The Black Company

Chapter Four: WHISPER

The engagement gave us the most gain for least effort of any I can remember. It was pure serendipity that went one hundred percent our way. It was a disaster for the Rebel.

We were in flight from the Salient, where the Lady's defenses had collapsed almost overnight. Running with us were five or six hundred regulars who had lost their units. For speed's sake, the Captain had chosen to cut straight through the Forest of Cloud to Lords, instead of following the longer southern road around.

A Rebel mainforce battalion was a day or two behind us. We could have turned and whipped them, but the Captain wanted to give them the slip instead. I liked his thinking. The fighting around Roses had been grim. Thousands had fallen. With so many extra bodies attaching themselves to the Company, I had been losing men for lack of time to treat them.

Our orders were to report to Nightcrawler at Lords. Soulcatcher thought Lords would be the target of the next

Rebel thrust. Tired as we were, we expected to see more bitter fighting before winter slowed the war's pace.

"Croaker! Lookee here!" Whitey came charging toward where I sat with the Captain and Silent and one or two others. He had a naked woman draped over his shoulder. She might have been attractive had she not been so thoroughly abused.

"Not bad, Whitey. Not bad," I said, and went back to my journal. Behind Whitey the. whooping and screaming continued. The men were harvesting the fruits of victory.

"They're barbarians," the Captain observed without rancor.

"Got to let them cut loose sometimes," I reminded him. "Better here than with the people of Lords."

The Captain agreed reluctantly. He just does not have much stomach for plunder and rape, much as they are part of our business. I think he is a secret romantic, at least when females are involved.

I tried to soften his mood. "They asked for it, taking up arms."

Bleakly, he asked me, "How long has this been going on, Croaker? Seems like forever, doesn't it? Can you even remember a time when you weren't a soldier? What's the point? Why are we even here? We keep winning battles, but the Lady is losing the war. Why don't they just call the whole thing off and go home?"

He was partially right. Since Forsberg it has been one retreat after another, though we have done well. The Salient had been secure till Shapeshifter and the Limper got into the act.

Our latest retreat had brought us stumbling into this Rebel base camp. We presumed it was the main training, and staging center for the campaign against Nightcrawler. Luckily, we spotted the Rebel before he spotted us. We surrounded the place and roared in before dawn. We were badly outnumbered, but the Rebel did not put up much of a fight. Most were green volunteers. The startling aspect was the presence of an amazon regiment.

We had heard of them, of course. There were several in the east, around Rust, where the fighting is more bitter and sustained than here. This was our first encounter. It left the men disdainful of women warriors, despite their having fought better than their male compatriots.

Smoke began drifting our way. The men were firing the barracks and headquarters buildings. The Captain muttered, "Croaker, go make sure those fools don't fire the forest."

I rose, picked up my bag, ambled down into the din.

There were bodies everywhere. The fools must have felt completely safe. They hadn't put up a stockade or trenched around the encampment. Stupid. That is the first thing you do, even when you know there is no enemy within a hundred miles. You put a roof over your head later. Wet is better than dead.

I should be used to this. I have been with the Company a long time. And it does bother me less than it used to. I have hung armor plate over my moral soft spots. But I still try to avoid looking at the worst.

You who come after me, scribbling these Annals, by now realize that I shy off portraying the whole truth about our band of blackguards. You know they are vicious, violent, and ignorant. They are complete barbarians, living out their cruelest fantasies, their behavior tempered only by the presence of a few decent men. I do not often show that side because these men are my brethren, my family, and I was taught young not to speak ill of kin. The old lessons die hardest.

Raven laughs when he reads my accounts. "Sugar and spice," he calls them, and threatens to take the Annals away and write the stories the way he sees them happen.

Hardass Raven. Mocking me. And who was that out there roaming around the camp, breaking it up wherever the men were amusing themselves with a little torture? Who had a ten year old girl trailing him on an old jack mule? Not Croaker, brothers. Not Croaker. Croaker isn't no romantic. That is a passion reserved for the Captain and Raven.

Naturally, Raven has become the Captain's best friend. They sit around together like a couple of rocks, talking about the same things boulders do. They are content just to share one another's company.

Elmo was leading the arsonists. They were older Company men who had sated their less intense hungers for flesh. Those still mauling the ladies were mostly our young regular hangers-on.

They had given the Rebel a good fight at Roses, but he had been too strong. Half the Circle of Eighteen had ranged themselves against us there. We had had only the Limper and Shapeshifter on our side. Those two spent more time trying to sabotage one another than trying to repel the Circle. Result, a debacle. The Lady's most humiliating defeat in a decade.

The Circle pulls together most of the time. They do not spend more energy abusing one another than they spend on their enemies.

"Hey! Croaker!" One-Eye called. "Join the fun." He tossed a burning brand through a barracks doorway. The building promptly exploded. Heavy oaken shutters blew off the windows. A gout of flame enveloped One-Eye. He came charging out, kinky hair smoldering below the band of his weird, floppy hat. I wrestled him down, used that hat to slap his hair. "All right. All right," he growled. "You don't have to enjoy yourself so damned much."

Unable to stifle a grin, I helped him up. "You all right?"

"Singed," he said, assuming that air of phony dignity cats adopt after some particularly inept performance. Something like, "That's what I meant to do all along."

The fire roared. Pieces of thatch soared and bobbed over the building. I observed, "The Captain sent me to make sure you clowns didn't start a forest fire." Just then Goblin ambled around the side of the flaming building. His broad mouth stretched in a smirk.

One-Eye took one look and shrieked. "You maggot brain! You set me up for that." He let out a spine-tingling howl and started dancing. The roar of the flames deepened, became rhythmic. Soon it seemed I could see something prancing among the flames behind the windows.

Goblin saw it too. His smirk vanished. He gulped, went white, began a little dance of his own. He and One-Eye howled and squawked and virtually ignored one another.

A watering trough disgorged its contents, which arced through the air and splashed the flames. The contents of a water barrel followed. The roar of the fire dwindled.

One-Eye pranced over and took a poke at Goblin, trying to break his concentration. Goblin weaved and bobbed and squeaked and kept on dancing. More water hit the fire.

"What a pair."

I turned. Elmo had come over to watch. "A pair indeed," I replied. Fussing, feuding, whining, they could be an allegory of their bigger brethren in the trade. Except their conflict does not run half to the bone, like that between Shifter and the Limper, When you slice through the fog, you find that these two are friends. There are no friends among the Taken.

"Got something to show you," Elmo said. He would not say anything more. I nodded and followed him.

Goblin and One-Eye kept at it. Goblin appeared to be ahead. I stopped worrying about the fire.

"You figured how to read these northern chicken tracks?" Elmo asked. He had led me into what must have been the headquarters for the whole camp. He indicated a mountain of papers his men had piled on the floor, evidently as tinder for another fire.

"I think I can puzzle it out."

"Thought you might find something in this stuff."

I selected a paper at random. It was a copy of an order directing a specific Rebel mainforce battalion to filter into Lords and disappear into the homes of local sympathizers till called to strike at Lords' defenders from within. It was signed Whisper. A list of contacts was appended.

"I'll say," I said, suddenly short of breath. That one order betrayed a half-dozen Rebel secrets, and implied several more. "I'll say." I grabbed another. Like the first, it was a directive to a specific unit. Like the first, it was a window into the heart of current Rebel strategy. "Get the Captain," I told Elmo. "Get Goblin and One-Eye and the Lieutenant and anybody else who maybe ought to be... ."

I must have looked weird. Elmo wore a strange, nervous expression when he interrupted. "What the hell is it, Croaker?"

"All the orders and plans for the campaign against Lords. The complete order of battle." But that was not the bottom line. That I was going to save for the Captain himself. "And hurry. Minutes might be critical. And stop them from burning anything like this. For Hell's sake, stop them. We've hit paydirt. Don't send it up in smoke."

Elmo slammed through the door. I heard his bellows fade into the distance. A good sergeant, Elmo. He does not waste time asking questions. Grunting, I settled myself on the floor and began scanning documents.

The door creaked. I did not look up. I was in a fever, glancing at documents as fast as I could yank them off the pile, sorting them into smaller stacks. Muddy boots appeared at the edge of my vision. "Can you read these, Raven?" I had recognized his step.

"Can I? Yes."

"Help me see what we've got here."

Raven settled himself opposite me. The pile lay between us, nearly blocking our view of one another. Darling positioned herself behind him, out of his way but well within the shadow of his protection. Her quiet, dull eyes still reflected the horror of that far village.

In some ways Raven is a paradigm for the Company. The difference between him and the rest of us is that he is a little more of everything, a little bigger than life. Maybe, by being the newcomer, the only brother from the north, he is symbolic of our life in the Lady's service. His moral agonies have become our moral agonies. His silent refusal to howl and beat his breast in adversity is ours as well. We prefer to speak with the metallic voice of our arms.

