I wondered why he had come on horseback. He could get places fast when he wanted. I supposed because he had been close by. Then I worried that some of his troops might show up.
He got up and walked around again, collecting cones and chucking them at the fallen behemoth across the clearing. Damned, but I wished we could take him then, and have done.
The Limper’s mount’s head jerked up. The animal whickered. Raven and I sank down, crushed ourselves into the shadows and needles beneath our trunk. A crackling tension radiated from the clearing.
A moment later I heard hooves crunching needles. I held my breath. From the corner of my eye I caught flickers of a white horse moving among the trees. Whisper? Would she see us?
Yes and no. Thank whatever gods there are, yes and no. She passed within fifty feet without noticing us.
The Limper called something. Whisper replied in a melodious voice that did not at all fit the wide, hard, homely woman I had seen pass. She sounded seventeen and gorgeous, looked forty-five and like she had been around the world three times.
Raven prodded me gently.
I rose about as fast as a flower blooms, scared they would hear my sinews crackle. We peeped over the fallen tree. Whisper dismounted and took one of the Limper’s hands in both of hers.
The situation could not have been more perfect. We were in shadow, they were fixed in a shaft of sunlight. Golden dust sparkled around them. And they were restricting one another by holding hands.
It had to be now. We both knew it, both bent our bows. We both had additional arrows gripped against our weapons, ready to be snapped to our strings. “Now,” Raven said.
My nerves did not bother me till my arrow was in the air. Then I went cold and shaky.
Raven’s shaft went in under the Limper’s left arm. The Taken made a sound like a rat getting stomped. He arched away from Whisper.
My shaft smashed against Whisper’s temple. She was wearing a leather helmet, but I was confident the impact would down her. She spun away from the Limper.
Raven sped a second arrow, I fumbled mine. I dropped my bow and vaulted over the log. Raven’s third arrow whistled past me.
Whisper was on her knees when I arrived. I kicked her in the head, whirled to face the Limper. Raven’s arrows had struck home, but even Catcher’s special shaft had not ended the Taken’s story. He was trying to growl out a spell through a throat filled with blood. I kicked him too.
Then Raven was there with me. I spun back to Whisper.
That bitch was as tough as her reputation. Woozy as she was, she was trying to get up, trying to draw her sword, trying to mouth a spell. I scrambled her brains again, got rid of her blade. “I didn’t bring any cord,” I gasped. “You bring any cord, Raven?”
“No.” He just stood there staring at the Limper. The Taken’s battered leather mask had slipped sideways. He was trying to straighten it so he could see who we were.
“How the hell am I going to tie her up?”
“Better worry about gagging her first.” Raven helped the Limper with his mask, smiling that incredibly cruel smile he gets when he is about to cut a special throat.
I yanked out my knife and hacked at Whisper’s clothing. She fought me. I had to keep knocking her down. Finally, I had strips of rag to bind her and to stuff into her mouth. I dragged her over to the pile of stones, propped her up, turned to see what Raven was doing.
He had ripped the Limper’s mask away, exposing the desolation of the Taken’s face.
“What are you doing?” I asked. He was binding the Limper. I wondered why he was bothering.
“Got to thinking maybe I don’t have the talent to handle this.” He dropped into a squat and patted the Limper’s cheek. The Limper radiated hatred. “You know me, Croaker. I’m an old softy. I’d just kill him and be satisfied. But he deserves a harder death. Catcher has more experience in these things.” He chuckled wickedly.
The Limper strained against his bonds. Despite the three arrows, he seemed normally strong. Even vigorous. The shafts certainly did not inconvenience him.
Raven patted his cheek again. “Hey, old buddy. Word of warning, one friend to another... Wasn’t that what you told me about an hour before Morningstar and her friends ambushed me in that place you sent me? Word of warning? Yeah. Look out for Soulcatcher. He got a hold of your true name. Character like that, there’s no telling what he might do.”
I said, “Take it easy on the gloating, Raven. Watch him. He’s doing something with his fingers.” He was wriggling them rhythmically.
“Aye!” Raven shouted, laughing. He grabbed the sword I had taken from Whisper and chopped fingers off each of the Limper’s hands.
Raven rides me for not telling the whole truth in these Annals. Someday maybe he will look at this and be sorry. But, honestly, he was not nice people that day.
I had a similar problem with Whisper. I chose a different solution. I cut off her hair and used it to tangle her fingers together.
Raven tormented the Limper till I could stand no more. “Raven, that’s really enough. Why don’t you back off and keep them covered?” He had been given no specific instructions about what to do after we captured Whisper, but I figured the Lady would tell Catcher and he would drop in. We just had to keep things under control till he arrived.
Soulcatcher’s magic carpet dropped from the sky half an hour after I chased Raven away from the Limper. It settled a few feet from our captives. Catcher stepped off, stretched looked down at Whisper. He sighed, observed, “Not a pretty sight, Whisper,” in that businesslike female voice. “But then you never were. Yes. My friend Croaker found the buried packets.”
Whisper’s hard, cold eyes sought me. They were informed with a savage impact. Rather than face that, I moved. I did not correct Soulcatcher.
He turned to the Limper, shook his head sadly. “No. It’s not personal. You used up your credit. She ordered this.”
The Limper went rigid.
Soulcatcher asked Raven, “Why didn’t you kill him?”
Raven sat on the trunk of the larger fallen tree, bow across his lap, staring at the earth. He did not reply. I said, “He figured you could think of something better.”
Catcher laughed. “I thought about it corning over here. Nothing seemed adequate. I’m taking Raven’s way out. I told Shifter. He’s on his way.” He looked down at the Limper. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” To me, “You’d think a man this old would have garnered some wisdom along the way.” He turned to Raven. “Raven, he was the Lady’s reward to you.”
Raven grunted. “I appreciate it.”
I had figured that out already. But I was supposed to get something out of this too, and I had not seen anything remotely fulfilling any dream of mine.
Soulcatcher did his mindreading trick. “Yours has changed, I think. It hasn’t been delivered yet. Make yourself comfortable, Croaker. We’ll be here a long time.”
I went and sat beside Raven. We did not talk. There was nothing I wanted to say, and he was lost somewhere inside himself. Like I said, a man cannot live on hatred alone.
Soulcatcher double-checked our captives’ bonds, dragged his carpet rack into the shadows, then perched himself on the stone pile.
Shapeshifter arrived twenty minutes later, as huge, ugly, dirty, and stinking as ever. He looked the Limper over, conferred with Catcher, growled at the Limper for half a minute, then remounted his flying carpet and soared away. Catcher explained, “He’s passing it on too. Nobody wants the final responsibility.”
“Who could he pass it to?” I wondered. The Limper had no heavy enemies left.
Catcher shrugged and returned to the stone pile. He muttered in a dozen voices, drawing into himself, almost shrinking. I think he was as happy to be there as was I.
Time trudged on. The slant of the bars of sunlight gi ever steeper. One after another winked out. I began to wonder if Raven’s suspicions had not been correct. We would be easy pickings after dark. The Taken do not need the sun to see.