The mind-bombs that had done this to them were not the cruelest of the Line’s weapons. Not nearly the cruelest thing in this war; Creedmoor personally had done crueler things, and would again. Still; still. There was a special horror to madness.
The terrible thundering noise of the Line’s mind-bombs bred terror first, then despair, then the mind cracked and what was left was not really human anymore. Of this little group, childlike William was the luckiest. Others were mute, more puppets than men. One old woman at the back was like an ill-natured organ-grinder’s ape. None could string together a sensible adult’s sentence. Something about those husks made Creedmoor sentimental, which made him angry. William’s eyes were wandering up and down Creedmoor’s face, inspecting it with eager confusion, as if trying to read something in its lines and scars. Creedmoor did not know what to feel. The voice spoke in his mind with the finality of a hammer falling:
—You are wasting time.
—You’re the boss. All right. All right.
“All of you ladies and gentlemen,” he called out, “take up your ropes and your bonds. Let us begin again. I know, I know, it’s hot and we’re tired and there are snakes, oh there are snakes if we step out of line, do not forget it. But there’s rest at the end of it. The House Dolorous awaits us. One foot in front of the other, ladies and gents.”
Through the rocks and the ravine. This land was broken badly, like a china plate hurled by a very angry woman. From cool shadow to the hot sun and back again, again and again. Down in the ravines, the air was still and hot and fly-swarmed. Up above the hot dusty winds fluted the stone into sharp curves—the skyline was quite mad as the red sun set. Creedmoor kept the rope coiled around his left hand and walked in front. He tugged on it—sharply but not unkindly—when his charges showed signs of wandering off. But they balked and went slowly. He didn’t have the knack of it. He was no leader of men, or even of those half men. They were still walking by nightfall.
The ravines were lousy with caves and they camped in one of them. There were yellow old bones piled at the back of it, but whatever wolves or bears or worse had dwelled there were years gone. Faded blue paintings on the rocks—deer, bears, men, the sun, goats, serpents, manticorae—indicated that Hillfolk had once inhabited it, but they seemed to have moved on long ago.
There were scraggly trees and brush out the front—not that that would hide Creedmoor’s sad little party from the forces of the Line. The forces of the Line would not come poking along down the ravine, craning their heads into caves and beating away brush: they would just flood the whole damn thing with choking-gas if they had so much as a notion where Creedmoor was, or send echoes of that terrible annihilating Engine noise.
Creedmoor tied the fools’ rope round a needle of rock at the back of the cave and left them in the darkness. He sat himself against a flat stone at the cave’s mouth, where the air was clear. He unbuckled his belt and placed Marmion on the ground beside him. He let his charges sob at the darkness until the echoes got too loud. When one of the boys got overexcited and started grabbing at the women, Creedmoor banged his fist on the rock and shouted until they cried, but at least they were quiet again. Soon after, they went to sleep.
Creedmoor didn’t sleep. Marmion’s voice in his head saw to that. Creedmoor watched the stars and listened to the scrape and shiver of Marmion’s voice. The Guns talked war in their Lodge. Distant echoes of that talk reached Creedmoor’s ears—incomprehensible fragments—a meaningless murmur of death, defeat, revenge, glory. All across the continent, the echoes of Gun-shot carried the message. The constant distant sounding of Guns was a code, a hideous song. It had thrilled him once, years ago.
—Hudnall is dead.
—Hudnall. Which one?
—The elder. A phalanx of the Line cornered him in Lannon Town not two hours ago. They sealed the main street from both ends and closed in and ground him up.
—Poor old Hudnall.
—He acquitted himself well enough.
—Ah well, that’s all right, then. Who will take his place?
—Someone will come forward.
—We always do, do we not?
Creedmoor removed a slim novel from his pack and opened its scuffed