Enough. Why venture into the meaning of it all? Elmo had struck paydirt. Raven and I went sifting for nuggets.

Goblin and One-Eye drifted in. Neither could read the northern script. They started to amuse themselves by sending sourceless shadows chasing one another around the walls. Raven gave them a nasty look. Their ceaseless clowning and bickering can be tiresome when you have something on your mind.

They looked at him, dropped the game, sat down quietly, almost like children admonished. Raven has that knack, that energy, that impact of personality, to make men, more dangerous than he, shudder in his cold dark wind.

The Captain arrived, accompanied by Elmo and Silent. Through the doorway I glimpsed several men hanging around. Funny the way they smell things shaping up.

"What have you got, Croaker?" the Captain asked.

I figured he had milked Elmo dry, so I got straight to the kicker. "These orders." I tapped one of my stacks.

"All these reports." I tapped another. "They're all signed by Whisper. We're kicking up the veggies in Whisper's private garden." My voice was up in the high squeak range.

For a while nobody said anything. Goblin made a few squeaky noises when Candy and the other sergeants rushed in. Finally, the Captain asked Raven, "That right?"

Raven nodded. "Judging by the documents, she's been in and out since early spring."

The Captain folded his hands, began pacing. He looked like a tired old monk on his way to evening prayer.

Whisper is the best known of the Rebel generals. Her stubborn genius has held the eastern front together despite the best efforts of the Ten. She is also the most dangerous of the Circle of Eighteen. She is known for the thoroughness with which she plans campaigns. In a war which, too often, resembles armed chaos on both sides, her forces stand out for their tight organization, discipline, and clarity of purpose.

The Captain mused, "She's supposed to be commanding the Rebel army at Rust. Right?" The struggle for Rust was three years old. Rumor had hundreds of square miles laid waste. During the winter past both sides had been reduced to eating their own dead to survive.

I nodded. The question was rhetorical. He was thinking out loud.

"And Rust has been a killing ground for years. Whisper won't break. The Lady won't back off. But if Whisper is coming here, then the Circle has decided to let Rust fall."

I added, "It means they're shifting from an eastern to a northern strategy." The north remains the Lady's weak flank. The west is prostrate. The Lady's allies rule the sea to the south. The north has been ignored since the Empire's frontiers reached the great forests above Forsberg, It is in the north that the Rebel has managed his most spectacular successes.

The Lieutenant observed, "They have the momentum, with Forsberg taken, the Salient overrun, Roses gone, and Rye besieged. There are Rebel mainforcers headed for Wist and Jane. They'll be stopped, but the Circle must know that. So they're dancing on the other foot and coming at Lords. If Lords goes, they're almost to the edge of the Windy Country. Cross the Windy Country, climb the Stair of Tear, and they're looking down at Charm from a hundred miles away."

I continued scanning and sorting. "Elmo, you might look around and see if you can come up with anything else. She might have something tucked away."

"Use One-Eye, Goblin, and Silent," Raven suggested. "Better chance of finding something."

The Captain okayed the proposal. He told the Lieutenant, "Get that business out there wrapped up. Carp, you and Candy get the men ready to move out. Match, double your perimeter guard."

"Sir?" Candy asked.

"You don't want to be here when Whisper gets back, do you? Goblin, come back here. Get a hold of Soulcatcher. This goes to the top. Now."

Goblin made an awful face, then went into a corner and began murmuring to himself. It was a quiet little sorcery-to start.

The Captain rolled on. "Croaker, you and Raven pack these documents when you're done. We'll want them along."

"I maybe better save the best out for Catcher," I said. "Some will need immediate attention if we're to get any use out of them. I mean, something will have to be done before Whisper can put the word out."

He cut me off. "Right. I'll send you a wagon. Don't dilly-dally." He looked grey around the edges as he stalked outside.

A new strain of terror entered the screaming and shouting outside. I untangled my aching legs and went to the door. They were herding the Rebels together on their drill field. The prisoners sensed the Company's sudden eagerness to cut and run. They thought they were about to die just minutes before salvation arrived.

Shaking my head, I returned to my reading. Raven gave me a look that might have meant he shared my pain. On the other hand, it might have contained contempt for my weakness. With Raven it is hard to tell.

One-Eye shoved through the door, stomped over, dumped an armload of bundles wrapped in oilskin. Moist clods clung to them. "You were right. We dug these up behind her sleeping quarters."

Goblin let out a long, shrill screech as chilling as an owl's when you are alone in the woods at midnight. One-Eye charged the sound.

Such moments make me doubt the sincerity of their animosity.

Goblin moaned, "He's in the Tower. He's with the Lady. I see Her through his eyes ... his eyes ... his eyes... . The darkness! Oh, God, the darkness! No! Oh, God, no! No!" His words twisted into a shriek of pure terror. That faded to, "The Eye. I see the Eye. It's looking right through me."

Raven and I exchanged frowns and shrugs. We did not know what he was talking about.

Goblin sounded like he was regressing toward childhood. "Make it stop looking at me. Make it stop. I've been good. Make it go away."

One-Eye was on his knees beside Goblin. "It's all right. It's all right. It's not real. It's going to be all right."

I exchanged glances with Raven. He turned, began gesturing at Darling. "I'm sending her to fetch the Captain."

Darling left reluctantly. Raven took another sheet from the pile and resumed reading. Cool as a stone, mat Raven.

Goblin screamed for a while, then got quiet as death. I jerked around. One-Eye lifted a hand to tell me I was not needed. Goblin had finished delivering his message.

Goblin relaxed slowly. The terror left his face. His color improved. I knelt, touched his carotid. His heart was hammering, but its beat was slowing. "Surprised it didn't kill him this time," I said. "It ever been this bad before?"

"No." One-Eye dropped Goblin's hand. "We'd better not put it on him next time."

"Is it progressive?" My trade borders theirs along the shadowed edges, but only in small ways. I did not know.

"No. His confidence will need support for a while. Sounded like he caught Soulcatcher right at the heart of the Tower. I think that would leave anybody rocky."

"While in the presence of the Lady," I breathed. I could not contain my excitement. Goblin had seen the inside of the Tower! He might have seen the Lady! Only the Ten Who Were Taken ever came out of the Tower. Popular imagination invests its interior with a thousand gruesome possibilities. And I had me a live witness!

"You just let him be, Croaker. He'll tell you when he's ready." There was a hard edge to One-Eye's voice.

They laugh at my little fantasies, tell me I have fallen in love with a spook. Maybe they are right. Sometimes my interest scares me. It gets close to becoming an obsession.

For a time I forgot my duty to Goblin. For a moment he stopped being a man, a brother, an old friend. He became

a source of information. Then, shamed, I retreated to my papers.

The Captain arrived, puzzled, dragged by a determined Darling. "Ah. I see. He made contact." He studied Goblin. "Said anything yet? No? Wake him up, One-Eye."

One-Eye started to protest, thought better of it, shook Goblin gently. Goblin took his time awakening. His sleep was almost as deep as a trance.

"Was it rough?" the Captain asked me.

I explained. He grunted, said, "That wagon is on its way. One of you start packing."

I started straightening my piles.

"One of you means Raven, Croaker, You stand by here. Goblin doesn't look too good."

He did not. He had gone pale again. His bream was coming shallower and quicker, getting ragged. "Give him a slap, One-Eye," I said. "He might think he's still out there."

The slap did the job. Goblin opened eyes filled with panic. He recognized One-Eye, shuddered, took a deep breath, and squeaked, "I have to come back to this? After that?" But his voice gave the lie to his protest. The relief there was thick enough to cut.

"He's all right," I said. "He can bitch."

The Captain squatted. He did not say anything. Goblin would talk when he was ready.

He took several minutes to get himself together, then said, "Soulcatcher says to get the hell out of here. Fast. He'll meet us on the way to Lords."

"That's it?"

That is all there ever is, but the Captain keeps hoping for more. The game does not seem worth the candle when you see what Goblin goes through.

I looked at him hard. It was one hell of a temptation. He looked back. "Later, Croaker. Give me time to get it straightened out in my head."

I nodded, said, "A little herb tea will perk you up."

"Oh, no. You're not giving me any of that rat piss of One-Eye's."

"Not his. My own." I measured enough for a strong quart, gave it to One-Eye, closed my kit, returned to the papers as the wagon creaked up outside.

As I carried my first load out, I noticed that the men were at the coup de grace stage on the drill field. The Captain was not fooling around. He wanted to put a lot of distance between himself and the camp before Whisper returned.

Can't say I blame him. Her reputation is thoroughly vile.

I did not get to the oilskin packets till we were travelling again. I sat up beside the driver and started the first, vainly trying to ignore the savage jouncing of the springless vehicle.

I went through the packets twice, growing ever more distressed.

A real dilemma. Should I tell the Captain what I had learned? Should I tell One-Eye or Raven? Each would be interested. Should I save everything for Soulcatcher? No doubt he would prefer that. My question was, did this information fall inside or outside my obligation to the Company? I needed an adviser.

