"You kidding? Go out in that muck when I don't have to? Hell. All right. I guess." He started levering himself out of his chair.
"Sit down, Willow," Mather said. "I'll go. I'm in better shape than you are."
Swan said, "You talked me into it, you smooth-talking son of a bitch. I don't know how you do it, you golden-tongued bastard. You can get anything you want out of me. Be careful."
"Ready?" Mather asked me. He stifled a small smile.
"Yeah."
We went out and climbed onto the horses, who were beginning to look a little put-upon. I led out, but Shadid soon slipped past, suggesting he lead since he knew whence they had come. The day was getting on. The light was feeble. It was about as dreary as it could get. More to distract myself than because I cared, I told Murgen, "Better explain what's going on."
"Cordy can tell you better than me. I just stuck with them."
The roi was not setting a blistering pace. I fought down the growls breeding in my gut. I kept telling me she was a big girl and she'd been taking care of herself since before I was born. But the man in me kept saying that's your woman, you got to take care of her.
Sure.
"Cordy? I know you guys don't work for me and you got your own priorities, but... "
"Nothing to cover up, Captain. Word came that some of you guys was going to ride out. That boggled the Woman. She figured you all to make a break for the Main in a mob and learn about the Shadowmasters the hard way. Instead, you went to scout it. She didn't think you were that smart."
"We're talking about the old broad you guys brought down the river, right. The Radisha?"
"Yeah. We call her the Woman. Blade hung it on her before we knew who she was."
"And she knew we were heading out before we went. Interesting. This is a wondrous time of my life, Mr. Mather. For the last year everybody in the world has known what I was going to do before I did. It's enough to make a guy nervous."
We passed some trees. In one I spied this incredibly bedraggled crow. I laughed, and hoped aloud he was as miserable as me. The others eyed me uncertainly. I wondered if I shouldn't start cultivating a new image. Work it up slowly. All the world dreads a madman. If I played it right...
"Hey, Cordy, old travelling buddy. You sure you don't know anything about those little brown guys?"
"All I know is they tried to ice us when we was headed north. Nobody ever saw anybody like them before. They figure to be out of the Shadowlands."
"Why are the Shadowmasters paranoid about us?" I did not expect an answer. I did not get one. "Cordy, you guys really serious about winning it for the Prahbrindrah?"
"I am. For Taglios. I found something there I never found anywhere else. Willow too, though you could roast him and never get it out of him. I don't know about Blade. I guess he's in because we're in. He's got one and a half friends in the world and nothing else to live for. He's just going on."
"One and a half?"
"Willow he's got. I'm the half. We pulled him out when somebody threw him to the crocodiles. He stuck because he owed us a life. After what we've been through since then if you was keeping accounts you couldn't figure who owes who what anymore. I can't tell you about the real Blade. He never lets you see that."
"What are we into? Or is that something you figure you shouldn't tell me?"
"What?"
"There's more going on than your Woman and the Prahbrindrah trying to get us to keep the Shadowmasters out. Otherwise they'd make a straight deal instead of trying to con us."
We travelled a mile while he thought. He finally said, "I don't know for sure. I think they're doing the way they are because of the way the Black Company did Taglios before."
"I thought so. And we don't know what our forebrethren did. And no one will tell us. It's like one giant conspiracy where everybody in Taglios won't tell us anything. In a city that big you'd think I'd find one guy with an axe to grind."
"You'd find platoons if you looked in the right place. All them priests spend their lives looking to cut each others' throats."
He had given me something there. I wasn't sure what. "I'll keep it in mind. I don't know if I can handle priests, though."
"They're like any other guys if you get your bluff in."
The gloom closed in tighter as the day advanced. I was so soaked I no longer paid that much attention. We hit a stretch where we had to go single file. Cordy and Murgen dropped back. "I picked up a few things I'll tell you about later," Murgen said before he went.
I moved up behind the roi to ask how much farther. It was just the misery of the day, but I felt like I'd been travelling for weeks.
Something whipped across our path so suddenly that that unflappable mount of Shadid's reared and whinnied. He shouted "What the hell was that?" in his native tongue. I understood because I'd learned a few words when I was a kid.
I caught only a glimpse. It looked like a monster grey wolf with a deformed pup clinging to its back. It vanished before my eye could track it.
Do wolves do that? Carry their young on their backs?
I laughed almost hysterically. Why worry about that when I ought to be wondering if there was such a thing as a wolf the size of a pony?
Murgen and Cordy caught up and wanted to know what had happened. I said I didn't know because I was no longer sure I had seen what I had seen.
But the wonder lay back there in the shadows of my mind, ripening.
Shadid stopped two miles past the place where we'd been ambushed originally. It was getting hard to see. He peered around, trying to read landmarks. He grunted, moved out to his left, off the road. I spied signs suggesting this was the way he had come with Otto and Hagop.
After another half mile the ground dropped into a small valley where a narrow creek ran. Rocks stuck up seemingly at random. Likewise, trees grew in scatters. It was now so dark I could not see more than twenty feet.
We started finding bodies.
A lot of little brown men had died for their cause. Whatever that was.
Shadid stopped again. "We led them in from the other direction. Here's where we split. We went up that way. The others held on to give us a head start." He dismounted, began snooping around. The light was almost gone before he found the track out of the valley. It was full dark before we covered a mile.
Murgen said, "Maybe we ought to go back and wait. We can't accomplish much stumbling around in the dark."
"You go back if you want," I snapped, with a savagery that surprised me. "I'm staying till I find... "
I could not see him, but I suspected he was grinning through his misery. He said, "Maybe we shouldn't split up. That much more trouble getting everybody back together."
Riding through the night in unfamiliar territory is not one of the smarter things I've done. Especially with a horde out there that wanted to do me harm. But the gods take care of fools, I guess.
Our mounts stopped. Their ears pricked. After a moment mine made a sound. A moment later still that sound was repeated from our left quarter. Without being urged the animals turned that way.
We found Sindawe and the man he'd brought in a crude bough shelter, their mounts hanging around outside. Both were injured, Sindawe the worst. We talked briefly while I did some stitching and patching and bandaging. Lady had ordered them to disappear. Goblin had covered for them while the pursuit went on off to the southeast. They had planned to head north in the morning.
I told them where to meet up, then got back into my saddle.
I was dead on my butt, barely able to stay upright, but something made me go on. Something I did not want to examine too closely lest I have to mock myself for my sentiment.
I got no arguments, though I think Mather was getting a little unsure of my sanity. I heard him whispering with Murgen, and Murgen telling him to can it.