That was what they had been doing anyway, I learned. The flooding had played havoc with what food stores remained in the city. Mogaba’s rationing ignored the natives. Disease was rampant. The natives had revolted already. Mogaba had thrown hundreds from the wall to drown. The lake swarmed with corpses.
Such draconian measures had cost Mogaba the support of many of his soldiers. They had begun deserting. Thus the prisoners in the camp stockade.
There had been nothing but silence from that stockade. Maybe the prisoners did not know what was happening. Maybe they were scared to attract attention. I sent Blade to let them out and tell them where to find Mather.
If the Shadowlanders did not stop me I’d have to accept this absurd twist as real.
They did not raise a murmur. At dawn they marched off to take their posts in the hills.
Narayan sidled up wearing his biggest grin. “Have you doubts yet, Mistress?”
“Doubts? About what?”
“Kina. Have we her countenance or not?”
“We have somebody’s. I’ll take Kina. I haven’t seen anything this unlikely since my husband... I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t here.”
“They have lived under the Shadowmasters for a generation. They’ve never been permitted to do anything but what they’re told to do. Penalties for disobedience were terrible.”
That was part of it. So was the will to defy oppression. And maybe Kina had something to do with it, too. I did not intend looking the gift horse in the mouth.
The majority of the prisoners had gone. I had had two held to interview. I told Narayan, “I’ll see Sindhu and Murgen now.”
They came. Sindhu remained Sindhu, wide and stolid and brief. He told me what he had seen. He told me we had friends there. They would stay in place, ready to serve their goddess. He told me Mogaba was a stubborn man who meant to hang on to the last man, who did not care that Dejagore had become a hell of disease and hunger.
Murgen told me, “Mogaba wants a place in the Annals. He’s like Croaker was about throwing up times when the Company suffered worse.”
Murgen was about thirty. He reminded me of Croaker. He was tall, lean, permanently sad. He had been the Company standardbearer and Croaker’s understudy as Annalist. In the normal course twenty years down the road he might have become Captain. “Why did you desert?” It was not the sort of thing he would do, regardless of his opinion of his commander.
“I didn’t. One-Eye and Goblin sent me to find you. They thought I could get through. They were wrong. They didn’t give me enough help.”
One-Eye and Goblin were minor sorcerers, old as sin, perpetually at loggerheads. Together with Murgen they were the last of the Black Company from the north, the last of those who had elected Croaker Captain and made me his Lieutenant.
We talked. He told me the men we had recruited coming south were disaffected with Mogaba. He said, “He’s trying to make the Company over into crusaders. He doesn’t see it as a warrior brotherhood of outcasts. He wants it to be a bunch of religious warriors.”
Sindhu interjected, “They worship the goddess, Mistress. They think. But their heresies are revolting. They are worse than disbelief.”
Why was he incensed? A prolonged exchange failed to illuminate me. No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem. It is hard enough to accept the fact that they really believe the nonsense of their faiths. I always wonder if they are pulling my leg with a straight race.
Those two gave me a lot to digest. I tried. But it was morning. Sleep or no sleep, it was time to be sick. I was sick.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Longshadow’s insubstantial messengers warned him of Howler’s return long before Howler appeared. He went to Howler’s landing place to wait. He waited. And waited. And grew troubled. Had the little ragbag undertaken some treachery at the last instant? No, shadows said. No. He was coming. He was coming.
He was slow. He was in mortal agony. Never had he endured such pain, never had he suffered so long. Pain obliterated consciousness. All that remained was will supported by immense talent. He knew only that he had to go on, that if he yielded to the pain he would tumble from the sky and end his life in the wastes.
He screamed till his throat was raw, till he could scream no more. And the poison continued spreading through his old flesh, eating him alive, raising the level of pain.
He was lost. None could save him but one who wanted him destroyed.
The blazing, crystal-topped towers of Overlook rose above the horizon.
Howler was but a few leagues away, shadows said, barely able to keep moving. He had the woman but was otherwise alone.
It began to make sense. Howler had had to fight. Senjak had been stronger than anticipated. Let Howler get her here. Let Howler manage that. Once he had the woman he would have no more need of the Howler. The woman’s knowledge would be enough.
Then shadows came from somewhere far away, frolicking in with news that had him cursing before he heard the half.
Shadowspinner slain! Killed by the devotees of that mad goddess Senjak had claimed.
Was there no end to the bad news? Could not two good things happen in succession? Must a triumph always presage a disaster?
Stormgard was lost. Shadowspinner’s host would evaporate like the dew. Half the Shadow empire’s armed strength would disappear before sunset. Those ragged remnants of the Black Company would come out of the city. That madman who led them would pursue his insane quest.
But he had Senjak. He had a living library of every power and evil ever conceived by the mind of man. Once he broached that cask nothing on earth could deny him. He would be more powerful than even she had been, the equal of her husband at his zenith. There were things locked in her head she would never use. There had been a core of softness to her at her hardest. He was not soft. He would not discard a tool. He would rule. His empire would dwarf the Domination and the Lady’s successor empire. The world would be his. There was no one in it who could stand in his way. No one could match him power for power now, with Howler crippled and under sentence of death.