I jumped down from the wagon, let the column drift past till Silent caught up. He had middle guard. One-Eye was on the point and Goblin back in the rear. Each was worth a platoon of outriders.

Silent looked down from the back of the big black he rides when he is in a villainous mood. He scowled. Of our wizards he is the nearest to what you could call evil, though, like so many of us, he is more image than substance.

"I've got a problem," I told him. "A big one. You're

I54 GLEN COOK

the best sounding board." I looked around. "I don't want anyone else to hear this."

Silent nodded. He made complicated, fluid gestures too quick to follow. Suddenly, I could not hear anything from more than five feet away. You would be amazed how many sounds you do not notice till they are gone. I told Silent what I had found.

Silent is hard to shock. He has seen and heard it all. But he looked properly astonished this time.

For a moment I thought he was going to say something,

"Should I tell Soulcatcher?"

Vigorous affirmative nod. All right. I hadn't doubted that. The news was too big for the Company. It would eat .us up if we kept it to ourselves.

"How about the Captain? One-Eye? Some of the others?"

He was less quick to respond, and less decisive. His advice was negative. With a few questions and the intuition one develops on long exposure, I understood Silent to feel that Soulcatcher would want to spread the word on a need-to-know basis.

"Right, then," I said, and, "Thanks," and started trotting up the column. When I was out of sight of Silent, I asked one of the men, "You seen Raven?"

"Up with the Captain."

That figured. I resumed trotting.

After a moment of reflection I had decided to buy a little insurance. Raven was the finest policy I could imagine.

"You read any of the old languages?" I asked him. It was hard talking to him. He and the Captain were mounted and Darling was right behind them. Her mule kept trying to tromp my heels.

"Some. All part of a classical education. Why?"

I scrambled a few steps ahead. "We're going to be having mule stew if you don't watch it, animal." I swear, that beast sneered. I told Raven, "Some of those papers aren't modern. The ones One-Eye dug up."

"Not important then, are they?"

I shrugged and ambled along beside him, picking my words carefully. "You never know. The Lady and the Ten, they go way back." I let out a yelp, spun, ran backward gripping my shoulder where the mule had nipped me. The animal looked innocent, but Darling was grinning impishly.

It was almost worth the pain, just to see her smile. She did so so seldom.

I cut across the column and drifted back till I was walking beside Elmo. He asked, "Is something wrong, Croaker?"

"Uhm? No. Not really."

"You look scared."

I was scared. I had tipped the lid off a little box, just to see what was inside, and had found it filled with nastiness. The things I had read could not be unlearned.

When next I saw Raven his face was as grey as mine. Maybe more so. We walked together while he sketched what he had learned from the documents I had not been able to read.

"Some of them belonged to the wizard Bomanz," he told me. "Others date from the Domination. Some are TelleKurre. Only the Ten use that language anymore.""

"Bomanz?" I asked.

"Right. The one who wakened the Lady. Whisper got a hold of his secret papers somehow."

"Oh."

"Indeed. Yes. Oh."

We parted, each to be alone with his fears.

Soulcatcher came sneakily. He wore clothing not unlike ours outside his customary leathers. He slipped into the

column unremarked. How long he was there I do not know. I became aware of him as we were leaving the forest, after three eighteen hour days of heavy marching. I was putting one foot ahead of the other, aching, and mumbling about getting too old when a soft feminine voice inquired, "How are you today, physician?" It lilted with amusement.

Had I been less exhausted I might have jumped ten feet, screaming. As it was, I just took my next step, cranked my head around, and muttered, "Finally showed up, eh?" Profound apathy was the order of the moment.

A wave of relief would arrive later, but just then my brain was running as sluggishly as my body. After so long on the run it was hard to get the adrenaline pumping. The world held no sudden excitements or terrors.

Soulcatcher marched beside me, matching stride for stride, occasionally glancing my way. I could not see his face, but I sensed his amusement.

The relief came, and was followed by a wave of awe at my own temerity. I had talked back like Catcher was one of the guys. It was thunderbolt time.

"So why don't we look at those documents?" he asked. He seemed positively cheerful. I showed him to the wagon. We scrambled aboard. The driver gave us one wide-eyed look, then stared determinedly forward, shivering and trying to become deaf.

I went straight to the packets that had been buried, started to slip out. "Stay," he said. "They don't need to know yet." He sensed my fear, giggled like a young girl. "You're safe, Croaker. In fact, the Lady sends her personal thanks." He laughed again. "She wanted to know all about you, Croaker. All about you. You've caught her imagination too."

Another hammer blow of fear. Nobody wants to catch the Lady's eye.

Soulcatcher enjoyed my discomfiture. "She might grant you an interview, Croaker. Oh, my. You're so pale. Well, it isn't mandatory. To work, then."

Never have I seen anyone read so fast. He went through the old documents and the new, zip.

Catcher said, "You weren't able to read all of this." He used his businesslike female voice.

"No."

"Neither can I. Some only the Lady will be able to decipher."

Odd, I thought. I expected more enthusiasm. The seizure of the documents represented a coup for him because he had had the foresight to enlist the Black Company.

"How much did you get?"

I talked about the Rebel plan for a thrust through Lords, and about what Whisper's presence implied.

He chuckled. "The old documents, Croaker. Tell me about the old documents."

I was sweating. The softer, the more gentle he became, the more I felt I had to fear. "The old wizard. The one who wakened you all. Some of them were his papers." Damn. I knew I had stuck my foot in my mouth before I finished. Raven was the only man in the Company who could have identified Bomanz's papers as his.

Soulcatcher chuckled, gave me a comradely shoulder slap. "I thought so, Croaker. I wasn't sure, but I thought so. I didn't think you could resist telling Raven."

I did not respond. I wanted to lie, but he knew.

"You couldn't have known any other way. You told him about the references to the Limper's true name, so he just had to read everything he could. Right?"

Still I kept my peace. It was true, though my motives had not been wholly brotherly. Raven has his scores to settle, but Limper wants all of us.

The most jealously guarded secret of any wizard, of course, is his true name. An enemy armed with that can stab through any magic or illusion straight to the heart of the soul.

"You only guessed at the magnitude of what you found, Croaker. Even I can only guess. But what will come of it is predictable. The biggest disaster ever for Rebel arms, and a lot of rattling and shaking among the Ten." He slapped my shoulder again. "You've made me the second most powerful person in the Empire. The Lady knows all our true names. Now I know three of the others, and I've gotten my own back."

No wonder he was effusive. He had ducked an arrow he had not known was coming, and had lucked onto a stranglehold on the Limper at the same time. He had stumbled over a rainbow pot of power.

"But Whisper... ."

"Whisper will have to go." The voice he used was deep and chill. It was the voice of an assassin, a voice accustomed to pronouncing death sentences. "Whisper has to die fast. Otherwise nothing is gained."

"Suppose she told someone else?"

"She didn't. Oh, no. I know Whisper. I fought her at Rust before the Lady sent me to Beryl. I fought her at Were. I chased her through the talking menhirs upon the Plain of Fear. I know Whisper. She's a genius, but she's a loner. Had she lived during the first era, the Dominator would have made her one of his own. She serves the White Rose, but her heart is as black as the night of Hell."

"That sounds like the whole Circle to me."

Catcher laughed. "Yes. Every one a hypocrite. But there isn't a one like Whisper. This is incredible, Croaker. How did she unearth so many secrets? How did she get my name? I had it hidden perfectly. I admire her. Truly. Such genius. Such audacity. A strike through Lords, across the Windy Country, and up the Stair of Tear. Incredible. Impossible. And it would have worked but for the accident of the Black Company, and you. You'll be rewarded. I guarantee it. But enough of this. I've got work to do. Nightcrawler needs this information. The Lady has to see these papers."

"I hope you're right," I grumbled. "Kick ass, then take a break. I'm worn out. We've been humping and fighting for a year."

Dumb remark, Croaker. I felt the chill of the frown inside the black morion. How long had Soulcatcher been humping and fighting? An age. "You go on now," he told me. "I'll talk to you and Raven later." Cold, cold voice. I got the hell out of there.

It was all over in Lords when we got there. Nightcrawler had moved fast and had hit hard. You could not go anywhere without finding Rebels hanging from the trees and lampposts. The Company went into barracks expecting a quiet, boring winter, and a spring spent chasing Rebel leftovers back to the great northern forests.

Ah, it was a sweet illusion while it lasted.

"Tonk!" I said, slapping down five face cards given me on the deal. "Ha! Double, you guys. Double. Pay up."

One-Eye grumbled and growled and shoved coins across the table. Raven chuckled. Even Goblin perked up enough to smile. One-Eye had not won a hand all morning, even when he cheated.

"Thank you, Gentlemen. Thank you. Deal, One-Eye."

"What're you doing, Croaker? Eh? How are you doing it?"

"The hand is quicker than the eye," Elmo suggested.

"Just clean living, One-Eye. Clean living."

