Step back. Step back. So damned slow. But there was no choice. If we turned our backs they would swarm over us. We had to make them pay for every approach, to intimidate their exuberance thoroughly.
Stormbringer’s sending was our best armor. The Windy Country is wild and brisk at the best of times, flat, barren, and dry, uninhabited, a place where sandstorms are common. But never had it seen a storm like this, that went on hour after hour and day after day, relenting only in the hours of darkness. It made the Windy Country no fit place for any living thing. And only that kept the Company alive.
There were three thousand of us now, falling back before the inexorable tide that had swamped Lords. Our little brotherhood, by refusing to break, had become the nucleus to which the fugitives from the disaster had attached themselves once the Captain had fought his way through the siege lines. We had become the brains and nerves of this fleeing shadow of an army. The Lady herself had sent orders for all Imperial officers to defer to the Captain. Only the Company had produced any signal successes during the northern campaign.
Someone came out of the dust and howl behind me, tapped my shoulder. I whirled. It was not yet time to leave the line.
Raven faced me. The Captain had figured out where I was.
Raven’s whole head was wrapped in rags. I squinted, one hand raised to block the biting sand. He screamed something like, “Ta kata wa ya.” I shook my head. He pointed rearward, grabbed me, yelled into my ear. “The Captain wants you.”
Of course he did. I nodded, handed over bow and arrows, leaned into the wind and grit. Weapons were in short supply. The arrows I had given him were spent Rebel shafts gleaned after they had come wobbling out of the brownish haze.
Trudge trudge trudge. Sand pattering against the top of my head as I walked with chin against chest, hunched, eyes slitted. I did not want to go back. The Captain was not going to say anything I wanted to hear.
A big bush came spinning and bounding toward me. It nearly bowled me over. I laughed. We had Shapeshifter with us. The Rebel would waste a lot of arrows when that hit their lines. They outnumbered us ten or fifteen to one, but numbers could not soften their fear of the Taken.
I stamped into the fangs of the wind till I was sure I had gone too far, or had lost my bearings. It was always the same. After I decided to give up, there it was, the miraculous isle of peace. I entered it, staggering in the sudden absence of wind. My ears roared, refusing to believe the quiet.
Thirty wagons rolled along in tight formation inside the quiet, wheel to wheel. Most were filled with casualties. A thousand men surrounded the wagons, tramping doggedly southward. They stared at the earth and dreaded the coming of their turns out on the line. There was no conversation, no exchange of witticisms. They had seen too many retreats. They followed the Captain only because he promised a chance to survive.
“Croaker! Over here!” The Lieutenant beckoned me from the formation’s extreme right flank.
The Captain looked like a naturally surly bear wakened from hibernation prematurely. The grey at his temples wriggled as he chewed his words before spitting them out. His face sagged. His eyes were dark hollows. His voice was infinitely tired. “Thought I told you to stick around,”
“It was my turn...”
“You don’t take a turn, Croaker. Let me see if I can put it into words simple enough for you. We have three thousand men. We’re in continuous contact with the Rebel. We’ve got one half-assed witchdoctor and one real doctor to take care of those boys. One-Eye has to spend half his energy helping maintain this dome of peace. Which leaves you to carry the medical load. Which means you don’t risk yourself out on the line. Not for any reason.”
I stared into the emptiness above his left shoulder, scowling at the sand swirling around the sheltered area.
“Am I getting through, Croaker? Am I making myself clear? I appreciate your devotion to the Annals, your determination to get the feel of the action, but...”
I bobbed my head, glanced at the wagons and their sad burdens. So many wounded, and so little I could do for them. He did not see the helpless feeling that caused. All I could do was sew them up and pray, and make the dying comfortable till they went-whereupon we dumped them to make room for newcomers.
Too many were lost who need not have been, had I had time, trained help, and a decent surgery. Why did I go out to -the battle line? Because I could accomplish something there. I could strike back at our tormentors.
“Croaker,” the Captain growled. “I get the feeling you’re not listening.”
“Yes sir. Understood, sir. I’ll stay here and tend to my sewing.”
“Don’t look so bleak.” He touched my shoulder. “Catcher says we’ll reach the Stair of Tear tomorrow. Then we can do what we all want. Bloody Harden’s nose.”
Harden had become the senior Rebel general. “Did he say how we’re going to manage that, outnumbered a skillion to one?”
The Captain scowled. He did his shuffling little bear dance while he phrased a reassuring answer.
Three thousand exhausted, beaten men turn back Harden’s victory-hopped horde? Not bloody likely. Not even with three of the Ten Who Were Taken helping.
“I thought not,” I sneered.
“That’s not your department, though, is it? Catcher doesn’t second-guess your surgical procedures, does he? Then why question the grand strategy?”
I grinned. “The unwritten law of all armies, Captain. The lower ranks have the privilege of questioning the sanity and competence of their commanders. It’s the mortar holding an army together.”
The Captain eyed me from his shorter stature, wider displacement, and from beneath shaggy brows. “That holds them together, eh? And you know what keeps them moving?”
“What’s that?”
“Guys like me ass-kicking guys like you when they start philosophizing. If you get my drift.”
“I believe I do, sir.” I moved out, recovered my kit from the wagon where I had stashed it, went to work. There were few new casualties.
Rebel ambition was wearing down under Stormbringer’s ceaseless assault.
I was loafing along, waiting for a call, when I spotted Elmo loping out of the weather. I hadn’t seen him for days. He fell in beside the Captain. I ambled over.
“...sweep around our right,” he was saying. “Maybe trying to reach the Stair first.” He glanced at me, lifted a hand in greeting. It shook. He was pallid with weariness. Like the Captain, he had had little rest since we had entered the Windy Country.
“Pull a company out of reserve. Take them in flank,” the Captain replied. “Hit them hard, and stand fast. They won’t expect that. It’ll shake them. Make them wonder what we’re up to.”
“Yes sir.” Elmo turned to go.
“Elmo?”
“Sir?”
“Be careful out there. Save your energy. We’re going to keep moving tonight.”
Elmo’s eyes spoke tortured volumes. But he did not question his orders. He is a good soldier. And, as did I, he knew they came from above the Captain’s head. Perhaps from the Tower itself.
Hitherto, night had brought a tacit truce. The rigors of the days had left both armies unwilling to take one needless step after dark. There had been no nighttime contact.
Even those hours of respite, when the storm slept, were not enough to keep the armies from marching with their butts drooping against their heels. Now our high lords wanted an extra effort, hoping to gain some tactical advantage. Get to the Stair by night, get dug in, make the Rebel come at us out of perpetual storm. It made sense. But it was the sort of move ordered by an armchair general three hundred miles behind the fighting.
“You hear that?” the Captain asked me.
“Yeah. Sounds dumb.”
“I agree with the Taken, Croaker. The travelling will be easier for us and more difficult for the Rebel. Are you caught up?”