. If Nightcrawler doesn’t reach Lords first, we’ll lose the city and kingdom. Which might give them the momentum to drive us out of the north entirely. Our forces at Wist, Jane, Wine, and so forth, aren’t up to a major campaign. The north has been a sideshow till now.”
“But... After all we’ve been through? We’re worse off than when we lost Roses? Damn! That isn’t fair.” I was tired of retreating.
“Not to worry, Croaker. If Lords goes, we’ll stop them at the Stair of Tear. We’ll hold them there while Whisper runs wild. They can’t ignore her forever. If the east collapses, the rebellion will die. The east is their strength.” He sounded like a man trying to convince himself. He had been through these oscillations before, during the last days of the Domination.
I buried my head in my hands, muttered, “I thought we had them whipped.” Why the hell had we left Beryl?
Soulcatcher prodded Raven with a toe. Raven did not stir. “Come on!” Catcher grumbled. “They need me at Lords. Nightcrawler and I may end up trying to hold the city by ourselves.”
“Why didn’t you just leave us if the situation is so critical?”
He hemmed and hawed and slid around it, and before he finished I suspected that this one Taken had a sense of honor, a sense of duty toward those who had accepted his protection. He would not admit it, though. Never. That would not fit the image of the Taken.
I thought about another journey through the sky. I thought hard. I am as lazy as the next guy, but I could not take that. Not now. Not feeling the way I did. “I’d fall off for sure. There’s no point you hanging around. We won’t be ready for days. Hell, we can walk out.” I thought about the forest. Walking did not appeal to me either. “Give us our badges back. So you can locate us again. Then you can pick us up if you get time.”
He grumbled. We batted it back and forth. I kept on about how shaky I was, about how shaky Raven would be.
He was anxious to get moving. He let me convince him. He unloaded his carpet-he had gone somewhere while I was unconscious-and climbed aboard. “I’ll see you in a few days.” His carpet rose far faster than it had done with Raven and I aboard. And then it was gone. I dragged myself to the things he had left behind.
“You bastard.” I chuckled. His protest had been a shuck. He had left food, our own weapons that we had left in Lords, and odds and ends we might need to survive. Not a bad boss, for one of the Taken. “Hey! Silent! Where the hell are you?”
Silent drifted into the clearing. He looked at me, at Raven, at the supplies, and did not say anything. Of course not. He is Silent.
He looked ragged around the edges. “Not enough sleep?” I asked. He nodded. “You see what happened here?” He nodded again. “I hope you remember it better than I do.” He shook his head. Damn. So it will go into the Annals unclear.
It is a weird way to hold a conversation, one man talking and the other head-shaking. Getting information across can be incredibly difficult. I should study the communicative gestures Raven has learned from Darling. Silent is her second best friend. It would be interesting just to eavesdrop on their conversations.
“Let’s see what we can do for Raven,” I suggested.
Raven was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. He did not come out of it for hours. I used the interim to interrogate Silent.
The Captain had sent him. He had come on horseback. He was, in fact, on his way before Raven and I were summoned for our interview with Soulcatcher. He had ridden hard, day and night. He had reached the clearing only a short while before I spotted him.
I asked how he had known where to go, granting that the Captain would have nursed enough information from Catcher to get him started-a move which fit the Captain’s style. Silent admitted he had not known where he was headed, except generally, till we had reached the area. Then he had tracked us through the amulet Goblin had given me.
Crafty little Goblin. He had not betrayed a hint. Good thing, too. The eye would have found the knowledge. “You think you could have done something if we’d really needed help?” I asked.
Silent smiled, shrugged, stalked over to the stone pile and seated himself. He was done with the question game. Of all the Company he is the least concerned about the image he will present in the Annals. He does not care-whether people like or hate him, does not care where he has been or where he is going. Sometimes I wonder if he cares whether he lives or dies, wonder what makes him stay. He must have some attachment to the Company.
Raven finally came around. We nursed him and fed him and, finally, bedraggled, we rounded up Whisper’s and the Limper’s horses and headed for Lords. We traveled without enthusiasm, knowing we were headed for another battlefield, another land of standing dead men.