A random crow fluttered by, behaving as a normal crow should, but its flight brought filth to his lips. He had forgotten, if only for a moment. There was one. She was loose out there somewhere.
The Howler’s carpet came wobbling down, Howler’s gurgling agony preceding it. It plunged the last dozen feet, collapsed. Longshadow cursed again. Another tool broken. The woman, unconscious, tumbled off. She lay still, snoring. Howler tumbled, too, and did not stop moving when he stopped rolling. His body jerked convulsively. A whine poured from him between attempts to scream.
A cold chill crept Longshadow’s spine. Senjak could not have done this. A poisonous sorcery of tremendous potency was gnawing at the little wizard. It was so powerful he could not defeat it alone.
There was something terrible loose in the world.
He knelt. He rested his hands on Howler, forcing down his loathing. He reached inside and fought the poison and pain. It retreated a little. He pushed himself. It retreated farther.
The respite gave Howler strength to join the struggle. Together they fought it till it receded far enough for Howler to regain his reason. The little sorcerer gasped, “The Lance. They have the Lance. I did not sense it. Her bodyguard stabbed me twice.”
Longshadow was too shocked to curse.
The Lance was not lost! The enemy had it! He croaked, “Do they know what they have?” They had not before. Only the mad captain in Stormgard knew what it was. If they learned the truth...
“I don’t know,” Howler squeaked. He started shaking again. “Don’t let me die.”
The Lance!
Take one weapon away and they found another. Fate was a fickle bitch.
Longshadow said, “I won’t let you die.” He had meant to until that moment. But they had the Lance.
He would need every tool he could find. He shouted at his servants. “
Bring him inside. Hurry. Throw her into the keystone cell. Put shadows in there with her.”
He cursed again. It would be a long time before he could tap that cask of knowledge. It would be a long battle saving Howler.
The poison eating Howler was the most potent in this world because it was not of this world, if legends were true.
He glanced southward, at the plain of glittering stone, shimmering in morning’s light. Someday...
The Lance had come out of there in ancient times. It was a toy compared to what lay there still, ready to be take up by him who had the will to seize it.
Someday.
Chapter Sixty
I invested six days arranging my own investure of Dejagore. Fewer than six thousand men remained of the three great armies Shadowspinner had gathered. Half those men were substandard for various reasons. I strung them along the shores of the lake. My own men I posted behind them. Then I sent Murgen back to the city.
He did not want to go. I did not blame him. Mogaba might execute him. But somebody had to go to the survivors and let them know they could come out. He was to tell everyone but Mogaba’s loyalists.
My own people did not understand. I did not explain. They had no need to know. They needed to carry out orders.
The night after Murgen left, several dozen Taglian soldiers deserted from the city. Their reports were not pleasant. Disease was worse. Mogaba had executed hundreds more natives and a dozen of his own troops. Only the Nar were not grumbling.
Mogaba knew Murgen was back, suspected he had seen me, and was hunting him. He’d had a bitter confrontation with the Company wizards over the standardbearer.
Mutiny was in the offing-unless the desertions absorbed that energy. That would be a first. Nowhere in the Annals was there a record of a mutiny.
Narayan grew more nervous by the hour as he worried about his delayed Festival, frightened I would try to evade it. I kept reassuring him. “There’s plenty of time. We have the horses. We’ll go as soon as we have this set.” Also, I wanted some idea what was happening south of us. I’d sent cavalry to see what effect news of Spinner’s fate was having. Little information had come back yet.
The night before Narayan, Ram, and I headed north, six hundred men deserted Mogaba and swam or rafted out of Dejagore. I had them greeted as heroes, with promises of important positions in new formations.
Shadowspinner’s head, with the brain removed and destroyed, greeted them at the entrance to my camp. It would be our totem in days to come, in lieu of the missing Company standard.
Six hundred in one night. Mogaba would be livid. His loyalists would make it difficult for that to happen again.
I gathered my captains, such as they were. “Blade, there’s something I have to do up north. Narayan and Ram will go with me. I’d hoped to know more about the south before I left but we have to take what we get. I doubt Longshadow will do anything soon. Keep your patrols out and sit tight. I shouldn’t be gone but two weeks. Three if I visit Taglios to report our success. You might reorganize now that we have some real veterans joining us. And consider integrating any Shadowlanders interested in enlisting. They could be helpful.”
Blade nodded. He had few words to waste even now.
Swan looked at me with a sort of soulful longing. I winked, suggesting his time would come. I’m not sure why. I had no reason to lead him on. I did not mind him remaining attached to the Radisha. Maybe I was attracted. He was the best of the crop, in his way. But I did not want to stumble into that trap again.
The heart is a hostage, the old saw says. Better not to give it up.
Narayan was happier once we rode out. I was not thrilled but I needed his brotherhood. I had plans for them.
Shadowspinner might be dead but the struggle had just begun. Longshadow and Howler had to be faced, and all the armies they could call up. And if those failed at every confrontation in the field there was still Longshadow’s fortress at Shadowcatch. Rumor had Overlook tougher than my own Tower at Charm had been and getting tougher every day.
