Soldiers Live

by Glen Cook

  “That’s true. But right now she seems content to have it that way. I understand that her guards aren’t nearly as attentive to her security as they ought to be.”

  Having read Sleepy’s Annals I was not surprised. Booboo seemed capable of having a mind-numbing impact on nearby male-type people.

  “Then that’s something you need to let my sister know. Otherwise she could get a surprise that would leave all of us unhappy.”

  We were approaching the Nijha wall. I said, “You experts ought to give this place the once-over. See if our bitty old buddy left any evidence behind.” That earned me frowns and scowls. Here came a chance to rest and I was talking about more work. Not for me but for them. I changed the subject and asked Lady, “You said Sleepy burned the Books of the Dead? The real ones? You were a direct witness?”

  “I was a witness through the white crow. She burned all three of them. Shivetya himself has their ashes. He’s been having Baladitya dispose of them a pinch at a time by having them carried away by anyone who’s traveling the plain.”

  Tobo said, “I moved a lot of them back when Suvrin and I were exploring the plain. What’s up?”

  “An old man natural’s curiosity, I guess. Everyone, and the Deceivers seemed to agree, thinks the Daughter of Night — or whoever inherits her job if she fails — will have to have the Books of the Dead to complete the rituals of the Year of the Skulls. No books, no resurrection. Right?”

  I did not get an answer. There was no answer anyone could give. In actual fact nobody really knew. Possibly not even my befuddled daughter or poor old Deceiver and now very dead Narayan Singh.

  Lady stipulated, “The old witch is still in there trying, isn’t she?”

  “Isn’t she?”

  Lady and Tobo found nothing of interest at the Nijha post. Goblin had not shed his skin or left any secret Deceiver hex signs. He had just started running while the getting was good, as soon as somebody realized that he might be responsible for Narayan’s murder.

  Uncle Doj rejoined us at Nijha. So did some stragglers who had accumulated there. Sleepy would not have much trouble with desertions. These men knew no one outside the Company and spoke not a word of Taglian or any other local language.

  With the stragglers added we would number more than a hundred when we resumed traveling. Of the original group we lacked only Spook and Panda Man, who had been awarded the dubious honor of staying behind to watch the shadowgate.

  Once she finished looking for other evidence, Lady cornered Doj. “Where’s the body?”

  “Huh?” The old swordmaster was baffled.

  “Narayan Singh. What did you do with his corpse?”

  Tobo and I exchanged looks. That question had not occurred to either of us. It might be a good idea to make doubly certain just who had died. Narayan Singh had been a veritable Prince of Deceivers, beloved of Kina.

  One of the injured men left to garrison Nijha volunteered, “They threw him in the old cesspit, then filled it with dirt and rock from the new latrine, ma’am. Which was built according to your specifications, sir.”

  I have had a reputation as a martinet along those lines ever since I joined the Company. And when health, hygiene and waste disposal are handled my way the Company tends to experience significantly fewer disease problems than do people who do not do things my way. It remains impossible to reason with some men, though, so I just give orders and make sure they are carried out.

  “Dig him up,” Lady directed. And when nobody rushed to grab up picks and shovels she began to glow darkly and swell up and even to develop fangs.

  Then people started looking for tools.

  “That was interesting,” I told her.

  “Been working on it since I ambushed myself and that tree. It doesn’t take much effort or power but it ought to be visually impressive.”

  “It definitely was that.”

  The exhumation satisfied Lady. There was a body. It resembled Narayan Singh, even including his bad leg. And it was unnaturally well preserved considering where it had been buried.

  “Well?” I asked after she had gone so far as to open the body up. I do not know what she expected to find.

  “It does seem to be him. Considering who he served, who seemed to love him, I was almost certain there wouldn’t be a body. Or it wouldn’t be Narayan’s if there was.”

  The truth was, she had not wanted it to be Narayan. She did not want Singh evading her vengeance this easily.

