“I said I just got in.”

Smeds saw he did not like the woman much.

She went all sad and consoling. Even Smeds, who did not consider himself perceptive, saw she was just busting because she was going to get to be the first to pass along some bad news.

“Your dad and both your brothers... I’m sorry. They were trying to help fight the fires. Your mother and sister... Well, they were conquerors. They did what conquerors always do. Your sister, they mutilated her so bad she ended up killing herself a couple weeks ago.”

Timmy shook like he was about to go into convulsions.

“That’s enough, madam,” Fish said. “You’ve buried your blade to the heart.”

She sputtered, “Why, the nerve...”

Tully said, “Piss off, bitch. Before I kick your ass up around your ears.” He used that gentle, even tone Smeds knew meant maximum danger.

So. Cousin Tully had a little canker of humanity hidden away after all. Though he would not admit it on the rack.

“I can’t handle this,” Timmy said. “I think I better stay dead.” Fish said, “That woman won’t let you rest in peace, Timmy.”

“I know. I’ll do what I got to do. But not now. I know a place called the Skull and Crossbones where we can put up cheap. If it’s still there.”

It was there. It was a place the invaders would have ignored as too contemptible to burn. It made Smeds think of a hooker still working twenty years past her prime, pathetic and desperate.

An imperial corporal sat in a chair out front, leaning back against a wooden wall that had forgotten the meaning of paint. He held a bucket of beer in his lap. He seemed to be napping. But when they were a few steps from the door he opened his eyes, checked them over, nodded, took a drink.

“Catch his emblem?” Smeds asked Fish inside. “Yes. Nightstalkers.”

The Nightstalker Brigade was the crack outfit in the northern army, rigorously trained for night operations and combat under wizard’s war conditions.

Smeds said, “I thought they were out east somewhere, trying to finish the Black Company.” The proudest honor on the standard of the Nightstalkers was their defeat of the Black Company at Queen’s Bridge. Before Queen’s Bridge those mercenaries had been so glibly invincible that half the empire had been convinced the gods themselves were on their side.

“They’re here now.” “What the hell is going on around here?” “Guess we better find out. What we don’t know could I eat us up.”

Timmy talked to the owner, whom he knew slightly. The man claimed he was full up with the dispossessed. None of those guests were evident. He hinted he might find space, though, if fate took a hand. Fishing for a bribe, Smeds figured. Which he would follow with a deep gouge.

“How much leverage on fate are we talking?” Timmy asked.

“Obol and a half. Each.”

“You goddamned thief!”

“Take it or leave it.”

The Nightstalker corporal stepped past Smeds and Timmy and plunked his bucket down in front of the landlord, who had gone as pale as death. “That’s twice today, dogmeat. And this time I heard it myself.”

The landlord gulped air, grabbed the bucket, and started to fill it.

“Don’t try,” the corporal said. “Offer me a bribe and you’ll stay on the labor gang forever.” He eyed Timmy and Smeds. “You guys pick yourself a room. On old Shit for Brains here for a night.”

“I was just joshing with the guys, Corporal.”

“Sure. I could tell. You had them rolling around on the floor. Bet you’ll have the guy in the black mask in stitches. He loves you comedians.”

Smeds asked, “What’s going on around here, Corporal? We’ve been out of town.”

“I could tell. I guess you can see your basic situation. Some bandits and deserters tore the place up. They wasn’t too happy about that, down to the Tower. Since we was in the neighborhood we was one of the outfits got to come in and keep order. The brigadier, she started out life in the slums of Nihil, she figures here’s a chance to get even with the kinds of assholes who made life hell when she was a kid. So you got thieves hanging from the roof trees. You got your pimps and priests and pushers, your sharpers and your fences and your whores won’t learn no better working on the labor gangs eighteen hours a day so your regular citizens can get on with putting their lives back together.”

“You ask me, she’s too damned lenient. Gives them too many chances. Shithead here, the famous profiteer, he’s done used up two of his shots now. First time he got paraded through the streets with a sign around his neck and got a week on the labor gang. This time he gets thirty lashes and two weeks. Because he’s got all that shit between his ears and ain’t going to learn dick about how he can’t get away with it, next time they’re going to drag him over to Mayfield Square and stick a spear up his butt and let him sit on it till he rots.”

The corporal took a long drink from his refilled bucket, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, grinned. “Brigadier says let the punishment fit the crime.” He took another long drink, looked at the landlord. “You ready to go do it, asshole?”

As he was about to follow the landlord into the street, the corporal paused. “I reckon you boys will be fair to your host, here, and treat his place right. ’Less you’re looking for careers in construction.” He grinned again and went.

“God damn!” Tully said.

“Yeah,” Smeds agreed.

Fish said, “I have a feeling we’re not going to be comfortable in this new Oar.”

“Not for long,” Smeds said. “But sufficient unto the day. Right now I need to get drunk, get laid, get a night’s sleep somewheres besides on the ground.”

“Not necessarily in that order,” Tully said.

Timmy put on a strained smile. “A bath wouldn’t hurt anything, either.”

“Let’s get doing what we got to do.”

We come over this hill after what seemed like forever without seeing people and there across a valley was this walled place that covered maybe a hundred acres. The wall wasn’t much. It was maybe eight or ten feet high and no thicker than the kind of stone walls cotters put around their sheepfolds.

“Looks like a religious retreat,” Raven said. “No banners or soldiers or anything.”

He was right. We’d seen places with the same look before, but never so big. “Looks old.”

“Yes. It has a feel to it, too. Peaceful. Let’s go look.”

“Don’t look like a place Croaker would pass up, eh?”

“No. He has a bad case of the curiosities. Let’s hope he hung around long enough to let us gain some ground.”

We went over and found out our guesses were right. Raven got his wish. The place was a monastery called the Temple of Traveler’s Repose and was a kind of warehouse for knowledge. It had been sitting there soaking it up for a couple thousand years.

We found out the guys we were chasing had stayed long enough to teach one of the monks a little Jewel Cities dialect. In fact, they’d only left that very morning.

Raven got all excited. He wanted to head right on out and the hell with the sun was going to hit the horizon in another hour. I wanted to hit him over the head and slow him down. That monastery looked like a damned good place to take a day off and get human again.

“Look here, Case,” he cajoled, “they’ll be making camp by now, right? Traveling with a wagon and a coach the best they could’ve done is twenty-five miles. Right? We go all night we can grab off twenty of that, easy.” He learned that about the wagon and coach from the priest.

“And then we die. You maybe never need a rest, but I need a rest and the horses need a rest and this looks like the perfect place to do it. Hell, look at the name.”

He made exasperated noises. After all this time I still didn’t understand that catching Croaker was the most important thing in the world. He was so damned tired himself his thinking was as screwy as a possum’s.