The Black Company

Chapter Six Lady

The land slowly became silvery green. Dawn scattered feathers of crimson upon the walled town. Golden flashes freckled its battlements where the sun touched dew. The mists began to slide into the hollows. Trumpets sounded the morning watch.

The Lieutenant shaded his eyes, squinted. He grunted disgustedly, glanced at One-Eye. The little black man nodded. “Time, Goblin,” the Lieutenant said over his shoulder.

Men stirred back in the woods. Goblin knelt beside me, peered out at the farmland. He and four other men were clad as poor townswomen, with their heads wrapped in shawls. They carried pottery jars swinging from wooden yokes, had their weapons hidden inside their clothing.

“Go. The gate is open,” the Lieutenant said. They moved out, following the edge of the wood downhill.

“Damn, it’s good to be doing this kind of thing again,” I said.

The Lieutenant grinned. He had smiled seldom since we had left Beryl.

Below, the five fake women slipped through shadow toward the spring beside the road to town. Already a few townswomen were headed down to draw water.

We expected little trouble getting to the gatekeepers. The town was filled with strangers, refugees and Rebel campfollowers. The garrison was small and lax. The Rebel had no cause to suppose the Lady would strike this far from Charm. The town had no significance in the grand struggle.

Except that two of the Eighteen, privy to Rebel strategies, were quartered there.

We had lurked in those woods three days, watching. Feather and Journey, recently promoted to the Circle, were honeymooning there before moving south to join the assault on Charm.

Three days. Three days of no fires during the chilly nights, of dried food at every meal. Three days of misery. And our spirits were their highest in years. “I think we’ll pull it off,” I opined.

The Lieutenant gestured. Several men stole after the disguised.

One-Eye remarked, “Whoever thought this up knew what he was doing.” He was excited.

We all were. It was a chance to do that at which we are best. For fifty days we had done plain physical labor, preparing Charm for the Rebel onslaught, and for fifty nights we had agonized about the coming battle.

Another five men slipped downhill.

“Bunch of women coming out now,” One-Eye said. Tension mounted.

Women paraded toward the spring. There would be a flow all day, unless we interrupted. They had no water source inside the wall.

My stomach sank. Our infiltrators had started uphill. “Stand ready,” the Lieutenant said.

“Loosen up,” I suggested. Exercise helps dissipate nervous energy.

No matter how long you soldier, fear always swells as combat nears. There is always the dread that the numbers will catch up- One-Eye enters every action sure the fates have checked his name off their list.

The infiltrators exchanged falsetto greetings with the townswomen. They arrived at the gate undiscovered. It was guarded by a single militiaman, a cobbler busy hammering brass nails into the heel of a boot. His halberd was ten feet away.

Goblin scampered back outside. He clapped his hands overhead. A crack reverberated across the countryside. His arms fell level with his shoulders, palms up. A rainbow arced between his. hands.

“Always has to ham it up,” One-Eye grumbled. Goblin did a jig.

The patrol swept forward. The women at the spring screamed and scattered. Wolves jumping into a sheepfold, I thought. We ran hard. My pack hammered my kidneys. After two hundred yards I was stumbling over my bow. Younger men began passing me.

I reached the gate unable to whip a grandmother. Lucky for me, the grandmas were goofing off. The men swept through the town. There was no resistance.

We who were to tackle Feather and Journey hastened to the tiny citadel. That was no better defended. The Lieutenant and I followed One-Eye, Silent, and Goblin inside.

We encountered no resistance below the top level. There, incredibly, the newlyweds were still entangled in sleep. One-Eye brushed their guards aside with a terrifying illusion. Goblin and Silent shattered the door to the lovenest.

We stormed inside. Even sleepy, baffled, and frightened, they were feisty. They bruised several of us good before we got gags into their mouths and bonds onto their wrists.

The Lieutenant told them, “We’re supposed to bring you back alive. That don’t mean we can’t hurt you some. Come quiet, do what you’re told, and you’ll be all right.” I halfway expected him to sneer, twirl the end of his mustache, and punctuate with evil laughter. He was clowning, assuming the villain’s role the Rebel insists we play.

Feather and Journey would give us all the trouble they could. They knew the Lady hadn’t sent us to bring them round for tea.

Halfway back to friendly territory. On our bellies on a hilltop, studying an enemy encampment. “Big,” I said. “Twenty-five, thirty thousand men.” It was one of six such camps on an arc bending north and west of Charm.

“They sit on their hands much longer, they’re in trouble,” the Lieutenant said.

They should have attacked immediately after the Stair of Tear. But the loss of Harden, Sidle, Moth, and Linger had set lesser captains to squabbling over supreme command. The Rebel offensive had stalled. The Lady had regained her balance.

Her patrols-in-force now harassed Rebel foragers, exterminated collaborators, scouted, destroyed everything the enemy might find useful. Despite vastly superior numbers, the Rebel’s stance was becoming defensive. Every day in camp sapped his psychological momentum.

Two months ago our morale was lower than a snake’s butt. Now it was on the rebound. If we made it back it would soar. Our coup would stun the Rebel movement.

If we made it back.

We lay motionless upon steep lichened limestone and dead leaves. The creek below chuckled at our predicament. Shadows of naked trees stippled us. Low-grade spells by One-Eye and his cohorts further camouflaged us. The smell of fear and of sweaty horses taunted my nostrils. From the road above came the voices of Rebel cavalrymen. I could not understand their tongue. They were arguing, though.

Scattered with undisturbed leaves and twigs, the road had looked unpatrolled. Weariness had overcome our caution. We had decided to follow it. Then we had rounded a turn and found ourselves facing a Rebel patrol across the meadowed valley into which the creek below flowed.

They were cursing our disappearance. Several dismounted and urinated down the bank...

Feather started thrashing.

Damn! I screamed inside. Damn! Damn! I knew it!

The Rebels yammered and lined the edge of the road.

I smacked the woman’s temple. Goblin clipped her from the other side. Quick-thinking Silent wove nets of spell with tentacle-limber fingers dancing close to his chest.

A ragged bush shivered. A fat old badger waddle-ran down the bank and crossed the creek, vanishing into a dense stand of poplars.

Cursing, the Rebels threw rocks. They clattered like dropped stoneware as they skipped off boulders in the streambed. The soldiers stamped around telling one another we had to be nearby. We could not have gotten much farther on foot. Logic might undo the best efforts of our wizards.

I was scared with a knee-knocking, hand-shaking, gut-emptying kind of fear. It had built steadily, through too many narrow escapes. Superstition told me my odds were getting too long.

So much for that earlier gust of refreshed morale. The unreasoning fear betrayed it for the illusion it was. Beneath its patina I retained the defeatist attitude brought down from the Stair of Tear. My war was over and lost. All I wanted to do was run.

Journey showed signs of getting frisky too. My glare was fierce. He subsided.

A breeze stirred the dead leaves. The sweat on my body chilled. My fear cooled somewhat.

The patrol remounted. Still fussing, they rode on up the road. I watched them come into sight where the way curled eastward with the canyon. They wore scarlet tabards over good link mail. Their helmets and arms were of excellent quality. The Rebel was getting prosperous. They had started out as a rabble armed with tools.

“We could have taken them,” someone said.

“Stupid!” the Lieutenant snapped. “Right now they aren’t sure who they saw. If we fought, they would know.”

We did not need the Rebel getting a line on us this close to home. There was no room for maneuvering.

The man who had spoken was one of the stragglers we had accumulated during the long retreat. “Brother, you better learn one thing if you want to stick with us. You fight when there ain’t no other choice. Some of us would have gotten hurt too, you know.”

He grunted.

“They’re out of sight,” the Lieutenant said. “Let’s move.” He took the point, headed for the rugged hills beyond the meadow. I groaned. More crosscountry.

My every muscle ached already. Exhaustion threatened to betray me. Man was not meant for endless dawn to dusk marching with sixty pounds on his back.

“Damned fast thinking back there,” I told Silent.

He accepted praise with a shrug, saying nothing. As always.

A cry from the rear. “They’re coming back.”

We sprawled on the flank of a grassy hill. The Tower rose above the horizon due south. That basaltic cube was intimidating even from ten miles away-and implausible in its setting. Emotion demanded a surround of fiery waste, or at best a land perpetually locked in winter. Instead, this country was a vast green pasture, gentle hills with small farms dotting their southern hips. Trees lined the deep, slow brooks snaking between.

Nearer the Tower the land became less pastoral, but never reflected the gloom Rebel propagandists placed around the Lady’s stronghold. No brimstone and barren, broken plains. No bizarre, evil creatures strutting over scattered human bones. No dark clouds ever rolling and grumbling in the sky.

The Lieutenant said, “No patrols in sight. Croaker, One-Eye, do your stuff.”

I strung my bow. Goblin brought three prepared arrows. Each had a malleable blue ball at its head. One-Eye sprinkled one with grey dust, passed it to me. I aimed at the sun, let fly.

Blue fire too bright to view flared and sank into the valley below. Then a second, and a third. The fireballs dropped in a neat column, appearing to drift down more than fall.

“Now we wait,” Goblin squeaked, and threw himself down in the tall grass.

“And hope our friends arrive first.” Any nearby Rebel surely would investigate the signal. Yet we had to call for help. We could not penetrate the Rebel cordon unnoticed.

“Get down!” the Lieutenant snapped. The grass was tall enough to conceal a supine figure. “Third squad, take me watch.”

Men grumbled and claimed it was another squad’s turn. But they took sentinel positions with that minimal, obligatory complaint. Their mood was bright. Hadn’t we lost those: fools back in the hills? What could stop us now?

I made a pillow of my pack and watched cumulus mountains drift over in stately legions. It was a gorgeous, crisp, springlike day.

My gaze dropped to the Tower. My mood darkened. The pace would pick up. The capture of Feather and Journey would spur the Rebel into action. Surrender secrets those two would. There was no way to hide or lie when the Lady asked a question.

I heard a rustle, turned my head, found myself eye to eye with a snake. It wore a human face. I started to yell-then recognized that silly grin.

One-Eye. His ugly mug in miniature, but with both eyes and no floppy hat on top. The snake snickered, winked, slithered across my chest.

“Here they go again,” I murmured, and sat up to watch.

There was a sudden, violent thrashing in the grass. Farther on, Goblin popped up wearing a shit-eating grin. The grass rustled. Animals the size of rabbits trooped past me, carrying chunks of snake in bloody needle teeth. Homemade mongooses, I guessed.

Goblin had anticipated One-Eye again.

One-Eye let out a howl and jumped up cursing. His hat spun around. Smoke poured out of his nostrils. When he yelled fire roared in his mouth.

Goblin capered like a cannibal just before they dish up the long pig. He described circles with his forefingers. Rings of pale orange glimmered in the air. He flipped them at One-Eye. They settled around the little black man. Goblin barked like a seal. The hoops tightened.

One-Eye made weird noises and negated the rings. He made throwing notions with both hands. Brown balls streaked toward Goblin. They exploded, yielding clouds of butterflies that went for Goblin’s eyes. Goblin did a backflip, scampered through the grass like a mouse fleeing an owl, popped up with a counterspell.

The air sprouted flowers. Each bloom had a mouth. Each mouth boasted walruslike tusks. The flowers skewered butterfly wings with their tusks, then complacently munched butterfly bodies. Goblin fell over giggling.

One-Eye cussed a literal blue streak, a cerulean banner trailing from his lips. Argent lettering proclaimed his opinion of Goblin.

“Knock it off!” the Lieutenant thundered belatedly. “We don’t need you attracting attention.”

“Too late, Lieutenant,” somebody said. “Look down there.”

Soldiers were headed our way. Soldiers wearing red, with the White Rose emblazoned on their tabards. We dropped into the grass like ground squirrels into their holes.

Chatter ran across the hillside. Most threatened One-Eye with dire dooms. A minority included Goblin for having shared in the betraying fireworks.

Trumpets sounded. The Rebel dispersed for an assault on our hill.

The air whined in torment. A shadow flashed over the hilltop, rippling across windblown grass. “Taken,” I murmured, and popped up for the instant needed to spot a flying carpet banking into the valley. “Soulcatcher?” I couldn’t be sure. At that distance it could have been any of several Taken.

The carpet dove into massed arrow fire. Lime fog enveloped it, trailed behind it, for a moment recalled the comet which overhung the world. The lime haze scattered resolved into threadlike snippets. A few filaments caught the breeze and drifted our way.

I glanced up. The comet hung on the horizon like a ghost of a god’s scimitar. It had been in the sky so long we scarcely noticed it now. I wondered if the Rebel had become equally indifferent. For him it was one of the great portents of impending victory.

Men screamed. The carpet had passed along the Rebel line and now drifted like down on the wind just beyond bowshot. The lime-colored thread was so scattered it was barely visible. The screams came from men who had suffered its touch; Grisly green wounds opened wherever there was contact.

Some thread seemed determined to come our way.

