She hesitated a moment too long. “I don’t know.”
“Odd. Seems like I’ve seen her somewhere before. But I can’t place her.”
She shrugged. “After a while everybody gets to look like somebody you’ve seen before.”
“Who do I look like?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Gastrar Telsar of Novok Debraken. The voice is different, but the heart could be the same. He moralized and debated with himself, too.”
How could I argue? I’d never heard of the guy.
“He moralized once too often. My husband had him flayed.”
“You think I moralized about Ghoj?”
“Yes. I think you put yourself through hell after the fact. A net gain. You’ve gotten smart enough to get them first and cry later.”
“I don’t think I want to play this game.”
“No. You wouldn’t. I need some of your time for tailors to take your measurements.”
“Say what? I got me a flashy uniform already.”
“Not like this one. This one is for boggling the minions of the Shadowmasters. Part of the showmanship.”
“Right. Whenever. I can work while I’m being measured. Is Shifter going to be there for the show at Ghoja?”
“We’ll find out the hard way. He didn’t say. I told you, he has his own agenda.”
“Wouldn’t mind having a peek at that. He give you one?”
“No. Mogaba is staging a mock battle between legions today. You going?”
“No. I’m going to be sucking up to the Radisha for more transport. I got the charcoal. Now I got to get it down there.”
She snorted. “Things were different in my time.”
“You had more power.”
“That’s true. I’ll send the tailors and fitters.”
I wondered what she had in mind.… What? Did I see that? What was that? Did she shake her tail as she was going out? Damn me. My eyes must be starting to go.
* * *
Weekly assessment session. I asked Murgen, “How’s the bat situation?”
“What?” I had caught him from the blind side.
“You brought the bat problem up. I thought you were keeping track.”
“I haven’t seen any for a while.”
“Good. That means Goblin and One-Eye got the right people out of the way. From where I sit everything looks like it’s going smooth. Probably faster than we had reason to expect.” I’d had no individual complaints for a while. Lady had found time to help Otto and Hagop put the fear into their snooty horsemen. “Mogaba?”
“Twelve days left on the worst-case estimate. It’s time to put teams out to watch the river stages. Worst case might not be absolutely worst.”
“The Radisha is ahead of you. I talked to her yesterday. She’d just grabbed off half the post riders for that. Right now the river is running higher than expected. That may not mean anything. We’ll have plenty of weather yet.”
“Every day we get is another hundred men I can take into each legion.”
“Where are you at now?”
“Thirty-three hundred each. I’ll stop at four thousand. Be time to move out then, anyway.”
“Think five days is enough to get down there? That’s twenty miles a day for guys who aren’t used to it.”
“They’ll be used to it. They do ten a day with field pack now.”
“I’ll get out to look them over this week. Promise. I’ve got the political end pretty well whipped. Hagop. You guys going to be ready?”
“It’s coming together, Croaker. They’ve started to realize we mean it when we say we’re trying to show them how to stay alive.”
“It’s getting close enough that they have to think about it as more than a game. Big Bucket. How about you guys?”
“Get us fifty more wagons and we can roll tomorrow, Captain.”
“You look at the sketches of that town?”
“Yes sir.”
“How long to set it up?”
“Depends on materials. For the palisade. And manpower. Lot of trenching. The rest, no problem.”
“You’ll have the manpower. Sindawe’s bunch. They’ll go down with you and move on later, as our reserve. I’ll tell you, though, the resource situation is bleak. You’ll end up depending on the trench more than the palisade. Cletus. What about artillery?”
Cletus and his brothers grinned. They looked proud of themselves. “We got it. Six mobile engines for each legion, already built. We’re working the crews on them now.”
“Great. I want you to go down with the quartermasters and engineers and get a look at that town. Put some of the engines in there. Big Bucket, you guys better head out as soon as you can. The roads are going to be miserable. If you really need more wagons mooch them from the citizens. Be quicker than me trying to gouge them out of the Radisha. So. Can’t anybody come up with anything I can fuss myself about? You know I’m not happy unless I’m worrying.”
They looked at me blankly. Finally, Murgen blurted out, “We’re going to meet their ten thousand with our eight? Isn’t that worry enough? Sir?”
“Ten thousand?”
“That’s the rumor. That the Shadowmasters increased the invasion force.”
I glanced at Lady. She shrugged. I said, “We have unreliable intelligence to that effect. But we’ll be more than eight thousand with the cavalry. With Sindawe we’ll actually outnumber them. We’ll have the field position. And I have a trick or two up my sleeve.”
“That charcoal?” Mogaba asked.
“Among other things.”
“You won’t tell us?”
“Nope. Word has a way of getting around. If nobody but me knows I can’t blame anybody but me if the other side finds out.”
Mogaba smiled. He understood me too well. I just wanted to keep it for myself.
We commanders are that way, sometimes.
My predecessors never told anybody anything till it was time to jump.
Afterward, I asked Lady, “What do you think?”
“I think they’re going to know they were in a fight. I still have grave doubts about winning, but maybe you’re a better captain than you want to admit. You put every man where he can do the most good.”