The Lieutenant shoved through the door, face drawn into a fierce scowl. "Raven. Croaker. The Captain wants you. Chop-chop." He surveyed the various card games. "You degenerates."

One-Eye sniffed, then worked up a wan smile. The Lieutenant was a worse player than he.

I looked at Raven. The Captain was his buddy. But he shrugged, tossed his cards in. I filled my pockets with any winnings and followed him to the Captain's office.

Soulcatcher was there. We had not seen him since that day at the edge of the forest. I had hoped he had gotten too busy to get back to us. I looked at the Captain, trying to divine the future from his face. I saw that he was not happy.

If the Captain was not happy, I wasn't.

"Sit," he said. Two chairs were waiting. He prowled around, fidgeting. Finally, he said, "We have movement orders. Straight from Charm. Us and Nightcrawler's whole brigade." He gestured toward Soulcatcher, passing the explaining to him.

Catcher seemed lost in thought. Barely audibly, he finally asked, "How are you with a bow, Raven?"

"Fair. No champion."

"Better than fair," the Captain countered. "Damned good."

"You, Croaker?"

"I used to be good. I haven't drawn one for years."

"Get some practice." Catcher started pacing too. The office was small. I expected a collision momentarily. After a minute, Soulcatcher said, "There have been developments. We tried to catch Whisper at her camp. We just missed her. She smelled the trap. She's still out there somewhere,' hiding. The Lady is sending in troops from all sides."

That explained the Captain's remark. It did not tell me why I was supposed to hone my archery skills.

"Near as we can tell," Soulcatcher continued, "the Rebel doesn't know what happened out there. Yet. Whisper hasn't found the nerve to pass the word about her failure. She's a proud woman. Looks like she wants to try recouping first,"

"With what?" Raven asked. "She couldn't put together a platoon."

"With memories. Memories of the material you found buried. We don't think she knows we got it. She didn't get close to her headquarters before Limper tipped our hand and she fled into the forest. And just we four, and the Lady, know of the documents."

Raven and I nodded. Now we understood Catcher's restlessness. Whisper knew his true name. He was on the bull's-eye.

"What do you want with us?" Raven asked suspiciously. He was afraid Catcher thought we had deciphered that name ourselves. He'd even suggested we kill the Taken before he killed us. The Ten are neither immortal nor invulnerable, but they are damned hard to reach. I did not, ever, want to have a try at one.

"We have a special mission, we three."

Raven and I exchanged glances. Was he setting us up?

Catcher said, "Captain, would you mind stepping outside for a minute?"

The Captain shambled through the doorway. His bear act is all for show. I don't suppose he realizes that we have had it figured for years. He keeps on with it, trying for effect.

"I'm not going to take you off where I can kill you quietly," Soulcatcher told us. "No, Raven, I don't think you figured out my true name."

Spooky. I scrunched my head down against my shoulders. Raven flicked a hand. A knife appeared. He began cleaning already immaculate nails.

"The critical development is this: Whisper suborned the Limper after we made a fool of him in the Raker affair."

I burst out, "That explains what happened in the Salient. We had it sewed up. It fell apart overnight. And he was a pure shit during the battle at Roses."

Raven agreed. "Roses was his fault. But nobody thought it was treason. After all, he's one of the Ten."

"Yes," Catcher said. "It explains many things. But the Salient and Roses are yesterday. Our interest now is tomorrow. It's getting rid of Whisper before she gifts us with another disaster."

Raven eyed Catcher, eyed me, pursued his needless manicure. I was not taking the Taken at face value either. We lesser mortals are but toys and tools to them. They are the kind of people who dig up the bones of their grandmothers to win points with the Lady,

"This is our edge on Whisper," Soulcatcher said. "We know she has agreed to meet the Limper tomorrow. ..."

"How?" Raven demanded.

"/ don't know. The Lady told me. Limper doesn't know we know about him, but he does know he can't last much longer. He'll probably try to make a deal so the Circle will protect him. He knows if he doesn't, he's dead. What the Lady wants is them to die together so the Circle will suspect she was selling out to the Limper instead of the other way around."

"It won't wash," Raven grumbled.

"They'll believe it."

"So we're going to knock him off," I said. "Me and Raven. With bows. And how are we supposed to find them?" Catcher would not be there himself, no matter how he talked. Both the Limper and Whisper would sense his presence long before he came within bowshot.

"Limper will be with the forces moving into the forest. Not knowing that he's suspected, he won't hide from the Lady's Eye. He'll expect his movements to be taken as part of the search. The Lady will report his whereabouts to me. I'll put you on his trail. When they meet, you take them out."

"Sure," Raven sneered. "Sure. It'll be a turkey shoot." He threw his knife. It bit deep into a windowsill. He stomped out of the room.

The deal sounded no better to me. I stared at Soulcatcher and debated with myself for about two seconds before I let fear push me in Raven's wake.

My last glimpse of Catcher was of a weary person slumped in unhappiness. I guess it is hard for them to live with their reputations. We all want people to like us.

I was doing one of my little fantasies about the Lady while Raven systematically plunked arrows into a red rag pinned to a straw butt. I had had trouble hitting the butt itself my first round, let alone the rag. It seemed Raven could not miss.

This time I was playing around with her childhood. That is something I like to look at with any villain. What twists and knots went into the thread tying the creature at Charm to the little girl who was? Consider little children. There are not many of them not cute and lovable and precious, sweet as whipped honey and butter. So where do all the wicked people come from? I walk through our barracks and wonder how a giggling, inquisitive toddler could have become a Three Fingers, a Jolly, or a Silent.

Little girls are twice as precious and innocent as little boys. I do not know a culture that does not make them that way.

So where does a Lady come from? Or, for that matter, a Whisper? I was speculating in this latest tale.

Goblin sat down beside me. He read what I had written. "I don't think so," he said. "I think she made a conscious decision in the beginning."

I turned toward him slowly, acutely conscious of Soulcatcher standing only a few yards behind me, watching the arrows fly. "I didn't really think it was this way. Goblin. It's a. ... Well, you know. You want to understand, so you put it together some way you can handle."

"We all do that. In everyday life it's called making excuses." True, raw motives are too rough to swallow. By the time most people reach my age, they have glossed their motives so often and so well they fall completely out of touch with them.

I became conscious of a shadow across my lap. I glanced up. Soulcatcher extended a hand, inviting me to take my turn with the bow. Raven had recovered his arrows, and was standing by, waiting for me to step to the mark.

My first three shafts plunked into the rag. "How about that?" I said, and turned to take a bow.

Soulcatcher was reading my little fantasy. He raised his gaze to mine. "Really, Croaker! It wasn't like that at all. Didn't you know that she murdered her twin sister when she was fourteen?"

Rats with icy claws scrambled around on my spine. I turned, let a shaft fly. It ripped wide right of the butt. I sprayed a few more around, and did nothing but irritate the pigeons in the background.

Catcher took the bow. "Your nerves are going, Croaker." In a blur, he snapped three arrows into a circle less than an inch across. "Keep at it. You'll be under more pressure out there." He handed the bow back. "The secret is concentration. Pretend you're doing surgery."

Pretend I'm doing surgery. Right. I have managed some fancy emergency work in the middle of battlefields. Right. But this was different.

The grand old excuse. Yes, but... . This is different.

I calmed down enough to hit the butt with the rest of my shafts. After recovering them, I stood aside for Raven.

Goblin handed me my writing materials. Irritably, I crumpled my little fable.

"Need something for your nerves?" Goblin asked.

"Yeah. The iron filings or whatever it is Raven eats." My self-esteem was pretty shaky.

"Try this." Goblin offered me a little six-pointed silver star hanging on a neck chain. At its center was a medusa head in jet.

"An amulet?"

"Yes. We thought you might need it tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Nobody was supposed to know what was happening.

"We have eyes, Croaker. This is the Company. Maybe we don't know what, but we can tell when something is going on."

"Yeah. I suppose so. Thanks, Goblin."

"Me and One-Eye and Silent, we all worked on it."

"Thanks. What about Raven?" When somebody makes a gesture like that, I feel more comfortable shifting the subject.

"Raven doesn't need one. Raven is his own amulet. Sit down. Let's talk."

"I can't tell you about it."

"I know. I thought you wanted to know about the Tower." He had not talked about his visit yet. I had given up on him.

"All right. Tell me." I stared at Raven. Arrow after arrow skewered the rag.

"Aren't you going to write it down?"

"Oh. Yeah." I readied pen and paper. The men are tremendously impressed by the fact that I keep these Annals. Their only immortality will be here. "Glad I didn't bet him."

"Bet who?"

"Raven wanted to make a wager on our marksmanship."

Goblin snorted. "You're getting too smart to get hooked by a sucker bet? Get your pen ready." He launched his story.

He did not add much to rumors I had picked up here and there. He described the place he had gone as a big, drafty box of a room, gloomy and dusty. About what I expected of the Tower. Or of any castle.