The Lieutenant saw it. “Let’s move out, men. Just in case,” He pointed across the wind. The thread would have to drift sideways to catch us.

We hustled maybe three hundred yards. Writhing, the thread crawled on air, coming our way. It was after us. The Taken watched intently, ignoring the Rebel.

“That bastard wants to kill us!” I exploded- Terror turned my legs to gelatin. Why would one of the Taken want us to become victims of an accident?

If that was Catcher... But Catcher was our mentor. Our boss. We wore his badges. He wouldn’t...

The carpet snapped into motion so violently its rider almost tumbled off. It hurtled toward the nearest wood, vanished. The thread lost volition and drifted down, disappearing in the grass.

“What the devil?”

“Holy Hell!”

I whirled. A vast shadow moved toward us, expanding, as a gigantic carpet descended. Faces peeped over its edges. We froze,, bristling with ready weapons.

“The Howler,” I said, and had my guess confirmed by a cry like that of a wolf challenging the moon.

The carpet grounded. “Get aboard, you idiots. Come on. Move it.”

I laughed, tension draining away. That was the Captain. He danced like a nervous bear along the near edge of the carpet. Others of our brethren accompanied him. I threw my pack aboard, accepted a hand up. “Raven. You showed up in the nick this time.”

“You’ll wish we’d let you take your chances.”

“Eh?”

“Captain will tell you.”

The last man scrambled aboard. The Captain gave Feather and Journey the hard eye, then marched around getting the men evenly distributed. At the rear of the carpet, unmoving, shunned, sat a child-sized figure concealed in layers of indigo gauze. It howled at random intervals.

I shuddered. “What are you talking about?”

“Captain will tell you,” he repeated.

“Sure. How’s Darling?”

“Doing all right.” Lots of words in our Raven.

The Captain settled beside me. “Bad news, Croaker,” he said.

“Yeah?” I reached for my vaunted sarcasm. “Give it to me straight. I can take it.”

“Tough guy,” Raven observed.

“That’s me. Eat nails for breakfast. Whip wildcats with my bare hands.”

The Captain shook his head. “Hang on to that sense of humor. The Lady wants to see you. Personally.”

My stomach dropped to the ground, which was a couple hundred feet down. “Oh, shit,” I whispered. “Oh, damn.”

“Yeah.”

“What did I do?”

“You’d know better than I do.”

My mind hurtled around like a herd of mice fleeing a cat. In seconds I was soaked with sweat.

Raven observed, “Can’t be as bad as it sounds. She was almost polite.”

The Captain nodded. “It was a request.”

“Sure it was.”

Raven said, “If she had a grudge you’d just disappear.”

I did not feel reassured.

“One too many romances,” the Captain chided. “Now she’s in love with you too.”

They never forget, never let up. It had been months since I had written one of those romances. “What’s it about?”

“She didn’t say.”

Silence reigned the rest of the way. They sat beside me and tried to reassure me with traditional Company solidarity. As we came in on our encampment, though, the Captain did say, “She told us to bring our strength up to the thousand mark. We can enlist volunteers from the lot we brought out of the north.”

“Good news, good news.” That was cause for jubilation. For the first time in two centuries we were going to grow. Plenty of stragglers would be eager to exchange their oaths to the Taken for oaths to the Company. We were in high favor. We had mana. And, being mercenaries, we got more leeway than anyone else in the Lady’s service.

I could not get excited, though. Not with the Lady waiting.

The carpet grounded. Brethren crowded around, anxious to see how we had done. Lies and jocular threats flew.

The Captain said, “You stay aboard, Croaker. Goblin, Silent, One-Eye, you too.” He indicated the prisoners. “Deliver the merchandise.”

As the men slid over the side, Darling came bouncing out of the mob. Raven hollered at her, but of course she could not hear. She scrambled aboard, carrying a doll Raven had carved. It was dressed neatly in clothing of

superb miniature detail. She handed it to me and started flashing finger language.

Raven hollered again. I tried to interrupt, but Darling was intent on telling me about the doll’s wardrobe. Some might have thought her retarded, to be so excited about such things at her age. She was not. She had a mind like a razor. She knew what she was doing when she boarded the carpet. She was stealing a chance to fly.

“Honey,” I said, both aloud and with signs, “You’ve got to get off. We’re going...”

Raven yelled in outrage as the Howler lifted off. One-Eye, Goblin, and Silent all glared at him. He howled. The carpet continued to rise.

“Sit down,” I told Darling. She did so, not far from Feather. She forgot the doll, wanted to know about our adventure. I told her. It kept me occupied. She spent more time looking over the side than paying attention to me, yet she missed nothing. When I finished she looked at Feather and Journey with adult pity. She was unconcerned about my appointment with the Lady, though she did give me a reassuring hug good-bye.

The Howler’s carpet drifted away from the Tower top. I waved a feeble farewell. Darling blew me a kiss. Goblin patted his breast. I touched the amulet he had given me in Lords. Small comfort, that.

Imperial Guards strapped Journey and Feather onto litters. “What about me?” I asked shakily.

A captain told me, “You’re supposed to wait here.” He stayed when the others left. He tried to make small talk, but I wasn’t in the mood.

I wandered to the Tower’s edge, looked out on the vast engineering project being undertaken by the Lady’s armies.

At the time of the Tower’s construction huge basalt billets had been imported. Shaped on site, they had been stacked and fused into this gigantic cube of stone. The waste, chips, blocks broken during shaping, billets found unsuitable, and overage, had been left scattered around the Tower in a vast wild jumble more effective than any moat. It extended a mile.

In the north, though, a depressed piece-of-pie section remained unlittered. This constituted the only approach to the Tower on the ground. In that arc the Lady’s forces prepared for the Rebel onslaught.

No one down there believed his labor would shape the battle’s outcome. The comet was in the sky. But every man worked because labor provided surcease from fear.

The pie-slice rose to either side, meeting the rock jumble. A log palisade spanned the slice’s wide end. Our camps lay behind that. Behind the camps was a trench thirty feet deep and thirty wide. A hundred yards nearer the Tower there was another trench, and a hundred yards nearer still, a third, still being dug.

The excavated earth had been transported nearer the Tower and dumped behind a twelve foot log retaining wall spanning the slice. From this elevation men would hurl missiles on an enemy attacking our infantry on ground level.

A hundred yards back stood a second retaining wall, providing another two fathom elevation. The Lady meant to array her forces in three distinct armies, one on each level, and force the Rebel to fight three battles in series.

An earthen pyramid was a building a dozen rods behind the final retaining wall. It was seventy feet high already, its sides sloping about thirty-five degrees.

Obsessive neatness characterized everything. The plain, in places scraped down several feet, was as level as a tabletop. It had been planted with grass. Our animals kept that cropped like a well-kept lawn. Stone roadways ran here and there, and woe betide the man who strayed off without orders.

Below, on the middle level, bowmen were ranging fire on the ground between the nearer trenches. While they loosed, their officers adjusted the positions of racks from which they drew their arrows.

On the upper terrace Guards bustled around ballistae, calculating fire lanes and survivability, ranging their engines on targets farther away. Carts laden with ammunition sat near each weapon.

Like the grass and mannered roadways, these preparations betrayed an obsession with order.

On the bottom level workmen had begun demolishing short sections of retaining wall. Baffling.

I spotted a carpet coming in, turned to watch. It settled to the roof. Four stiff, shaky, wind-burned soldiers stepped off. A corporal led them away.

The armies of the east were headed our way, hoping to arrive before the Rebel assault, with little hope of actually making it. The Taken were flying day and night bringing in what manpower they could.

Men shouted below. I turned to look... Threw up an arm. Slam! Impact threw me a dozen feet, spinning. My Guard guide yelled. The Tower roof came up to meet me. Men shouted and ran my way.

I rolled, tried to get up, slipped in a slick of blood. Blood! My blood! It spurted from the inside of my left upper arm. I stared at the wound with dull, amazed eyes. What the hell?

“Lay down,” the Guard captain ordered. “Come on.” He slapped me a good one. “Quick. Tell me what to do.”

“Tourniquet,” I croaked. “Tie something around it. Stop the bleeding.”

He yanked his belt off. Good, quick thinking. One of the best tourniquets there is. I tried to sit up, to advise while he worked.

“Hold him down,” he told several bystanders. “Foster What happened?”

“One of the weapons fell off the upper tier. It went off when it fell. They’re running around like chickens.”

“Wasn’t no accident,” I gasped. “Somebody wanted to kill me.” Getting hazy, I could think of nothing but lime thread crawling against the wind. “Why?”

“Tell me and we’ll both know, friend. You men. Get a litter.” He snugged the belt tighter. “Going to be all right, fellow. We’ll have you to a healer in a minute.”

“Severed artery,” I said. “That’s tricky.” My ears hummed. The world began to turn slowly, getting cold. Shock. How much blood did I lose? The captain had moved fast enough. Plenty of time. If the healer was not some butcher...

The captain grabbed a corporal. “Go find out what happened down there. Don’t take any bullshit answers.”

The litter came. They lifted me in, hoisted me, and I passed out. I wakened in a small surgery, tended by a man who was as much sorcerer as surgeon. “Better job than I could have done,” I told him when he finished.

“Any pain?”

“Nope.”

“Going to ache like hell in a while.”

“I know.” How many times had I said the same?

The Guard captain came. “Going all right?”

“Done,” the surgeon replied. To me, “No work. No activity. No sex. You know the drill.”

“I do. Sling?”

He nodded. “We’ll bind your arm to your side, too, for a few days.”

The captain was antsy. “Find out what happened?” I asked.

“Not really. The ballista crew couldn’t explain. It just got away from them somehow. Maybe you got lucky.” He recalled me saying somebody was trying to kill me.

I touched the amulet Goblin had given me. “Maybe.”

“Hate to do it,” he said. “But I’ve got to take you for your interview.”

Fear. “What about?”

“You’d know better than I.”

“But I don’t.” I had a remote suspicion, but had forced that out of mind.

There seemed to be two Towers, one sheathing the other. The outer was the seat of Empire, manned by the Lady’s functionaries. The inner, as intimidating to them as was the whole to us outside, took up a third of the volume and could be entered at only one point. Few ever did so.

The entrance was open when we reached it. There were no guards. I suppose none were needed. I should have been more scared, but was too dopey. The captain said, “I’ll wait here.” He had placed me in a wheeled chair, which he rolled through the doorway. I went in with my eyes sealed and heart hammering.

The door chunked shut. The chair rolled a long way, making several turns. I don’t know what impelled it. I refused to look. Then it stopped moving. I waited. Nothing happened. Curiosity got the best of me. I blinked.

She stands in the Tower, gazing northward. Her delicate hands are clasped before Her. A breeze steals softly through Her window. It stirs the midnight silk of Her hair. Tear diamonds sparkle on the gentle curve of Her cheek.

My own words, written more than a year before, came back. It was that scene, from that romance, to the least detail. To detail I had imagined but never written. As if that fantasy instant had been ripped from my brain whole and given the breath of life.

I did not believe it for a second, of course. I was in the bowels of the Tower. There were no windows in that grim structure.

She turned. And I saw what every man sees in dreams. Perfection. She did not have to speak for me to know her voice, her speech rhythms, the breathiness between phrases. She did not have to move for me to know her mannerisms, the way she walked, the odd way she would lift her hand to her throat when she laughed. I had known her since adolescence.

In seconds I understood what the old stories meant about her overwhelming presence. The Dominator himself must have swayed in her hot wind.

She rocked me, but did not sweep me away. Though half of me hungered, the remainder recalled my year around Goblin and One-Eye. Where there is sorcery nothing is what it seems. Nice, yes, but sugar candy.

She studied me as intently as I studied her. Finally, “We meet again,” The voice was everything I expected and more. It had humor, too.

“Indeed,” I croaked.

“You’re frightened.”

“Of course I am.” Maybe a fool would have denied it. Maybe.

“You were injured.” She drifted closer. I nodded, my heartbeat increasing. “I wouldn’t subject you to this if it wasn’t important.”

I nodded again, too shaky to speak, totally baffled. This was the Lady, the villain of the ages, the Shadow animate This was the black widow at the heart of darkness’ web, a demi-goddess of evil. What could be important enough for her to take note of the likes of me?

Again, I did have suspicions I would not admit to myself. My moments of critical congress with anyone important were not numerous.

“Someone tried to kill you. Who?”

“I don’t know.” Taken on the wind. Lime thread.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know. Even if you think you don’t.” Flint razored through that perfect voice.

I had come expecting the worst, had been taken in by the dream, had let my defenses fall.

The air hummed. A lemon glow formed above her. She moved closer, becoming hazy-except for that face and that yellow. That face expanded, vast, intense, swooping closer. Yellow filled the universe. I saw nothing but the eye...

The Eye! I remembered the Eye in the Forest of Cloud. I tried to throw my arm across my face. I could not move. I think I screamed. Hell. I know I screamed.

