“What’s in this for Willow Swan? You come on pretty strong for a guy just passing through.”
“Cordy ain’t here to hear me, so I’ll tell it straight. I’m not on the run no more. I’ve found my place. I don’t want to lose it. Good enough?”
Maybe. “I couldn’t give him an answer here, now. You know that if you know anything about the Black Company at all. I don’t think there’s much chance. It isn’t what we want to do. But I’ll give the situation a fair look. Tell him I want a week and the cooperation of his people.” I planned to spend another eleven days resting and refitting. I was out nothing making that promise. Nothing but some of my share of the rest.
“That’s it?” Swan asked.
“What else is there? You expect me to jump in just because you’re a sweet guy? Swan, I’m headed for Khatovar. I’ll do what I have to do to get there. You made your pitch. Now’s the time to back off and let the customer think.”
He babbled to his prince. The more the evening went on, the more I was tempted to issue a flat rejection. Croaker was getting old and cranky and not thrilled with the idea of learning yet another language.
The Prahbrindrah Drah nodded to Swan. He agreed with me. They rose. I did likewise, and gave the Prince a shallow bow. He and Swan walked away, pausing here and there to speak to other midnight diners. No telling what he said. Maybe what they wanted to hear. The faces I could see were smiling.
* * *
I got myself comfortable, leaned back to watch One-Eye at play. He had a swarm of bugs zipping around his victim’s head. I asked Lady, “What do you think?”
“It’s not my place to think.”
“Where would you be inclined to stand?”
“I’m a soldier of the Black Company. As you’re inclined to remind me.”
“So was Raven. So long as it suited his convenience. Don’t play games with me. Talk to me straight. Do you know these Shadowmasters? Are they Taken you sent down here to start building you a new empire?”
“No! I salvaged Shifter and sent him south, just in case, when the fury of the war and Stormbringer’s enmity were enough to explain his disappearance. That’s all.”
“But Howler…”
“Had his own escape planned. Knows of my condition and nurtures ambitions of his own. Obviously. But the Shadowmasters … I know nothing. Nothing. You should’ve asked more about them.”
“I will. If they’re not Taken they sound close enough as makes no difference. So I want to know. Where do you stand?”
“I’m a soldier of the Black Company. They’ve already declared themselves my enemies.”
“That’s not a definitive answer.”
“It’s the best you’re going to get.”
“I figured. What about Shifter and his sidekick?” I hadn’t seen them since Thresh, but had the feeling they were just around the corner. “If it’s as bad as it looks we’ll need all the resources we can muster.”
“Shifter will do what I tell him.”
Not the most reassuring answer, but I did not press. Again, it was the best I was going to get.
“Eat your dinner and stop pestering me, Croaker.”
I looked down at food now so old it was no longer palatable.
Smirking, Frogface ambled off to help his master soften the will of an assassin.
* * *
One-Eye overdid it. He has that way when he has an audience. He gets too exuberant. Our prisoner expired from sheer terror. We gained nothing from him but notoriety.
As though we needed that.
23
Willow, Bats, and Things
It was late. Willow yawned as he tumbled into his chair. Blade, Cordy, and the Woman looked at him expectantly. Like the Prahbrindrah couldn’t talk for himself. “We talked.”
“And?” the Radisha demanded.
“You maybe expected him to jump up and down and yell, ‘Oh, goodie!’”
“What did he say?”
“He said he’d check it out. Which is about the best you could expect.”
“I should have gone myself.”
The Prahbrindrah said, “Sister, the man wouldn’t have listened at all had not someone just tried to kill him.”
She was astonished.
Willow said, “Those guys aren’t stupid. They knew we was up to something way back when they let us hook up with them at the Third Cataract. They been watching us as close as we been watching them.”
Smoke drifted in with all the racket of his namesake. It was a big room in the cellar of a friend of the Radisha, near the olive grove. It smelled moldy although it was open to the night in places. Smoke came a few steps into the light cast by three oil lamps. His face puckered into a frown. He looked around.
“What’s the matter?” Cordy asked. He shivered visibly. Swan got a creepy feeling, too.
“I’m not sure. For a moment … like something was staring at me.”
The Radisha exchanged looks with her brother, then with Willow. “Willow. Those two odd little men. One-Eye and Goblin. Fact or fraud?”
“Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Right, Blade? Cordy?”
Cordy nodded. Blade said, “The little one. Like a child. Frogface. That’s dangerous.”
“What is it?” the Woman asked. “The oddest child I’ve ever seen. There were times when it acted a hundred years old.”
“Maybe ten thousand,” Smoke said. “An imp. I dared not investigate lest it recognize me as more than a silly old man. I don’t know its capacities. But definitely a supernatural entity of great efficacy. My question is how an adept of a capacity as limited as the One-Eye creature obtained control. I’m superior to him in talent, skill, and training, but I can neither summon nor control such a thing.”
Sudden squeaks and flutters came from the darkness. Startled, everyone turned. Bats hurtled into the light, peeping, diving, dodging. A sudden larger shape flashed through, dark as a chunk of night. It ripped a bat on the fly. Another shape flung through a second later, dropping another bat. The others got away through a barred but otherwise unclosed ground-level window.