"What did she look like?" That was the most intriguing part of the puzzle. I had a mental picture of a dark haired, ageless beauty with a sexual presence that hit mere mortals with the impact of a mace. Soulcatcher said she was beautiful, but I had no independent corroboration.

"I don't know. I don't remember."

"What do you mean, you don't remember? How can you not remember?"

"Don't get all excited, Croaker. I can't remember. She was there in front of me, then. ,...hen all I could see was that giant yellow eye that kept getting bigger and bigger and stared right through me, looking at every secret I ever had. That's all I remember. I still have nightmares about that eye."

I sighed, exasperated. "I guess I should've expected that. You know, she could come walking by right now and nobody would know it was her."

"I expect that's the way she wants it, Croaker. If it does all fall apart, the way it looked before you found those papers, she can just walk away. Only the Ten could identify her, and she would make sure of them somehow."

I doubt it would be that simple. People like the Lady have trouble assuming a lesser role. Deposed princes keep acting like princes.

"Thanks for taking the trouble to tell me about it, Goblin."

"No trouble. I didn't have anything to tell. Only reason I put it off was it upset me so much."

Raven finished retrieving his arrows. He came over and told Goblin, "Why don't you go put a bug in One-Eye's bedroll, or something? We've got work to do." He was nervous about my erratic marksmanship.

We had to depend on one another. If either missed, chances were we would die before a second shaft could be sped. I did not want to think about that.

But thinking about it improved my concentration. I got most of my arrows into the rag this time.

It was a pain in the ass damned thing to have to do, night before whatever faced Raven and I, but the Captain refused to part with a tradition three centuries old. He also refused to entertain protests about our having been drafted by Soulcatcher, or demands for the additional knowledge he obviously commanded. I mean, I understood what Catcher wanted done and why, I just could not make sense of why he wanted Raven and I to do it. Having the Captain back him only made it more confusing.

"Why, Croaker?" he finally demanded. "Because I gave you an order, that's why. Now get out there and do your reading."

Once each month, in the evening, the entire Company assembles so the Annalist can read from his predecessors. The readings are supposed to put the men in touch with the outfit's history and traditions, which stretch back centuries and thousands of miles.

I placed my selection on a crude lectern and went with the usual formula. "Good evening, brothers. A reading from the Annals of the Black Company, last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. Tonight I'm reading from the Book of Kette, set down early in the Company's second century by Annalists Lees, Agrip, Holm, and Straw. The Company was in service to the Paingod of Cho'n Delor at that time. That was when the Company really was black.

"The reading is from Annalist Straw. It concerns the Company's role in events surrounding the fall of Cho'n Delor." I began to read, reflecting privately that the Company has served many losing causes.

The Cho'n Delor era bore many resemblances to our own, though then, standing more than six thousand strong, the Company was in a better position to shape its own destiny.

I lost track entirely. Old Straw was hell with a pen. I read for three hours, raving like a mad prophet, and held them spellbound. They gave me an ovation when I finished. I retreated from the lectern feeling as though my life had been fulfilled.

The physical and mental price of my histrionics caught up as I entered my barracks. Being a semi-officer, I rated a small cubicle of my own. I staggered right to it.

Raven was waiting. He sat on my bunk doing something artistic with an arrow. Its shaft had a band of silver around it. He seemed to be engraving something. Had I not been exhausted, I might have been curious.

"You were superb," Raven told me. "Even I felt it."

"Eh?"

"You made me understand what it meant to be a brother of the Black Company back then."

"What it still means to some."

"Yes. And more. You reached them where they lived."

"Yeah. Sure. What're you doing?"

"Fixing an arrow for the Limper. With his true name on it. Catcher gave it to me."

"Oh." Exhaustion kept me from pursuing the matter. "What did you want?"

"You made me feel something for the first time since my wife and her lovers tried to murder me and steal my rights and titles," He rose, closed one eye, looked down the length of his arrow. "Thanks, Croaker. For a while I felt human again." He stalked out.

I collapsed on the bunk and closed my eyes, recalling Raven strangling his wife, taking her wedding ring, and saying not a word. He had revealed more in that one rapid-fire sentence than since the day we had met. Strange.

I fell asleep reflecting that he had evened scores with everyone but the ultimate source of his despair. The Limper had been untouchable because he was one of the Lady's own. But no more.

Raven would be looking forward to tomorrow. I wondered what he would dream tonight. And if he would have much purpose left if the Limper died. A man cannot survive on hatred alone. Would he bother trying to survive what was coming?

Maybe that was what he wanted to say.

I was scared. A man thinking that way could get a little flashy, a little dangerous to those around him.

A hand closed on my shoulder. "Time, Croaker." The Captain himself was doing the wakeup calls.

"Yeah. I'm awake." I had not slept well.

"Catcher is ready to go."

It was still dark out. "Time?"

"Almost four. He wants to be gone before first light."

"Oh."

"Croaker? Be careful out there. I want you back."

"Sure, Captain. You know I don't take chances. Captain? Why me and Raven, anyway?" Maybe he would tell me now.

"He says the Lady calls it a reward."

"No shit? Some reward." I felt around for my boots as he moved to the door. "Captain? Thanks."

"Sure." He knew I meant thanks for caring.

Raven stuck his head in as I was lacing my jerkin. "Ready?"

"One minute. Cold out there?"

"Nippy."

"Take a coat?"

"Wouldn't hurt. Mail shirt?" He touched my chest.

"Yeah." I pulled my coat on, picked up the bow I was taking, bounced it on my palm. For an instant Goblin's amulet lay cool on my breastbone. I hoped it would work.

Raven cracked a smile. "Me too."

I grinned back. "Let's go get them."

Soulcatcher was waiting on the court where we had practiced our archery. He was limned by light from the company mess. The bakers were hard at work already. Catcher stood at a stiff parade rest, a bundle under his left arm. He stared toward the Forest of Cloud. He wore only leathers and morion. Unlike some of the Taken, he seldom carries weapons. He prefers relying on his thaumaturgic skills.

He was talking to himself. Weird stuff. "Want to see him go down. Been waiting four hundred years."

"We can't get that close. He'll smell us coming."

"Put aside all Power."

"Oh! That's too risky!" A whole chorus of voices got into the act. It got really spooky when two of them talked at once.

Raven and I exchanged glances. He shrugged. Catcher did not faze him. But, then, he grew up in the Lady's dominions. He has seen all the Taken. Soulcatcher is supposedly one of the least bizarre.

We listened for a few minutes. It did not get any saner out. Finally, Raven growled, "Lord? We're ready." He sounded a little shaky.

I was beyond speech myself. All I could think of was a bow, an arrow, and a job I was expected to do. I rehearsed the draw, release, and flight of my shaft over and over again. Unconsciously, I rubbed Goblin's gift. I would catch myself doing that often.

Soulcatcher shuddered like a wet dog, drew himself together. Without looking at us, he gestured, said, "Come," and started walking.

Raven turned. He yelled, "Darling, you get back in there like I told you. Go on now."

"How is she supposed to hear you?" I asked, looking back at the child watching from a shadowed doorway.

"She won't. But the Captain will. Go on now." He gestured violently. The Captain appeared momentarily. Darling vanished. We followed Soulcatcher. Raven muttered to himself. He worried about the child.

Soulcatcher set a brisk pace, out of the compound, out of Lords itself, across fields, never looking back. He led us to a large woodlot several bowshots from the wall, to a glade at the lot's heart. There, on the bank of a creek, lay a ragged carpet stretched on a crude wooden frame about a foot high and six feet by eight. Soulcatcher said something. The carpet twitched, wriggled a little, stretched itself taut.

"Raven, you sit here." Catcher indicated the right-hand corner nearest us. "Croaker, over here." He indicated the left corner.

Raven placed a foot on the carpet gingerly, seemed surprised that the works did not collapse.

"Sit down." Soulcatcher placed him just so, with his legs crossed and his weapons lying beside him near the carpet's edge. He did the same with me. I was surprised to find the carpet rigid. Ft was like sitting on a tabletop. "It's imperative that you don't move around," Catcher said, wriggling himself into position ahead of us, centered a foot forward of the carpet's midline. "If we don't stay balanced, we fall off. Understand?"

I did not, but I agreed with Raven when he said yes.

"Ready?"

Raven said yes again. I guess he knew what was happening- I was taken by surprise.

Soulcatcher laid his hands out palms upward beside him, said a few strange words, raised his hands slowly. I gasped, leaned. The ground was receding.

"Sit still!" Raven snarled. "You trying to kill us?"

The ground was only six feet down. Then. I straightened up and went rigid. But I did turn my head enough to check a movement in the brush.

Yes. Darling. With mouth an O of amazement. I faced forward, gripped my bow so tightly I thought I would crush handprints into it. I wished I dared finger my amulet. "Raven, did you make arrangements for Darling? In case, you know... ."

"The Captain will look out for her."