There were questions I did not hear. Answers spooled across my mind, in rainbows of thought, like oil droplets spreading on still, crystal water. I had no more secrets.

No secrets. No thought I’d ever had was hidden.

Terror writhed in me like snakes afraid. I had written those silly romances, true, but I also had my doubts and disgusts. A villain as black as she would destroy me for having seditious thoughts...

Wrong. She was secure in the strength of her wickedness. She did not need to quash the questions and doubts and fears of her minions. She could laugh at our consciences and moralities.

This was no repeat of our encounter in the forest. I did not lose my memories. I just did not hear her questions. Those could be inferred from my answers about my contacts with the Taken.

She was hunting the something I began to suspect at the Stair of Tear. I had stumbled into as deadly a trap as ever snapped shut; Taken as the one jaw, the Lady as the other.

Darkness. And awakening.

She stands in the Tower, gazing northward... Tear diamonds sparkle on Her cheek.

A spark of Croaker remained unintimidated. “This is where I came in,”

She faced me, smiled. She stepped over and touched me with the sweetest fingers ever woman possessed.

All fear went away.

All darkness closed in again.

Passageway walls were rolling by when I recovered. The Guard captain was pushing me. “How are you doing?” he asked.

I took stock. “Good enough. Where you taking me now?”

“The front door. She said cut you loose.”

Just like that? Hmm. I touched my wound. Healed. I shook my head. Things like this did not happen to me.

I paused at the place where the ballista had had its mishap. There was nothing to see and no one to question. I descended to the middle level and visited one of the crews excavating there. They had orders to install a cubicle twelve feet wide and eighteen deep. They had no idea why.

I scanned the length of the retaining wall. A dozen such sites were under construction.

The men eyed me intently when I limped into camp. They choked on questions they could not ask, on concern they could not express. Only Darling refused to play the traditional game. She squeezed my hand, gave me a big smile. Her little fingers danced.

She asked the questions machismo forbid the men. “Slow down,” I told her. I was not yet proficient enough to catch everything she signed. Yet her joy communicated itself. I had a big grin on when I became aware that someone was in my way. I looked up. Raven.

“Captain wants you,” he said, He seemed cool.

“Figures.” I signed good-bye, strolled toward headquarters. I felt no urgency. No mere mortal could intimidate me now.

I glanced back. Raven had his arm across Darling’s shoulder, proprietary, looking puzzled.

The Captain was off his style. He dispensed with the customary growling. One-Eye was the only third party present, and he, too, was interested in nothing but business.

“We got trouble?” the Captain asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What happened in the hills. No accident, eh? The Lady summons you, and half an hour later one of the Taken goes zuzu. Then there’s your accident at the Tower. You’re bad hurt and nobody can explain.”

One-Eye observed, “Logic insists a connection.”

The Captain added, “Yesterday we heard you were dying. Today you’re fine. Sorcery?”

“Yesterday?” Time had gotten away again. I pushed the tent flap aside, stared at the Tower. “Another night in elf hill.”

“Was it an accident?” One-Eye asked.

“It wasn’t accidental.” The Lady hadn’t thought so.

“Captain, that jibes.”

The Captain said, “Somebody tried to knife Raven last night. Darling ran him off.”

“Raven? Darling?”

“Something woke her up. She whacked the guy in the head with her doll. Whoever it was got away.”

“Weird.”

“Decidedly,” One-Eye said. “Why would Raven sleep through and a deaf kid wake up? Raven can hear the footfall of a gnat. Smells of sorcery. Cockeyed sorcery. The kid shouldn’t have awakened.”

The Captain jumped in. “Raven. You. Taken. The Lady. Murder attempts. An interview in the Tower. You have the answer. Spill it.”

My reluctance showed.

“You told Elmo we should disassociate ourselves from Catcher. How come? Catcher treats us good. What happened when you took out Harden? Spread it around and there wouldn’t be any point to killing you.”

Good argument. Only I like to be sure before I shoot my mouth off. “I think there’s a plot against the Lady. Soulcatcher and Stormbringer might be involved.” I related details of Harden’s fall and Whisper’s taking. “Shifter was really upset because they let the Hanged Man die. I don’t think the Limper was part of anything. He was set up, and manipulated craftily. The Lady was too. Maybe the Limper and the Hanged Man were her supporters.”

One-Eye looked thoughtful. “You sure Catcher is in on it?”

“I’m not sure of anything. I wouldn’t be surprised by anything, either. Ever since Beryl I’ve thought he was using us.”

The Captain nodded. “Definitely. I told One-Eye to cook up an amulet that’ll warn you if one of the Taken gets too close. For what good it’ll do. I don’t think you’ll be bothered again, though. The Rebel is on the move. That’ll be everybody’s first order of business.”

A chain of logic lightninged to a conclusion. The data was there all the time. It just needed a nudge to drop into place. “I think I know what it’s about. The Lady being an usurper.”

One-Eye asked, “One of the boys in the masks wants to do her the way she done her old man?”

“No. They want to bring back the Dominator.”

“Eh?”

“He’s still up north, in the ground. The Lady just kept him from returning when the wizard Bomanz opened the way for her. He could be in touch with Taken who are faithful to him. Bomanz proved communication with those buried in the Barrowland was possible. He could even be guiding some of the Circle, Harden was as big a villain as any of the Taken.”

One-Eye pondered, then prophesied. “The battle will be lost. The Lady will be overthrown. Her loyal Taken will be laid low and her loyal troops wiped out. But they will take the most idealistic elements among the Rebel with them, meaning, essentially, a defeat for the White Rose.”

I nodded. “The comet is in the sky, but the Rebel hasn’t found his mystic child.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right on the mark when you say maybe the Dominator is influencing the Circle. Yeah.”

“And in the chaos afterward, while they’re squabbling over the spoils, up jumps the devil,” I said.

“So where do we fit?” the Captain asked.

“The question,” I replied, “is how do we get out from under.”

Flying carpets buzzed around the Tower like flies around a corpse. The armies of Whisper, the Howler, the Nameless, Bonegnasher, and Moonbiter, were eight to twelve days away, converging. Eastern troops were pouring in by air.

The gate in the palisade was busy with the comings and goings of parties harassing the Rebel. The Rebel had moved his camps to within five miles of the Tower. Some company troops made the occasional night raid, abetted by Goblin, One-Eye, and Silent, but the effort seemed pointless. The numbers were too overwhelming for hit and run to have any substantial effect. I wondered why the Lady wanted the Rebel kept stirred up.

Construction was complete. The obstacles were prepared. Boobytraps were in place. There was little to do but wait.

Six days had passed since our return with Feather and Journey. I’d expected their capture to electrify the Rebel into striking, but still they were stalling. One-Eye believed they had hopes of a last-minute finding of their White Rose.

Only the drawing of lots remained undone. Three of the Taken, with armies assigned them, would defend each level. It was rumored that the Lady herself would command forces stationed on the pyramid.

Nobody wanted to be on the front line. No matter how things went, those troops would be badly hurt. Thus the lottery.

There had been no more attempts on Raven or myself. Our antagonist was covering his tracks some other way. Too late to do unto us, anyway. I’d seen the Lady.

The tenor changed. Returning skirmishers began to look more battered, more desperate. The enemy was moving his camps again.

A messenger reached the Captain. He assembled the officers. “It’s begun. The Lady has called the Taken to the lottery.” He wore an odd expression. The main ingredient was astonishment. “We have special orders. From the Lady herself!”

Whisper-murmur-rastle-grumble, everyone shaken. She was giving us all the rough jobs. I envisioned having to anchor the first line against Rebel elite troops.

“We’re to strike camp and assemble on the pyramid.” A hundred questions buzzed like hornets. He said, “She wants us for bodyguards.”

“The Guard won’t like that,” I said. They did not like us anyway, having had to submit to the Captain’s orders at the Stair of Tear.

“Think they’ll give her a hard way to go, Croaker? Gents, the boss says go. So we go. You want to talk about it, do it while you’re breaking camp. Without the men hearing.”

For the troops this was great news. Not only would we be behind the worst fighting, we would be in a position to fall back into the Tower.

Was I that sure we were doomed? Did my negativism mirror a general attitude? Was this an army defeated before the first blow?

The comet was in the sky.

Considering that phenomenon while we moved, amidst animals being driven into the Tower, I understood why the Rebel had stalled. They had hoped to find their White Rose at the last minute, of course. And they had been waiting for the comet to attain a more auspicious aspect, its closest approach.

I grumbled to myself.

Raven, trudging beside me burdened with his own gear and a bundle belonging to Darling, grunted, “Huh?”

“They haven’t found their magic kid. They won’t have everything going their way.”

He looked at me oddly, almost suspiciously. Then, “Yet,” he said. “Yet.”

There was a big clamor as Rebel cavalry hurled javelins at sentinels on the palisade. Raven did not look back. It was just a probe.

We had a hell of a view from the pyramid, though it was crowded up there. “Hope we’re not stuck here long,” I said. And, “Going to be hell treating casualties.”

The Rebel had moved his camps to within a half mile of the stockade. They blended into one. There was constant skirmishing at the palisade. Most of our troops had taken their places on the tiers.

The first level forces consisted of those who had served in the north, fleshed out by garrison troops from cities abandoned to the Rebel. There were nine thousand of them, divided into three divisions. The center had been assigned to Stormbringer. Had I been running things, she would have been on the pyramid hurling cyclones.

The wings were commanded by Moonbiter and Bonegnasher, two Taken I’d never encountered.

Six thousand men occupied the second level, also divided into three divisions. Most were archers from the eastern armies. They were tough, and far less uncertain than the men below them. Their commanders, from left to right, were: The Faceless or Nameless Man, The Howler, and Nightcrawler. Countless racks of arrows had been provided them. I wondered how they would manage if the enemy broke the first line.

The third tier was manned by the Guard at the ballistae, Whisper on the left with fifteen hundred veterans from her own eastern army, and Shifter on the right with a thousand westerners and southerners. In the middle, below the pyramid, Soulcatcher commanded the Guard and allies from the Jewel Cities. His troops numbered twenty-five hundred.

And on the pyramid was the Black Company, one thousand strong, with banners bright and standards bold and weapons ready to hand.

So. Roughly twenty-one thousand men, against more man ten times that number. Numbers aren’t always critical. The Annals recall many moments when the Company beat the odds. But not like this. This was too static. There was no room for retreat, for maneuver, and an advance was out of the question.

The Rebel got serious. The palisade’s defenders withdrew quickly, dismantling the spans across the three trenches. The Rebel did not pursue. Instead, he began demolishing the stockade.

“They look as methodical as the Lady,” I told Elmo.

“Yep. They’ll use the timber to bridge the trenches.”

He was wrong, but we would not learn that immediately.

“Seven days till the eastern armies get here,” I muttered at sunset, glancing back at the huge, dark bulk of the Tower. The Lady had not come forth for the initial scrimmage.

“More like nine or ten,” Elmo countered. “They’ll want to get here all together.”

“Yeah. Should’ve thought of that.”

We ate dried food and slept on the earth. And in the morning we rose to the bray of Rebel trumpets.

The enemy formations stretched as far as the eye could see. A line of mantlets started forward. They had been built from timber scavenged from our palisade. They formed a moving wall stretched across the pie-slice. The heavy ballistae thumped away. Large trebuchets hurled stones and fireballs. The damage they did was inconsequential.

Rebel pioneers began bridging the first trench, using timber brought from their camps. The foundations for these were huge beams, fifty feet long, impervious to missile fire. They had to use cranes to position them. They exposed themselves while assembling and operating the devices. Well-ranged Guard engines made that expensive.

Where the palisade had stood Rebel engineers were assembling wheeled towers from which bowmen could shoot, and wheeled ramps to roll up to the first tier. Carpenters were making ladders. I saw no artillery. I guess they planned to swamp us once they crossed the trenches.

The Lieutenant knew siegework well. I went to him. “How they going to bring up those ramps and towers?”

“They’ll fill the ditches.”

He was right. As soon as they had bridges across the first, and started moving mantlets over, carts and wagons appeared, carrying earth and stone. Teamsters and animals took a beating. Many a corpse went into the fill.

The pioneers moved up to the second trench, assembled their cranes. The Circle gave them no armed support. Stormbringer sent archers to the lip of the final trench. The Guard laid down heavy fire with the ballistae. The pioneers suffered heavy casualties. The enemy command simply sent more men.

The Rebel began moving mantlets across the second trench an hour before noon. Wagons and carts crossed the first, carrying fill.

The pioneers encountered withering fire moving up to bridge the final ditch. The archers on the second tier sped their shafts high. They fell nearly straight down. The trebuchets shifted their aim, blasting mantlets into toothpicks and timbers. But the Rebel kept coming. On Moonbiter’s flank they got a set of supporting beams across.

