“Not for long. Whoever has control of that mist-making thing is trying to get me to answer him. Why don’t you sneak around there and smash that sucker so I don’t have to get dragged into it every time somebody wants my view on how to crack a walnut or whatever else the crisis of the moment happens to be.”
“Not hardly, former boss. I’m carrying a whole bag of nuts myself.”
“You would” Murgen departed as though yanked away.
I could have sworn I heard the laughter of an eavesdropping white crow.
77
“How come you’re so crabby?” Willow Swan demanded when I snapped at him for no good reason. “Rag time again already?”
I blushed. Me, after twenty years among the crudest men on two hooves. “No, jerk. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
“
It exploded out of him like the shriek of a stomped rat.
“I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Oh, yeah. Not our sweet little Sleepy. Guys, anybody, Ro, River, whoever, you want to step up and remind us about the Roar in the Rain last night?”
Riverwalker told me, “Boss, your snoring made more noise than a tiger in heat. We had people get up and move back up the road toward home to get away from the racket. There were people wanted to strangle you or at least put your head in a sack. I bet if anybody else knew what the hell we were doing and where we were going, you’d be on that travois with General Sindawe.”
“But I’m such a sweet, delicate flower. I couldn’t possibly snore.” I had been accused of the crime before but only jokingly, never with such passion.
River snorted. “Swan decided not to marry you.”
“I’m stricken. I’ll see if One-Eye doesn’t have a cure.”
“A cure? The man can’t even take care of himself.”
I scrounged up something to eat. It was barely worth the effort and definitely not filling. We would be on short rations for a long time. Before I finished what morning preparations were possible for me, the forward elements were already moving. The general mood was more relaxed. We had survived the night. And yesterday we had shoved it to the Protector real good.
The relaxation ended when we found Bucket’s remains.
Big Bucket, real name Cato Dahlia, once a thief, once an officer of the Black Company, was almost a father to me. He never said and I never asked but I suspect he knew I was female all along. He was very unpleasant to some of my male relatives, way back when.
You did not want to be the object when Bucket got angry.
I managed not to break down. I had had a long time to get used to the idea that he was gone, though there was always some small, irrational hope that Murgen was wrong, that death had overlooked him and he was buried with the Captured.
The men put Bucket on the travois with Sindawe without having to be told.
I tagged along and became entranced by one of those unaccountably irrelevant trains of thought that often take shape at such times.
We had left a truly nasty mess where we had spent the night, particularly in the line of animal waste. Likely the Captured had done the same during their passage along this same road. However, other than the odd corpse, there was no sign that they had passed through. There were no dung piles now, no gnawed, discarded bones, no vegetable waste, no ashes from charcoal braziers, nothing. Only human bodies lasted and they became thoroughly desiccated.
I would have to take it up with Murgen. Meantime, it was a mental exercise that would keep me from dwelling upon Bucket.
We trudged on southward. The rain came and went, never more than a drizzle, though sometimes the wind brought it stinging in from a sharp angle. I shivered a lot and worried about it getting cold enough to sleet or snow. No other evil found us. Eventually I spied the vague silhouette of our initial destination, that mysterious central fortress.
The wind began to blow steadily.
Some of the men complained about the cold. Some complained about the wet. Quite a few complained about the menu, and a handful insisted on complaining about all the complaining, I sensed few positive feelings concerning what we were doing.
I felt very much alone, almost abandoned, the whole day long despite well-meant efforts from Swan, Sahra and quite a few others. Only Uncle Doj did not bother because even at this late date he remained piqued because I would not enlist as his apprentice. He continued his emotional machinations. Several times I caught myself retreating into my away place and had to remind me that I did not need to go there now. None of those people could hurt me anymore. Not if I did not let them. I controlled their reality. They survived only in my memory...
Even that is immortality of a sort.
We Vehdna believe in ghosts. And we believe in evil. I wondered if the Gunni might not be onto something after all. For them the pain inspired by the departure of loved ones is less personal and far more fatalistic and is accepted as a necessary stage of life that does not end with this one transformation.
If the Gunni, by some bizarre and remote practical joke of the divine, happen to be in possession of a more accurate theology, I must have been a bad, bad girl in a previous life. I sure hope I had fun... Forgive me, O Lord of the Hours, Who Art Merciful and Compassionate. I have sinned in my heart. Thou Art God. There Can Be No Other.
78
There were flakes of snow in the air whenever the wind took to loafing. Then each time it found renewed ambition it hurled tiny flecks of ice that stung my face and hands. Though it sounded fearful, the level of grumbling never reached suggestions of mutiny. Willow Swan trotted up and down the column gossiping and dropping reminders that we had nowhere to go but straight ahead. The weather did not hamper him at all. He seemed to find it invigorating. He kept telling everyone how wonderful it would be once we got some real snow, say, four or five feet. The world would look better then, yes sir! He guaranteed it. He grew up in stuff like that and it made a real man out of you.
With equal frequency I overheard some advice the fulfillment of which was physically impossible for anyone not some select variety of worm as often the people cried out, offering up impassioned pleas to One-Eye, Goblin, even Tobo, to fill Swan’s mouth with quick-setting mortar.
“Are you having fun?” I asked him.
“Oh, yeah. And they’re not blaming you for anything, either.”
His boyish grin told me he was not being some kind of unwanted hero. He was playing games with me, too.
All northerners seemed to have that capacity for play. Even the Captain and Lady, sometimes, had shown signs with one another. And One-Eye and Goblin... the little black wizard’s stroke may have been a godsend. I could not imagine those two missing an opportunity for screwing up as grand as this one was if they were both in excellent health.
When I suggested something of the sort to Swan he failed to understand. Once I explained, he observed, “You’re missing the point, Sleepy. Unless they’re extremely drunk, those two won’t do anything dangerous to anybody but themselves. I’m on the outside and I recognized that twenty years ago. How could you miss it?”
“You’re right. And I do know that. I’m just looking for things to go wrong. I get gloomy when I try to prepare
