Free Swords & Dark Magic by Jonathan Strahan; Lou Anders Page B

man asked to sell the scheme. That honor went to Silent.
    Silent is no bumbler but he did not close the deal. The Captain’s response was, “Find the girl and bring her in. That’s all. Nothing else.”
    Nobody wanted to hear what I thought after Silent came back. One-Eye insisted, “You worry too much, Croaker. You give the little shit too much credit. He ain’t some genius. He’s just an asshole bully whose knack for sorcery is so big he don’t need to think.”
    “Lot of that going around.”
    Goblin said, “Look at all he’s been through since he got out of the ground. None of it made him any smarter; it only made him more careful about what evidence he leaves behind.”
    Why did that make me nervous? “He can smash us like slow roaches without breaking a sweat.”
    One-Eye insisted, “He’s as dumb-ass as you can be and survive. He’s the kind of guy you can hit with the same con five times running and he still won’t figure out what happened.”
    Idiot.
    Limper might be dumb as a bushel of rocks but he was not up against the first string over here. And he had come here with a plan.
    I insisted that we keep on rooting through the records. I told the others to tell me about every death of a girl child.

    It was past my bedtime but I restrained my resentment when summoned by the Captain and Limper. The Old Man said, “We hear you found something.”
    “I did. But I think it’s bogus,” I reported honestly.
    The Captain said, “Good work. Keep digging. But you can’t use Goblin or One-Eye anymore. They’re going TDA somewhere else.” His glance at the Limper was so bland I knew he wanted to feed the man to the lions.
    “They’re useless, anyway. They can’t stay focused even when they’re not feuding.”
    The Captain said, “One more thing before you go.”
    My stomach sank. “Sir?”
    “You were seen messing around with the lord’s carpet. Why? What were you up to?”
    “Messing with it? No, sir. I was talking about it to Hagop. He was all excited. He never saw a carpet up close before. He knew I had to ride carpets a couple times, back when. He wanted to know what it was like. We just talked. We never touched anything.” I was babbling but that was all right. The Limper was used to terrified behavior. “Why? Is it important, sir?”
    The Old Man glanced at his companion, inviting questions or comments. The old spook just stared through me.
    “Apparently not. Dismissed.”
    I tucked my tail and ran. How did the Captain keep cool around that monster?
    I fled the dread for the Dark Horse, where the useless pair and Silent waited. I passed the latest, and, in sign, added, “I don’t like it, guys. The Captain thinks we’re up to something. If the Limper catches on…”
    One-Eye cursed, said something about my damned defeatist attitude, but then gave up. Even he is only blind in one eye.
    Goblin acquiesced, too. Both had, at last, grasped the magnitude of the overreach they yearned to indulge. Well-founded terror settled into their hearts.

    Despite all, we did not go get the girl. Goblin and One-Eye disappeared with the Limper. Silent evaded that fate by being impossible to find. I assumed he was eyes on the target.
    Neither Elmo, Candy, nor the Lieutenant would let us make the catch without a full complement of supporting wizards.
    Silent was supposed to keep hiding in her shadow.

    Elmo’s call for men able to read the local language produced three and a half men, the half being a lost-cause half-ass apprentice shared by Goblin and One-Eye who called himself the Third. The Third because his father and grandfather had worn the same name. I never understood how he survived in the murky weirdness between his teachers.
    The Third came by my town place. He looked less a sorcerer than did One-Eye or Goblin—and was bigger than those two squished together.
    He made me wish they were. “They’re going to raid the Temple of Occupoa tonight. One-Eye wants your help.”
    The terror had not