Moonbiter attacked, crossing with a picked force. His assault was so ferocious he drove the pioneers back over the second trench. He destroyed their equipment, attacked again. Then the Rebel command brought up a strong heavy infantry column. Moonbiter withdrew, leaving the second trench bridges ruined.

Inexorably, the Rebel bridged again, moved to the final trench with soldiers to protect his workmen. Stormbringer’s snipers retreated.

The arrows from the second tier fell like flakes in a heavy winter snow, steadily and evenly. The carnage was spectacular. Rebel troops rolled into the witch’s cauldron in a flood. A river of wounded flowed out. At the last trench the pioneers began keeping to the shelter of their mantlets, praying those would not be shattered by the Guard.

Thus it stood as the sun settled, casting long shadows across the field of blood. I’d guess the Rebel lost ten thousand men without bringing us to battle.

Through that day neither the Taken nor the Circle unleashed their powers. The Lady did not venture out of the Tower.

One less day to await the armies of the east.

Hostilities ended at sunset. We ate. The Rebel brought another shift to work the trenches. The newcomers went at it with the gusto their predecessors had lost. The strategy was obvious. They would rotate fresh troops in and wear us down.

The dark was the time of the Taken. Their passivity ended.

I could see little initially, so cannot for certain say who did what. Shifter, I suspect, changed shape and crossed into enemy territory.

The stars began to fade behind onrushing storm clouds. Cold air rushed across the earth. The wind rose, howled. Riding it came a horde of things with leathery wings, flying serpents the length of a man’s arm. Their hissing overshadowed the tumult of the storm. Thunder crashed and lightning stalked, jabbing enemy works with its spears. The flashes revealed the ponderous advance of giants from the rock wastes. They hurled boulders like children throw balls. One snatched up a bridge beam and used it as a two-handed club, smashing siege towers and ramps. The look of them, in the treacherous light, was of creatures of stone, basaltic rubble cobbled together in grotesque, gargantuan parody of the human form.

The earth shivered. Patches of plain glowed a bilious green. Radiant ten foot, blood-streaked orange worms slithered amongst the foe. The heavens opened and dumped rain and burning brimstone.

The night coughed up more horrors. Killing fogs. Murderous insects. A beginning glow of magma such as we had seen at the Stair of Tear. And all this in just minutes. Once the Circle responded, the terrors faded, though some it took hours to neutralize. They never took the offensive. The Taken were too strong.

By midnight all was quiet. The Rebel had given up everything but fill work at the far trench. The storm had become a steady rain. It made the Rebel miserable but did him no harm. I wriggled down amongst my companions and fell asleep thinking how nice it was that our part of the world was dry.

Dawn. First view of the Taken’s handiwork. Death everywhere. Horribly mutilated corpses. The Rebel labored till noon cleaning up. Then he resumed his assault on the trenches.

The Captain received a message from the Tower. He assembled us. “Word is, we lost Shifter last night.” He gave me a look meant to be significant. “The circumstances were questionable. We’ve been told to stay alert. That means you, One-Eye. And you, Goblin and Silent. You send a yell to the Tower if you see anything suspicious. Understand?” They nodded.

Shapeshifter gone. That must have taken some doing.

“The Rebel lose anybody important?” I asked.

“Whiskers. Roper. Tamarask. But they can be replaced. Shifter can’t.”

Rumors floated around. The deaths of members of the Circle had been caused by some catlike beast so strong and, quick even the powers of its victims were of no consequence. Several score senior Rebel functionaries had fallen victim as well.

The men recalled a similar beast from Beryl. There were whispers. Catcher had brought the forvalaka over on the ship. Was he using it against the Rebel?

I thought not. The attack fit Shifter’s style. Shifter loved sneaking into the enemy camp...

One-Eye went around wearing a thoughtful look, so self-engrossed he bumped into things. Once he stopped and smashed a fist into a ham hanging near the newly erected cook tents.

He had it figured out. How Catcher could send the forvalaka into the Bastion to slaughter the Syndic’s entire household, and end up controlling the city through a puppet, through no cost to the Lady’s overextended resources. Catcher and Shifter were thick then, weren’t they?

He had figured out who killed his brother-too late to extract revenge.

He went around and beat on that ham several times during the course of the day.

I joined Raven and Darling later. They were watching the action. I checked Shapeshifter’s force. His standard had been replaced. “Raven. Isn’t that Jalena’s banner?”

“Yes.” He spat.

“Shifter wasn’t a bad guy. For one of the Taken.”

“None of them are. For Taken, As long as you don’t get in their way.” He spat again, eyed the Tower. “What’s going on here, Croaker?”

“Eh?” He was as civil as he had been since our return from the field.

“What’s this show all about? Why is she doing it this way?”

I was not sure what he was asking. “I don’t know. She doesn’t confide in me.”

He scowled. “No?” As though he did not believe me! Then he shrugged. “Be interesting to find out.”

“No doubt.” I watched Darling. She was inordinately intrigued by the attack. She asked Raven a stream of questions. They were not simple. You might expect their like from an apprentice general, a prince, someone expected to assume eventual command.

“Shouldn’t she be somewhere safer?” I asked. “I mean...”

“Where?” Raven demanded. “Where would she be safer than with me?” His voice was hard, his eyes narrow with suspicion. Startled, I dropped the subject.

Was he jealous because I had become Darling’s friend? I don’t know. Everything about Raven is strange.

Stretches of the farther trench had vanished. In places the middle trench had been filled and tamped. The Rebel had moved his surviving towers and ramps up to the extreme limit of our artillery. New towers were a-building. New mantlets were everywhere. Men huddled behind every one.

Braving merciless fire, Rebel pioneers bridged the final trench. Counterattacks stalled them again and again, yet they kept coming. They completed their eighth bridge about the third hour after noon.

Vast infantry formations moved forward. They swarmed across the bridges, into the teeth of the arrowstorm. They hit our first line randomly, pelting in like sleet, dying against a wall of spears and shields and swords. Bodies piled up. Our bowmen threatened to fill the ditches around the bridges. And still they came.

I recognized a few banners seen at Roses and Lords. The elite units were coming up.

They crossed the bridges and formed up, advanced in fair order, exerted heavy pressure on our center. Behind them a second line formed, stronger, deeper, and broader. When it was solid its officers moved it forward a few yards, had their men crouch behind their shields.

Pioneers moved mantlets across, joined them in a sort of palisade. Our heaviest artillery concentrated on these. Behind the ditch, hordes ran fill to selected points.

Though the men on the bottom level were our least reliable-I suspect the lottery was rigged-they repelled the Rebel elite. Success gave them only a brief respite. The next mass attacked.

Our line creaked. It might have broken had the men had anywhere to run. They had the habit of fleeing. But here they were trapped, with no chance of getting up the retaining wall.

That wave receded. On his end Moonbiter counterattacked and routed the enemy before him. He destroyed most of their mantlets and briefly threatened their bridges. I was impressed by his aggressiveness.

It was late. The Lady had not come forth. I suppose she had not doubted we would hold. The enemy launched a last assault, a human wave attack, that came within a whisper of swamping our men. In places the Rebel reached the retaining wall and tried to scale or dismantle it. But our men did not collapse. The incessant rain of arrows broke the Rebel determination.

They withdrew. Fresh units filled in behind the mantlets. A temporary peace settled in. The field belonged to their pioneers.

“Six days,” I said to no one in particular. “I don’t think we can hang on.”

The first line shouldn’t survive tomorrow. The horde would storm the second level. Our archers were deadly as archers, but I doubted they would do well hand-to-hand. Moreover, once forced into close combat they could no longer punish the enemy coming up. Then the Rebel towers would do them as they had been done.

We had cut a narrow trench near the rear of the pyramid top. It served as our latrine. The Captain caught me at my most inelegant. “They need you down on the bottom level, Croaker. Take One-Eye and your crew.”

“What?”

“You’re a physician, aren’t you?”

“Oh,” Silly of me. Should have known I could not remain an observer.

The rest of the Company went down too, to perform other tasks.

Getting down was no trouble, though traffic was heavy on the temporary ramps. Men from the upper level and pyramid top hauled munitions down to the bowmen (the Lady must have squirreled arrows for a generation), brought corpses and casualties up.

“Be a good time to jump us,” I told One-Eye. “Just scamper up the ramps.”

“They’re too busy doing the same things we are.” We passed within ten feet of Soulcatcher. I lifted a hand in tentative greeting. He did the same after a pause. I got the feeling he was startled.

Down we went, and down again, into Stormbringer’s territory.

It was hell down there. Every battlefield is, after, but never had I seen anything like this. Men were down everywhere. Many were Rebels our men hadn’t the energy to finish. Even the troops from up top just booted them aside so they could collect our people. Forty feet away, ignored, Rebel soldiers were gathering their own people and ignoring ours. “It’s like something out of the old Annals,” I told One-Eye. “Maybe the battle at Torn.”

“Torn wasn’t this bloody.”

“Uhm.” He was there. He went back a long way.

I found an officer and asked where we should set up shop. He suggested we’d be the most use to Bonegnasher.

Going, we passed uncomfortably near Stormbringer. One-Eye’s amulet burned my wrist.

“Friend of yours?” One-Eye asked sarcastically.

“What?”

“Such a look you got from the old spook.”

I shuddered. Lime thread. Taken on the wind. That could have been Stormbringer.

Bonegnasher was a big one, bigger than Shifter, eight feet tall and six hundred pounds of iron mean muscle. He was so strong it was grotesque. He had a mouth like a crocodile, and supposedly had eaten his enemies in the old days. A few of the old stories also call him Bonecrusher, because of his strength.

While I stared, one of his lieutenants told us to go out to the far right flank, where fighting had been so light no medical team had yet been assigned.

We located the appropriate battalion commander. “Set up right here,” he told us. “I’ll have the men brought to you.” He looked sour.

One of his staff volunteered, “He was a company commander this morning. It was hard on officers today.” When you have heavy casualties among your officers they are leading from the front to keep the men from breaking.

One-Eye and I started patching. “Thought you had it easy over here.”

“Easy is relative.” He looked at us hard, talking about easy when we had spent the day loafing on the pyramid.

Torchlight medicine is a bunch of fun. Between us we treated several hundred men. Whenever I paused to work the pain and stiffness out of my hands and shoulders, I glanced at the sky, perplexed. I had expected the Taken to go crazy again tonight.

Bonegnasher ambled into our makeshift surgery, naked to the waist, maskless, looking like an oversized wrestler. He said nothing. We tried to ignore him. His piggy little eyes remained tight as he watched.

One-Eye and I were working on the same man, from opposite ends. He stopped suddenly, head coming up like that of a startled horse. His eye got big. He looked around wildly. “What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t... Odd. It’s gone. For a second... Never mind.”

I kept an eye on him. He was frightened. More frightened than the presence of the Taken justified. As if some personal danger threatened him. I glanced at Bonegnasher. He was watching One-Eye too.

One-Eye did it again later, while we were working separate patients. I looked up. Beyond him, down at waist level, I caught the glow of eyes. A chill scrambled down my spine.

One-Eye watched the darkness, nervousness increasing. When he finished with his patient he cleansed his hands and drifted toward Bonegnasher.

An animal screamed. A dark shape hurtled into the circle of light, toward me. “Forvalaka!” I gasped, and threw myself aside. The beast passed over me, one claw ripping my jerkin.

Bonegnasher reached the man-leopard’s point of impact the moment it did so. One-Eye unleashed a spell that blinded me, the forvalaka, and everyone watching. I heard the beast roar. Anger became agony. My vision returned. Bonegnasher had the monster in a deadly hug, right arm crushing its windpipe, left its ribs. It clawed air futilely. It was supposed to have the strength of a dozen natural leopards. In Bonegnasher’s arms it was helpless. The Taken laughed, took a bite from its left shoulder.

One-Eye staggered over to me. “Should have had that guy with us in Beryl,” I said. My voice quavered.

One-Eye was so frightened he was gagging. He did not laugh. I did not have much humor in me, either, frankly. Just a reflex sarcasm. Gallows humor.

Trumpets filled the night with their cries. Men ran to their stations. The rattle of arms overrode the strangling of the forvalaka.

One-Eye grabbed my arm. “Got to get out of here,” he said. “Come on.”

I was mesmerized by the struggle. The leopard was trying to change. It looked vaguely womanish.

“Come on!” One-Eye swore sulphurously. “That thing was after you, you know. Sent. Let’s move before it gets away.”

It had no end of energy, despite Bonegnasher’s immense strength and savagery. The Taken had destroyed its left shoulder with his teeth.

One-Eye was right. Across the way the Rebel was getting excited. Fighting could break out. Time to make tracks, for both reasons. I grabbed my kit and scooted.

We passed both Stormbringer and Soulcatcher getting back. I gave each a mocking salute, driven by I don’t know what tomfool bravado. One, I was sure, initiated the attack. Neither responded.