  “There’s no dramatic unity in real life,” I told her. “Save it up and take it out on Goblin.”

  She offered me a wicked look.

  “I mean on the thing that’s taken possession of Goblin.” The real Goblin would be my oldest surviving friend.

  She carved Narayan’s corpse into little pieces. She left a trail of those for the bugs and buzzards over the next several days. But the man’s head, heart and hands she kept in a jar of pickling brine.

  I did not ask why or if she had a plan. Narayan’s escape had left her in much too black a mood for small talk.

  A couple of times I did overhear her cursing the fact that there were no great necromancers left in the world.

  She would call Narayan back from paradise or hell to make him pay for taking our daughter.

  The smaller Voroshk girl, the captive, came out to see us. In not bad Taglian she told us, “Sedvod just died.” She stared at Tobo the whole time.

  I went to check. The sick boy had, indeed, passed on. And I still had no idea why.

  I figured the Goblin thing probably deserved the blame.

  55

  The Nether Taglian Territories:

  Along the Viliwash

  Sleepy surprised us all. She was irked about us dealing with Soulcatcher but she made no great fuss. “This situation isn’t the one I prepared for. Tobo. I trust you’re taking steps to prevent the Protector from observing what we’re doing.”

  “She sees what we want her to see. Which means she doesn’t see what we’re doing, only what our mutual enemies are doing.”

  Which was not much on Booboo’s part. Despite her best effort to vanish during the night after her captors first encountered Soulcatcher’s pickets, she remained a captive. She would be turned over to Soulcatcher herself within a few days.

  Goblin, moving faster than the girl’s captors were, had been gaining ground fast and Tobo now placed him only about thirty miles behind. I suggested that he would be more trouble to Soulcatcher than Booboo ever could.

  Thinking out loud, I said, “I wonder if this is how myths get started.”

  People looked at me like they were not sure they wanted to know what that was all about.

  I explained. “Here we’ve got a bunch of people visiting strange places most people couldn’t get to even if they wanted. We’ve got close relatives squabbling and even trying to murder each other.”

  “That’s reaching,” Murgen said.

  “I like it,” Tobo said. “A thousand years from now they’ll remember me as the god of storms. Or something.”

  “Or something?” his father asked. “How about the small god who makes littler rocks out of runty stones?”

  Earlier Tobo had gotten caught making stones explode. He had been doing it for the sheer joy of watching them shatter and hearing the fragments ricochet. He was embarrassed. But you have got to have fun once in a while. Today’s Company is not nearly as much fun as it was when I was young.

  I snickered. “We marched forty miles every day. Uphill all the way. In the snow. When we weren’t in the swamp.”

  “What?”

  “Thought I’d start practicing for when I get really old. How do you make rocks explode?”

  “Oh. That’s easy. You just kind of feel what they’re like inside. You find the water. You make it hot enough and the rock goes boom.”

  Find the water. Inside a rock. And the rock goes boom. Right. I had to ask. I changed the subject. “How are those Voroshk kids doing?” Despite everything he had to do, Tobo fou
nd time to spend with our captives.

  It was amazing how much the kid could handle in a day.

  I could recall when life worked that way for me. Back when we were marching up all those hills. With cold, wet feet.

  “Uncle Doj has them speaking Taglian like they were born in the delta, in the shadow of the temple of Ghanghesha.”

  “Excellent.” He was poking fun, of course.

  “They’re picking up the language. Shukrat and Magadan could get by now. Arkana is having trouble but she’s catching on. None of them are mourning Sedvod. Gromovol, the brother, is being stubborn. He doesn’t like not being the only conduit. He likes to be in control. Of something. But even he is making progress.”

  “Gromovol is the pain in the ass, then? Which’re which with the other names? I haven’t heard any names before.”

  “That’s because they hadn’t given up hope that their family would rescue them from their own dumb mistake. Even more than the Gunni do, they believe their names can be used against them. There’s a connection with their souls.”

