“Stop!” Raven flung an arm across my path.
“What?”
“Quiet.” He listened. I listened. I didn’t hear anything. I hadn’t seen much during our headlong rush, either. How could Raven be tracking Otto’s assailant? I did not doubt that he was, I just couldn’t figure it.
Truth told, nothing Raven did surprised me. Not since the day we met, when he strangled his wife in front of me.
“We’re almost up with him.” He peered into the blowing snow. “Go straight ahead, the pace we’ve been going. You’ll catch him in a couple blocks.”
“What? Where’re you going?” I was carping at a fading shadow. “Damn you.” I took a deep breath, cursed again, drew my sword, and started forward. All I could think was, how am I going to explain if we’ve got the wrong man?
Then I saw him in the light from a tavern door. A tall, lean man shuffling dispiritedly, oblivious to his surroundings. Raker? How would I know? Elmo and Otto were the only ones who’d been along on the farm raid....
Came the dawn. Only they could identify Raker for the rest of us. Otto was wounded and Elmo had not been heard from.... Where was he? Under a blanket of snow in some alley, cold as this hideous night?
My fright retreated before anger.
I sheathed my sword and drew a dagger. I kept it hidden inside my cloak. The figure ahead did not glance back as I overtook it, drew even.
“Rough night, eh, old-timer?”
He grunted noncommittally. Then he looked at me, eyes narrowing, when I fell into step beside him. He eased away, watched me closely. There was no fear in his eyes. He was sure of himself. Not the sort of old man you found wandering the streets of the slums.
“What do you want?” It was a calm, straightforward question.
He did not have to be frightened. I was scared enough for both of us. “You knifed a friend of mine, Raker.”
He halted. A glint of something strange showed in his eye. “The Black Company?”
I nodded.
He stared, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “The physician. You’re the physician. The one they call Croaker.”
“Glad to meet you.” I’m sure my voice sounded stronger than I felt.
I thought, what the hell do I do now?
Raker flung his cloak open. A short stabbing sword thrust my way. I slid aside, opened my own cloak, dodged again and tried to draw my sword.
Raker froze. He caught my eye. His eyes seemed to grow larger, larger.... I was falling into twin grey pools.... A smile tugged the corners of his mouth. He stepped toward me, blade rising....
And grunted suddenly. A look of total amazement came over his face. I shook his spell, stepped back, came to guard.
Raker turned slowly, faced the darkness. Raven’s knife protruded from his back. Raker reached back and withdrew it. A mewl of pain passed his lips. He glared at the knife, then, ever so softly, began to sing.
“Move, Croaker!”
A spell! Fool. I had forgotten what Raker was. I charged.
Raven arrived at the same instant.
XIII
I looked at the body. “Now what?”
Raven knelt, produced another knife. It had a serrated edge. “Somebody claims Soulcatcher’s bounty.”
“He’d have a fit.”
“You going to tell him?”
“No. But what’ll we do with it?” There had been times when the Black Company was prosperous, but never when it was rich. Accumulation of wealth is not our purpose.
“I can use some of it. Old debts. The rest.... Divide it up. Send it back to Beryl. Whatever. It’s there. Why let the Taken keep it?”
I shrugged. “Up to you. I just hope Soulcatcher don’t think we crossed him.”
“Only you and me know. I won’t tell him.” He brushed the snow off the old man’s face. Raker was cooling fast.
Raven used his knife.
I’m a physician. I’ve removed limbs. I’m a soldier. I’ve seen some bloody battlefields. Nevertheless, I was queasy. Decapitating a dead man did not seem right.
Raven secured our grisly trophy inside his cloak. It didn’t bother him. Once, on the way to our part of town, I asked, “Why did we go after him, anyway?”
He did not answer immediately. Then, “The Captain’s last letter said get it over with if I had the chance.”
As we neared the square, Raven said, “Go upstairs. See if the spook is there. If he’s not, send the soberest man after our wagon. You come back here.”
“Right.” I sighed, hurried to our quarters. Anything for a little warmth.