“Or least harm.” Wheezer and Hagop’s nephew still had not shown me they were good for anything.
* * *
Seven days till deadline. The quartermasters and engineers and Sindawe’s reserve legion were two days gone. Incoming post riders reported their progress as disappointing. The roads were hopeless. But they were getting help from people along the way. In places the troops and locals backpacked the freight while the teams dragged the empty wagons through the mud.
We were going to get some grace. We were still getting drizzle when that should have ended a week ago. Reports had the fords way too high to cross. The watchers guessed we had at least five extra days.
I told Mogaba, who needed time more than anyone else. He grumbled that his main accomplishment to date was that he had taught his troops to march in straight lines.
I thought that was the critical lesson. If they could maintain order on the battlefield …
I was not comfortable with the gift of time. As each day perished in turn, and I had more reports of the trouble the advance party was having, I grew ever more antsy.
Two days before our originally planned departure I summoned Mogaba. “Have you relaxed any because of the extra time?”
“No.”
“Not easing up at all?”
“No. If we leave five days later, they’ll be five days more prepared.”
“Good.” I leaned back in my chair.
“You’re troubled.”
“That mud. I had Frogface go scout. Sindawe is still twenty miles from Vejagedhya. What’ll it be like for the mob we’ll take down?”
He nodded. “You’re thinking of leaving early?”
“I’m seriously considering leaving when we originally planned. Just to make sure. If we’re there early we can get rested and maybe
a little more trained under field conditions.”
He nodded again. Then took me by surprise. “You play hunches sometimes, don’t you?”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“I’ve watched you since Gea-Xle. I’m beginning to understand how your mind works, I think. And sometimes I think you don’t understand yourself well enough. You’ve been troubled all week. That is a sign you have a hunch trying to come through.” He left his chair. “I’ll proceed on the assumption that you’ll leave early.”
He left. I thought about him knowing how my mind works. Should I feel flattered or threatened?
I went to a window, opened it, looked at the night sky. I saw stars between racing clouds. Maybe the cycle of daily drizzle was over. Or maybe it was just another pause.
I went back to work. My current project, taken catch-as-catch-can, was one I was working on with Frogface. We were trying to figure out what had become of the books missing from all the libraries around town. I had an idea that a certain anonymous official had them squirreled away in the Prahbrindrah’s palace. The question was, how to get to them? Invoke my powers as dictator?
“Ignore the river.”
“Say what?” I looked around. “What the hell?”
“Ignore the river.”
A crow stood on the windowsill. Another settled beside it. It delivered the same message.
Crows are smart. But only for bird brains. I asked what they were talking about. They told me to ignore the river. I could put them on the rack and they would not tell me more. “All right. I got it. Ignore the river. Shoo.”
Crows. All the time with the damned crows. They were trying to tell me something, sure. What? They had warned me before. Were they saying I should pay no attention to the river stages?
That was my inclination anyway, because of the mud.
I went to the door and yelled, “One-Eye! Goblin! I need you.”
They mustered in looking surly, standing well away from one another. Not a good sign. They were feuding again. Or working up to it. It had been so long since they had eased the pressure that it might be a major blowup.
“Tonight’s the night, guys. Take out the rest of the Shadowmasters’ agents.”
“I thought we had some extra time,” One-Eye carped.
“We might have. And we might not. I want it done now. Take care of it.”
Under his breath Goblin muttered, “Yessir your dictatorship, sir.” I gave him a dirty look. He moved out. I went to the window and stared out at that clearing sky.
“I had a feeling things were going too good.”
32
Shadowlight
The Shadowmasters met in a haste that left them exhausted. The meet had been set days earlier but as they travelled a cry had gone out saying it was too late for lazy, comfortable movements.
They were in the place of the pool and uncertain dimensions and shadows. The woman bobbed restlessly. Her companion was agitated. The one who spoke seldom spoke first. “What is the panic?”
“Our resources in Taglios have been exterminated. All but the newest. As suddenly as that.” She snapped her fingers.
Her companion said, “They are about to march.”
The woman: “They knew who our resources were. Which means everything we learned through them is suspect.”
Her companion: “We have to move sooner than we planned. We cannot give them a minute more than we must.”
The quiet one asked, “Have we been found out?”
The woman: “No. We have the one resource close to the heart, still undetected if mostly ineffective. It hasn’t reported a hint of a suspicion.”
“We should join the troops. We should leave nothing to the hazard of battle.”
“We’ve argued this out already. No. We will not risk ourselves. There is no cause to think they will have any chance against our veterans. I have added five thousand men to the invasion force. That is enough.”
“There was another thing. The thing you called us here to present.”
“Yes. Our comrade of Shadowcatch and Overlook is not as southward obsessed as he would have us think. He infiltrated some of his people into Taglian territory the past year. They attacked the leaders of the Black Company. And failed abysmally. Their efforts served only one purpose—beyond betraying his thinking. They gave me a chance to insinuate our one surviving resource into the enemy fold.”
