They did not want to listen.
It was worse than I had imagined it could be.
It was worse than Tobo had predicted.
The countermagical blast hurled both sorcerers all the way up the slope to the edge of the plain, bouncing and tumbling all the way. By some miracle neither broke the barrier protecting the road. Maybe Shivetya was watching over then.
One still had shown no sign of recovering when I gave up watching. I told Tobo, “I reckon it’s time to go, now. Those guys might have gotten the message this time.”
I did not look back. The trials the Voroshk faced left me confident that they would never become a problem to my world.
As we descended the hill I asked, “Anybody think there might be a connection between the Shadowmasters and the Voroshk? They seem to have gotten their start about the right time. And the Shadowmasters tried to sever all connections with the past in Hsien. It was just too big a job. I wonder what we’d find out if we talked to some ordinary farming stiff over there?”
“I can ask Shivetya,” Tobo said. “And the prisoners.” But he did not sound particularly motivated.
49
Nijha:
Place of the Dead
Sahra kept calling for more torches. As though bringing in enough light would nullify the disaster. By the time the Captain arrived there were fifty torches, lamps and lanterns illuminating what had been a stable before the Company arrived.
“Strangled?” Sleepy asked.
“Strangled.”
“I’m tempted to use the word ‘ironic’ but I fear there’s no irony in it at all. Doj. That white raven of Croaker’s was hanging around outside. Find it. There were little people hanging around here, some of them supposedly watching Singh. I want to know what they saw.”
Sleepy had a good idea what she would hear from the Unknown Shadows. It would be a variation on reports she had had before. She said, “I’ll want to send the news south, too.”
Nothing happened around the Black Company without some hobyah there to witness it. The soldiers from Hsien understood that perfectly. They took it for granted. They tended to be well-behaved. But someone without experience of life in Hsien would not take the Unknown Shadows as seriously.
A minute later, Sleepy asked, “I don’t suppose anyone’s seen Goblin, have they? I don’t reckon anyone knows who was supposed to be watching him?”
Riverwalker said, “He was right over there till a minute ago.”
Sleepy looked, considered, muttered, “No doubt right up to the second I decided to consult the Unknown Shadows about what they saw.” Which would have been the same moment he would have realized that his recent history was no mystery to anyone. The moment when he realized that Sleepy had been paying out the hangman’s rope while seeing what she could learn.
Riverwalker asked. “Want him rounded up? In one piece?”
“No.” Not now. Not when the best wizard she had was an old, old man whose skills, outside using a sword, were too weak even to put hexes on people and animals. “But I wouldn’t mind knowing where he is.” Doj could manage that. The Unknown Shadows communicated with him. Sometimes. When the mood took them. “What you do need to do right now is get extra guards around the Voroshk. Goblin showed a lot of interest in them while we were traveling. I don’t want anything happening to them and I don’t want them wandering off.” It did not occur to her to reinforce the company responsible for the comatose sorcerer Howler. But Fortune stood behind her there.
Goblin, it developed, had grabbed a couple of fast horses and some loose supplies and had gotten himself out of Nijha, headed north, all without attracting any particular notice. Sleepy very nearly indulged in profanity when she received the report. Someone pointed out that the little wizard always had had that knack. Sleepy growled, “Then somebody should have been watching for him to take advantage of it.”
Uncle Doj told her, “I can’t stop him or control him but I can make life miserable for him.”
“How?”
“His horses. The Black Hounds can have a lot of fun with them. And when he tries to lead them to water...” He chuckled wickedly.
“Send them.” Sleepy beckoned Sahra. “I kept leaning both ways during the meeting. Looking for a sign. I’ve just had it. We’re not going to rush in anymore. We’ll move ahead slowly, into more hospitable country, and stop somewhere where we can support ourselves without much trouble. We’ll wait till everyone catches up. And issue a call for volunteers willing to support the Prabrindrah Drah and the Radisha.” If anyone even remembered them.
“Wait especially for my son. Yes.” Sahra was angry and unhappy but too tired to fight much. “Now that Murgen is no longer the major tool.”
“Especially for Tobo, yes. Tonight it was clear that without Tobo we’re in trouble bad.”
Sahra said nothing more. She was tired of fighting a battle in which even the men she wanted to protect refused to honor her concern.
50
The Taglian Territories:
The Palace
The Taglian field army slowly assembled astride the Rock Road in lightly settled country midway between Dejagore and the fortified crossings over the River Main at Ghoja. Another, less powerful force, consisting of troops from the southern provinces, assembled outside Dejagore. And a third gathered outside Taglios itself. There seemed no reason to suspect that the force at Dejagore should have any trouble denying that city to a force such as that the Black Company was bringing up. Mogaba expected his enemies to swing west once they descended from the highlands, possibly marching as far as the Naghir River, which they could follow north, then swing eastward again and try to get over the Main at one of the lesser downriver crossings. He intended to let them march and march and wear themselves down. He intended to let them do whatever they wanted till he slammed the door shut behind them. Once he had them north of the Main he could build a ring around them and slowly squeeze.