Reaction did not set in till I was safe atop the pyramid, with the Company, with nothing to do but think about what could have happened. Then I started shaking so bad One-Eye gave me one of my own knockout draughts.

Something visited my dreams. Old friend now. Golden glow and beautiful face. As before, “My Faithful need not fear.”

There was a hint of light in the east when the drug wore off. I wakened less frightened, but hardly confident. Three times they had tried. Anyone that set on killing me would find a way. No matter what the Lady said.

One-Eye appeared almost immediately. “You all right?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“You missed a hell of a show.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“The Circle and the Taken went at it after your lights went out. Only stopped a little while ago. A little hairy around the edges this time. Bonegnasher and Stormbringer got skragged. Looks like they did it to each other. Come here. I want to show you something.”

Grumbling, I followed him. “How bad did the Rebel get hurt?”

“You hear different stories. But plenty. At least four of them bought it.” He halted at the front edge of the pyramid top, gestured dramatically.

“What?”

“You blind? I got only one eye and I can see better than you?”

“Give me a hint.”

“Look for a crucifixion.”

“Oh.” That told, I had no trouble finding the cross planted near Stormbringer’s command post, “Okay. So what?”

“That’s your friend. The forvalaka.”

“Mine?”

“Ours?” A delightfully wicked expression crossed his face. “End of a long story, Croaker. And a satisfying one. Either way it was, whoever killed Tom-Tom, I lived to see them reach an evil end.”

“Yeah.” To our left Raven and Darling watched the Rebel move up. Their fingers blurred. They were too far for me to catch much. It was like overhearing a conversation in a language with which you have only a formal acquaintance. Goobledegook. “What’s eating Raven lately?”

“What do you mean?”

“He don’t have anything to do with anybody but Darling. Don’t even hang around the Captain anymore. Hasn’t gotten into a card game since we brought in Feather and Journey. Gets all sour whenever you try to be nice to Darling. Something happen while we were away?”

One-Eye shrugged. “I was with you, Croaker. Remember? Nobody ain’t said nothing. But now you mention it, yeah, he is acting strange.” He chuckled. “For Raven, strange.”

I surveyed the Rebel’s preparations. They seemed half-hearted and disorganized. Even so, despite the fury of the night, he had finished filling the farther two trenches. His efforts at the nearest had provided a half dozen crossing places.

Our second and third level forces looked thin. I asked why.

“The Lady ordered a bunch down to the first level. Especially off the top.”

Mostly from Soulcatcher’s division, I realized. His out-Fit looked puny. “Think they’ll break through today?”

One-Eye shrugged. “If they stay as stubborn as they were. But look. They ain’t eager no more. They found out we weren’t going to be easy. We made them start to wonder. To remember the old spook in the Tower. She hasn’t come out yet. Maybe they’re getting worried.”

I suspected it was more because of casualties among the Circle than because of growing trepidation among the soldiers. The Rebel command structure must be chaotic. Any army falters when nobody knows who is in charge.

Nevertheless, four hours after dawn they began dying for their cause. Our front line braced itself. The Howler and The Faceless Man had replaced Stormbringer and Bonegnasher, leaving the second level to Nightcrawler.

The fighting had become formularized. The horde swept forward, into the teeth of the arrowstorm, crossed the bridges, hid behind the mantlets, streamed around those to hit our first line. They kept coming, a never-ending stream. Thousands fell before reaching their foes. Many who did make it battled only a short while, then wandered off, sometimes helping injured comrades, more often just getting out of harm’s way. Their officers had no control.

The reinforced line consequently held together longer and more resolutely than I anticipated. Nevertheless, the weight of numbers and accumulated fatigue eventually told. Gaps appeared. Enemy troops reached the retaining wall. The Taken organized counterattacks, most of which did not attain the momentum to carry through. Here, there, weaker willed troopers tried to flee to the higher level. Nightcrawler distributed squads along the edge. They threw the fugitives back. Resistance stiffened.

Still, the Rebel now scented victory. He became more enthusiastic.

The distant ramps and towers started forward. Their advance was ponderous, a few yards a minute. One tower toppled when it hit fill inadequately tamped in the far trench. It crushed a ramp and several dozen men. The remaining engines came on. The Guard redirected its heaviest weapons, throwing fireballs.

A tower caught. Then another. A ramp came to a halt, in flames. But the other engines rolled steadily forward, reaching the second trench.

The lighter ballistae shifted aim as well, savaging the thousands hauling the engines forward.

At the nearest trench pioneers kept filling and tamping. And falling to our bowmen. I had to admire them. They were the bravest of the foe.

The Rebel star was rising. He overcame his weak start and became as ferocious as before. Our first level units fractured into ever smaller knots, whirling, swirling. The men Nightcrawler had scattered to keep ours from fleeing now battled overbold Rebels who clambered up the retaining wall. In one spot Rebel troops pulled some of the logs free and tried to excavate a pathway up.

It was the middle of the afternoon. The Rebel still had hours of daylight. I began to get the shakes.

One-Eye, whom I hadn’t seen since it started, joined me again. “Word from the Tower,” he said. “They lost six of the Circle last night. Means there are only maybe eight left out there. Probably none who were in the Circle when we first came north.”

“No wonder they started slow.”

He eyed the fighting. “Don’t look good, does it?”

“Hardly.”

“Guess that’s why she’s coming out.” I turned. “Yeah. She’s on her way. In person.”

Cold. Cold-cold-cold. I do not know why. Then I heard the Captain yelling, the Lieutenant and Candy and Elmo and Raven and who knows all else, all yelling for us to get into formation. Grab-ass time was over. I withdrew to my surgery, which was a clump of tents at the rear, unfortunately on the downwind side of the latrine. “Quick inspection,” I told One-Eye. “See that everything is squared away.”

The Lady came on horseback, up the ramp climbing from near the Tower entrance. She rode an animal bred for the part. It was huge and spirited, a glossy roan that looked like an artist’s conception of equine perfection. She was very stylish, in red and gold brocade, white scarves, gold and silver jewelry, a few black accents. Like a rich lady one might see in the streets of Opal. Her hair was darker than midnight, and hung long from beneath an elegant white and lace tricorner hat trailing white ostrich plumes. A net of pearls kept it constrained. She looked twenty at the oldest. Quiet islanded her as she passed. Men gaped. Nowhere did I see a hint of fear.

The Lady’s companions were more in keeping with her image. Of medium height, all swathed in black, faces concealed behind black gauze, mounted upon black horses harnessed and saddled in black leather, they resembled the popular picture of the Taken. One bore a long black spear tipped with blackened steel, the other a big silver horn. One rode to either flank, trailing by a rigid yard.

She honored me with one sweet smile as she passed. Her eyes sparkled with humor and invitation...

“She still loves you,” One-Eye quipped.

I shuddered. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

She rode through the Company, straight to the Captain, spoke to him for half a minute. He showed no emotion, corning face to face with this old evil. Nothing shakes him when he assumes his iron commander mask.

Elmo came hustling up. “How you doing, buddy?” I asked. I had not seen him in days.

“She wants you.”

I said something like “Glug.” Real intelligent.

“I know what you mean. Enough is enough. But what can you do? Get yourself a horse.”

“A horse? Why? Where?”

“Just carrying a message, Croaker. Don’t ask me... Speak of the devil.”

A young trooper, wearing the Howler’s colors, appeared over the edge of the rear of the pyramid. He led a string of horses. Elmo trotted over. After a brief exchange, he beckoned me. Reluctantly, I joined him. “Take your pick, Croaker.”

I selected a chestnut mare with good lines and apparent docility, swung aboard. It felt good to be in the saddle. It had been a while. “Wish me luck, Elmo.” I wanted to sound flip. It came out squeaky.

“You got it.” And as I started away, “Teach you to write those silly stories.”

“Let up, eh?” As I went forward I did wonder, for a moment, how much art does effect life. Could I have brought this on myself?

The Lady did not look back as I approached. She did make a small gesture. The horseman on her right edged away, leaving me room. I took the hint, halted, concentrated on the panorama instead of looking at her. I sensed her amusement.

The situation had worsened in the minutes I had been away. Rebel soldiers had attained several footholds on the second tier. On the first our formations had been shattered. The Howler had relented and was letting his men help those below scramble up the retaining wall. Whisper’s troops, on the third level, were using bows for the first time.

The assault ramps were almost up to the nearest ditch. The great towers had halted. Over half were out of action. The remainder had been manned, but were so far away the bowmen there were doing no damage. Thank heaven for small favors.

The Taken on the first level were using their powers, but were in so much danger they had little chance to wield them effectively.

The Lady said, “I wanted you to see this, Annalist.”

“Eh?” Another sparkling gem from the Company wit.

“What is about to transpire. So that it is properly recorded in at least one place.”

I snuck a glance at her. She wore a teasing little smile. I shifted my attention to the fighting. What she did to me, just sitting there, amidst the fury of the end of the world, was more frightening than the prospect of a death in battle. I am too old to boil like a horny fifteen year old.

The Lady snapped her fingers.

The rider on her left raised the silver horn, cleared the gauze from her face so she could bring the instrument to her lips. Feather! My gaze flicked to the Lady. She winked.

Taken. Feather and Journey had been Taken, like Whisper before them. What power and might they possessed was now at the Lady’s disposal... My mind scampered around that. Implications, implications. Old Taken fallen, new Taken stepping in to replace them...

The horn called out, a sweet note, like that of an angel summoning the hosts of heaven. It was not loud, yet it rang out everywhere, as if coming from the very firmament. The fighting stopped cold. All eyes turned to the pyramid.

The Lady snapped her fingers. The other rider (Journey, I presumed) lifted his spear high, let its head fall.

The forward retaining wall exploded in a dozen places. Bestial trumpeting filled the silence. Even before I saw them burst forth I knew, and laughed. “Elephants!” I hadn’t seen war elephants since my first year with the Company. “Where did you get elephants?”

The Lady’s eyes sparkled. She did not respond.

The answer was obvious. From overseas. From her allies among the Jewel cities. How she had gotten them here unnoted, and had kept them concealed, ah, that was the mystery.

It was a delectable surprise to spring on the Rebel at the moment of his apparent triumph. Nobody in these parts had ever seen war elephants, let alone had any notion of how to fight them.

The great grey pachyderms smashed into the Rebel horde. The mahouts had great fun, charging their beasts back and forth, trampling Rebels by the hundred, totally shattering their morale. They pulled the mantlets down. They lumbered across the bridges and went after the siege towers, toppling them one by one.

There were twenty-four of the beasts, two for each place of hiding. They had been provided with armor, and their drivers were encased in metal, yet here and there the random spear or arrow found a chink, either felling mahout or pricking a beast enough to enrage it. Elephants that lost riders lost interest in the fray. The wounded animals went crazy. They did more damage than those still under control.

The Lady gestured again. Again Journey signalled. Troops below lowered the ramps we had used for hauling material down and casualties up. The troops off the third level, saving the Guard, marched down, formed up, launched an attack upon chaos. Considering the respective numbers, that seemed mad. But considering the wild swing in fortunes, morale was more important.

Whisper on the left wing, Catcher in the center, fat old Lord Jalena on the right. Drums pounding. They rolled forward, slowed only by the problem of slaughtering the panicked thousands. The Rebel was afraid not to run, yet afraid to flee toward the rampaging elephants between him and his camp. He did little to defend himself.

Clear to the first ditch. Biter, the Howler, and the Faceless whipped their survivors into line, cursed and frightened them into moving forward, to fire all the enemy works.

Attackers to the second ditch, swirling over and around the abandoned towers and ramps, passing on, following the bloody trail of the elephants. Now fires among the engines as the men from the first level arrived. The attackers advancing toward the nether ditch. The whole field carpeted with enemy dead. Dead in numbers unlike anything I had seen anywhere before.

The Circle, what remained of it, finally recovered enough to try its powers against the beasts. They scored a few successes before being neutralized by the Taken. Then it depended on the men in the field.

As always, the Rebel had the numbers. One by one, the elephants fell. The enemy piled up before the attacking line. We had no reserves. Fresh troops streamed from the Rebel camps, without enthusiasm but sufficiently strong to turn our advance. A withdrawal became necessary.

The Lady signaled it through Journey.

“Very good,” I muttered. “Very good indeed,” as our men returned to their positions, sank down in weariness. Darkness was not far away. We had made it through another day. “But now what? Those fools won’t quit while the comet is in the sky. And we’ve shot our last bolt.”

The Lady smiled. “Record it as you saw it, Annalist.” She and her companions rode away.

“What am I going to do with this horse?” I grumbled.

There was a battle of powers that night, but I missed it. I do not know for whom it was the greater disaster. We lost Moonbiter, the Faceless Man, and Nightcrawler. Only Nightcrawler fell to enemy action. The others were consumed by the feud among the Taken.

A messenger came not an hour after sundown. I was readying my team to go below, after having fed them. Elmo ran the relay again. “Tower, Croaker. Your girlfriend wants you. Take your bow along.”