“Then when next we meet him we can mock him in turn.”
“Perhaps. If it seems appropriate. One piece of news comes out of his effort. Dorotea Senjak is with them.”
A long stillness followed. Finally, the one who spoke so seldom observed, “That alone explains why our friend would send men north secretly. How dearly he would love to own her.”
The female replied, “For more reasons than the obvious. There appears to be a relationship with the Company’s Captain. She would be a valuable resource if that relationship is strong enough to be manipulated.”
“She must be killed as soon as possible.”
“No! We must capture her. If he can use her, so can we. Think what she knows. What she was. She might hold the key to ridding the world of him and of closing the gateway. She may be powerless but she has not lost her memory.”
The one who spoke seldom began to laugh. His laughter was as insane as that heard in Overlook. He was thinking anyone could use the memories of Dorotea Senjak. Anyone!
The female recognized that laugh, understood what was happening in his mind, knew she and her companion would have to proceed very carefully. But she pretended not to see. She asked her companion, “Have you contacted the one in the swamps?”
“He wants nothing to do with us or our troubles. He is content with his fetid, humid little empire. But he will come around.”
“Good. We’re agreed? We advance the schedule?”
Heads nodded.
“I will send the orders immediately.”
33
Taglios: Drunken Wizards
It had not been a good day. It got no better because the sun went down. The high had been Frogface reporting Sindawe reaching Vejagedhya. The low followed immediately. There was no material to fortify the town. A ditch would be it.
But the ground was so sodden the walls of a ditch would keep collapsing.
Oh, well. If the gods were out to get us they were out to get us. All our wriggling on the hook wouldn’t change a thing.
I was ready to collapse into bed when Murgen burst in. I was so tired I was seeing double. Two of him did not improve the state of the universe. “What now?” I snapped.
“Maybe big trouble. Goblin and One-Eye are down at Swan’s place, drunk on their asses, and they’ve started in. I don’t like the smell of it.”
I got up, resigned to another sleepless night. It had been a long time brewing. It might get out of hand. “What are they doing?”
“Just the usual, so far. But there’s no fun in it this time. There’s an undercurrent of viciousness. Anyway, it stinks like somebody could get hurt.”
“Horses ready?”
“I sent word.”
I grabbed up the officer’s baton some Nar had tossed me as we had approached Gea-Xle. No special reason other than that it was the nearest thing handy for thumping heads.
The barracks was quiet as we passed through. The men sensed something afoot. By the time I reached the stables Mogaba and Lady had joined the parade. Murgen explained while they cursed our Taglian stablehands into readying two more horses.
That the feud had gotten out of hand was obvious from blocks away. Fires illuminated the night. Taglians were coming out to see what was happening.
The wizards had squared off in the street outside Swan’s place. That had been gutted. Fires flickered up and down the street, none major, just patches gnawing the faces of buildings, evidence of the errant aim of a couple of drunken sorcerers.
Those troublesome little shits were having difficulty standing, let alone shooting straight. So maybe the gods do watc
h out for fools and drunks. Had they been sober they would have murdered each other.
Unconscious bodies lay scattered around. Swan and Mather and Blade and several guys from the Company were among them. They had tried to break it up and gotten creamed for their trouble.
One-Eye and Goblin were escalating. One-Eye had a pained-looking Frogface sicced on Goblin. Goblin had something that looked like a black snake of smoke growing out of his belt pouch. It was trying to get past Frogface. When the things grappled a shower of light washed the street, revealing Taglians crouched, watching from relative safety.
I halted before they noticed me. “Lady. What’s that thing Goblin’s got?”
“Can’t tell from here. Something he shouldn’t. A match for Frogface, which I would have thought was out of One-Eye’s class.” She sounded vaguely troubled.
There were times I’d had that notion myself. It did not seem reasonable that you could walk into a shop and buy a Frogface off the shelf. But it hadn’t bothered One-Eye, and he was the expert.
Frogface and the snake came to grips midway between their masters. They started grunting and straining and screaming and thumping around. I wondered aloud, “Is that what Goblin brought back from the country?”
“What?”
“From the first time I saw him after his set-to with the brown guys directing the shadows he had this smugness about him. Like he finally had him some way to whip the world.”
Lady thought. “If he picked it up from the Shadowmasters’ men it could be a plant. Shifter could tell us for sure.”
“He ain’t here. Let’s make the assumption.”
The last fire burned itself out. Goblin and One-Eye were totally preoccupied. One-Eye stumbled over his own bootlace. For a moment it looked like Goblin would get the upper hand. Frogface barely turned the snake’s strike.
“Enough. We can’t do without them, much as I’d like to bury them both and have done with their crap.” I spurred my horse. Goblin was nearest me. He barely started to turn. I leaned down and thumped his head. I did not see the result. I was on One-Eye already. I whacked him upside the head, too.
I turned for a second charge but Lady, Mogaba, and Murgen had them wrapped up. The battle between Frogface and the snake died out. But they did not. They eyed one another across ten feet of pavement.