account for her grogginess. The old battlefield reflexes took over. I became a military physician. Again.
Murgen joined me after a while. “I found her horse. No sign of Goblin, though. How is she?”
“Better than she looks. Banged around some but nothing critical. She’ll hurt all over for a while.”
About then her eyelids fluttered, she looked up at me, and recognized me. She threw herself at me, wrapped her arms around me, and started crying.
Shadid said something. Murgen chuckled. “Yeah. Let’s see if we can find Goblin.” Cordy Mather was a beat slow, but he got it and went away, too.
She settled down quickly. She was who she was, and was not in the habit of yielding to her emotions. She peeled herself off me. “Excuse me, Croaker.”
“Nothing to excuse. You had a close call.”
“What happened?”
“I was going to ask you.”
“They had me. They had me dead, Croaker. I thought we’d given them the slip, but they knew right where we were. They split us apart and ran me up here, and there must have been a dozen of them sneaking around, jumping in on me and jumping away. They were trying to capture me, not kill me. Guess I should be glad. Otherwise, I’d be dead. But there’s some time missing. I don’t remember you showing up and running them off.”
“I didn’t. Near as I can tell, Shifter saved you.” I told her about the sudden fire and the wolf.
“Maybe. I didn’t know he was around.”
“Where’s Goblin?”
“I don’t know. We split about a mile from here. He tried to baffle them with illusions. We must have killed a hundred of those men today, Croaker. I never saw anybody so inept. But they never stopped coming. When we tried to outrun them there were always more in ambush no matter which way we went. If we tried to fight they always outnumbered us and two more turned up for every one we killed. It was a nightmare. They always knew where we were.” She snuggled in close again. “There had to be some kind of sorcery involved. I was never so scared.”
“It’s all right now. It’s over.” It was the best I could think to say. Now that my nerves were settled I was intensely aware of her as a woman.
What appeared to be lightning flashed to the east, several miles away. But there had been no lightning running with this petty drizzle. I heard Shadid and Murgen and Mather yelling at each other, then the sounds of their mounts moving away. “That’s got to be Goblin,” I said, and started to get up.
She tightened her grip, held me down. “They can handle it, Croaker.”
I looked down. It did not take much light to show me what was in her face. “Yeah. I guess they can.” After a moment’s hesitation, I did what she wanted.
As the breathing got heavier I broke away and said, “You’re not in any shape for-”
“Shut up, Croaker.”
I shut up, and paid attention to business.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Back to scouting
The pinhead gods had other ideas.
I am not a swift worker, and Lady had her natural reluctances-and all of a sudden the sky opened up like somebody chopped open the bellies of the clouds. The downpour was heavy and cold and came with just a breath or two of chill wind for warning. I’d have thought I was already wet enough not to mind more, but...
We’d hardly stopped scrambling around trying to find some shelter when Murgen and the others came out of the night. Murgen said, “It was Goblin, all right, but he was gone when we got there.” He assumed I knew what he was talking about. “Croaker, I know us Black Company types is tough he-men and neither rain nor snow nor little brown geeks is supposed to stop us from doing any damned thing we want, but I’m burned out on this rain. I guess I got what you call conditioned at the Barrowland. I can’t handle too much of it. I get the collywobbles.”
I was burned out on it, too. Especially now it was coming down serious. But... “What about Goblin?”
“What about him? I’ll make you a bet, Croaker. That little dork is all right. Goddamned well better off than we are. Eh?”
This is where command really gets you. When you make a choice that feels like you’re taking the easy way out. When you think you are taking convenience over obligation. “Right, then. Let’s see if we can’t find our way back to town.” I let go Lady’s hand. We got ourselves in better array. Those guys pretended not to notice. I supposed the troops back in Taglios would know before sunrise, somehow. Rumor works that way.
Damn, I wished I was guilty as suspected.
We reached the village as the world began to turn grey. Even those fabulous mounts of ours were worn out. We boothorned them into a stable meant for half a dozen normal animals and went clumping inside. I was sure the owner would be thrilled to death to see his clientele expanded again and looking like they’d just spent the night rolling around in the mud.
The old boy wasn’t around. Instead, a pudgy little woman appeared from the kitchen, looked at us like she thought the barbarians had invaded, then saw Lady.
Lady looked just as rough as the rest of us. Just as mean. But there was no mistaking her for a guy. The old gal rushed her and babbled in Taglian and reached up to pat her back and I didn’t need Cordy to tell me she was doing an “Oh, you poor dear” routine. We followed them back into the kitchen.
And there was friend Goblin, leaning back with his feet up on a log in front of a fire, sipping something from a huge mug.
“Get the little bastard!” Murgen said, and started after him.
Goblin bounced up and squeaked, “Croaker!”
“Where you been, runt? Sitting here drinking toddies while we’re out stomping in the mud trying to save your butt from the baddies, eh?”
Murgen got him cornered. “Hey! No! I just got here myself.”
“Where’s your horse? The stable was one short when we put ours in.”
“It’s pretty miserable out there. I left it out back and came straight inside.”
“It’s not miserable for a horse? Murgen, throw him out and don’t let him back inside till he takes care of his horse.”
Not that we had done all that decent a job ourselves. But we’d at least gotten them in out of the wet.
“Cordy, when the old gal finishes fussing over Lady ask her how far it is to the Main.”
“The Main? You’re not still-”
“I’m still. As soon as I get some chow inside me and a couple hours of sleep. It’s what I came down for and it’s what I’m going to do. Your pals have been running a game on us, whatever their reasons, and I don’t like it. If I can take the Company on without getting drafted into somebody’s fight, I’m going to do it.”
He sort of smiled. “All right. If you have to see for yourself, see for yourself. But be careful.”
Goblin came in looking sheepish and conciliatory and wet. “Where are you going now, Croaker?”
“Where we were going in the first place. The river.”
“Maybe I can save you the trouble.”
“I doubt it. But let’s hear it. You find out something while you were adventuring on your own?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Sorry. It wasn’t one of my all-time best nights.”
“You’re having a lot of not-so-good times in recent years, Croaker. Being Captain gives you a sour stomach.”
“Yeah.”
We exchanged stares. I won the lookdown. He said, “After Lady and I split up I only got about half a mile before I realized them brown guys weren’t being fooled. I knew I did a good job with the illusion. If they didn’t all come after me, then they had some mojo of their own somewhere. I already suspected they did on account of how they stuck all the time even when we outran them. So I figured if I couldn’t get back to Lady I’d do the next best thing and go after whoever was controlling and guiding them. When I started sniffing around for it it was damned