There is only so much you can fear someone, even someone like the Lady. Resigned, I asked, “Why a bow?”

He shrugged.

“Arrows too?”

“No word on that. Doesn’t sound smart.”

“You’re probably right. One-Eye, it’s all yours.”

Silver lining time. At least I would not spend my night amputating limbs, sewing cuts, and reassuring youngsters whom I knew would not survive the week. Serving with the Taken gives a soldier a better chance of surviving wounds, but still gangrene and peritonitis take their tolls.

Down the long ramp, to the dark gate. The Tower loomed like something out of myth, awash in the silver light of the comet. Had the Circle blundered? Waited too long? Was the comet no longer a favorable omen once it began to wane?

How close were the eastern armies? Not close enough. But our strategy did not seem predicated on stalling. If that were the plan, we would have marched into the Tower and sealed the door. Wouldn’t we?

I dithered. Natural reluctance. I touched the amulet Goblin had given me back/when, the amulet One-Eye had presented more recently. Not much assurance there. I glanced at the pyramid, thought I saw a stocky silhouette up top. The Captain? I raised a hand. The silhouette responded. Cheered, I turned.

The gate looked like the mouth of the night, but a step forward took me into a wide, lighted passageway. It reeked of the horses and cattle which had been driven in an age ago.

A soldier awaited me. “Are you Croaker?” I nodded. “Follow me.” He was not a Guard, but a young infantryman from the Howler’s army. He seemed bewildered. Here, there, I saw more of his ilk. It hit me. The Howler had spent his nights ferrying troops while the rest of the Taken battled the Circle and one another. None of those men had come to the battlefield.

How many were there? What surprises did the Tower conceal?

I entered the inner Tower through the portal I had used before. The soldier halted where the Guard captain had. He wished me luck in a pale, shaky voice. I thanked him squeakily.

She played no games. At least, nothing flashy. And I did not slip into my role as sex-brained boy. This was business all the way.

She seated me at a dark wood table with my bow lying before me, said, “I have a problem.”

I just looked at her.

“Rumors are running wild out there, aren’t they? About what’s happened among the Taken?”

I nodded. “This isn’t like the Limper going bad. They’re murdering each other. The men don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”

“My husband isn’t dead. You know that. He’s behind it all. He’s been awakening. Very slowly, but enough to have reached some of the Circle. Enough to have touched the females among the Taken. They’ll do anything for him. The bitches. I watch them as close as I can, but I’m not infallible. They get away with things. This battle... It isn’t what it seems. The Rebel army was brought here by members of the Circle under my husband’s influence, The fools. They thought they could use him, to defeat me and grab power for themselves. They’re all gone now slain, but the thing they set in motion goes on. I’m not fighting the White Rose, Annalist-though a victory over that silliness could come from this as well. I’m fighting the old slaver, the Dominator. And if I lose I lose the world.”

Cunning woman. She did not assume the role of maiden in distress. She played it as one equal to another, and that won my sympathy more surely. She knew I knew the Dominator as well as did any mundane now alive. Knew I must fear him far more than her, for who fears a woman more than a man?

“I know you, Annalist. I have opened your soul and peered inside. You fight for me because your company has undertaken a commission it will pursue to the bitter end- because its principal personalities feel its honor was stained in Beryl. And that though most of you think you’re serving Evil.”

“Evil is relative, Annalist. You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger. Where you stand now, because of your oath, is opposite the Dominator. For you he is where your Evil lies.”

She paced a moment, perhaps anticipating a response. I made none. She had encapsulated my own philosophy.

“That evil tried to kill you three times, physician. Twice for fear of your knowledge, once for fear of your future.”

That woke me up. “My future?”

“The Taken sometimes glimpse the future. Perhaps this conversation was foreseen.”

She had me baffled. I sat there looking stupid.

.She left the room momentarily, returned carrying a quiver of arrows, spilled them on the table. They were black and heavy, silver-headed, inscribed with almost invisible lettering. While I examined them she took my bow, exchanged it for another of identical weight and pull. It was a gorgeous match for the arrows. Too gorgeous to be used as a weapon.

She told me, “Carry these. Always.”

“I’ll have to use them?”

“It’s possible. Tomorrow will see the end of the matter, one way or the other. The Rebel has been mauled, yet he retains vast manpower reserves. My strategy may not succeed. If I fail, my husband wins. Not the Rebel, not the White Rose, but the nominator, that hideous beast lying restless in his grave...”

I avoided her gaze, eyed the weapons, wondered what I was supposed to say, to not hear, what I was supposed to do with those death tools, and if I could do it when the time came.

She knew my mind. “You’ll know the moment. And you’ll do what you think is right.”

I looked up now, frowning, wishing... Even knowing what she was, wishing. Maybe my idiot brothers were right.

She smiled, reached with one of those too-perfect hands, clasped my fingers...

I lost track. I think. I do not recall anything happening. Yet my mind did fuzz for a second, and when it unfuzzed, she was holding my hand still, smiling, saying, “Time to go, soldier. Rest well.”

I rose zombielike and shambled toward the door. I had a distinct feeling that I had missed something. I did not look back. I couldn’t.

I stepped into the night outside the Tower and immediately knew I had lost time again. The stars had moved across the sky. The comet was low. Rest well? The hours for rest were nearly gone.

It was peaceful out, cool, with crickets chirping. Crickets. Who would believe it? I looked down at the weapon she had given me. When had I strung it? Why was I carrying an arrow across it? I could not recall taking them off the table... For one frightened instant I thought my mind was going. Cricket song brought me back.

I looked up the pyramid. Someone was up top, watching. I raised a hand. He responded. Elmo, by the way he moved. Good old Elmo.

Couple hours till dawn. I could get a little shuteye if I didn’t dawdle.

A quarter way up the ramp I got a funny feeling. Halfway there I realized what it was. One-Eye’s amulet! My wrist was burning... Taken! Danger!

A cloud of darkness reared out of the night, from some imperfection in the side of the pyramid. It spread like the sail of a ship, flat, and moved toward me. I responded the only way I could. With an arrow.

My shaft ripped through that sheet of darkness. And a long wail surrounded me, filled with more surprise than rage, more despair than agony. The sheet of darkness shredded. Something manshaped scuttled across the slope. I watched it go, never thinking of spending another arrow, though I laid another across the bow. Boggled, I resumed my climb.

“What happened?” Elmo asked when I got to the top.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I honestly don’t have the foggiest what the hell happened tonight.”

He gave me the once-over. “You look pretty rocky. Get some rest.”

“I need it,” I admitted. “Pass it to the Captain. She says tomorrow is the day. Win or lose.” Much good the news would do him. But I thought he would like to know.

“Yeah. They do something to you in there?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

He wanted to talk more, despite his admonition about resting. I pushed him away gently, went into one of my hospital tents and curled up in a tight corner like a wounded animal denning up. I had been touched somehow, even if I could not name it. I needed time to recover. Probably more time than I would be given.

They sent Goblin to waken me. I was my usual charming morning self, threatening blood feud with anyone fool enough to disturb my dreams. Not that they didn’t deserve disturbing. They were foul. I was doing unspeakable things with a couple of girls who could not have been more than twelve, and making them love it. It’s disgusting, the shadows that lurk in the mind.

Revolting as my dreams were, I did not want to get up. My bedroll was toasty warm.

Goblin said, “You want I should play rough? Listen, Croaker. Your girlfriend is coming out. Captain wants you up to meet her.”

“Yeah. Sure.” I grabbed my boots with one hand; parted the tent flap with the other. I growled, “What the hell time is it? Looks like the sun’s been up for hours.”

“It has. Elmo figured you needed the rest. Said you had it rough last night.”

I grunted, hastily put myself together. I considered washing up, but Goblin headed me off. “Get your war gear on. The Rebel is headed this way.”

I heard distant drums. The Rebel had not used drums before. I asked about it.

Goblin shrugged. He was looking pale. I suppose he had heard my message to the Captain. Win or lose. Today. “They’ve elected themselves a new council.” He began to natter, as men will do when frightened, telling me the night’s history of the feud among the Taken, and of how the Rebel had suffered. I heard nothing cheering. He helped me don what armor I possessed. I hadn’t worn anything but a mail shirt since the fighting around Roses. I collected the weapons the Lady had given me and stepped out into one of the most glorious mornings I’d ever seen.

“Hell of a day for dying,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“How soon is she going to be here?” The Captain would want us on station when she arrived. He liked to present a portrait of order and efficiency.

“When she gets here. We just had a message saying she would be out.”

“Uhm.” I surveyed the pyramid top. The men were about their business, preparing for a fight. Nobody seemed in any hurry. “I’m going to wander around.”

Goblin did not say anything. He just followed, pallid face pulled into a concerned frown. His eyes moved constantly, watching everything. From the set of his shoulders and careful way he moved, I realized he had a spell ready for instant use. It was not till he had dogged me a while that I realized he was body guarding.

I was both pleased and distressed. Pleased because people cared enough to look out for me, distressed because my situation had become so bad. I glanced at my hands. Unconsciously, I had strung the bow and laid an arrow across. Part of me was on maximum alert too.

Everyone eyed the weapons, but no one asked. I suspect stories were making the rounds. Strange that my comrades did not corner me to double-check.

The Rebel arrayed his forces carefully, methodically, beyond the reach of our weapons. Whoever had taken charge had restored discipline. And had constructed a whole armada of new engines during the night.

Our forces had abandoned the lower level. All that remained down there was a crucifix with a figure writhing upon it... Writhing. After all it had suffered, including having been nailed up on that cross, the forvalaka remained alive!

The troops had been shuffled. The archers were upon the third level now, Whisper having taken command of that whole tier. The allies, the survivors from the first level, Catcher’s forces, and what not, were on the second level. Catcher had the center, Lord Jalena the right, and the Howler the left. An effort had been made to restore the retaining wall, but it remained in terrible shape. It would be a poor obstacle.

One-Eye joined us. “You guys hear the latest?”

I lifted an inquiring eyebrow.

“They claim they’ve found their White Rose child.”

After reflection I responded, “Dubious.”

“For sure. Word from the Tower is, she’s a fake. Just something to get the troops fired up.”

“I figured. Surprised they didn’t think of it before.”

“Speak of the devil,” Goblin squeaked. He pointed.

I had to search a moment before spotting the soft glow advancing along the aisles between enemy divisions. It surrounded a child on a big white horse, bearing a standard of red emblazoned with a white rose.

“Not even good showmanship,” One-Eye complained. “That guy on the bay is making the light.”

My insides had knotted in fear that this was the real thing after all. I looked down at my hands, wondering if this child was the target the Lady had in mind. But no. I had no impulse to speed a shaft in that direction. Not that I could have gotten one halfway there.

I glimpsed Raven and Darling on the far side of the pyramid, hands going zip-zip. I headed that way.

Raven spotted us when we were twenty feet away. He glanced at my weapons-. His face tightened. A knife appeared in his hand. He started cleaning his nails.

I stumbled, so startled was I. The knife business was a tick. He did it only under stress. Why with me? I was no enemy.

I tucked my bow and arrow under my left arm, greeted Darling. She gave me a big grin, quick hug. She didn’t have anything against me. She asked if she could see the bow. I let her look but did not turn loose. I couldn’t.

Raven was as restless as a man seated on a griddle.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” I demanded. “You been acting like the rest of us have the plague.” His behavior hurt. We had been through some shit together. Raven and I. He had no call to turn on me.

His mouth tightened to a tiny point. He dug under his nails till it seemed he had to be hurting himself.

“Well?”

“Don’t push me, Croaker.”

With my right hand I scratched Darling’s back as she leaned against me. My left tightened on my bow. My knuckles turned the color of old ice. I was ready to thump the man. Take that dagger away and I stood a chance. He is a tough bastard, but I’ve had a few years to get tough myself.

Darling seemed oblivious to the tension between us.

Goblin stepped in. He faced Raven, his stance as belligerent as mine. “You’ve got a problem, Raven. I think maybe we better have a sitdown with the Captain.”

Raven was startled. He realized, if only for a moment, that he was making enemies. It’s damned hard to make Goblin mad. Really mad, not mad like he gets with One-Eye.

Something died behind Raven’s eyes. He indicated my bow. “Lady’s leman,” he accused.

I was more baffled than angry. “Not true,” I said. “But so what if it was?”

He moved restlessly. His gaze kept flicking to Darling, leaning against me. He wanted her away, but could not put the demand into acceptable words.

“First sucking up to Soulcatcher all the time. Now to the Lady. What are you doing, Croaker? Who are you selling?”

“What?” Only Darling’s presence kept me from going after him.

“That’s enough,” Goblin said. His voice was hard, without a hint of squeak. “I’m pulling rank. On everybody. Right now. Right here. We’re going to the Captain and get this talked out. Or we’re unvoting your membership in the Company, Raven. Croaker is right. You’ve been a pure ass lately. We don’t need it. We’ve got enough trouble out there.” He stabbed a finger at the Rebel.

