“Yes.”
“Then try to stay out of the way. Go hitch a ride. Fake a nap.”
I wandered away, cursing the ill fortune that had stripped us of most of our mounts. Gods, walking was getting old.
I did not take the Captain’s advice, though it was sound. I was too keyed up to rest. The prospect of a night march had shaken me.
I roamed around seeking old friends. The Company had scattered throughout the larger mob, as cadre for the Captain’s will. Some men I hadn’t seen since Lords. I did not know if they were still alive.
I could find no one but Goblin, One-Eye, and Silent. Today Goblin and One-Eye were no more communicative than Silent. Which said a lot about morale.
They trudged doggedly onward, eyes on the dry earth, only rarely making some gesture or muttering some word to maintain the integrity of our bubble of peace. I trudged with them. Finally, I tried breaking the ice with a “Hi.”
Goblin grunted. One-Eye gave me a few seconds of evil stare. Silent did not acknowledge my existence.
“Captain says we’re going to march through the night,” I told them. I had to make someone else as miserable as I was.
Goblin’s look asked me why I wanted to tell that kind of lie. One-Eye muttered something about turning the bastard into a toad.
“The bastard you’re going to have to turn is Soulcatcher,” I said smugly.
He gave me another evil look. “Maybe I’ll practice on you, Croaker.”
One-Eye did not like the night march, so Goblin immediately approved the genius of the man who had initiated the idea. But his enthusiasm was so slight One-Eye did not bother taking the bait.
I thought I would give it another try. “You guys look as sour as I feel.”
No rise. Not even a turn of the head. “Be that way.” I drooped too, put one foot ahead of the other, blanked my mind.
They came and got me to take care of Elmo’s wounded. There were a dozen of them, and that was it for the day. The Rebel had run out of do or die.
Darkness came early under the storm. We went about business as usual. We got a little away from the Rebel, waited for the storm to abate, pitched a camp with fires built of whatever brush could be scrounged. Only this time it was just a brief rest, till the stars came out. They stared down with mockery in their twinkles, saying all our sweat and blood really had no meaning in the long eye of time. Nothing we did would be recalled a thousand years from now.
Such thoughts infected us all. No one had any ideals or glory-lust left. We just wanted to get somewhere, lie down, and forget the war.
The war would not forget us. As soon as he believed the Rebel to be satisfied that we were encamped, the Captain resumed the march, now in a ragged column snaking slowly across moonlighted barrens.
Hours passed and we seemed to get nowhere. The land never changed. I glanced back occasionally, checking the renewed storm Stormbringer was hurling against the Rebel camp. Lightning rippled and flickered in this one. It was more furious than anything they had faced so far.
The shadowed Stair of Tear materialized so slowly that it was there for an hour before I realized it was not a bank of cloud low on the horizon. The stars began to fade and the east to lighten before the land started rising.
The Stair of Tear is a rugged, wild range virtually impassable except for the one steep pass from which the cordillera takes its name. The land rises gradually till it reaches sudden, towering red sandstone bluffs and mesas which stretch either way for hundreds of miles. In the morning sun they looked like the weathered battlements of a giant’s fortress.
The column wound into a canyon choked with talus, halted while a path was cleared for the wagons. I dragged myself to a bluff top and watched the storm. It was moving our way.
Would we get through before Harden arrived?
The blockage was a fresh fall which covered only a quarter mile of road. Beyond it lay the route traveled by caravans before the war interrupted trade.
I faced the storm again. Harden was making good time. I suppose anger drove him. He was not about to turn loose. We had killed his brother-in-law, and had engineered the Taking of his cousin...
Movement to the west caught my eye. A whole range of ferocious thunderheads was moving toward Harden, rumbling and brawling among themselves. A funnel cloud spun off and streaked toward the sandstorm. The Taken play rough.
Harden was stubborn. He kept coming through everything.
“Yo! Croaker!” someone shouted. “Come on.”
I looked down. The wagons were through the worst. Time to go.
Out on the flats the thunderheads spun off another funnel cloud. I almost felt sorry for Harden’s men.
Soon after I rejoined the column the ground shuddered. The bluff I had climbed quivered, groaned, toppled, sprawled across the road. Another little gift for Harden.
We reached our stopping place shortly before nightfall. Decent country at last! Real trees. A gurgling creek. Those who had any strength left began digging in or cooking.
The rest fell in their tracks. The Captain did not press. The best medicine at the moment was the simple freedom to rest.
I slept like the proverbial log.
One-Eye wakened me at rooster time. “Let’s get to work,” he said. “The Captain wants a hospital set up.” He made a face. His looks like a prune at the best of times. “We’re supposed to have some help coming up from Charm.”
I groaned and moaned and cursed and got up. Every muscle was stiff. Every bone ached. “Next time we’re someplace civilized enough to have taverns remind me to drink a toast to eternal peace,” I grumbled. “One-Eye, I’m ready to retire.”
“So who isn’t? But you’re the Annalist, Croaker. You’re always rubbing our noses in tradition. You know you only got two ways out while we’ve got this commission. Dead or feet first. Shove some chow in your ugly face and let’s get cracking. I got more important things to do than play nursemaid.”
“Cheerful this morning, aren’t we?”
“Positively rosy.” He grumped around while I got myself into an approximation of order.
The camp was coming to life. Men were eating and washing the desert off their bodies. They were cussing and fussing and bitching. Some were even talking to one another. The recovery had begun.
Sergeants and officers were out surveying the lie of the slope, seeking the most defensible strongpoints. This, then, was the place where the Taken wanted to make a stand.
It was a good spot. It was that part of the pass which gave the Stair its name, a twelve hundred foot rise overlooking a maze of canyons. The old road wound back and forth across the mountainside in countless switchbacks, so that from a distance it looked like a giant’s lopsided stairway
One-Eye and I drafted a dozen men and began moving the wounded to a quiet grove well above the prospective battleground. We spent an hour making them comfortable and getting set for future business.
“What’s that?” One-Eye suddenly demanded.
I listened. The din of preparation had died. “Something up,” I said.
“Genius,” he countered. “Probably the people from Charm.”
“Let’s take a look.” I tramped out of the grove and down toward the Captain’s headquarters. The newcomers were obvious the moment I left the trees.
I would guess there were a thousand of them, half soldiers from the Lady’s personal Guard in brilliant uniforms, the rest apparently teamsters. The tram of wagons and livestock were more exciting than the reinforcements. “Feast time tonight,” I called to One-Eye, who was following me. He looked the wagons over and smiled. Pure pleasure smiles from him are only slightly more common than the fabled hen’s teeth. They are certainly worth recording in these Annals.
With the Guards battalion was the Taken called The Hanged Man. He was improbably tall and lean. His head was twisted way over to one side. His neck was swollen and purpled from the bite of a noose. His face was frozen into the bloated expression of one who has been strangled. I expect he had considerable difficulty speaking.