Роберт Асприн - Forever After

“Colum? He’s around here somewhere,” Bysha was saying when Domino felt Spite stir between her knees.

The green horse trotted lightly to the back of a covered wagon and stretched his nose inside. There was a noise, half yelp, half shout, and Spite took a few steps backward, ears flat but eyes sparkling with malicious mischief.

Domino was not surprised to see that Spite’s prey was the missing Quartermaster.

“Sergeant Colum,” she said dryly as the horse dropped him in the dirt.

“General Blaid,” he answered, stumbling to his feet, edging away from Spite’s teeth, and trying to salute all at once. “A pleasure, sir.”

“At ease, Colum,” she answered.

Colum was a tall man gone soft with good eating and too many wagon rides. His skin was fair and rosy from the wind and his neatly cropped hair was the soft shade of candlelit silver.

“Hop back in the wagon so that we don’t fall behind. We can have our conference informally.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, scrabbling onto the tailgate. Spite stretched his neck as if to give the man a boost and suddenly the portly sergeant found wings.

Domino suppressed a grin and moved in for her attack.

“You’ve been trading with that ragtag band that’s trailing us, Colum. Given that we don’t know what their intentions are, you could be in considerable trouble.”

Colum blanched, “Sir! You know that I wouldn’t be part of anything that could hurt the Company. What they wanted was so harmless that I couldn’t see any harm in dealing with them.”

“What did they want, soldier?” Domino said with more patience than she felt.

“Rope, sir, just rope.”

“Rope? Any special rope?”

“No, sir,” he began, but Bysha interrupted, jumping from her wagon to join him.

“Yes, General, there was something special. They wanted pieces of the rope that we retrieved after the hangings, the parts that were made into the noose.”

“Now what use would they have for that?” Domino mused. “That’s the most twisty part of the rope, the hardest to reuse.”

“That’s what I thought,” Colum said hastily, “and since they were offering to turn bad rope into good meat and beer, I didn’t think that the General would mind.”

“No, Colum,” she said thoughtfully, “consider me convinced for now, but I believe that I will ride back and have a visit with our colorful train.”

“Bide, General,” Bysha advised. “They’re a touchy lot, like greased hedgehogs, slippery and prickly all at once. Let me have a chance to pass the word on to them so they’ll have time to think about being polite.”

“Very well,” Domino agreed, “but ready or not, at dusk I’m going in.”

That evening after the Company had camped and Domino had supervised the routine hangings of a half dozen bandits, she washed her hands, combed her hair, and rode to meet the Magical Folk. Both Jord and Rafe offered to accompany her, but she refused.

“If I can get into difficulty scarcely twenty yards from my own camp, I deserve what I get.” She laughed. “If I’m not home by dawn, call out the cavalry.”

Riding in, Domino estimated that the camp followers numbered somewhere around a dozen, if one did not include the assorted — and often very odd — livestock.

But she had less time for surveying the peculiar village of tents, pavilions, yurts, and gypsy wagons than she would have liked, for she had to give her full attention to the welcoming committee.

One was a hunchbacked man with not one but two humps on his back, broad lips, and a sour expression on the long face just visible beneath an untidy mop of brown hair. The other was a woman who was the archetypal crone. Her white hair was the only attractive thing about her. Her nose was hooked and her skin blotched and leathery; gnarled hands grasped a polished staff the same light brown as her faded eyes.

“You!” the crone shrilled, “Domino! Dominik! You who have made me sick…”

The hunchback spat into the road, effectively interrupting the crone. Then he straightened as best he could, spread his fabric-shrouded arms wide, and began to intone in a voice as harsh as sand against a wind-scoured eye.

“Trouble us at your own woe, General Blaid! This is a public road and we have as much right on it as your Company does. We are a potent force for sorcery, I warn you…”

The crone stomped on his boot toe with the silver-shod heel of her staff, “Oh, shut up, Mel. Domino doesn’t fear us. Why should she? She has defied the Fallen Sunbird himself. She has made mysterious compacts with the Sea Hag. She has no reason to fear such pathetic, piss-poor hangers-on as we.”

Domino stared at them with as much amazement as she ever permitted herself. Between her knees, Spite seemed to be laughing, a sensation she found more disturbing than reassuring.

“You have stolen the march on me,” she managed finally, “for you know my name and I have not yet been introduced. Mayhap you could assist me.”

“I am Mel,” the man said, “from the far East. Ignore this old fool and tremble, for I am a force to be reckoned with!”

“He’s a hedge wizard,” the crone said calmly, “or a sand dune one, anyhow. I am known as Cranky Granny, but I suggest that you call me simply Granny. My art is telling the future.”

“Poorly,” Mel added acridly, spitting again, “but we are remiss. General Blaid has come to meet our merry band.”

“I,” said Granny, with a sprightly slap, “already know what she wants and you don’t!”

“Oh, nonsense,” Mel hissed, “you don’t even know what’s for dinner.”

“Do so,” she said, “oatmeal and honey and peppermint tea. Hah!”

“That’s all you ever eat,” Mel groused. “That’s hardly a fair test.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“I am not!”

“Are so!”

“Am not!”

“So!”

They continued bickering as they stomped up the road. Shaking her head, Domino nudged Spite into a walk and followed the Magical Folk into their camp.

The varied structures were arranged haphazardly around a central bonfire that leaped and crackled, casting odd shadows on the people clustered around it. After a few moments, Domino was not so certain that the shadows were what was so odd, for as her eyes adjusted she realized that Seth’s naive terminology might be more accurate than she had believed.

This was no gathering of guilded mages such as had aided Prince Rango during the battles against Kalaran. These were people in whom magical power lurked and who had been warped by it in much the same fashion — she realized with a spark of insight — as the area around the capital had been warped by the excessive magic contained in the artifacts.

Swinging down from Spite, she accepted a folded camp stool from an emaciatedly delicate elven woman. Mel and Granny settled onto seats and the rest of the Magical Folk drew near.

“Now, General, my sight tells me that you came calling to sniff out what interest we have in your Company.” Granny cackled. “And to learn why we’re buying your hangman’s rope.”

“Any eavesdropper could have figured that,” Mel muttered, “or anyone with anything other than oatmeal between her ears.”

Domino ignored him. “Yes, that is why I am here. I am on a mission from Prince Rango and I cannot let anything interfere with its success. If you plan trouble for my mission, I will be forced to act against you as I have against the bandits.”

Granny grinned a gap-toothed grin. “No, we wouldn’t impede your mission, General. It doesn’t take my powers to tell that the Prince wouldn’t send four of his favorites into the wilds without serious reason.”

“Your powers!” Mel spat into the fire, causing it to flash with green and purple sparks. “Get on with it, crone.”