"I forgot to fix it with somebody for the Annals."

"Don't be so optimistic," he said sarcastically. I shivered uncontrollably.

Soulcatcher did something. We started gliding over the treetops. Chill air whispered past us. I glanced over the side. We were a good five stories high and climbing.

The stars twisted overhead as Catcher changed course. The wind rose till we seemed to be flying into the face of a gale. I leaned farther and farther forward, afraid it would push me off. There was nothing behind me but several hundred feet and an abrupt stop. My fingers ached from gripping my bow.

I have learned one thing, I told myself. How Catcher manages to show up so fast when he is always so far from the action when we get in touch.

It was a silent journey. Catcher stayed busy doing whatever it was he did to make his steed fly. Raven closed in on himself. So did I. I was scared silly. My stomach was in revolt. I do not know about Raven.

The stars began to fade. The eastern horizon lightened. The earth materialized below us. I chanced a look. We were over the Forest of Cloud. A little more light. Catcher grunted, considered the east, then the distances ahead. He seemed to listen for a moment, then nodded.

The carpet raised its nose. We climbed. The earth rocked and dwindled till it looked like a map. The air became ever more chill. My stomach remained rebellious.

Way off to our left I glimpsed a black scar on the forest. It was the encampment we had overrun. Then we entered a cloud and Catcher slowed our rush.

"We'll drift a while," he said. "We're thirty miles south of the Limper.—He's riding away from us. We're overtaking him fast. When we're almost up to where he might detect me, we'll go down." He used the businesslike female voice.

I started to say something. He snapped, "Be quiet, Croaker. Don't distract me."

We stayed in that cloud, unseen and unable to see, for two hours. Then Catcher said, "Time to go down. Grip the frame members and don't let go. It may be a little unsettling."

The bottom fell out. We went down like a stone dropped from a cliff. The carpet began to rotate slowly, so the forest seemed to turn below us. Then it began to slide back and forth like a feather falling. Each time it tilted my way I thought I would tumble over the side.

A good scream might have helped, but you could not do that in front of characters like Raven and Soulcatcher.

The forest kept getting closer. Soon I could distinguish individual trees... when I dared to look. We were going to die. I knew we were going to smash right down through the forest canopy fifty feet into the earth.

Catcher said something. I did not catch it. He was talking to his carpet anyway. The rocking and spinning gradually stopped. Our descent slowed. The carpet nosed down slightly and began to glide forward. Eventually Catcher took us below treetop level, into the aisle over a river. We, scooted along a dozen feet above the water, with Soulcatcher laughing as birds scattered in panic.

He brought us to earth in a glen beside the river. "Off and stretch," he told us. After we had loosened up, he said, "The Limper is four miles north of us. He's reached the meeting place. You'll go on from here without me. He'll detect me if I get any closer. I want your badges. He can detect those too."

Raven nodded, surrendered his badge, strung his bow, nocked an arrow, pulled back, relaxed. I did the same. It settled my nerves.

I was so grateful to be on the ground I could have kissed it.

"The bole on the big oak." Raven pointed across the river. He let fly. His shaft struck a few inches off center. I took a deep, relaxing breath, followed suite. My shaft struck an inch nearer center. "Should have bet me that time," he remarked. To Catcher, "We're ready."

I added, "We'll need more specific directions."

"Follow the river bank. There are plenty of game trails. The going shouldn't be hard. No need to hurry anyway. Whisper shouldn't be there for hours yet."

"The river heads west," I observed.

"It loops back. Follow it for three miles, then turn a point west of north and go straight through the woods." Catcher crouched and cleared the leaves and twigs off some bare earth, used a stick to sketch a map. "If you reach this bend, you've gone too far."

Then Catcher froze. For a long minute he listened to something only he could hear. Then he resumed, "The Lady says you'll know you're close when you reach' a grove of huge evergreens. It was the holy place of a people who died out before the Domination. The Limper is waiting at the center of the grove."

"Good enough," Raven said.

I asked, "You'll wait here?"

"Have no fear, Croaker."

I took another of my relaxing breaths. "Let's go, Raven."

"One second, Croaker," Soulcatcher said. He retrieved something from his bundle. It proved to be an arrow. "Use this."

I eyed it uncertainly, then placed it in my quiver.

Raven insisted on leading. I did not argue. I was a city boy before I joined the Company. I cannot become comfortable with forests. Especially not woods the size of the Forest of Cloud. Too much quiet. Too much solitude. Too easy to get lost. For the first two miles I worried more about finding my way back than I did about the coming encounter. I spent a lot of time memorizing landmarks.

Raven did not speak for an hour. I was busy thinking myself. I did not mind.

He raised a hand. I stopped. "Far enough, I think," he said. "We go that way now."

"Uhm."

"Let's rest." He settled on a huge tree root, his back against a trunk. "Awful quiet today, Croaker."

"Things on my mind."

"Yeah." He smiled. "Like what kind of reward we're set up for?"

"Among other things." I drew out the arrow Catcher had given me. "You see this?"

"A blunt head?" He felt it. "Soft, almost. What the hell?"

"Exactly. Means I'm not supposed to kill her."

There was no question of who would let fly at whom. The Limper was Raven's all the way.

"Maybe. But I'm not going to get killed trying to take her alive."

"Me either. That's what's bothering me. Along with about ten other things, like why the Lady really picked you and me, and why she wants Whisper alive... . Oh, the hell with it. It'll give me ulcers."

"Ready?"

"I guess."

We left the riverbank. The going became more difficult, but soon we crossed a low ridgeline and reached the edge of the evergreens. Not much grew beneath them. Very little sunlight leaked through their boughs. Raven paused to urinate. "Won't be any chance later," he explained.

He was right. You do not want that sort of problem when you are in ambush a stone's throw from an unfriendly Taken.

I was getting shaky. Raven laid a hand on my shoulder. "We'll be okay," he promised. But he did not believe it himself. His hand was shaky too.

I reached inside my jerkin and touched Goblin's amulet. It helped.

Raven raised an eyebrow. I nodded. We resumed walking. I chewed a strip of jerky, which burned off nervous energy. We did not speak again.

There were ruins among the trees. Raven examined the glyphs incised in the stones. He shrugged. They meant nothing to him.

Then we came to the big trees, the grandfathers of those through which we had been passing. They towered hundreds of feet high and had trunks as thick as the spans of two men's arms. Here and there, the sun thrust swords of light down through the boughs. The air was thick with resin smells. The silence was overwhelming. We moved one step at a time, making sure our footfalls sent no warnings ahead.

My nervousness peaked out, began to fade. It was too late to run, too late to change my mind. My brain ban-celled all-emotion. Usually that only happened when I was forced to treat casualties while people were-killing one another all around me.

Raven signaled a halt. I nodded. I had heard it too. A horse snorting. Raven gestured for me to stay put. He eased to our left, keeping low, and disappeared behind a tree about fifty feet away.

He reappeared in a minute, beckoned. I joined him. He led me to a spot from which I could look into an open area. The Limper and his horse were there.

The clearing was maybe seventy feet long by fifty wide. A tumble of crumbling stone stood at its center. The Limper sat on one fallen rock and leaned against another. He seemed to be sleeping. One corner of the clearing was occupied by the trunk of a fallen giant that had not been down long. It showed very little weathering.

Raven tapped the back of my hand, pointed. He wanted to move on.

I did not like moving now that we had the Limper in sight. Each step meant another chance to alert the Taken to his peril. But Raven was right. The sun was dropping in front of us. The longer we stayed put, the worse the light would become. Eventually, it would be in our eyes.

We moved with exaggerated care. Of course. One mistake and we were dead. When Raven glanced back I saw sweat on his temples.

He stopped, pointed, smiled. I crept up beside him. He pointed again.

Another fallen tree lay ahead. This one was about four feet in diameter. It looked perfect for our purpose. It was big enough to hide us, low enough to let fly over. We found a spot providing a clean aisle of fire to the heart of the clearing.

The light was good, too. Several spears broke through the canopy and illuminated most of the clearing. There was a little haze in the air, pollen perhaps, which made the beams stand out. I studied the clearing for several minutes, imprinting it on my mind. Then I sat behind the log and pretended I was a rock. Raven took the watch.

It seemed weeks passed before anything happened.

Raven tapped my shoulder. I looked up. He made a walking motion with two fingers. The Limper was up and prowling. I rose carefully, watched.

The Limper circled the pile of stones a few times, bad leg dragging, then sat down again. He picked up a twig and broke it into small pieces, tossing each at some target only he could see. When the twig was gone, he scooped up a handful of small cones and threw them lazily. Portrait of a man killing time.

I wondered why he had come on horseback. He could get places fast when he wanted. I supposed because he had been close by. Then I worried that some of his troops might show up.

He got up and walked around again, collecting cones and chucking them at the fallen behemoth across the clearing. Damned, but I wished we could take him then, and have done.