The Great General was feeling quite positive. Taglios was restive but not rebellious. Even the most remote garrison commanders were bringing their soldiers to the assembly points with their units at near strength even though some harvesting would commence in the far south before the end of the month.
Harvest season inevitably precipitated higher desertion rates.
Best of all, the Protector was staying away. Her tinkering and interference always made his task more difficult. And, of course, it was always his fault when a bastardized plan fell apart.
The Great General gathered his senior staff and inner circle, which included a dozen generals as well as Ghopal and Aridatha Singh. He told them, “The plan appears to be coming together perfectly. With a couple of nudges and timed withdrawals I think we can lead them to the ford at Vehdna-Bota. I still wish we had better communications with the Protector. But she can’t find enough crows anymore. Some plague is wiping them out. I seldom hear from her more than once a day. And then, often as not, she’ll waste time on weather news or a flu epidemic in Prehbehlbed.” Nor were there any shadows about, nor any of the Protector’s lesser spies. Mogaba did not mention that. Taglians were dedicated conspirators. Let them continue to think that there might be eyes in the corners, watching.
Only his own conspiracy need go forward.
The Great General had more to preoccupy him than how to isolate and destroy his enemy. He suspected there was a definite question about the identity of Taglios’ most dangerous foe.
Something about this incarnation of the Black Company had Soulcatcher so concerned that she insisted on focusing all her attention there. Something about this incarnation of the Black Company had touched almost everyone of substance within the Taglian empire, though news of their return had barely had time to spread and there were no eyewitness reports available at all. All customary enmity and internal friction seemed to be dwindling at a time when, normally, factionalism should be exploding as old antagonists tried to use the situation to their advantage.
And Mogaba had found that he was
thinking less and less about the practicalities of eliminating the Protector, more and more obsessively about destroying the Black Company. Not just defeating them but obliterating them. To the last man, woman, child, horse, mule, flea and louse.
After decades of unhappy fortune Mogaba was naturally wary of everything—including his own emotional state.
He had begun keeping a personal journal the day he had made the decision to betray Soulcatcher, to track his thoughts and emotions during the subsequent, stressful days. It was a journal he opened only in brilliant sunlight. It was a journal he would destroy before actually taking action against the Protector because there were names in it he did not want betrayed if he failed—and was lucky enough to die before she captured him.
Lately he had noticed an evolution in his thinking about the Company. An accelerating evolution. A frightening evolution.
He had become suspicious of his own reason.
Following a general meeting to consider policy for the empire the Great General met with the men responsible for the capital city.
“Kina is active again,” Mogaba murmured. Ghopal and Aridatha listened politely. He was referencing events from before their time, that they knew only by repute. “She’s doing that thing where she gradually shapes everyone’s prejudices.”
They offered him blank looks.
“Not history buffs, eh?” Mogaba explained. “The strangest part was, nobody ever wondered why they were terrified. They just didn’t remember that three years earlier they’d never heard of the Black Company.”
Ghopal said, “What you’re saying is, the Strangler Goddess has a particular fear of the Black Company. She wants the whole world to climb all over them and destroy them. Even if blood has to be spilled.”
“Isn’t this an interesting quandary,” Aridatha said. “If we can overcome the Black Company, we’ll still have to deal with the Protector. If we knock her down, too, then we’ll still have to handle the Stranglers and Kina, in order to prevent the Year of the Skulls. Wave after wave. No end to it.”
“No end to it,” Mogaba agreed. “And I’m getting to be quite an old man.” He had begun to nurture an outrageous notion almost as soon as he had determined that he was being manipulated. “There are a couple of old records I want to check. I want you both back here same time tomorrow.”
The Great General did not lack courage. The next evening he led Ghopal and Aridatha into the brightly lit room. He presented a more convincing case for his belief that Kina had awakened, drawing heavily upon excerpts from copies of Black Company Annals residing in the national library.
Aridatha Singh said, “I believe you. I just wonder what happened to wake her up again.”
“Ghopal?”
“I’m not sure I understand. But I don’t think I have to. Aridatha does. I trust his wisdom.”
“Then I’ll talk to Aridatha. But you listen.” Mogaba chuckled.
Aridatha listened to his idea, the reasoning behind it, frowning all the while. Ghopal seemed aghast. But he kept his mouth shut. Aridatha went off alone with his thoughts. After a while he nodded reluctantly and said. “I have a brother in Dejagore. I’ll find a reason to go visit. I know some people who might listen to what you have to say if it’s me doing the talking.”
“What?”
Aridatha said, “You recall a few years ago when the Company underground here started kidnapping people? Willow Swan, the Purohita, and so on? I was one of the people they snatched.”
Ghopal wanted to know why, and Mogaba wondered how he had gotten away.
“I got away because they let me go. They only picked me up because they wanted to show me off to somebody they were holding already.” Aridatha took a long, deep breath and revealed his great secret. “My father. Narayan Singh. They were showing him their power.”
“Narayan Singh? The Narayan Singh? The Strangler?” Ghopal asked.
