I turned. Shed was gripping his chest over his heart. His face was marble white. He gobbled for words that would not come. He started trying to rip his shirt.
I thought he was having an attack. But as I reached him, to help, he opened his shirt and grabbed something he was wearing around his neck. Something on a chain. He tried to get it off by main force. The chain would not break.
I forced him to take it off over his head, pried it out of stiff fingers, held it out to Asa.
Asa looked a little pale. "Yeah. That's it."
"Silver," One-Eye said, and looked at Hagop meaningfully.
He would think that way. And he might be right. "Hagop! Come here."
One-Eye took the thing, held it to the light. "Some craftsmanship," he mused... . Then flung it down and dived like a frog off his lily pad. As he arced through the air, he barked like a jackal.
Light flashed. I whirled. Two castle creatures stood at the side of the black lump, frozen in midstep, in the act of rushing us. Shed cursed. Asa shrieked. Kingpin zipped past me and drove his blade deep into a chest. I did the same, so rattled I did not recall the difficulty I'd had during our previous encounter.
We both hit the same one. We both yanked out weapons free. "The neck," I gasped. "Go for the vein in the neck."
One-Eye was up again, ready for action. He told me later he had glimpsed motion in the corner of his eye, jumped just in time to evade something thrown. They had known who to take first. Who was most potent.
Hagop came up from behind as the things started moving, added his blade to the contest. As did Shed, to my surprise. He jumped in with a knife about a foot long, got low, went for a hamstring.
It was brief. One-Eye had given us the moment we needed. They were stubborn about it, but they died. The last to go looked up at Shed, smiled, and said, "Marron Shed. You will be remembered." Shed started shaking. Asa said, "He knew you, Shed." "He's the one I delivered bodies to. Every time but one."
"Wait a minute," I countered. "Only one creature got away at Juniper. Don't seem likely it would be the one who knew you. ..." I stopped. I had noticed something disturbing. The two creatures were identical. Even to a scar across the chest when I peeled back their dark clothing. The creature the Lieutenant and I had hauled down the hill, after having slain it before the castle gate, had had such a scar.
While everyone else was suffering post-combat shakes, One-Eye asked Hagop, "You see anything silver around Old Bones? When you were checking first?" "Uh... ."
One-Eye held up Shed's necklace. "It might have looked something like this. It was what killed him."
Hagop gulped and dug into a pocket. He handed over a necklace identical to Shed's, except that the serpents had no eyes.
"Yeah," One-Eye said, and again held Shed's necklace to the light. "Yeah. The eyes it was. When the time was right. Time and place."
I was more interested in what else might come out of the black lump. I pulled Hagop around the side, found the entrance. It looked like the entrance to a mud hut. I supposed it wouldn't become a real gate till the place grew up. I indicated the tracks. "What do they tell you?"
"They tell me it's busy and we ought to get out of here. There's more of them."
"Yeah."
We rejoined the others. One-Eye was wrapping Shed's necklace in a piece of cloth. "We get back to town, I'm sealing this in something made of steel and sinking it in the harbor.''
"Destroy it, One-Eye. Evil always finds its way back. The Dominator is a perfect example."
"Yeah. All right. If I can."
Elmo's rush into the black castle came to mind while I was getting everybody organized to get out of there. I had changed my mind about overnighting. We could get most of the way back before nightfall. Meadenvil, like Juniper, had neither walls nor gates. We would not be locked outside.
I let Elmo lie in the back of my mind till the thought ripened. When it did, I was aghast.
A tree ensures reproduction by shedding a million seeds. One certainly will survive, and a new tree will grow. I pictured a horde of fighters bursting into the guts of the black castle and finding silver amulets everywhere. I pictured them filling their pockets.
Had to be. That place was doomed. The Dominator would have known that even before the Lady.
My respect for the old devil rose. Crafty bastard.
It was not till we were back on the Shaker Road that I thought to ask Hagop if he had seen any evidence that anyone had left the clearing by another route.
"Nope," he said. "But that don't mean anything.
"Let's not spend so much time yakking," One-Eye said. "Shed, can't you make that damned mule go any faster?"
He was scared. And if he was, I was more so.
Chapter Forty-Five: MEADENVIL: HOT TRAIL
We made the city. But I swear I could sense something sniffing along our backtrail before we reached the safety of the lights. We returned to our lodgings only to find most of the men gone. Where were they? Off to take over Raven's ship, I learned.
I had forgotten about that. Yes. Raven's ship... . And Silent was on Raven's trail. Where was he now? Damn! Sooner or later Raven would lead him to the clearing... . A way to find out if Raven had left it, for sure. Also a way to lose Silent. "One-Eye. Can you get hold of Silent?"
He looked at me strangely. He was tired and wanted to sleep.
"Look, if he follows Raven's every move, he's going to head out to that clearing."
One-Eye groaned and went through several dramatic shows of disgust. Then he dug into his magic sack for something that looked like a desiccated finger. He took it to a corner and communed with it, then returned to say, "I got a line on him. I'll find him."
"Thanks."
"Yeah. You bastard. I ought to make you come with me."
I settled by the fire, with a big beer, and lost myself in thought. After a while, I told Shed: "We have to go back out there."
"Eh?"
"With Silent."
"Who's Silent?"
"Another guy from the Company. Wizard. Like One-Eye and Goblin. He's on Raven's trail, tracing every move he made from the minute he arrived. He figured he could track him down, or at least tell from his movements if he was planning to trick Asa.''
Shed shrugged. "If we have to, we have to."
"Hunh. You amaze me, Shed. You've changed."
"I don't know. Maybe I could have done it all along. I just know that this thing can't happen again, to anybody else."
"Yeah." I did not mention my visions of hundreds of men looting amulets from the fortress at Juniper. He did not need that. He had a mission. I couldn't make it sound hopeless.
I went downstairs and asked the landlord for more beer. Beer makes me sleepy. I had a notion. A possibility. I did not share it with anyone. The others would not have been pleased.
After an hour I took a leak and dragged off to my room, more intimidated by the thought of returning to that clearing than by what I hoped to accomplish now.
Sleep was a time coming, beer or not. I could not relax. I kept trying to reach out and bring her to me. Which meant nothing at all.
It was a weak fool's hope that she would return so soon. I had put her off. Why should she? Why shouldn't she forget me till her minions caught up and could bring me to her in chains?
Maybe there is a connection on a level I do not understand. For I wakened from a drowse, thinking I needed to visit the head again, and found that golden glow hanging above me. Or maybe I did not waken, but only dreamed that I did. I can't get that straight. It always seems so dream-like in retrospect.
I did not wait for her to start. I started talking. I talked fast and told her everything she needed to know about the lump in Meadenvil and about the possibility the troops had carried hundreds of seeds out of the black castle.