"He might," Fish admitted. "But we know somebody's going to do that real soon anyway. He's the only one who's offered any serious deal."
"I think if I had my druthers I'd rather the Rebels got the damned thing. The imperials are nasty enough without it."
Fish grunted. "Maybe. But they don't want to pay for it. They want you to do it for love. I'm a whore too old and set in her ways not to want to get paid for my trouble."
Smeds said, "I guess for guys like us it don't matter who's running things anyway. Whoever it is they're going to try to stick it to us."
The heavens had cut loose now, dumping snow so heavily it had become their ally.
Fish started explaining what he wanted Smeds to do.
LXVII
The gang came smashing in out of the blizzard. Raven snarled, "We lost them."
Stubby Torque said, "You can't see your hand in front of your face out there."
"You tracked Raker down in a snowstorm in Roses, didn't you?" I asked Raven.
"Different circumstances." He was double-pissed now because of what he thought he saw when he busted through the door. As if we could have done anything about it carved up the way we were.
Darling shut them up. She made it clear she'd had her mind on business because she told them what we were going to do if those guys told the gray boys where to find us again. She felt almost sorry for those two.
She overdid the empathy sometimes. I don't have any for guys who stick knives in me.
The excitement started a few hours later when a couple of our little spies from the temple came charging in to tell us how a guy who sounded like the one who stabbed me had dropped in on Exile to see if he could cut a deal. As a good-faith gesture he'd told Exile where he could find us and Brigadier Wildbrand. He'd also told Exile his headquarters was so riddled with spies he couldn't sneeze without some Plain creature reporting it.
That meant big excitement over there. A bunch of our little allies didn't get the word in time to get out. Gossamer and Spidersilk led the exterminator squads. Meantime, they were throwing together a gang to come after us. They figured we'd hear they were coming but counted on us getting caught being on the move in a city alert for us.
I thought they were a little optimistic there, considering Bomanz and Silent had done a good job keeping us from being noticed before. But Exile probably wouldn't know we had those kinds of resources. Not about Bomanz, at least. I figured his big panic would come when he started wondering what resources Darling could call up out of the Plain.
She did have something cooked up with the tree god. What I didn't know. It wouldn't be anything small.
Nothing like being nailed down on the bull's-eye of history in the making without a fool's notion of what was going on. Nothing personal, Case, old buddy, but they can't make you tell what you don't know.
Darling told Silent and the Torques to get the horses out so they could not be recaptured. They were going to hide them on an empty lot nearby. Yeah? What would they do about tracks? Something wizardly, I guess.
Horses were part of her plans. Whatever they were. I had caught part of an argument with Silent where she told him she wanted to steal a bunch more.
One heroic little rock monkey hung in the temple till the last moment, near getting himself fried by the twins so he could find out as much as possible about Exile's deal for the spike.
There was a deal. The monkey said Exile was going to play it straight and keep his end of the bargain if the guys with the spike kept theirs. The monkey said the guy dealing for them had no idea where the spike was nor any idea where the guy who did know was hiding.
Made sense to me. And to Exile, I guess. He didn't waste no time jacking the guy around, just asked the go-between how they wanted to make the exchange.
We'd had the guy who knew! I'd lived in the same damned tent with him for days! I wanted to kick some Nightstalkers around for lying to us.
Raven got the wind up, too. "How the hell are we supposed to con people into fighting the empire if the bastards go honest on us? Whoever heard of a wizard dealing straight?"
Bomanz gave him some dirty looks but never got no chance to argue because right then we got word that Exile's boys were closing in.
When they busted in all they saw was Brigadier Wildbrand and her buddy sitting on the floor by our runt menhir. The rest of us were still there but Bomanz had disguised us as heaps of manure and whatnot while we gave the Nightstalkers the idea we were sneaking out.
The talking stone boomed out, "Hi, guys! You're too late again. You're always going to be too late. Why don't you wake up and come on over to the winning side? The White Rose don't hold no grudges."
The raiders were all Exile's personal guards, unlikely recruits, but the stone kept nagging them.
They spread out. Some rushed into the loft where nobody was hiding. Some went to work to get the Nightstalkers loose. And some went to work trying to figure how to silence that bigmouth stone.
The menhir vanished. And just when their eyes stopped popping, here it came back. "You boys better get your hearts and heads right fast. It's almost dawn now and before sunset tomorrow the White Rose is going to cure this berg of the imperial disease." Away it went again.
That crack rattled them some.
Here it came, spewing more mockery. They got so pissed they stopped doing a thorough job of searching.
There was some noise outside. Three of them charged out into the blizzard. There was a flash, a scream. A guy staggered inside. "They're all dead out there. They took the horses."
That damned Silent was showing off for Darling. She would be pissed at him for wasting them when he didn't have to. I didn't blame him, though. He'd been keeping a lot bottled up. These guys were some he could make pay.
A bunch more went charging off to avenge their buddies. The talking stone whooped and laughed and carried on.
They never caught Silent, of course. But he got some more of them. They finally took Brigadier Wildbrand and got out of there while there were some of them left to get.
A little later Silent brought ten horses in. Him and the Torques were real pleased with themselves. I think maybe Darling was the only one who wasn't pleased with them.
LXVIII
The snowfall had ended.The sky had cleared. The world had grown almost intolerably bright by the time the Limper topped the rise that gave him his first glimpse of his destination. The silence troubled him some. There should have been birds out if nothing else. And why was there so much smoke drifting downwind from Oar, more than could be explained by all the city's hearth and heating fires?
No matter. No matter at all. He could feel that piece of haunted silver calling him as though he had been born to wield it and it had been wrought for him and him alone. His destiny lay there, ahead, and all the mousy scrabbling around by those who would deny him would not prevent him taking that power that was rightfully his.
He strode forward, walking now, no longer rushed, confident yet still ill at ease with the silence and a lingering suspicion that all the horizons were masks being worn by his enemies.
LXIX
Toadkiller Dog was only one of a varied pack of monsters running on the Limper's trail. But he was out in front, their leader, the only one of the crowd not carrying some dread lord or lady out of the Tower. He was the scout, the champion, and before this day was through he hoped to be entered in the annals of history as the destroyer of the last of the Ten Who Were Taken, as the closer of the door on the olden times.
He topped a low ridge line, saw Oar for the first time. He saw, from disturbances in the snow, that the Limper had paused there, too. There he was now, a remote speck tramping a lonely track across the pristine snowscape.