skewered butterfly wings with their tusks, then complacently munched butterfly bodies. Goblin fell over giggling.
One-Eye cussed a literal blue streak, a cerulean banner trailing from his lips. Argent lettering proclaimed his opinion of Goblin.
“Knock it off!” the Lieutenant thundered belatedly. “We don’t need you attracting attention.”
“Too late, Lieutenant,” somebody said. “Look down there.”
Soldiers were headed our way. Soldiers wearing red, with the White Rose emblazoned on their tabards. We dropped into the grass like ground squirrels into their holes.
Chatter ran across the hillside. Most threatened One-Eye with dire dooms. A minority included Goblin for having shared in the betraying fireworks.
Trumpets sounded. The Rebel dispersed for an assault on our hill.
The air whined in torment. A shadow flashed over the hilltop, rippling across windblown grass. “Taken,” I murmured, and popped up for the instant needed to spot a flying carpet banking into the valley. “Soulcatcher?” I couldn’t be sure. At that distance it could have been any of several Taken.
The carpet dove into massed arrow fire. Lime fog enveloped it, trailed behind it, for a moment recalled the comet which overhung the world. The lime haze scattered resolved into threadlike snippets. A few filaments caught the breeze and drifted our way.
I glanced up. The comet hung on the horizon like a ghost of a god’s scimitar. It had been in the sky so long we scarcely noticed it now. I wondered if the Rebel had become equally indifferent. For him it was one of the great portents of impending victory.
Men screamed. The carpet had passed along the Rebel line and now drifted like down on the wind just beyond bowshot. The lime-colored thread was so scattered it was barely visible. The screams came from men who had suffered its touch; Grisly green wounds opened wherever there was contact.
Some thread seemed determined to come our way.
The Lieutenant saw it. “Let’s move out, men. Just in case,” He pointed across the wind. The thread would have to drift sideways to catch us.
We hustled maybe three hundred yards. Writhing, the thread crawled on air, coming our way. It was after us. The Taken watched intently, ignoring the Rebel.
“That bastard wants to kill us!” I exploded- Terror turned my legs to gelatin. Why would one of the Taken want us to become victims of an accident?
If that was Catcher... But Catcher was our mentor. Our boss. We wore his badges. He wouldn’t...
The carpet snapped into motion so violently its rider almost tumbled off. It hurtled toward the nearest wood, vanished. The thread lost volition and drifted down, disappearing in the grass.
“What the devil?”
“Holy Hell!”
I whirled. A vast shadow moved toward us, expanding, as a gigantic carpet descended. Faces peeped over its edges. We froze,, bristling with ready weapons.
“The Howler,” I said, and had my guess confirmed by a cry like that of a wolf challenging the moon.
The carpet grounded. “Get aboard, you idiots. Come on. Move it.”
I laughed, tension draining away. That was the Captain. He danced like a nervous bear along the near edge of the carpet. Others of our brethren accompanied him. I threw my pack aboard, accepted a hand up. “Raven. You showed up in the nick this time.”
“You’ll wish we’d let you take your chances.”
“Eh?”
“Captain will tell you.”
The last man scrambled aboard. The Captain gave Feather and Journey the hard eye, then marched around getting the men evenly distributed. At the rear of the carpet, unmoving, shunned, sat a child-sized figure concealed in layers of indigo gauze. It howled at random intervals.
I shuddered. “What are you talking about?”
“Captain will tell you,” he repeated.
“Sure. How’s Darling?”
“Doing all right.” Lots of words in our Raven.
The Captain settled beside me. “Bad news, Croaker,” he said.
“Yeah?” I reached for my vaunted sarcasm. “Give it to me straight. I can take it.”
“Tough guy,” Raven observed.
“That’s me. Eat nails for breakfast. Whip wildcats with my bare hands.”
The Captain shook his head. “Hang on to that sense of humor. The Lady wants to see you. Personally.”
My stomach dropped to the ground, which was a couple hundred feet down. “Oh, shit,” I whispered. “Oh, damn.”
“Yeah.”
“What did I do?”
“You’d know better than I do.”
My mind hurtled around like a herd of mice fleeing a cat. In seconds I was soaked with sweat.
Raven observed, “Can’t be as bad as it sounds. She was almost polite.”
The Captain nodded. “It was a request.”
“Sure it was.”
Raven said, “If she had a grudge you’d just disappear.”
I did not feel reassured.
“One too many romances,” the Captain chided. “Now she’s in love with you too.”
They never forget, never let up. It had been months since I had written one of those romances. “What’s it about?”
“She didn’t say.”
Silence reigned the rest of the way. They sat beside me and tried to reassure me with traditional Company solidarity. As we came in on our encampment, though, the Captain did say, “She told us to bring our strength up to the thousand mark. We can enlist volunteers from the lot we brought out of the north.”
“Good news, good news.” That was cause for jubilation. For the first time in two centuries we were going to grow. Plenty of stragglers would be eager to exchange their oaths to the Taken for oaths to the Company. We were in high favor. We had mana. And, being mercenaries, we got more leeway than anyone else in the Lady’s service.
I could not get excited, though. Not with the Lady waiting.
The carpet grounded. Brethren crowded around, anxious to see how we had done. Lies and jocular threats flew.
The Captain said, “You stay aboard, Croaker. Goblin, Silent, One-Eye, you too.” He indicated the prisoners. “Deliver the merchandise.”
As the men slid over the side, Darling came bouncing out of the mob. Raven hollered at her, but of course she could not hear. She scrambled aboard, carrying a doll Raven had carved. It was dressed neatly in clothing of
superb miniature detail. She handed it to me and started flashing finger language.
Raven hollered again. I tried to interrupt, but Darling was intent on telling me about the doll’s wardrobe. Some might have thought her retarded, to be so excited about such things at her age. She was not. She had a mind like a razor. She knew what she was doing when she boarded the carpet. She was stealing a chance to fly.
“Honey,” I said, both aloud and with signs, “You’ve got to get off. We’re going...”
Raven yelled in outrage as the Howler lifted off. One-Eye, Goblin, and Silent all glared at him. He howled. The carpet continued to rise.
“Sit down,” I told Darling. She did so, not far from Feather. She forgot the doll, wanted to know about our adventure. I told her. It kept me occupied. She spent more time looking over the side than paying attention to me, yet she missed nothing. When I finished she looked at Feather and Journey with adult pity. She was unconcerned about my appointment with the Lady, though she did give me a reassuring hug good-bye.
The Howler’s carpet drifted away from the Tower top. I waved a feeble farewell. Darling blew me a kiss.
