“Ready?”
“I guess.”
We left the riverbank. The going became more difficult, but soon we crossed a low ridgeline and reached the edge of the evergreens. Not much grew beneath them. Very little sunlight leaked through their boughs. Raven paused to urinate. “Won’t be any chance later,” he explained.
He was right. You do not want that sort of problem when you are in ambush a stone’s throw from an unfriendly Taken.
I was getting shaky. Raven laid a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll be okay,” he promised. But he did not believe it himself. His hand was shaky too.
I reached inside my jerkin and touched Goblin’s amulet. It helped.
Raven raised an eyebrow. I nodded. We resumed walking. I chewed a strip of jerky, which burned off nervous energy. We did not speak again.
There were ruins among the trees. Raven examined the glyphs incised in the stones. He shrugged. They meant nothing to him.
Then we came to the big trees, the grandfathers of those through which we had been passing. They towered hundreds of feet high and had trunks as thick as the spans of two men’s arms. Here and there, the sun thrust swords of light down through the boughs. The air was thick with resin smells. The silence was overwhelming. We moved one step at a time, making sure our footfalls sent no warnings ahead.
My nervousness peaked out, began to fade. It was too late to run, too late to change my mind. My brain ban-celled all-emotion. Usually that only happened when I was forced to treat casualties while people were-killing one another all around me.
Raven signaled a halt. I nodded. I had heard it too. A horse snorting. Raven gestured for me to stay put. He eased to our left, keeping low, and disappeared behind a tree about fifty feet away.
He reappeared in a minute, beckoned. I joined him. He led me to a spot from which I could look into an open area. The Limper and his horse were there.
The clearing was maybe seventy feet long by fifty wide. A tumble of crumbling stone stood at its center. The Limper sat on one fallen rock and leaned against another. He seemed to be sleeping. One corner of the clearing was occupied by the trunk of a fallen giant that had not been down long. It showed very little weathering.
Raven tapped the back of my hand, pointed. He wanted to move on.
I did not like moving now that we had the Limper in sight. Each step meant another chance to alert the Taken to his peril. But Raven was right. The sun was dropping in front of us. The longer we stayed put, the worse the light would become. Eventually, it would be in our eyes.
We moved with exaggerated care. Of course. One mistake and we were dead. When Raven glanced back I saw sweat on his temples.
He stopped, pointed, smiled. I crept up beside him. He pointed again.
Another fallen tree lay ahead. This one was about four feet in diameter. It looked perfect for our purpose. It was big enough to hide us, low enough to let fly over. We found a spot providing a clean aisle of fire to the heart of the clearing.
The light was good, too. Several spears broke through the canopy and illuminated most of the clearing. There was a little haze in the air, pollen perhaps, which made the beams stand out. I studied the clearing for several minutes, imprinting it on my mind. Then I sat behind the log and pretended I was a rock. Raven took the watch.
It seemed weeks passed before anything happened.
Raven tapped my shoulder. I looked up. He made a walking motion with two fingers. The Limper was up and prowling. I rose carefully, watched.
The Limper circled the pile of stones a few times, bad leg dragging, then sat down again. He picked up a twig and broke it into small pieces, tossing each at some target only he could see. When the twig was gone, he scooped up a handful of small cones and threw them lazily. Portrait of a man killing time.
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.