“What the hell?” Willow squawked. “What’s going on?”
Blade said, “Couple of crows. Killing bats.” He sounded perfectly calm. As if crows killing bats in a basement at midnight, around his head, was something that happened all the time.
The crows did not reappear.
“I don’t like it, Willow,” Cordy said. “Crows don’t fly at night. Something’s going on.”
Everyone looked at everyone else and waited for somebody to say something. Nobody noticed the pantherine shadow settle outside the window, one eye peeking inside. Nor did anybody realize that a child-sized figure lounged atop an old crate beyond the light, grinning. But Smoke began to shiver and turn in slow circles, again with that feeling of being watched.
The Prahbrindrah said, “I recall saying it wouldn’t be a good idea to meet this close to the grove. I recall suggesting we get together in the palace, in a room that Smoke has sealed against prying. I don’t know what just happened, but it wasn’t natural and I don’t want to talk here. Let’s go. The delay can’t hurt. Can it, Smoke?”
The old man shuddered violently, said, “It might be most wise, my Prince. Most wise. There is more here than meets the eye.… Henceforth we must assume we are under surveillance.”
The Radisha was irked. “By who, old man?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter, Radisha? There are those who are interested. The High Priests. These soldiers you wish to use. The Shadowmasters. Perhaps forces of which we are unaware.”
They all looked at him. “Explain that,” the Woman ordered.
“I cannot. Except to remind you that those men successfully fought their way through river pirates who have held the river closed for some time. None of them would say much about it, but a word here and a word there added together suggested that there was sorcery of the highest order involved, on both sides. And theirs was sufficient to force the block
ade. But, except for the imp, there was nothing of that sort evident when we joined them. If they had it, where did it go? Could it be that well hidden? Maybe, but I doubt it. Maybe it travels with them without being with them, if you see what I mean.”
“No. You’re up to your old tricks. Being deliberately vague.”
“I’m vague because I have no answers, Radisha. Only questions. I wonder, more and more, if the band we see isn’t an illusion cast for our benefit. A handful of men, hard and tough and skilled in their murderous ways, to be sure, but nothing that should terrify the Shadowmasters. There aren’t enough of them to make a difference. So why are the Shadowmasters concerned? Either they know more than we do or they see better than we do. Remember the history of the Free Companies. They weren’t just bands of killers. And these men are determined to reach Khatovar. Their captain has tried everything short of violence to unearth information about the way.”
“Hey, Smoke! You said go someplace else and talk,” Blade said. “So how about we go?”
Swan agreed. “Yeah. This dump gives me the creeps. I don’t get you guys, Radisha. You and the Prince claim you run Taglios, but you go around hiding out in holes like this.”
“Our seats aren’t secure.” She started moving. “We rule with the consent of the priests, really. And we don’t want them knowing everything we’re doing.”
“Every damned lord and priest who was anybody was up in that grove tonight. They know.”
“They know what we told them. Which is only part of the truth.”
Cordy eased in close to Willow. “Keep it down, man. Can’t you see what’s up? They’re playing for a lot more than just turning back the Shadowmasters.”
“Uhm.”
Behind them, something resembling a panther padded from one pool of darkness to another, silent as death itself. Crows glided from one point of vantage to another. A childlike figure tagged along behind, apparently openly but remaining unseen. But no bats darted overhead.
Willow understood, with that one admonition. The Woman and her brother thought the struggle with the Shadowmasters would preoccupy the priests and cults. While they were distracted they would gather all the reins of the state.…
He did not begrudge them. He had little use for priests. He thought maybe Blade was on to something. Here, sure. They ought all to be drowned so Taglios could be put out of its misery.
Each dozen or so paces he turned, looked back. The street was always empty behind him. Yet he was sure something was watching.
“Creepy,” he muttered. And wondered how he’d gotten himself into this mess.
24
Taglios: A Princely Pressure
That Prahbrindrah Drah might have been one of the good guys but he was as slick as any villain. Two days after our visit I couldn’t go out without being hailed Guardian, Protector, and Deliverer. “What the hell is going on?” I asked One-Eye.
“Trying to lock you in.” He glared at Frogface. The imp had not been much good since that night. He couldn’t get near anybody—except Swan and his buddies, in a dive they owned. And they didn’t talk business there. “You sure you want to go to this library?”
“I’m sure.” Somehow the Taglians had gotten the idea I was a big healer as well as some kind of messianic general. “What the hell is wrong with them? I can see the Prince trying to sell them the load of sheep shit, but why are they buying it?”
“They want to.”
Mothers thrust their babies at me to be touched and blessed. Young men clashed anything metal and roared songs with a martial beat. Maidens threw flowers on my path. And sometimes themselves.
“That’s nice, Croaker,” One-Eye said, as I disentangled myself from a daydream about sixteen years old. “You don’t want her, toss her my way.”
“Take it easy. Before you give in to your baser instincts think about what’s going on.”
He was reserved to an extreme that baffled me. I think he saw it all as illusion. Or at least as a honeytrap. One-Eye is silly but he isn’t stupid. Sometimes.
