There were lesser mishaps too numerous to recount. We accumulated bruises, bloody abrasions, splinters, and mashed fingers. The moon was no help when it rose. We were down in the Rip, under the bridge deck. We did catch a break when a cold breeze rose and dispersed the smoke.
Robin swung over the rail and came down. “Blind Emon is coming.” Somewhere, a mule brayed.
Soon we heard chatter and clatter approaching. Blind Emon began to leak over.
Had she won? No. No final winner yet. Whisper and the Taken had gotten mauled, bad. But they had broken the command link between the Master and Emon. A tactical success for them. Emon ran the moment the connection went. No loyalty at all, that gal. She was wiped out, now, barely able to keep up with the people she was trying to protect.
All of the Lady’s Taken had suffered grievously.
Emon seemed unaware that the Lady had become interested herself.
The Lady, I was sure, would deal with the Master permanently.
I knew the exact instant that Blind Emon sensed my proximity.
Right away she wanted me to know things. I needed the information. She was hurt bad. She did not expect to see the dawn.
I monkeyed through the trestlework, reported to Elmo. He asked, “You able to communicate?”
“Sort of. She’s getting most of my thoughts, now. I think.”
“You being a wiseass?”
“No. I feel her emotions. She’s excited about being free, down on herself about not being strong enough to refuse to do the evil he made her do, and open about how they planned to use us the way we meant to use them.”
“What?”
“They knew we were in the forest from the start. They knew they couldn’t avoid a collision with the Taken. There’s bad blood from olden times. The mule people serve them, raising most of the food for the people at the ruin. They have been making bang stuff for over a month. They never thought we’d find the road and the bridge. They thought those were hidden too well. They didn’t know we had One-Eye in our trick bag.”
Elmo muttered something about adding a hundred bricks and chucking that bag into a handy river. Then, “Am I wrong, guessing your new girlfriend wouldn’t be running loose if the Lady hadn’t been interested?”
I had abandoned all hope of ever clarifying my relationship with the Lady. “Probably.”
“So even if Whisper and them are dead and half their troops besides, them that survived will come after us as fast as they can stagger. This shit ain’t going near as fast as I hoped. See if you can get her to help.”
“How? Doing what?”
“How the fuck do I know? Somehow. Anything. Don’t look at me. I’m day labor. I don’t get paid to think. I been told that plenty.”
A WAY TO make kegs bang bigger slithered into my head. I told Elmo. One-Eye disagreed. “One of them gobble jockeys told me, knock a hole…”
“I got it from Blind Emon. The inventor. We pack those sacks of beads around each keg. She sends a curse and the Bam! is way bigger.”
Blind Emon was feeling vindictive. She hoped people would be on the bridge when she made her wish. She did not much care who.
One-Eye wanted to use burning rope fuses. I wondered where he would get them. Elmo said, “They’d smell the smoke.”
“If we do it like Croaker and his new honey want, we have to start all over to pack the stuff the way she wants.”
“Then you better not waste time complaining.”
I demonstrated the way Emon wanted the bead sacks installed. “And stop asking why. I just know there’ll be more bang.”
Later, One-Eye announced, “Time to get quiet. Company is coming.”
For sure. The enemy, neither sneaking nor hurrying. They had no one pushing them. Their command authority remained engaged with the Master. Chatter suggested that two Taken were gone forever.
I hoped Whisper was one. She had been a pain in the ass for ages.
The Imperials reached the bridge. In moonlight it seemed ephemeral. It caused a lot of awed chatter. Underneath, there was angry muttering bearing on the name of Blind Emon’s new boyfriend.
The Imperials were not looking for us. They had been sent to secure a bridge they had not believed existed. They did mention a bounty that had been offered for me.
Some of my brethren probably wondered how they could collect.
The bridge became crowded. The Lady had sent a lot of men. We kept on working underneath, slowly and quietly, me enduring a drizzle of catty whispers. We would have been long gone if that asshole Croaker had not insisted that the kegs and sacks be rearranged.
Even Elmo had an unhappy remark or seven.
The lieutenant did not blow us up, possibly only because he lacked the means.
WE WERE ABOUT done. Only Whittle, One-Eye, and I were still under the bridge. Clever Goblin had charted a pearl string of potent glamours that could be used to slink off to the forest unnoticed. Whittle was shaving a bit off a last keg so it would fit where Emon wanted it. One-Eye was doing a whole lot of nothing but being disgruntled. I was trying to manage two sacks of beads while trying not to be distracted by Emon nagging me to hurry. The bridge creaked and rattled as a heavy infantry battalion crossed leisurely. Those not troubled by heights paused to gawk at the spectacular moonlit Rip, where exposed granite looked like splotches of silver.
One-Eye muttered, “Marvelous! And now it’s raining!”
Whittle was quickest. He cursed so loud a couple guys up top wondered what they had heard. We were, for once, blessed by Whittle’s fierce dialect.
What it was, was, those guys were pissing off the bridge to watch the liquid fall. The breeze broke that up and pushed it under the deck.
Naturally, them amusing themselves that way was all my fault.
One-Eye offered to throw me overboard. He did not do so only because he figured I would glom on and take him with me. All the screaming during the fall might alert the Imperials that something was up.
Finished work, we weaseled carefully out of the trestle into a glamour patch just yards from a clutch of officers debating what to do next. A break for supper and sleep was the more popular proposition. The bridge was secure. The old bitch was busy elsewhere. She would never notice.
A crow squawked angrily.
Crows do not, usually, jabber much after nightfall.
I WAS BEHIND some brush, inside a glamour reinforced by Blind Emon. She lurked beside me, like a heap of dirty rags, emotion and agony held in check. Most of Elmo’s patrol were close, plus the lieutenant and some henchmen. One-Eye never stopped muttering. He could not let the golden rain go. He would have to take a bath. He had not suffered through one for years. Baths were not healthy. Everyone knew that.
One nocturnal crow nagged on, almost conversationally. Hell! It was conversational. One-sided conversational. Listening closely, I could make out most of it.
A generous ass-chewing was in progress. The Lady was not pleased with the day’s outcome. She was almost displeased enough to come out her own physical self instead of just relying on a spiritual messenger.
Commanders fell over one another assuring her that a personal visit would be unnecessary.
The lieutenant asked, “What now, Croaker?” He, Elmo, One-Eye, and a dozen others looked at me like the future was mine to design.
Blind Emon sent, There is only one way. To her surprise and mine, she had been regaining strength, probably at my expense.
“Huh?” A rejoinder scintillating in its Croakeresqueness.
The conversation between the Imperials and crow drifted our way. I had not paid close attention for several seconds.
“They are here!” the crow insisted. “I smell them!”
“Oh, shit! Get the hell out of here!” I said, having a hard time keeping my voice down. “Run!”
Most of the gawkers had recognized the wisdom of that action already. The lieutenant said, “Whatever the hell the plan is, Croaker, it’s time to do it.”