The Limper's mount's head jerked up. The animal whickered. Raven and I sank down, crushed ourselves into the shadows and needles beneath our trunk. A crackling tension radiated from the clearing.

A moment later I heard hooves crunching needles. I held my breath. From the corner of my eye I caught flickers of a white horse moving among the trees. Whisper? Would she see us?

Yes and no. Thank whatever gods there are, yes and no. She passed within fifty feet without noticing us.

The Limper called something. Whisper replied in a melodious voice that did not at all fit the wide, hard, homely woman I had seen pass. She sounded seventeen and gorgeous, looked forty-five and like she had been around the world three times.

Raven prodded me gently.

I rose about as fast as a flower blooms, scared they would hear my sinews crackle. We peeped over the fallen tree. Whisper dismounted and took one of the Limper's hands in both of hers.

The situation could not have been more perfect. We were in shadow, they were fixed in a shaft of sunlight. Golden dust sparkled around them. And they were restricting one another by holding hands.

It had to be now. We both knew it, both bent our bows. We both had additional arrows gripped against our weapons, ready to be snapped to our strings. "Now," Raven said.

My nerves did not bother me till my arrow was in the air. Then I went cold and shaky.

Raven's shaft went in under the Limper's left arm. The Taken made a sound like a rat getting stomped. He arched away from Whisper.

My shaft smashed against Whisper's temple. She was wearing a leather helmet, but I was confident the impact would down her. She spun away from the Limper.

Raven sped a second arrow, I fumbled mine. I dropped my bow and vaulted over the log. Raven's third arrow whistled past me.

Whisper was on her knees when I arrived. I kicked her in the head, whirled to face the Limper. Raven's arrows had struck home, but even Catcher's special shaft had not ended the Taken's story. He was trying to growl out a spell through a throat filled with blood. I kicked him too.

Then Raven was there with me. I spun back to Whisper.

That bitch was as tough as her reputation. Woozy as she was, she was trying to get up, trying to draw her sword, trying to mouth a spell. I scrambled her brains again, got rid of her blade. "I didn't bring any cord," I gasped. "You bring any cord, Raven?"

"No." He just stood there staring at the Limper. The Taken's battered leather mask had slipped sideways. He was trying to straighten it so he could see who we were.

"How the hell am I going to tie her up?"

"Better worry about gagging her first." Raven helped the Limper with his mask, smiling that incredibly cruel smile he gets when he is about to cut a special throat.

I yanked out my knife and hacked at Whisper's clothing. She fought me. I had to keep knocking her down. Finally, I had strips of rag to bind her and to stuff into her mouth. I dragged her over to the pile of stones, propped her up, turned to see what Raven was doing.

He had ripped the Limper's mask away, exposing the desolation of the Taken's face.

"What are you doing?" I asked. He was binding the Limper. I wondered why he was bothering.

"Got to thinking maybe I don't have the talent to handle this." He dropped into a squat and patted the Limper's cheek. The Limper radiated hatred. "You know me, Croaker. I'm an old softy. I'd just kill him and be satisfied. But he deserves a harder death. Catcher has more experience in these things." He chuckled wickedly.

The Limper strained against his bonds. Despite the three arrows, he seemed normally strong. Even vigorous. The shafts certainly did not inconvenience him.

Raven patted his cheek again. "Hey, old buddy. Word of warning, one friend to another... . Wasn't that what you told me about an hour before Morningstar and her friends ambushed me in that place you sent me? Word of warning? Yeah. Look out for Soulcatcher. He got a hold of your true name. Character like that, there's no telling what he might do."

I said, "Take it easy on the gloating, Raven. Watch him. He's doing something with his fingers." He was wriggling them rhythmically.

"Aye!" Raven shouted, laughing. He grabbed the sword I had taken from Whisper and chopped fingers off each of the Limper's hands.

Raven rides me for not telling the whole truth in these Annals. Someday maybe he will look at this and be sorry. But, honestly, he was not nice people that day.

I had a similar problem with Whisper. I chose a different solution. I cut off her hair and used it to tangle her fingers together.

Raven tormented the Limper till I could stand no more. "Raven, that's really enough. Why don't you back off and keep them covered?" He had been given no specific instructions about what to do after we captured Whisper, but I figured the Lady would tell Catcher and he would drop in. We just had to keep things under control till he arrived.

Soulcatcher's magic carpet dropped from the sky half an hour after I chased Raven away from the Limper. It settled a few feet from our captives. Catcher stepped off, stretched looked down at Whisper. He sighed, observed, "Not a pretty sight, Whisper," in that businesslike female voice. "But then you never were. Yes. My friend Croaker found the buried packets."

Whisper's hard, cold eyes sought me. They were informed with a savage impact. Rather than face that, I moved. I did not correct Soulcatcher.

He turned to the Limper, shook his head sadly. "No. It's not personal. You used up your credit. She ordered this."

The Limper went rigid.

Soulcatcher asked Raven, "Why didn't you kill him?"

Raven sat on the trunk of the larger fallen tree, bow across his lap, staring at the earth. He did not reply. I said, "He figured you could think of something better."

Catcher laughed. "I thought about it corning over here. Nothing seemed adequate. I'm taking Raven's way out. I told Shifter. He's on his way." He looked down at the Limper. "You're in trouble, aren't you?" To me, "You'd think a man this old would have garnered some wisdom along the way." He turned to Raven. "Raven, he was the Lady's reward to you."

Raven grunted. "I appreciate it."

I had figured that out already. But I was supposed to get something out of this too, and I had not seen anything remotely fulfilling any dream of mine.

Soulcatcher did his mindreading trick. "Yours has changed, I think. It hasn't been delivered yet. Make yourself comfortable, Croaker. We'll be here a long time."

I went and sat beside Raven. We did not talk. There was nothing I wanted to say, and he was lost somewhere inside himself. Like I said, a man cannot live on hatred alone.

Soulcatcher double-checked our captives' bonds, dragged his carpet rack into the shadows, then perched himself on the stone pile.

Shapeshifter arrived twenty minutes later, as huge, ugly, dirty, and stinking as ever. He looked the Limper over, conferred with Catcher, growled at the Limper for half a minute, then remounted his flying carpet and soared away. Catcher explained, "He's passing it on too. Nobody wants the final responsibility."

"Who could he pass it to?" I wondered. The Limper had no heavy enemies left.

Catcher shrugged and returned to the stone pile. He muttered in a dozen voices, drawing into himself, almost shrinking. I think he was as happy to be there as was I.

Time trudged on. The slant of the bars of sunlight gi ever steeper. One after another winked out. I began to wonder if Raven's suspicions had not been correct. We would be easy pickings after dark. The Taken do not need the sun to see.

I looked at Raven. What was happening inside his head? His face was a morose blank. It was the face he wore while playing cards.

I dropped off the log and prowled, following the pattern set by the Limper. There was nothing else to do. I whipped a pine cone at a burl on the log Raven and I had used for cover... . And it ducked! I started a headlong charge toward Whisper's bloody sword before I fully realiwed what I had seen.

"What's wrong?" Soulcatcher asked as I pulled up.

I improvised. "Pulled muscle, I think. I was going to loosen up with some sprints, but something happened in my leg." I massaged my right calf. He seemed satisfied. I glanced toward the log, saw nothing.

But I knew Silent was there. Would be there if he was needed.

Silent. How the hell had he gotten here? Same way as the rest of us? Did he have tricks that nobody suspected?

After the appropriate theatrics, I limped over and joined Raven. By gesturing I tried to make him understand that we would have help if push came to shove, but the message did not penetrate. He was too withdrawn.

It was dark. There was a half moon overhead, poking a few mild silvery bars into the clearing. Catcher remained on the stone pile. Raven and I remained on the log. My behind was aching. My nerves were raw. I was tired and hungry and scared. I had had enough, but did not have the courage to say so.

Raven shed his funk suddenly. He assayed the situation, asked, "What the hell are we doing?"

Soulcatcher woke up. "Waiting. Shouldn't be much longer."

"Waiting for what?" I demanded. I can be brave with Raven backing me. Soulcatcher stared my way. I became aware of an unnatural stir in the grove behind me, of Raven coiling himself for action. "Waiting for what?" I repeated weakly.

"For me, physician." I felt the speaker's breath on the back of my neck.

I jumped halfway to Catcher, and did not stop till I reached Whisper's blade. Catcher laughed. I wondered if he had noticed that my leg had gotten better. I glanced at the smaller log. Nothing.

A glorious light poured over the log I had quitted. I did not see Raven. He had vanished. I gripped Whisper's sword and resolved to lay a good one on Soulcatcher.

The light floated over the fallen giant, settled in front of Catcher. It was too brilliant to look at long. It illuminated the whole clearing.

Soulcatcher dropped to one knee. And then I understood.

The Lady! This fiery glory was the Lady. We had been waiting for the Lady! I stared till my eyes ached. And dropped to one knee myself. I offered Whisper's sword on my palms, like a knight doing homage to his king. The Lady!

