The Captain stamped in a circle, growling and scowling. Had he the talent of a Goblin or a One-Eye, smoke would have poured from his ears.
I winked at Goblin, who grinned like a big toad. This shambling little war dance was just a warning not to trifle with him. He shuffled maps. He cast dark looks. He wheeled on me. “I don’t like it. Did you put him up to it?”
“Hell no.” I do not try to create Company history. I just record it.
Then Raven showed up. He dumped a body at the Captain’s feet, proffered a string of grisly trophies.
“What the hell?”
“Thumbs. They count coup in these parts.”
The Captain turned green around the gills. “What’s the body for?”
“Stick his feet in the fire. Leave him. They won’t waste time wondering how we knew they were out there.”
One-Eye, Goblin, and Silent cast a glamour over the Company. We slipped away, slick as a fish through the fingers of a clumsy fisherman. An enemy battalion, which had been sneaking up, never caught a whiff of us. We headed straight north. The Captain planned to find the Limper.
Late that afternoon One-Eye broke into a marching song. Goblin squawked in protest. One-Eye grinned and sang all the louder.
“He’s changing the words!” Goblin squealed.
Men grinned, anticipating. One-Eye and Goblin have been feuding for ages. One-Eye always starts the scraps. Goblin can be as touchy as a fresh burn. Their spats are entertaining.
This time Goblin did not reciprocate. He ignored One-Eye. The little black man got his feelings hurt. He got louder. We expected fireworks. What we got is bored. One-Eye could not get a rise. He started sulking.
A bit later, Goblin told me, “Keep your eyes peeled, Croaker. We’re in strange country. Anything could happen.” He giggled.
A horsefly landed on the haunch of One-Eye’s mount. The animal screamed, reared. Sleepy One-Eye tumbled over its tail. Everybody guffawed. The wizened little wizard came up out of the dust cursing and swatting with his battered old hat. He punched his horse with his free hand, connecting with the beast’s forehead. Then he danced around moaning and blowing on his knuckles.
His reward was a shower of catcalls. Goblin smirked.
Soon One-Eye was dozing again. It’s a trick you learn after enough weary miles on horseback. A bird settled on his shoulder. He snorted, swatted... The bird left a huge, fetid purple deposit. One-Eye howled. He threw things. He shredded his jerkin getting it off.
Again we laughed. And Goblin looked as innocent as a virgin. One-Eye scowled and growled but did not catch on.
He got a glimmer when we crested a hill and beheld a band of monkey-sized pygmies busily kissing an idol reminiscent of a horse’s behind. Every pygmy was a miniature One-Eye.
The little wizard turned a hideous look on Goblin. Goblin responded with an innocent, don’t look at me shrug.
“Point to Goblin,” I judged.
“Better watch yourself, Croaker,” One-Eye growled. “Or you’ll be doing the kissing right here.” He patted his fanny.
“When pigs fly.” He is a more skilled wizard than Goblin or Silent, but not half what he would have us believe. If he could execute half his threats, he would be a peril to the Taken. Silent is more consistent, Goblin more inventive.
One-Eye would lie awake nights thinking of ways to get even for Goblin’s having gotten even. A strange pair. I do not know why they have not killed one another.
Finding the Limper was easier said than done. We trailed him into a forest, where we found abandoned earthworks and a lot of Rebel bodies. Our path tilted downward into a valley of broad meadows parted by a sparkling stream.
“What the hell?” I asked Goblin. “That’s strange.” Wide, low, black humps pimpled the meadows. There were bodies everywhere.
“That’s one reason the Taken are feared. Killing spells. Their heat sucked the ground up.”
I stopped to study a hump.
The blackness could have been drawn with a compass. The boundary was as sharp as a penstroke. Charred skeletons lay within the black. Swordblades and spearheads looked like wax imitations left too long in the sun. I caught One-Eye staring. “When you can do this trick you’ll scare me.”
“If I could do that I’d scare myself.”
I checked another circle. It was a twin of the first.
Raven reined in beside me. “The Limper’s work. I’ve seen it before.”
I sniffed the wind. Maybe I had him in the right mood. “When was that?”
He ignored me.
He would not come out of his shell. Would not say hello half the time, let alone talk about who or what he was.
He is a cold one. The horrors of that valley did not touch him.
“The Limper lost this one,” the Captain decided. “He’s on the run.”
“Do we keep after him?” the Lieutenant asked.
“This is strange country. We’re in more danger operating alone.”
We followed a spoor of violence, a swath of destruction. Ruined fields fell behind us. Burned villages. Slaughtered people and butchered livestock. Poisoned wells. The Limper left nothing but death and desolation.
Our brief was to help hold Forsberg. Joining the Limper was not mandatory. I wanted no part of him. I did not want to be in the same province.
As the devastation grew more recent, Raven showed elation, dismay, introspection easing into determination, and ever more of that rigid self-control he so often hid behind.
When I reflect on my companions’ inner natures I usually wish I controlled one small talent. I wish I could look inside them and unmask the darks and brights that move them. Then I take a quick look into the jungle of my own soul and thank heaven that I cannot. Any man who barely sustains an armistice with himself has no business poking around in an alien soul.
I decided to keep closer watch on our newest brother.
We did not need Doughbelly coming in from the point to tell us we were close. All the forward horizon sprouted tall, leaning trees of smoke. This part of Forsberg was flat and open and marvelously green, and against the turquoise sky those oily pillars were an abomination.
There was not much breeze. The afternoon promised to be scorching.
Doughbelly swung in beside the Lieutenant. Elmo and I stopped swapping tired old lies and listened. Doughbelly indicated a smoke spire. “Still some of the Limper’s men in that village, sir.”
“Talk to them?”
“No sir. Longhead didn’t think you’d want us to. He’s waiting outside town.”
“How many of them?”
“Twenty, twenty-five. Drunk and mean. The officer was worse than the men.”
The Lieutenant glanced over his shoulder. “Ah. Elmo. It’s your lucky day. Take ten men and go with Doughbelly. Scout around.”
“Shit,” Elmo muttered. He is a good man, but muggy spring days make him lazy. “Okay. Otto. Silent. Peewee. Whitey. Billygoat. Raven...”
I coughed discreetly.
“You’re out of your head, Croaker. All right.” He did a quick count on his fingers, called three more names. We formed outside the column. Elmo gave us the once-over to make sure we hadn’t forgotten our heads. “Let’s go.”
We hurried forward. Doughbelly directed us into a wood-lot overlooking the stricken town. Longhead and a man called Jolly waited there. Elmo asked, “Any developments?”
Jolly, who is professionally sarcastic, replied, “The fires are burning down.”
We looked at the village. I saw nothing that did not turn my stomach. Slaughtered livestock. Slaughtered cats and dogs. The small, broken forms of dead children.
“Not the kids too,” I said, without realizing I was speaking. “Not the babies again.”
Elmo looked at me oddly, not because he was unmoved himself but because I was uncharacteristically sympathetic. I have seen a lot of dead men. I did not enlighten him. For me there is a big difference between adults and’ kids. “Elmo, I have to go in there.”