The Rebel answered with trumpets.

There was no confab with the Captain.

It was obvious somebody new was in charge. The enemy divisions came forward in lockstep, slowly, their shields arrayed in proper turtle fashion, turning most of our arrows. Whisper adjusted quickly, concentrating the guard’s fire on one formation at a time, having the archers wait till the heavy weapons broke the turtle. Effective, but not effective enough.

The siege towers and ramps rumbled forward as fast as men could drag them. The Guard did their best, but could destroy only a few. Whisper was in a dilemma. She had to choose between targets. She elected to concentrate on breaking turtles.

The towers came closer this time. The Rebel archers were able to reach our men. That meant our archers could reach them, and ours were better marksmen.

The enemy crossed the nearest ditch, encountering massed missile fire from both levels. Only when they reached the retaining wall did they break their formations, streaming to the weak points, where they had little success. They then attacked everywhere at once. Their ramps were slow arriving. Men with ladders rushed forward.

The Taken did not hold back. They threw everything they could. Rebel wizards fought them all the way, and, despite the harm they had suffered, for the most part kept them neutralized. Whisper did not participate. She was too busy.

The Lady and her companions arrived. Again I was summoned. I clambered aboard my horse and joined her, bow across my lap.

They came on and on. Occasionally I glanced at the Lady. She remained an ice queen, utterly without expression.

The Rebel gained foothold after foothold. He tore whole sections of retaining wall away. Men with shovels hurled earth around, building natural ramps. The wooden ramps continued their advance, but would not arrive soon.

There was one island of peace out there, around the crucified forvalaka. The attackers gave it a wide berth.

Lord Jalena’s troops began to waver. You could see a collapse threatening even before men turned to eye the retaining wall behind them.

The Lady gestured. Journey spurred his horse forward, down the face of the pyramid. He passed behind Whisper’s men, through them, stationed himself at the edge of the level, behind Jalena’s division. He raised his spear. It blazed. Why I don’t know, but Jalena’s troops took heart, solidified, began to push the Rebel back.

The Lady gestured to her left. Feather went down the slope like a daredevil, winding her horn. Its silver call drowned the blare of Rebel trumpets. She passed through the third level troops and leapt her horse off the wall. The drop would have killed any horse I’d ever seen. This one landed heavily, gained its balance, reared, neighed in triumph as Feather winded her horn. As on the right, the troops took heart and began driving the Rebel back.

A small indigo shape clambered up the wall and scuttled to the rear, skirting the base of the pyramid. It ran all the way to the Tower. The Howler. I frowned, puzzled. Had he been relieved?

Our center became the focus of battle, Catcher struggling valiantly to keep his line.

I heard sounds, glanced over, saw that the Captain had come up on the Lady’s far side. He was mounted. I looked back. A number of horses had been brought up. I stared down that long steep slope at the narrowness of the third level, and my heart sank. She was not planning a cavalry charge, was she?

Feather and Journey were big medicine, but not medicine big enough. They stiffened resistance only till the Rebel ramps arrived.

The level went. Slower than I expected, but it went. No more than a thousand men escaped. I looked at the Lady. Her face remained ice, yet I felt she was not displeased.

Whisper poured arrows into the mass below. Guards fired ballistae point blank.

A shadow crept over the pyramid. I looked up. The Howler’s carpet drifted out over the foe. Men crouched along its edges, dropping balls the size of heads. Those plummeted into the Rebel mass without visible effect. The carpet crawled toward the enemy camp, raining those pointless objects.

It took the Rebel an hour to establish solid bridgeheads upon the third level, and another hour to bring up enough men to press the attack. Whisper, Feather, Journey, and Catcher mauled them mercilessly. Oncoming troops clambered over drifts of their comrades to reach the top.

The Howler carried his ball-dropping to the Rebel camp. I doubted there was anyone out there. They were all in the pie-slice, awaiting their turns at us.

The false White Rose sat her horse out about the second trench, glowing, surrounded by the new Rebel council. They remained frozen, acting only when one of the Taken used their powers. They had done nothing about the Howler, though. Apparently there was nothing they could do.

I checked the Captain, who had been up to something... He was lining horsemen up across the front of the pyramid. We were going to attack down that slope! What idiocy!

A voice inside told me, My faithful need not fear, I faced the Lady. She looked at me coolly, regally. I turned back to the battle.

It would not be long. Our troops had put aside their bows and abandoned the heavy weapons. They were bracing themselves. On the plain the whole horde was in motion. But a vaguely slowed, indecisive motion, it seemed. This was the moment when they should have run headlong, swamping us, roaring into the Tower before the gate could be closed...

The Howler came roaring back from the enemy camp, moving a dozen times faster than any horse could run. I watched the big carpet pass over, even now unable to restrain my awe. For an instant it masked the comet, then passed on, toward the Tower. A strange howl wafted down, unlike any Howler cry I had heard before. The carpet dipped slightly, tried to slow, ploughed into the Tower a few feet below its top.

“My god,” I murmured, watching the thing crumple, watching men tumble down the five hundred foot fall. “My god.” Then the Howler died or lost consciousness. The carpet itself began to fall.

I shifted my gaze to the Lady, who had been watching too. Her expression did not change the slightest. Softly, in a voice only I heard, she said, “You will use the bow.”

I shuddered. And for a second images flashed through my mind, a hundred of them too quickly for any to be caught. I seemed to be drawing the bow...

She was angry. Angry with a rage so great I shook just contemplating it, even knowing it was not directed at me. Its object was not hard to determine. The Howler’s demise was not caused by enemy action. There was but one Taken likely to be responsible. Soulcatcher. Our former mentor. The one who had used us in so many schemes.

The Lady murmured something. I am not sure I heard it right. Sounded like, “I gave her every chance.”

I whispered, “We weren’t part of it.”

“Come.” She kneed her animal. It went over the edge. I threw one despairing look at the Captain and followed.

She went down that slope with the speed that Feather had shown. My mount seemed determined to keep pace.

We plunged toward an island of screaming men. It centered on a fountain of lime thread which boiled up and spread on the wind, taking Rebel and friend alike. The Lady did not swerve.

Soulcatcher was in flight already. Friend and enemy were eager to get out of his way. Death surrounded him. He ran at Journey, leapt, knocked him off his horse, bestrode the animal himself, leapt it down to the second level, ploughed through the enemy there, descended to the plain, and roared away.

The Lady followed the path he blazed, dark hair streaming. I stayed in her wake, utterly baffled yet unable, to change what I was doing. We reached the plain three hundred yards behind Soulcatcher. The Lady spurred her mount. Mine kept pace. I was sure one or both animals would stumble over abandoned equipment or bodies. Yet they, and Catcher’s beast too, were as sure-footed as horses on a track.

Catcher sped directly to the enemy encampment, and through. We followed. In the open country beyond we began to gain. Those beasts, all three, were as tireless as machines. Miles rolled away. We gained fifty yards with every one. I clutched my bow and clung to the nightmare. I’ve never been religious, but that was a time when I was tempted to pray.

She was as implacable as death, my Lady. I pitied Soulcatcher when she caught him.

Soulcatcher raced along a road winding through one of the valleys west of Charm. We were near the place where we had rested on a hilltop, and encountered lime thread. I recalled what we had ridden through, back at Charm. A fountain of the stuff, and it hadn’t touched us.

What was happening back there? Was this some scheme to leave our people at the Rebel’s mercy? It had become clear, toward the end, that the Lady’s strategy involved maximum destruction. That she wanted only a small minority of either side to survive. She was cleaning house. She had but one enemy left among the Taken. Soulcatcher. Catcher, who had been almost good to me. Who had saved my life at least once, at the Stair of Tear, when Stormbringer would have slain Raven and I. Catcher, who was the only Taken to speak to me as a man, to tell me a bit about the old days, to respond to my insatiable curiosities...

What the devil was I doing here, in a hellride with the Lady, hunting a thing that could gobble me up without blinking?

Catcher turned the flank of a hill and when, seconds later, we rounded the same impediment, had disappeared. The Lady slowed for a moment, head turning slowly, then yanked her reins, swung toward woods that swept down to the edge of the road. She halted when she reached the first trees. My beast stopped beside hers.

The Lady threw herself off her mount. I did the same without thinking. By the time I gained my feet her animal was collapsing and mine was dead, standing on stiff legs. Both had fist-sized black burns upon their throats.

The Lady pointed, started forward. Crouching, arrow across bow, I joined her. I went carefully, soundlessly, sliding through the brush like a fox.

She stopped, crouched, pointed. I looked along her arm. Flicker, flicker, two seconds of rapid images. They stopped. I saw a figure perhaps fifty feet distant, back to us, kneeling, doing something swiftly. No time for the moral questions I had debated riding out. That creature had made several attempts on my life. My arrow was in the air before I realized what I was doing.

It smacked into the head of the figure. The figure pitched forward. I gaped a second, then released a long breath. So easy...

The Lady took three quick steps forward, frowning. There was a rapid rustle to our right. Something rattled brush. She whirled and ran for open country, slapping my arm as she passed.

In seconds we were on the road. Another arrow lay across my bow. Her arm rose, pointing... A squarish shape slid out of the woods fifty yards away. A figure aboard made a throwing motion our way. I staggered under the impact of the blow from no visible source. Spiderwebs seemed drawn across my eyes, blurring my vision. Vaguely, I sensed the Lady making a gesture. The webs disappeared. I felt whole. She pointed as the carpet began to rise and move away.

I drew and loosed, with no hope my arrow would strike a moving target at that range.

It did not, but only because the carpet jerked violently downward and to one side while the arrow was in the air. My shaft ripped past inches behind the carpet rider’s head.

The Lady did something. The air hummed. From nowhere came a giant dragonfly like the one I had seen in the Forest of Cloud. It streaked toward the carpet, hit. The carpet spun, flipped, jerked around. Its rider fell free, plummeted with a despairing cry. I loosed another shaft the instant the man hit earth. He twitched a moment, lay still. And we were upon him.

The Lady ripped the black morion off our victim. And cursed. Softly, steadily, she cursed like a senior sergeant.

“What?” I filially asked. The man was dead enough to satisfy me.

“It’s not her.” She whirled, faced the wood. Her face blanked for several seconds. Then she faced the drifting carpet. She jerked her head at the wood. “Go see if that’s a woman. See if the horse is there.” She began making come-hither gestures at Catcher’s carpet.

I went, mind aboil. Catcher was a woman, eh? Crafty, too. All prepared to be chased here, by the Lady herself.

Fear grew as I slipped through the wood, slow, silent. Catcher had played a game on everyone, and far more shrewdly than even the Lady had anticipated. What next, then? There had been so many attempts on my life... Might this not be the moment to end whatever threat I represented?

Nothing happened, though. Except that I crept up to the corpse in the wood, ripped off a black morion, and found a handsome youth inside. Fear, anger, and frustration overwhelmed me. I kicked him. Some good, abusing dead meat.

The fit did not last. I began looking around the camp where the substitutes had waited. They had been there a while, and been prepared to stay a while longer. They had supplies for a month.

A large bundle caught my eye. I cut the cords binding it, peeped inside. Papers. A bale that must have weighed eighty pounds. Curiosity grabbed me.

I looked around hastily, saw nothing threatening, probed a little deeper. And immediately realized what I had. These were part of the hoard we had unearthed in the Forest of Cloud.

What were they doing here? I’d thought Catcher had turned them over to the Lady. Eh! Plot and counterplot. Maybe he had delivered some. And maybe he kept back others he thought would be useful later. Maybe we had been so close on his heels he had not had time to collect them...

Maybe he would be back. I looked around again, frightened once more.

Nothing stirred.

Where was he?

She, I reminded myself. Catcher was one of the shes.

I looked around, hunting evidence of the Taken’s departure, soon discovered hoofprints leading deeper into the wood. A few paces beyond the camp they reached a narrow trail. I crouched, looking down an aisle of forest, through golden motes floating in shafts of sunlight. I tried to work myself up to go on.

Come, a voice said in my mind. Come.

The Lady. Relieved not to have to follow that trail, I turned back. “It was a man,” I said as I approached the Lady.

“I thought so.” She had the carpet under one hand, floating two feet off the earth. “Get aboard.”

I swallowed, did as I was told. It was like climbing aboard a boat from deep water. I almost fell off twice. As she followed me aboard, I told her, “He-she-stayed on the horse and went on down the trail through the woods.”

“What direction?”

“South.”

The carpet rose swiftly. The dead horses dwindled beneath us. We began to drift over the wood. My stomach felt like I had drunk several gallons of wine the night before.

The Lady cursed softly under her breath. Finally, in a louder voice, she said, “The bitch. She ran a game on us all. My husband included.”

I said nothing. I was debating whether or not to mention the papers. She would be interested. But so was I, and if I mentioned them now I’d never get a chance to poke through them.