  “Which means that Shukrat and Magadan and whatnot won’t actually be real names.”

  “They’re real public names. Work names. Just not true names.”

  “I’ve never understood the concept but it’s one I’ve learned to live with. Which one is which?”

  “Shukrat is the shorter girl. The one who crashed.”

  “The one who’s working up a crush on you.”

  Tobo ignored me. The ability to ignore seems to be coupled with a talent for sorcery. “Arkana is the ice queen. Which I definitely would not mind melting. Magadan is the quiet guy.”

  Magadan, in my estimation, would be the dangerous one. If he so chose. He observed and studied and prepared. He did not bluster or invoke the threat of powers from a world away. “Did you tell them what happened at the shadowgate?”

  “They didn’t want to believe me but they did enough to decide to introduce themselves. Enough to conclude that they’re likely to be a part of our world for a long time to come.”

  “You did remind them that that’s what they asked for?”

  “Sure. Shukrat even managed to joke about it. She has a great sense of humor. For a girl. Who didn’t ask to be here.”

  Considering the females in his experience I could see how he might think a feeble sense of humor was a sex-linked characteristic. Only Iqbal Singh’s wife ever smiled and joked. And Suruvhija’s lot was the poorest of all the women associated with the Company.

  “But all you can see is long legs, long blonde hair, big blue eyes and a monumental set of gazoombies.” Once we got up into settled country we needed to find the kid a whore. Twenty years old and never been laid.

  On the other hand, harnessing all that energy the way we were right now had a lot to recommend it. We were not headed into an era where we could let our most talented wizard be distracted by nature.

  Maybe we should find him a traveling companion.

  I could just imagine what his mother would say about that.

  “The future,” I said, raising my hand as though holding a drink. “We have to get Swan and Blade set up in the brewing business.”

  Murgen said, “That’s what I miss most about One-Eye, too.”

  “Here’s a thought. Maybe Goblin will get so thirsty he’ll shake Kina off and set up a still.”

  I had to mention Goblin. That took the pleasure out of the moment.

  Everybody who remembered the old Goblin had to deal with those memories each time the man’s name came up. Those memories were going to be treacherous if ever we confronted the revenant himself. Even if they caused just a moment’s hesitation.

  If we had to go after Goblin hard we would be better served to send people from Hsien. They would not be sentimental about him. Their exposure was entirely hearsay.

  I did not want to hasten the day.

  I asked, “Tobo, now that we’ve slowed down, what are we going to do about the Howler?” An entire infantry company had been saddled with that sleeping sorcerer from the day he and Longshadow had been brought up out of the earth. That company had no other duties but transporting and protecting the Howler. “Something’s got to be. If she don’t wake him up and make a deal we’d better kill him. Before Soulcatcher figures out that we’ve got him and steals him so she can use him herself.”

  I was worried that Sleepy was not taking the Howler seriously enough. She had no experience of him. Not enough to understand just how dangerous he could be, which was just as dangerous as Soulcatcher. And he was crazier than she was.

  The Howler was no dedicated enemy of ours though he had worked against us far more often than otherwise. His nature seemed to make him a follower. He gravitated toward where the strength seemed to be. He was so powerful I would prefer he was with us rather than not. Or, if not with us, dead.

  “There’s a certain amount of debate. Sleepy would rather just leave him for the jackals. Mom would, too, only she keeps having these premonitions. You know how big premonitions are with the women of the Ky family.”

  “One got your mom and dad together.”

  “No use crying over spilled milk,” Willow Swan said. “How about somebody tells Sleepy if she’s not going anywhere in a hurry why don’t we set down in one place? It’s a pain to set up and tear down every day if we’re not going anywhere.”

  Our northward drift did allow for a lot of camp time. I used it to work on these Annals. Lady used it to get several wagon loads of large bamboo poles collected so she could begin manufacturing a new generation of fireball projectors. Tobo used it to teach the Voroshk youngsters. I joined him occasionally. The boy Magadan seemed to have a healing touch. We needed to nurture that.