I did not look forward to the struggle. Despite the luck I’d had, Taglios was not ready for that kind of fight.
Maybe luck had bought me time enough to raise my legions and train them, to mount leisurely expeditions, to find capable commanders, to retrain myself in the use of my lost skills.
My immediate goals had been attained. Taglios was in no immediate danger. I had my base. I was in undisputed command and unlikely to have more trouble with the priests or Mogaba. With care I could lock up the Stranglers as an adjunct to my will, an invisible arm able to dispense death anywhere someone defied me. My future looked rosy. The biggest potential nuisance was the wizard Smoke. And he could be handled.
Rosy. Positively rosy. Except for the dreams and the sickness, both of which were getting worse. Except for my beloved sister.
Will, Lady. The Will will reign triumphant. My husband had said that often, confident that nothing could resist his will.
He had believed that right up to the moment I killed him.
Chapter Sixty-One
Croaker trotted his mount into the garrison encampment above Vehdna-Bota ford, which was a minor crossing of the Main used mostly by locals and open only a few months each year. He dismounted, handed his reins to a gaping soldier who had recognized the Prahbrindrah Drah.
The prince needed help dismounting. The ride had been hell for him. Croaker had shown no mercy. The ride had been little better for him.
“You really do this for a living?” the prince groaned. His sense of humor had survived.
Croaker grunted. “Sometimes you can’t waste time. It’s not like this all the time.”
“I’d rather be a farmer.”
“Walk around. Work out the stiffness.”
“That will irritate the sores.”
“I’ll put ointment on after we talk to whoever’s in charge.”
The soldier now held both horses. And stared. By now others had recognized them. Word flew around like swallows dipping and darting. An officer loped out of the only permanent structure in the compound, gathering his clothing around him. His eyes bugged. He dropped onto his face before his prince.
The Prahbrindrah Drah snapped, “Get up! I’m in no mood for that.”
The officer rose murmuring honorifics.
The prince grumbled, “Forget me. I’m just following him. Talk to him.”
The officer turned to Croaker. “I’m honored, Liberator. We thought you dead.”
“I thought I was, too. For a while. And I need to get that way again. The prince and I are joining your company. We’re not being watched now but we’ll be hunted soon by a distant and wicked eye.” He was sure the search had not yet begun because no crows had chased them during their ride. “When the search passes this way we want to be indistinguishable from your soldiers.”
“You’re in hiding?”
“More or less.” Croaker explained some. He stretched the truth some, bent it some, made it clear that powerful enemies wanted to find him and that the fate of Taglios could hinge on their remaining anonymous till they joined Lady at Dejagore.
“First thing you do,” he told the officer, “is make sure none of your men speak to anyone outside the camp. Our presence isn’t to be discussed at all. Our enemies have spies everywhere. Most aren’t human. A stray dog, a bird, a shadow could carry tales. Every man has to understand that. We can’t be discussed. We’ll take different names and become ordinary troopers.”
“I don’t quite understand, sir.”
“I don’t think I can explain. Take us being here as proof. I’m back, escaped from captivity, and I need to reach the main army. I can’t alone, even disguised. Do you have men who know how to ride?”
“A few, possibly.” Puzzled.
“These horses have to be returned to the new fortress. Hopefully before the hunt starts. They’re a dead giveaway. Their riders should make no stops and should disguise themselves. We don’t want them identified with this c
ompany.”
Croaker had not discussed plans while travelling because someone might hear. But the prince got the drift quickly. “You’re going to march this company down to Dejagore?”
“Yes. You and I will be archers in the ranks.”
The prince groaned. “I have less experience walking than riding.”
“And I have a tender ankle. We won’t push.” While Croaker talked his gaze darted, seeking the potential listener. He continued talking to the officer. Again and again he tried to drive home the need for the archers to keep quiet about their mission till they found Lady’s army. One slip could kill them all. He made it sound like the Shadowmasters had all their men and demons out trying to destroy him and the prince and anyone with them.
True in theme, anyway.
The officer rounded up volunteers to return the stallions, impressed them with the need to deliver the animals rapidly, without telling anyone where Croaker and the prince had gone. He sent them off.
Croaker sighed. “I feel safer already. Get me a turban and some Shadar clothes and something to darken my hands and face. Prince, you look more Gunni.”
Half an hour later they were ordinary archers except for accents. Croaker became Narayan Singh. Half the Shadar alive were Narayan Singh. The prince adopted the name Abu Lal Cadreskrah. He felt it would shield him from scrutiny because it suggested mixed Vehdna and Gunni parentage, which could only mean that his mother had been a Gunni prostitute. “No one in his right mind would think the Prahbrindrah Drah could demean himself that far.”
Croaker chuckled. “Maybe so. Get some rest. Use that horse liniment. We’ll pull out as soon as we get stores and transport together.”
A day and a half later, grimly silent, ready for anything, the archers crossed the river. Croaker grew more fearful and excited by the hour. How would Lady react when he turned up alive?
He was scared of the answer.