The snow was a foot deep now. I was afraid my feet were permanently damaged.
“Where the hell you been?” Elmo demanded when I stumbled through the doorway. “Where’s Raven?”
I looked around. No Soulcatcher. Goblin and One-Eye were back, dead to the world. Otto and Hagop were snoring like giants. “How’s Otto?”
“Doing all right. What’ve you been up to?”
I settled myself beside our fire, prized my boots off. My feet were blue but not frozen. Soon they tingled painfully. My legs ached from all that walking through the snow, too. I told Elmo the whole story.
“You killed him?”
“Raven said the Captain wants done with the project.”
“Yeah. I didn’t figure Raven would go cut his throat.”
“Where’s Soulcatcher?”
“Hasn’t been back.” He grinned. “I’ll get the wagon. Don’t tell anybody else. Too many big mouths.” He flung his cloak about his shoulders, stamped out.
My hands and feet felt halfway human. I scooted over and nabbed Otto’s boots. He was about my size, and he didn’t need them.
Out into the night again. Morning, almost. Dawn was due soon.
If I expected any remonstrance from Raven, I was disappointed. He just looked at me. I think he actually shivered. I remember thinking, maybe he’s human after all. “Had to change my boots.” Then, “Elmo’s getting the wagon. The rest of them are passed out.”
“Soulcatcher?”
“Not back yet.”
“Let’s plant this seed.” He strode into the swirling flakes. I hurried after him.
The snow had not collected on our trap. It sat there glowing gold. Water puddled beneath it and trickled away to become ice.
“You think Soulcatcher will know when this thing gets discharged?” I asked.
“It’s a good bet. Goblin and One-Eye, too.”
“The place could burn down around those two and they wouldn’t turn over.”
“Nevertheless.... Sshh! Somebody out there. Go that way.” He moved the other direction, circling.
What am I doing this for? I thought as I skulked through the snow, weapon in hand. I ran into Raven. “See anything?”
He glared into the darkness. “Somebody was here.” He sniffed the air, turned his head slowly right and left. “Come on.” He took a dozen quick steps, pointed down.
He was right. The trail was fresh. The departing half looked hurried.
I stared at those marks. “I don’t like it, Raven.”
Our visitor’s spoor indicated that he dragged his right foot.
“The Limper.”
“We don’t know for sure.”
“Who else? Where’s Elmo?”
We returned to the Raker trap, waited impatiently. Raven paced. He muttered. I could not recall ever having seen him this unsettled. Once, he said, “The Limper isn’t Soulcatcher.”
Really. Soulcatcher is almost human. The Limper is as cruel and inhuman as the Taken come. The sort of creature who enjoys torturing babies.
A jangle of traces and squeak of poorly greased wheels entered the plaza. Elmo and the wagon appeared. Elmo pulled up and jumped down.
“Where the hell you been?” Fear and weariness made me cross.
“Takes time to dig out a stableboy and get a team ready. What’s the matter? What happened?”
“The Limper was here.”
“Oh, shit. Wha
t’d he do?”
“Nothing. He just....”
“Let’s move,” Raven snapped. “Before he comes back.” He took the head to the stone. The wardspells might not have existed. He fitted the trophy into the waiting cavity. The golden glow winked out. Snowflakes began accumulating on head and stone.
“Let’s go,” Elmo gasped. “We won’t have much time.”
I grabbed a sack and heaved it into the wagon. Thoughtful Elmo had laid out a tarp to keep loose coins from dribbling between the floorboards.
Raven told me to rake up the loose stuff under the table. “Elmo, empty some of those sacks and give them to Croaker.”
They heaved bags. I scrambled after loose coins.
“One minute gone,” Raven said. Half the bags were in the wagon.
“Too much loose stuff,” I said.
“We’ll leave it if we have to.”
“What’re we going to do with it? How’11 we hide it?”
“In the hay in the stable,” Raven said. “For now. Later we put a false bed in the wagon. Two minutes gone.”
“What about wagon tracks?” Elmo asked. “He could follow them to the stable.”
“Why should he care in the first place?” I wondered aloud.