  Arkana remained the ice queen. Shukrat grew more relaxed with us. And Gromovol decided he wanted to become my buddy — in support of whatever scheme was shaping up inside of him.

  Although he did not spread it around, Tobo figured out the basics of riding the Voroshk flying post. At least, a particular flying post. I suspect Shukrat helped him. It was her post he sneaked out in the middle of the night, indulging all of a young man’s joy in adventure.

  56

  The Nether Taglian Territories:

  The Manor at Gharhawnes

  Ten days into the Amble on the Viliwash we had traveled barely forty-five miles. A third of those we covered in a single day when it became apparent, to the amazement of all, that there really were people in the Taglian Territories disinclined to celebrate liberation from the Protector’s reign. A coalition of regional nobles and priests tried to resist, then tried to hole up in a stout manor called Gharhawnes. In the field Tobo used his talents to weaken their will to resist, before the soldiers got a real chance to beat up on them.

  We surrounded the manor at dusk. Fires sprouted. The outer wall of the manor house seemed to boil with a dark mist as the Unknown Shadows stormed the place.

  Results did not become obvious for hours. Tobo’s friends preferred to be indirect. And preferred the cover of darkness.

  We had the place surrounded. Our bonfires sent harmless shadows scampering over the manor walls. I told Sleepy, “This place looks nice and comfy, Captain. We’re in no hurry. We could hang around here for a while. Long enough to learn its name.”

  She was underwhelmed by the suggestion. “Gharhawnes.”

  “Bless you.”

  “Gharhawnes is the name of the place, you idiot.”

  “And it’s the best place we’ve seen. Maybe we should set up the prince and his sister here. Sort of get them back into the swing of being royalty.” The gods knew they got no practice with us savages. We just dragged them hither and yon like so much duffel, in case they became useful someday.

  “Don’t you have some writing to do? Or a boil to lance?”

  “Not at the moment. I’m all yours and full of advice.”

  Before she could put together a suitable reply without using profanity, a party of several men slipped out of the manor, bringi
ng women and children with them.

  I had a feeling our camp looked pretty impressive.

  It was supposed to look like a horde was on the move.

  Tobo and his parents materialized. The boy said, “The haunts are working faster than I thought they would.” He extended an arm, hand palm downward, then whispered in what sounded like the language of Hsien. A moment later a cry of rage came from a high manor window where a pair of archers had been about to snipe at the defectors. One somehow managed to fall through the opening.

  The Captain said, “Have those things start whispering that anyone who surrenders before dawn will be allowed to take their possessions with them. They’ll even be allowed to go home unharmed if they take an oath to the Prahbrindrah Drah. Captives taken after sunrise tomorrow will be conscripted into our forced labor battalions.”

  We did not have forced labor battalions. But those were a part of siege warfare and were often the fate of prisoners of war and peasants who were insufficiently fleet of foot. The threat was plausible. And the Black Company had a long reputation for being unimpressed by caste, noble birth, or priestly status, too.

  Once it was clear we would provide covering fire to defectors a flow developed. Usually the soldiers set to keep deserters from using the posterns were the first to come over.

  The people engineering the resistance were not popular with their conscripted followers.

  So some folks wanted to see the Protectorate continue but the people who had to do the work were not interested. The few I got to talk to had no real convictions in the matter. Who ruled made little difference in their lives. But it was getting on toward harvest time.

  One of the great truths was getting some exposure to the light here.

  Our men entered the manor early next morning. I was still asleep. Tobo’s pets spread confusion. Our men cleaned up behind them. None of our people died. There were few wounds of any consequence. Sleepy felt magnanimous. She turned most of the men of standing over to the Radisha and her brother for judgment. Only those Tobo identified as irredeemable creatures of the Protector faced the Company justice.