“I’ll bet that was what she was doing. Getting rid of the other Taken by pretending to be part of their plot. Then it would have been me. Then she would just leave the Dominator in the ground. She would have it all, and be able to keep him restrained. He can’t break out without help.” She was thinking aloud more than speaking to me. “And I missed the evidence. Or ignored it. It was right there all the time. Cunning bitch. She’ll bum for that.”

We began to fall. I nearly lost what little my stomach contained. We fell into a valley deeper than most in the area, though the hills to either hand stood no more than two hundred feet high. We slowed.

“Arrow,” she said. I had forgotten to ready another.

We drifted down the valley a mile or so, then upslope till we floated beside an outcrop of sedimentary rock. There we hovered, nudging the stone. There was a brisk cold wind. My hands grew numb. We were far from the Tower, into country where winter held full sway. I shivered continuously.

The only warning was a soft, “Hang on.”

The carpet shot forward. A quarter mile distant was a figure lying low on the neck of a racing horse. The Lady dropped till we hurtled along just two feet off the ground.

Catcher saw us. She threw up a hand in a warding gesture. We were upon her. I released my shaft.

The carpet slammed up against me as the Lady pulled it upward, trying to clear horse and rider. She did not pull up enough. Impact made the carpet lurch. Frame members cracked, broke. We spun. I hung on desperately while sky and earth wheeled about me. There was another shock as we hit ground, more spinning as we went over and over. I threw myself clear.

I was on my feet in an instant, wobbling, slapping another arrow across my bow. Catcher’s horse was down with a broken leg. Catcher was beside her, on hands and knees, stunned. A silver arrowhead protruded from her waist, indicting me.

I loosed my shaft. And another, and another, recalling the terrible vitality the Limper had shown in the Forest of Cloud, after Raven had felled him with an arrow bearing die power of his true name. Still in fear, I drew my sword once my final arrow was gone. I charged. I do not know how I retained the weapon through everything that had happened. I reached Catcher, raised the blade high, swung with a vicious two-handed stroke. It was the most fearful, violent blow I have ever struck. Soulcatcher’s head roiled away. The morion’s face guard popped open. A woman’s face stared at me with accusing eyes. A woman almost identical in appearance to the one with whom I had come.

Catcher’s eyes focused upon me. Her lips tried to form words. I stood there frozen, wondering what the hell it all meant. And life faded from Catcher before I caught the message she tried to impart.

I would return to that moment ten thousand times, trying to read those dying lips.

The Lady crept up beside me, dragging one leg. Habit forced me to turn, kneel... “It’s broken,” she said. “Never mind. It can wait.” Her breathing was shallow, rapid. For a moment I thought it was the pain. Then I saw she was looking at the head. She began to giggle.

I looked at that face so like her own, then at her. She rested a hand on my shoulder, allowing me to take some of her weight. I rose carefully, slid an arm around her. “Never did like that bitch,” she said. “Even when we were children...” She glanced at me warily, shut up. The life left her face. She became the ice lady once more.

If ever there was some weird love spark within me, as my brothers accused, it flickered its last. I saw plainly what the Rebel wanted to destroy-that part of the movement which was true White Rose, not puppet to the monster who had created this woman and now wanted her destroyed so it could bring its own breed of terror back to the world. At that moment I’d gladly have deposited her head beside her sister’s.

Second time, if Catcher could be believed. Second sister. This deserved no allegiance.

There are limits to one’s luck, one’s power, to how much one dares resist. I hadn’t the nerve to follow through on my impulse. Later, maybe. The Captain had made a mistake, taking service with Soulcatcher. Was my unique position adequate to argue him out of that service on grounds that our commission ended with Catcher’s death?

I doubted it. It would take a battle, to say the least. Especially if, as I suspected, he had helped the Syndic along in Beryl. The Company’s existence did not appear to be in absolute jeopardy, assuming we survived the battle. He would not countenance another betrayal. In the conflict of moralities he would find that the greater evil.

Was there a Company now? The battle of Charm had not ended because the Lady and I had absented ourselves. Who knew what had happened while we were haring after a renegade Taken?

I glanced at the sun, was astonished to discover that only a little over an hour had passed.

The Lady recalled Charm too. “The carpet, physician,” she said. “We’d better get back.”

I helped her hobble to the remnant of Catcher’s carpet. It was half a ruin, but she believed it would function. I deposited her, collected the bow she had given me, sat in front of her. She whispered. Creaking, the carpet rose. It provided a very unstable seat.

I sat with eyes closed, debating myself, as she circled the site of Catcher’s fall. I could not get my feelings straight. I did not believe in evil as an active force, only as a matter of viewpoint, yet I had seen enough to make me question my philosophy. If the Lady were not evil incarnate, then she was as close as made no difference.

We began limping toward the Tower. When I opened my eyes I could see that great dark block tilting on the horizon, gradually swelling, I did not want to go back.

We passed over the rocky ground west of Charm, a hundred feet up, barely creeping along. The Lady had to concentrate totally to keep the carpet aloft. I was terrified the thing would go down there, or gasp its last over the Rebel army. I leaned forward, studying the jumble, trying to pick a place to crash.

That was how I saw the girl.

We were three quarters of the way across. I saw something move. “Eh?” Darling looked up at us, shading her eyes. A hand whipped out of shadow, dragged her into hiding.

I glanced at the Lady. She had noticed nothing. She was too busy staying aloft.

What was going on? Had the Rebel driven the Company into the rocks? Why wasn’t I seeing anyone else?

Straining, the Lady gradually gained altitude. The slice-of-pie expanded before me.

Land of nightmare. Tens of thousands of dead Rebels carpeted it. Most had fallen in formation. The tiers were inundated in dead of both persuasions. A White Rose banner on a leaning pole fluttered atop the pyramid. Nowhere did I see anyone moving. Silence gripped the land, except for the murmur of a chill northern wind.

The Lady lost it for an instant. We plunged. She caught us a dozen feet short of crashing.

Nothing stirred but wind-rippled banners. The battlefield looked like something from the imagination of a mad artist. The top layer of Rebel dead lay as though they had died in terrible pain. Their numbers were incalculable.

We rose above the pyramid. Death had swept around it, toward the Tower. The gate remained open. Rebel bodies lay in its shadow.

They had gotten inside.

There were but a handful of bodies atop the pyramid, all Rebel. My comrades must have made it inside.

They had to be fighting still, inside those twisted corridors. The place was too vast to overrun quickly. I listened, but heard nothing.

The Tower top was three hundred feet above us. We couldn’t get any higher... A figure appeared there, beckoning. It was short and clad in brown. I gaped. I recalled only one Taken who wore brown. It moved to a slightly better vantage, limping, still beckoning. The carpet rose. Two hundred feet to go. One hundred. I looked back on the panorama of death. Quarter of a million men? Mind-boggling. Too vast to have real meaning. Even in the nominator’s heyday battles never approached that scale...

I glanced at the Lady, She had engineered it. She would be total mistress of the world now-if the Tower survived the battle underway inside. Who could oppose her? The manhood of a continent lay dead...

A half dozen Rebels came out the gate. They launched arrows at us. Only a few wobbled as high as the carpet. The soldiers stopped loosing, waited. They knew we were in trouble.

Fifty feet. Twenty-five. The Lady struggled, even with Limper’s help. I shivered in the wind, which threatened to bounce us off the Tower, I recalled the Howler’s long plunge. We were as high as he had been.

A glance at the plain showed me the forvalaka. It hung limp upon its cross, but I knew it was alive.

Men joined the Limper. Some carried ropes, some lances or long poles. We rose ever more slowly. It became a ridiculously tense game, safety almost within reaching distance, yet never quite at hand.

A rope dropped into my lap. A Guard sergeant shouted, “Harness her up.”

“What about me, asshole?” I moved about as fast as a rock grows, afraid I’d upset the carpet’s stability. I was tempted to tie some false knot that would give way under strain. I did not like the Lady much anymore. The world would be better for her absence. Catcher was a murdering schemer whose ambitions sent hundreds to their deaths. She deserved her fate. How much more so this sister who had hurried thousands down the shadowed road?

A second line came down. I tied myself. We were five feet from the top, unable to get higher. The men on the lines took in the slack. The carpet slid in against the Tower. Poles reached down. I grabbed one.

The carpet dropped away.

For a second I thought I was gone. Then they hauled me in.

There was heavy fighting downstairs, they said. The Limper ignored me completely, hurried away to get in on the action. I just sprawled atop the Tower, glad to be safe. I even napped. I wakened alone with the north wind, and an enfeebled comet on the horizon. I went down to audit the endgame of the Lady’s grand design.

She won. Not one in a hundred Rebels survived, and most of those deserted early.

The Howler spread disease with the globes he dropped. It reached its critical stage soon after the Lady and I departed, chasing Soulcatcher. The Rebel wizards could not stem it on any significant scale. Thus the windrows of dead.

Even so, many of the enemy proved partially or wholly immune, and not all of ours escaped infection. The Rebel took the top tier.

The plan, at that point, called for the Black Company to counterattack. The Limper, rehabilitated, was to assist them with men from inside the Tower. But the Lady was not there to order the charge. In her absence Whisper ordered a withdrawal into the Tower.

The interior of the Tower was a series of death traps manned not only by the Howler’s easterners but by wounded taken inside previous nights and healed by the Lady’s powers.

It ended long before I could thread the maze to my comrades. When I did cross their trail, I learned I was hours behind. They had departed the Tower under orders to establish a picket line where the stockade had stood.

I reached ground level well after nightfall. I was tired. I just wanted peace, quiet, maybe a garrison post in a small town... My mind wasn’t working well. I had things to do, arguments to argue, a battle to fight with the Captain. He would not want’ to betray another commission. There are the physically dead and the morally dead. My comrades were among the latter. They would not understand me. Elmo, Raven, Candy, One-Eye, Goblin, they would act like I was talking a foreign language. And yet, could I condemn them? They were my brothers, my friends, my family, and acted moral within that context. The weight of it fell on me. I had to convince them there was a larger obligation.

I crunched through dried blood, stepping over corpses, leading horses I had liberated from the Lady’s stables. Why I took several is a mystery, except for a vague notion that they might come in handy. The one that Feather had ridden I took because I did not feel like walking.

I paused to stare at the comet. It seemed drained. “Not this time, eh?” I asked it. “Can’t say I’m totally dismayed.” Fake chuckle. How could I be? Had this been the Rebel’s hour, as he had believed, I would be dead.

I stopped twice more before reaching camp. The first time I heard soft cursing as I descended the remnants of the lower retaining wall. I approached the sound, found One-Eye seated beneath the crucified forvalaka. He talked steadily in a soft voice, in a language I did not understand. So intent was he that he did not hear me come. Neither did he hear me go a minute later, thoroughly disgusted.

One-Eye was collecting for the death of his brother Tom-Tom. Knowing him, he would stretch it out for days.

I paused again where the false White Rose had watched the battle. She was there still, very dead at a very young age. Her wizard friends had made her death harder by trying to save her from the Howler’s disease.

“So much for that.” I looked back at the Tower, at the comet. She had won...

Or had she? What had she accomplished, really? The destruction of the Rebel? But he had become the instrument of her husband, an even greater evil. It had been he defeated here, if only he, she, and I knew that. The greater wickedness had been forestalled. Moreover, the Rebel ideal had passed through a cleansing, tempering flame. A generation hence...

I am not religious. I cannot conceive of gods who would give a damn about humanity’s frothy carryings-on. I mean, logically, beings of that order just wouldn’t. But maybe there is a force for greater good, created by our unconscious minds conjoined, that becomes an independent power greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe, being a mind-thing, it is not time-bound. Maybe it can see everywhere and everywhen and move pawns so that what seems to be today’s victory becomes the cornerstone of tomorrow’s defeat.

Maybe weariness did things to my mind. For a few seconds I believed I saw the landscape of tomorrow, saw the Lady’s triumph turning like a serpent and generating her destruction during the next passage of the comet. I saw a true White Rose carrying her standard to the Tower, saw she and her champions as clearly as if I were there that day myself...

I swayed atop that beast of Feather’s, stricken and terrified. For if it were a true vision, I would be there. If it were a true vision, I knew the White Rose. Had known her for a year. She was my friend. And I had discounted her because of a handicap...

I urged the horses toward camp. By the time a sentinel challenged me I had regained enough cynicism to have discounted the vision. I’d just been through too much in one day. Characters like me don’t become prophets. Especially not from the wrong side.

Elmo’s was the first familiar face I saw. “God, you look awful,” He said. “You hurt?”

I could do nothing but shake my head. He dragged me off the horse and put me away somewhere and that was the last I knew for hours. Except that my dreams were as disjointed and time-loose as the vision, and I did not like them at all. And I could not escape them.

The mind is resilient, though. I managed to forget the dreams within moments of awakening.