Raven ignored me. He asked Elmo, “You didn’t cancel them coming here?”
“Didn’t think of it.”
“Damn!”
All the sacks were aboard. Elmo and Raven helped with the loose stuff.
“Three minutes,” Raven said, then, “Quiet!” He listened. “Soulcatcher couldn’t be here already, could he? No. The Limper again. Come on. You drive, Elmo. Head for a thoroughfare. Lose us in traffic. I’ll follow you. Croaker, go try to cover Elmo’s back-trail.”
“Where is he?” Elmo asked, staring into the falling snow.
Raven pointed. “We’ll have to lose him. Or he’ll take it away. Go on, Croaker. Get moving. Elmo.”
“Get up!” Elmo snapped his traces. The wagon creaked away.
I ducked under the table and stuffed my pockets, then ran away from where Raven said the Limper was.
XIV
I don’t know that I had much luck obscuring Elmo’s back trail. I think we were helped more by morning traffic than anything I did. I did get rid of the stableboy. I gave him a sock full of gold and silver, more than he could make in years of stable work, and asked him if he could lose himself. Away from Roses, preferably. He told me, “I won’t even stop to get my things.” He dropped his pitchfork and headed out, never to be seen again.
I hied myself back to our room.
Everyone was sleeping but Otto. “Oh, Croaker,” he said. “Bout time.”
“Pain?”
“Yeah.”
“Hangover?”
“That too.”
“Let’s see what we can do. How long you been awake?”
“An hour, I guess.”
“Soulcatcher been here?”
“No. What happened to him, anyway?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hey. Those are my boots. What the hell you think you’re doing, wearing my boots?”
“Take it easy. Drink this.”
He drank. “Come on. What’re you doing wearing my boots?”
I removed the boots and set them near the fire, which had burned quite low. Otto kept after me while I added coal. “If you don’t calm down you’re going to rip your stitches.”
I will say this for our people. They pay attention when my advice is medical. Angry as he was, he lay back, forced himself to lie still. He did not stop cussing.
I shed my wet things and donned a nightshirt I found lying around. I don’t know where it came from. It was too short. I put a pot on for tea, then turned to Otto. “Let’s take a closer look.” I dragged my kit over.
I was cleaning around the wound, and Otto was cursing softly when I heard the sound: Scrape-dump, scrape clump. It stopped outside the door.
Otto sensed my fear. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s....” The door opened behind me. I glanced back. I’d guessed right.
The Limper went to the table, dropped into a chair, surveyed the room. His gaze skewered me.
Inanely, I said, “I just started tea.”
He stared at the wet boots and cloak, then at each man in the room. Then at me again.
The Limper is not a big man. Barely over five feet tall, and of slightly under average build. Meeting him in the street, not knowing what he was, you would not be impressed. Like Soulcatcher, he was clad in a single color, a dingy brown. He was ragged. His face was concealed by a battered leather mask which drooped. Tangled threads of hair protruded from under his hood and around his mask. It was grey peppered with black.
He did not say a word. Just sat there and stared. Not knowing what else to do, I finished tending Otto, then made the tea. I poured three tin cups, gave one to Otto, set one before the Limper, took the third myself....
What now? No excuse to be busy.
Nowhere to sit but at that table.... Oh, shit!
The Limper removed his mask. He raised the tin cup....
I could not tear my gaze away.
His was the face of a dead man, of a mummy improperly preserved. His eyes were alive and baleful, yet directly beneath one was a patch of flesh which had rotted. Beneath his nose, at the right corner of his mouth, a square inch of lip was missing, revealing gum and yellowed teeth.
The Limper sipped tea, met my eye, and smiled.
I nearly dribbled down my leg.
I went to the window. There was some light out there now, and the snowfall was weakening, but I could not see the stone.
The stamp of boots sounded on the stair. Elmo and Raven shoved into the room. Elmo growled, “Hey, Croaker, how the hell did you get rid of that....” His words grew smaller as he recognized our visitor.