One-Eye chuckled. “Surrender to temptation. Lady can’t look over your shoulder all the time.”
“I might. I just might. It is my duty not to disappoint these people when they’re trying so hard to hustle us. Isn’t it?”
“There you go.” But he did not sound like he believed himself. He was uncomfortable with his good fortune.
We went into the library. I found nothing. So much nothing I got even more suspicious than I was. Frogface wasn’t much use, but he could eavesdrop. The conversations he reported contributed to my concern.
It was a good time for the men. Even the supreme discipline of the Nar was not proof against some temptations. Mogaba did not hold them on too tight a leash. As Goblin howled one morning, “Heaven’s on fire, Croaker!”
Always there was this feeling of something happening just out of the corner of my eye.
* * *
The geopolitical situation was clear. It was just as Swan had described. Meaning that to reach Khatovar we would have to slice through seven hundred miles of country ruled by the Shadowmasters. If Shadowmasters there were.
I had some slight doubts. Everyone I talked to, through Frogface, believed they existed, but nobody provided any concrete evidence.
“Nobody has ever seen the gods, either,” a priest told me. “But we all believe in them, don’t we? We see their handiwork.…” He realized that I had scowled at his suggestion that everyone believed in gods. His eyes narrowed. He scurried away. For the first time I had found me somebody less than thrilled with my presence in Taglios. I told One-Eye it might be more profitable if we started spying on the High Priests instead of the Prince and Swan, who knew when to keep their mouths shut.
That we were being manipulated into going up against some heavyweight sorcerers did not intimidate me. Much. We had been up against the best for twenty years. What troubled me was my ignorance.
I did not know the language. I did not know the Taglian people. Their history was a mystery and Swan’s bunch were no help tossing light into the shadows. And, of course, I knew nothing about the Shadowmasters or the peoples they ruled. Nothing but what I had been told, which could be worse than nothing. Worst of all, I was not acquainted with the ground where any struggle would take place. And I had too little time to learn all the answers.
* * *
Sundown of the third day. We moved to quarters farther south in the city, provided by the state. I gathered everyone but the half-dozen men on guard duty. While most of the guys ate supper—cooked and served by people provided by the Prahbrindrah—the folks at my long table got their heads together. The rest had orders to keep the Taglians hopping. I doubted they could understand us, but you don’t take chances.
I sat at the head of the table, Lady to my left and Mogaba to my right, he with his two leading men next to him. Goblin and One-Eye were beyond Lady on her side, tonight with Goblin in the seat nearer the head. I had to make them trade off each meal. Beyond them were Murgen and Hagop and Otto, with Murgen at the foot of the table, in his capacity as apprentice Annalist. I made like I was telling a story as we ate. The paterfamilias entertaining his children.
“I’m taking the imperial horses out tonight. Lady, Goblin, Hagop, Otto, you’ll come. One of the roi. One of your lieutenants, Mogaba, and one of your men. Men who can ride.”
One-Eye drew a breath to complain. So did Murgen. But Mogaba slid in ahead of both. “A sneak?”
“I want to scout to the south. These people could be selling us a pig in a poke.”
I didn’t think they were, but why take a man’s word when you can see for yourself? Especially when he’s trying to use you?
“One-Eye, you stay here because I want you working your pet. Day and night. Murgen, write down whatever he tells you. Mogaba, cover for us. If they’ve been telling it straight we won’t be gone long.”
“You told the Prahbrindrah you’d give him an answer in a week. You have four days left.”
“We’ll be back in time. We’ll go after next watch change, after Goblin and One-Eye knock out anybody who might see us.”
Mogaba nodded. I glanced at Lady. She didn’t contribute much anymore. If I wanted to be the boss, I was going to be the boss and she would keep her opinion to herself.
Mogaba said, “Several of my men have approached me on a matter of some delicacy. I think we need a policy.”
This was something unexpected. “A policy? About what?”
“To what extent the men can use violence to defend themselves. Several have been attacked. They want to know how much restraint they have to show, for political reasons. Or if they have permission to make examples.”
“Gah! When did this start?”
“I received the first report this afternoon.”
“All today, then?”
“Yes sir.”
“Let’s see the men involved.”
He brought them to the table. They were Nar. There were five of them. It did not seem likely that such things would happen to the Nar alone. I sent Murgen around. He returned. “Three incidents. They took care of it themselves. Said they didn’t figure it was something worth reporting.”
Discipline. Something to be said for it.
It took half a minute to decide the attackers were not, apparently, Taglians. “Wrinkly little brown guys? We saw those on the river. I asked Swan. He said he didn’t know where they came from. But they gave him the collywobbles. If they’re not Taglians, don’t take no shit. Ace them unless you can take a couple prisoners. One-Eye. If you could snag a couple and give them the works.…”
We did all this amidst the comings and goings of our Taglian servitors. At that point several came to collect empty plates, forestalling One-Eye from poormouthing about how he was so grossly overworked. He did not squawk fast enough when they cleared away, either.
Murgen got the first word in. “I got a problem, Croaker.” Mogaba winced. Flexible man, Mogaba, but he could not get used to me letting anybody call me anything but Captain.
“What’s that?”
“Bats.”