Furtive things moved in the shadows, rushing away from their places of hiding. Their fear was so great they could not remain still while the old terror passed. He ignored them. The backbone of resistance had been broken.
He ignored everything but the fires. Fire he avoided.
Bowstrings yelped. Arrows zipped into the wicker man as if into an archery butt. Chunks of willow and bits of stone flew. The wicker man reeled. But for the woodland warriors he would have toppled. Breathy rage tore through the head's tortured lips.
Then words came, soft and bitter, chilling the hearts of those near enough to hear. More arrows ripped the fabric of the night, battered the wicker man, clipped one of his ears, felled one of the savages supporting him. He finished speaking.
Screams tore the shadows fifty yards away. They were terrible screams. They brought moisture to the eyes of the soldiers who followed the wicker man.
Those soldiers stepped over the knotted, twitching, whining forms of men wearing uniforms exactly like their own, brothers in arms whose courage had been sufficient to buoy their loyalty. Some shuddered and averted their eyes. Some took mercy and ended the torment with quick spear thrusts. Some recognized old comrades among the fallen and quietly swore to even accounts when sweet opportunity presented itself.
The wicker man proved as unstoppable as a natural disaster. He passed through Oar, trailing death and destruction and accumulating followers, and came to the city's South Gate, where Loo and his sidekick vanished in a flurry of heels. The wicker man extended a hand, whispered secret words. The gate blasted to flinders and toothpicks. The wicker man stamped through and halted, staring down the darkened road.
The trail had grown confused. That of the prey was overlaid by other scents equally familiar, tantalizing, and hated. "As well," he whispered. "As well. Take them all and have done." He sniffed. "Him! And that accursed White Rose. And the one who thwarted me in Opal. And the wizard who set us free." Ruined lips quivered in momentary fear. Yes. Even he knew the meaning of fear. "Her!"
The beast called Toadkiller Dog believed that she had lost her powers. He wanted to believe that himself. That would be a justice beautiful beyond compare. He needed to believe it. But he dared not, not entirely, till he saw for himself. Toadkiller Dog operated from motives not his own. And she was as crafty and treacherous a being as ever any human had been.
Moreover, he had tried to disarm her himself, once, and his failure had reduced him to this.
Toadkiller Dog bulled through the gateway, shouldering soldiers aside. Gore dripped off him. For hours he had ravened through the city, feeding an ancient thirst for blood. He moved on four limbs now, though one was as artificial as the wicker man's body. He, too, peered down the road.
The forest warriors collapsed, falling asleep where they were. The wicker man was driven. He showed no inclination to baby his followers.
A tottering shaman, on his last legs, tried to speak to the wicker man, tried to make him understand that unalloyed flesh could not keep the pace he had set.
The head turned slightly. The expression that shown through the ruin was one of contempt. "Keep up or die," it whispered. It beckoned men to come lift it onto the back of the beast. It rode out, insane with a hunger for revenge.
XV
The folks we was chasing never did much to cover up which way they was headed. I don't guess they thought they had any reason. Anyway, Raven knew where the guy he was chasing was headed. Some place called Khatovar, all the way down on the southern edge of the world.
I knew the guy, Croaker. Him and his Black Company boys did a job on me at the Barrowland, though they never did me too bad. I got out alive. So I had mixed feelings about them. They were a hard bunch. I didn't feel like I really wanted to catch them.
The more we rode along, the more Raven dried out and turned back into the real Raven. And I don't mean into the Corbie that I got to know when I first met him, I mean the real bad-ass so tough and hard he was death on a stick. I don't think it ever occurred to him to take a drink after he made up his mind that he had something else to do.
We had practice sessions every morning before we rode out and every evening after we set camp. Even when he was at his weakest it was all I could do to handle him. When he really started coming back he beat me at everything but throwing rocks and running footraces.
His hip never let up on him.
He wouldn't never stop over at an inn or in a village. Putting away temptation, I guess.
You ain't never going to impress me with nothing if you think you're going to tell me tall tales and you ain't never see the Tower at Charm. There ain't nothing ought to be that big. It's got to be five hundred feet tall and as black as a buzzard's heart. I never seen nothing like it before and I don't expect I ever will again.
We never went too close. Raven said there wasn't no sense getting those people's attention. Damned straight. That was the heart of the empire, the home of the Lady and all those old evils called the Ten Who Were Taken.
I went off a few miles and kept my head down while Raven skulked around trying to find something out. I was perfectly happy to get rested up from all those hundreds of miles of riding.
He materialized out of a sunset that painted the horizon with end-of-the-world fires. He sat down across from me. "They're not in the Tower. They stopped there for a couple weeks, but then they headed south again. She followed them."
I got to admit I groaned. I never was a whiner in all my soldiering days, but I never got put through anything like this, either. A man ain't made for it.
"We're gaining on them, Case. Fast. If they fool around in Opal like they did here we'll have them." He gave me a fat smile. "You wanted to see the world."
"Not the whole damned thing in a week. I kind of counted on enjoying the seeing."
"We don't get them turned around and headed toward the trouble, there might not be much damned world left."
"You going to take time out to look for your kids while we're down there?" I wanted to see the sea. I wanted that since I was little. A traveling man come through and told us kids lies about about the Jewel Cities and the Sea of Torments. From then on I always thought about the sea when I was digging potatoes or pulling weeds. I pretended I was a sailor, holy-stoning a deck, but I was going to be a ship's master someday.
What did I know?
More than the sea, now, I wanted to see Raven do right and get right with himself and his kids.
He gave me a funny look, then just ducked the question by not answering it.
We accumulated a fair arsenal here and there as we rode along. Just outside Opal we got a chance to show it off. Not that that done a lot of good.
This great big old hairy-ass black iron coach come roaring out of the city and straight up the road at us, them horses looking like they was breathing fire. I never saw anything like it.
Raven had. "That's the Lady's! Stop it!" He whipped out a bow and strung it.
"The Lady's coach? Stop it? Man, you're crazy! You got guano for brains." I got my bow out, too.
Raven threw up a hand in a signal for them to halt. We tried to look stand-and-deliver, your money or your life. Mean.
Them coachmen never even slowed down. It was like they never even saw us. I ended up going ass over appetite into a ditch with about a foot of muck and water in it. When I got up I saw Raven had ended up in some blackberry bushes on the other side. "Arrogant bastards!" he shouted after the coach.
"Yeah. Got no damned respect for a couple of honest highwaymen."