Raven gave me a guestioning look. The Limper turned. I shrugged when his back was to me. Raven moved to one side, began removing his wet things.
Elmo got the idea. He went the other way, stripped beside the fire. “Damn, it’s good to get out of those. How’s the boy, Otto?”
“There’s fresh tea,” I said.
Otto replied, “I hurt all over, Elmo.”
The Limper peered at each of us, and at One-Eye and Goblin, who had yet to stir. “So. Soulcatcher brings the Black Company’s best.” His voice was a whisper, yet it filled the room. “Where is he?”
Raven ignored him. He donned dry breeches, sat beside Otto, doublechecked my handiwork. “Good job of stitching, Croaker.”
“I get plenty of practice with this outfit.”
Elmo shrugged in response to the Limper. He drained his cup, poured tea all around, then filled the pot from one of the pitchers. He planted a boot in One-Eye’s ribs while the Limper glared at Raven.
“You!” the Limper snapped. “I haven’t forgotten what you did in Opal. Nor during the campaign in Forsberg.”
Raven settled with his back against the wall. He produced one of his more wicked knives, began cleaning his fingernails. He smiled. At the Limper, he smiled, and there was mockery in his eyes.
Didn’t anything scare that man?
“What did you do with the money? That wasn’t Soulcatcher’s. The Lady gave it to me.”
I took courage from Raven’s stance. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Elm? The Lady ordered you out of the Salient.”
Anger distorted that wretched face. A scar ran down his forehead and left cheek. It stood out. Supposedly it continued down his left breast. The blow had been struck by the White Rose herself.
The Limper rose. And that damned Raven said, “Got the cards, Elmo? The table’s free.”
The Limper scowled. The tension level was rising fast. He snapped, “I want that money. It’s mine. Your choice is to cooperate or not. I don’t think you’ll enjoy it if you don’t.”
“You want it, go get it,” Raven said. “Catch Raker, chop off his head, take it to the stone. Ought to be easy for the
Limper. Raker’s only a bandit. What chance would he stand against the Limper?”
I thought the Taken would explode. He did not. For an instant he was baffled.
He was not off balance long. “All right. If you want it the hard way.” His smile was wide and cruel. Did he have some special interest in Raven?
The tension was near the snapping point.
XV
A shadow moved in the open doorway. A lean, dark figure appeared, stared at the Limper’s back. I sighed in relief.
The Limper spun. For a moment the air seemed to crackle between the Taken.
From the corner of one eye I noted that Goblin was sitting up. His fingers were dancing in complex rhythms. One-Eye, facing the wall, was whispering into his bedroll. Raven reversed his knife for a throw. Elmo got a grip on the teapot, ready to fling hot water.
There was no missile within grabbing distance of me. What the hell could I contribute? A chronicle of the blowup afterward, if I survived?
Soulcatcher made a tiny gesture, stepped round the Limper, deposited himself in his usual seat. He flung a toe out, hooked one of the chairs away from the table, put his feet up. He stared at the Limper, his fingers steepled before his mouth. “The Lady sent a message. In case I ran into you. She wants to see you.” Soulcatcher used only one voice. A hard female voice. “She wants to ask about the uprising in Elm.”
The Limper jerked. One hand extended over the table, twitched nervously. “Uprising? In Elm?”
“Rebels attacked the palace and barracks.”
The Limper’s leathery face lost color. The twitching of his hand became more pronounced.
Soulcatcher said, “She wants to know why you weren’t there to head them off.”
The Limper stayed about three seconds more. In that time his face became grotesque. Seldom have I seen such naked fear. Then he spun and fled.
Raven flipped his knife. It stuck in the doorframe. The Limper didn’t notice.
Soulcatcher laughed. This was not the laugh of earlier days, but a deep, harsh, solid, vindictive laughter. He rose, turned to the window. “Ah. Someone’s claimed our prize? When did that happen?”
Elmo masked his response by going to close the door. Raven said, “Toss me my knife.” I eased up beside Soulcatcher, looked out. The snowfall had ceased. The stone was visible. Cold, unglowing, with an inch of white on top.