“That Narayan Singh. I didn’t know. Not till then. Our mother told us our father was dead. She believed it, I think. The Shadowmasters conscripted him into their labor battalions during their first invasion, before the Black Company ever arrived from the north. I was the youngest of four children. I’m pretty sure the older ones knew the truth. My brother Sugriva moved to Dejagore and changed his name. My sister Khaditya changed hers, too. Her husband would die of mortification if he knew.”
“You’ve never mentioned this before.”
“I think you can understand why.”
“Oh. I do. That’s a cruel burden to bear.” Mogaba already found himself responding to the Deceiver connection. With exactly the sort of paranoid fear everyone did to any Deceiver connection. It was inevitable. Aloud, he said, “I wonder how those people ever trust each other?”
Aridatha replied, “I suspect you’d have to be inside and a part of it all to understand. I think the biggest part of it, though, would be their faith in their Goddess.”
The Great General looked at Ghopal Singh. “If the Greys have objections I need to hear them now.”
Ghopal shook his head. “Only one Grey is going to know about this. For now. The others wouldn’t understand.”
“Aridatha. You have someone you trust to take charge while you’re gone?” The City Battalions did not know they were part of a conspiracy to free Taglios from its protector. It was necessary to keep firm control there.
“Yes. But no one in the know. If you have unusual requests you’ll have to justify them based on what’s going on in the city.” The soldiers understood that their role was to keep the peace if the population became too restive for the Greys alone.
Mogaba asked, “Are there enough provocations to make any excuses sound good?”
Ghopal showed a large array of teeth. Shadar were proud of their well-kept teeth. “That’s almost amusing. Since the news reached the street that the Black Company really is back, there’s actually been less related graffiti. As though real Company sympathizers don’t want to risk identification and the non-Company vandals responsible for most of it suddenly don’t want to be identified with any terror that’s for real.”
“Terror?”
“You were right, what you said last night. There’s a growing fear of the Company out there. Like you said, it was in olden times. I don’t understand but it’s helping keep the peace just when I expected a lot more trouble.”
“If you need provocations and the villains don’t provide them, feel free to create your own. Aridatha, you know what needs doing. Do it. As quickly as possible. Before events move so fast they rob us of more chances.” Though it could happen almost momentarily, Mogaba had abandoned any real hope of catching the Protector unaware as she returned to the city.
At the moment it seemed she did not plan to return until the Black Company invasion was settled.
51
The Taglian Territories:
The Middle Ground
Soulcatcher, in full leather and fuller ire, stalked the perimeter of the encampment midway between Ghoja and Dejagore. A dozen frightened officers followed, each silently appealing for mercy to his choice of god or gods. The Protector in a rage was a disaster no one wanted to experience. Her excesses made no more sense than do those of a tornado.
“They haven’t moved. For six days now they’ve hardly taken a step. After hurtling northward like the storm itself, so fast we were killing ourselves trying to pull something together fast enough to stop them. What’re they doing? What changed suddenly?” As always when she was under stress Soulcatcher was a babble of conflicting voices. That added to the uneasiness of the men tagging after her. None had had any experience with her before her arrival in camp. The actuality was more unnerving than the stories predicted. She seemed every bit as cruel and capricious as any god. Several graves beyond the perimeter attested to the violence of her temper.
These sycophants would never find out but those who died had been chosen only after extended supernatural espionage. Not one had been a devoted servant of the Protectorate. Each had said so aloud. A
dditionally, none had been particularly competent leaders and that had been clear to their soldiers and compatriots. They had attained their positions through nepotism or cronyism, not ability.
Soulcatcher was culling her officer corps. She was disappointed that necessity prevented her from doing more. That corps was terrible. But she would take no responsibility for that. Of course.
How poor would it have been without the efforts of the Great General? Probably an awful, corrupt joke without a punchline. Without Mogaba’s dedicated nurturing there would have been little to assemble here.
How to keep it here? The desertion rate was supportable now but showing signs of rising. Was that the enemy strategy? Wait until the Taglian armies melted because of the demands of the approaching harvest? Would they charge north again then? It sounded like a Black Company sort of thing to do. Indications were, they had the wealth to maintain a force in the field a long time.
Mogaba’s messages indicated his own suspicions concerning a similar strategy. He was tailoring his own approach toward getting his enemy to take the long way around, into a trap.
Soulcatcher did not believe there would be any chance to trap the Black Company. Their intelligence resources were much too wonderful. While her own continued to fade. All species of crows were becoming endangered. Mice, bats, rats, owls, those sorts of creatures had no range. There seemed to be no modern sources of quality crystal or worthy mercury with which to create a scrying glass or bowl. The shadows she still controlled were few and feeble and frightened and she refused to risk them in enemy territory, often because each time she did a few more would not come back. And for now she was cut off from her only source of replacements.
She glanced skyward, saw vultures circling to the north, over woods which ran from right to left for as far as she could see. The growth followed a shallow stream. Her sister had won a small victory over the Shadowmasters there, ages ago, soon after the Black Company had suffered the disaster that led to the siege of Dejagore.
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