“What?” she yelped, and then she whipped around in case some soldier might have heard her and ride out of the fog.
I trotted back toward the camp.
Pil followed me. “Stop! Stop right there, or I’ll knock you down!”
Without warning, I turned and grabbed her shirt front. “Will you stop acting like a little dog caught in a gate? There’s a time to run, and we ran. There’s a time to cut your enemy’s throat. This is it. We have every advantage. The camp is the last place they’ll expect us, and if they did, they couldn’t see us coming. You’re a sorcerer, so stop whining. I’m embarrassed for you on behalf of all the sorcerers throughout time.”
The fog happened to lighten around us for a couple of seconds, and I got a good look at Pil. Her face was beaten to hell. Whoever kicked her had broken her nose, split both lips, and blackened both eyes, one of which was swollen shut. She stared at me with her one good eye for a couple of breaths. Then she nodded and smiled, showing two empty places where teeth used to be. I trotted back toward our enemies, and I heard her following along.
A few spooked soldiers still yammered and shouted around the camp. Although I rarely get lost, even in the dark, the sounds helped guide me. When they sounded close, I slowed to a walk. Pil creeped along behind me, touching my shoulder. Ahead of us, two men were yelling at each other to find something for putting out the fire.
I found those two confused, screaming firefighters standing together along with one quiet man in between them, shaking his head and frowning. I jumped out of the fog and knocked one man’s legs out from under him, then I smashed his head with the club of plaster around my right hand. Neither his skull nor the plaster survived. I grabbed the knife off his belt with my liberated right hand and jumped at the silent man. He was still looking around, trying to figure out what was happening, and he never did because I stabbed him in the heart.
I turned to the third man. Pil was kneeling on his chest, her hands wound in his hair, bashing his head against the ground. I cut his throat for her, stole his sword, pulled two more white bands, and freshened the fog. That required expending a good chunk of my remaining power, but the sun was up and I had no better options.
Long chains still hung from the manacles on my wrists, but I sure as hell wasn’t wasting time and power to free myself. I handed Pil the sword. She handed it right back and took the knife from me. Then I gathered the chains up into each hand, turning them into big iron fists.
The soldiers had been talking about a fire. I heard flames snapping from ahead, so I figured the campfires had set the fallen tree ablaze. We padded through the fog in near silence until we ran across a man who seemed to be wandering by himself without purpose. I punched him in the face when he turned. He collapsed limp, and we moved on almost without slowing down.
We reached the fire, which was modest but promised better destruction as it spread. Two men flailed at it with blankets. I clubbed one from behind, and Pil crippled the other’s arm with a thrust. She stared at him as he groaned.
“Kill him!” I snapped. “Stab him. Or knock him down and break his neck!”
Pil squinted at me as if I were speaking in the language of baboons.
“Goddamn it, Pil, don’t let him pick up his sword!”
Pil jerked around toward the soldier, who had knelt to snatch up his sword with his unwounded arm. She swung her knife in a wild cut that glanced off the man’s skull, and he dropped to his hands and knees. He crouched there, wobbly and shaking his head. Pil hesitated again.
“Fingit’s balls on fire!” I knelt and punched the man’s skull hard enough to kill any regular person. “Come on.”
The half-collapsed tent lay partway under the flaming tree, and I cut through the canvas tent-side using Pil’s knife. She held it open while I pushed inside. Enough firelight leaked in for me to see a small, crushed table and a cot. My scabbarded sword lay on the ground beside the table, and I grabbed it. Blood covered the cot, but I didn’t see Leddie, either alive or smashed to death. The gold lump lay on the ground beside the cot.
“I bet she was lying there admiring it.” I laughed. “The price of avarice.”
“What are you saying?” Pil hissed. “Are you laughing? Have you lost your wits?”
“I’m sounding the retreat now,” I muttered.
“Do you mean we’re not going to kill them all?” Pil sounded a little hysterical, and her one good eye appeared too bright, but it was hard to be sure through the fog, bruises, and dried blood.
“We’ll let a few live till tomorrow, in case we get bored.” I led her out of the camp at a lope toward the bog. Hoofbeats and shouting sounded through the fog, mainly ahead of us.
We jogged on for fifteen minutes, stopping twice to wait for riders to either pass by or stumble onto us. I paused once to pant and freshen the fog, which wanted badly to thin and blow away. I tried to run faster but seemed to slow down instead.
Keeping the fog in place would take just about all my power, so if I wanted to keep a reserve, I’d have to let the fog drift away. I struggled with the decision for a minute. Then I said, “Prepare to be seen, Pil. This mist will die away in a few seconds.” I let the fog dissipate and saw we were still half a mile from the bog.
Clear daylight showed