Was this my reward? To actually meet Her? That something that called to me from Charm twisted, filled me, and for one foolish instant I was totally in love. But I could not see Her. ! wanted to see what She looked like.

She had that capacity I found so disconcerting in Soulcatcher. "Not this time, Croaker," she said. "But soon, I think." She touched my hand. Her fingers burned me like the first sexual touch of my first lover. Remember that racing, stunning, raging instant of excitement?

"The reward comes later. This time you'll be permitted to witness a rite unseen for five hundred years." She moved. "That has to be uncomfortable. Get up."

I rose, backed away. Soulcatcher stood in his parade rest stance, watching the light. Its intensity was falling. I could watch without pain. It drifted around the stone pile to our prisoners, waning till I could discern a feminine shape inside.

The Lady looked at the Limper a long time. The Limper looked back. His face was empty. He was beyond hope or despair.

The Lady said, "You served me well for a while. And your treachery helped more than it hurt. I am not without mercy." She flared on one side. A shadow diminished. There stood Raven, arrow across bow. "He's yours, Raven."

I looked at the Limper. He betrayed excitement and a strange hope. Not that he would survive, of course, but that he would die quickly, simply, painlessly.

Raven said, "No." Nothing else. Just a flat refusal.

The Lady mused, "Too bad, Limper." She arched back and screamed something at the sky.

Limper flopped violently. The gag flew out of his mouth. His ankle bonds parted. He gained his feet, tried to run, tried to mouth some spell that would protect him. He had gone thirty feet when a thousand fiery snakes streaked out of the night and swarmed him.

They covered his body. They slithered into his mouth and nose, into his eyes and ears. They went in the easy way and came gnawing out through his back and chest and belly. And he screamed. And screamed. And screamed. And the same terrible vitality which had fought off the lethality of Raven's arrows kept him alive throughout this punishment.

I heaved up the jerky that had, been my only meal all day.

The Limper was a long time screaming, and never did die. Eventually, the Lady tired and sent the serpents away. She spun a whispery cocoon around the Limper, shouted another series of syllables. A gigantic luminescent dragonfly dropped from the night, snapped him up, and hummed away toward Charm. The Lady said, "He'll provide years of entertainment." She glanced at Soulcatcher, making sure the lesson had not gone over his head.

Catcher had not moved a muscle. He did not do so now.

The Lady said, "Croaker, what you are about to witness exists only in a few memories. Even most of my champions have forgotten."

What the hell was she talking about?

She looked down. Whisper cringed. The Lady said, "No, not all that. You've been such an outstanding enemy, I'm going to reward you." Strange laughter. "There is a vacancy among the Taken."

So. The blunted arrow, the weird circumstances leading to that moment, came clear. The Lady had decided that Whisper should replace the Limper.

When? Just when had she made that decision? The Limper had been in bad trouble for a year, suffering one humiliation after another. Had she orchestrated those? I think she had. A clue here, a clue there, a strand of gossip and a stray memory... . Catcher had been in on part of it, using us. Maybe he had been in on it as far back as when he had enlisted us. Surely our crossing paths with Raven had been no accident... . Ah, she was a cruel, wicked, deceitful, calculating bitch.

But everyone knew that. That was her story. She had dispossessed her own husband. She had murdered her sister, if Soulcatcher could be believed. So why was I disappointed and surprised?

I glanced at Catcher. He had not moved, but there was subtle change in his stance. He was dazed by surprise. "Yes," the Lady told him. "You thought only the Dominator could Take." Soft laughter. "You were wrong. Pass that along to anyone still thinking about resurrecting my husband."

Catcher moved slightly. I could not read the movement's significance, but the Lady seemed satisfied. She faced Whisper again.

The Rebel general was more terrified than the Limper had been. She was. about to become the thing she hated most-and she could do nothing.

The Lady knelt and began whispering to her.

I watched, and still I do not know what went on. Nor can I describe the Lady, any more than Goblin could, despite having been near her all night. Or maybe for several nights. Time had a surreal quality. We lost some days somewhere. But see her I did, and I witnessed the rite that converted our most dangerous enemy into one of our own.

I recall one thing with a razor-edged clarity. A huge yellow eye. The same eye that so croggled Goblin. It came and looked into me and Raven and Whisper.

It did not shatter me the way it had Goblin. Maybe I am less sensitive. Or just more ignorant. But it was bad. Like I said, some days disappeared.

That eye is not infallible. It does not do well with short term memories. The Lady remained unaware of Silent's proximity.

Of the rest of it there are only flickers of recollection, most filled with Whisper's screams. There was a moment when the clearing filled with dancing devils all glowing with their inner wickedness. They fought for the privilege of mounting Whisper. .There was a time when Whisper faced the eye. A time when, I think, Whisper died and was resurrected, died and was resurrected, till she became intimate with death. There were times when she was tortured. And another time with the eye.

The fragments I retain suggest that she was shattered, slain, revived, and reassembled as a devoted slave. J recall her pledge of fealty to the Lady. Her voice dripped a craven eagerness to please.

Long after it was over I wakened confused and lost, and terrified. It took a while to reason out. The confusion was part of the Lady's protective coloration. What I could not remember could not be used against her.

Some reward.

She was gone. Likewise Whisper. But Soulcatcher remained, pacing the clearing, muttering in a dozen frantic voices. He fell silent the instant I tried to sit up. He stared, head thrust forward suspiciously.

I groaned, tried to rise, fell back. I crawled over and propped myself on one of the stones. Catcher brought me a canteen. I drank clumsily. He said, "You can eat after you pull yourself together."

Which remark alerted me to ravenous hunger. How long had it been? "What happened?"

"What do you remember?"

"Not much. Whisper was Taken?"

"She's replacing Limper. The Lady took her to the eastern front. Her knowledge of the other side should shake things loose out there."

I tried to shake the cobwebs. "I thought they were shifting to a northern strategy."

"They are. And as soon as your Mend recovers, we have to return to Lords." In a soft, female voice, he admitted, "I didn't know Whisper as well as I thought.

She did pass the word when she learned what happened at her camp. For once the Circle responded quickly. They avoided the usual in-fighting. They smell blood. They accepted their losses, and let us divert ourselves while they started their maneuvers. Kept them damned well hidden. Now Harden's army is headed toward Lords. Our forces are still scattered throughout the forest. She turned the trap around on us."

I did not want to hear it. A year of bad news is enough. Why couldn't one of our coups remain solid? "She sacrificed herself intentionally?"

"No. She wanted to run us around the woods to buy time for the Circle. She didn't know the Lady knew about the Limper. I thought I knew her, but I was wrong. We'll benefit eventually, but there are going to be hard times till Whisper straightens out the east." I tried to rise, could not.

"Take it easy," he suggested. "First time with the Eye is always rough. Think you could eat something now?"

"Drag one of those horses over here."

"Better go easy at first."

"How bad is it?" I was not quite sure what I was asking. He assumed I meant the strategic situation.

"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.

We could not get close. Harden's Rebels had the city besieged, circumvallated and bottled in a double fosse. A grim black cloud concealed the city itself. Cruel lightning rambled its edges, dueling the might of the Eighteen. Harden had not come alone.

The Circle seemed determined to avenge Whisper.

"Catcher and Nightcrawler are playing rough," Raven observed, after one particularly violent exchange. "I suggest we drift south and wait. If they abandon Lords, we'll join back up when they run toward the Windy Country." His face twisted horribly. He did not relish that prospect. He knew the Windy Country.

So south we scooted, and joined up with other stragglers. We spent twelve days in hiding, waiting. Raven organized the stragglers into the semblance of a military unit. I passed the time writing and thinking about Whisper, wondering how much she would influence the eastern situation.

The rare glimpses I got of Lords convinced me that she was our side's last real hope.

Rumor had the Rebel applying just as much pressure elsewhere. The Lady supposedly had to transfer The Hanged Man and Bonegnasher from the east to stiffen resistance. One rumor had Shapeshifter slain in the fighting at Rye.

I worried about the Company. Our brethren had gotten into Lords before Harden's arrival.

Not a man falls without my telling his tale. How can I do that from twenty miles away? How many details will be lost in the oral histories I will have to collect after the fact? How many men will fall without their deaths being observed at all?

But mostly I spend my time thinking about the Limper and the Lady. And agonizing.

I do not think that I will be writing any more cute, romantic fantasies about our employer. I have been too close to her. I am not in love now.

I am a haunted man. I am haunted by the Limper's screams. I am haunted by the Lady's laughter. I am haunted by my suspicion that we are furthering the cause of something that deserves to be scrubbed from the face of the earth. I am haunted by the conviction that those bent upon the Lady's eradication are little better than she.

I am haunted by the clear knowledge that, in the end, evil always triumphs.

Oh, my. Trouble. There is a nasty black cloud crawling over the hills to the northeast. Everybody is running around, grabbing weapons and saddling horses. Raven is yelling at me to get my butt moving... .