“Maybe so.” What did the north have to do with it? “But why the panic? One garbled thing about this Kina from a prisoner who’s got no reason to tell the truth? And Smoke goes to wetting his pants? And you start foaming at the mouth? I got a little trouble taking you serious.”
“Point taken. You shouldn’t have been shielded. I’m sending you to check out the story.”
Swan grinned. He had a lever. “Not without you stop jacking us around. Tell us the whole story. Bad enough you messed with the Black Company. You think you’re going to mess us around because we weren’t born in Taglios....”
“Enough, Swan.” The Radisha wasn’t pleased.
Smoke made a whining noise. He shook his head.
“What’s with him?” Willow demanded. Much more of that weirdness and he was going to strangle the old guy.
“Smoke sees a ghost in every shadow. In your case he’s afraid you’re spies sent ahead by the Black Company.”
“Sure. Moron! That’s another thing. How come everybody is so damned twitchy about those guys? They maybe kicked ass around here heading north but that was back at the dawn of time, practically. Four hundred years ago.”
The Radisha ignored that. “Kina’s antecedents are uncertain. She’s a foreign goddess. The legends say a prince of Shadow tricked the most handsome of the Lords of Light out of his physical aspect for a year. While he wore that he seduced Mahi, Goddess of Love, and sired Kina on her. Kina grew up more beautiful than her mother but empty, without a soul, without love or compassion, but hungry to possess them. Her hunger couldn’t be satisfied. She preyed upon men and gods alike, Shadow and Light. Among her names are Eater of Souls and Vampire Goddess. She so weakened the Lords of Light that the Shadows thought to conquer them and sent a horde of demons against them. The Lords of Light were so pressed they begged Kina for help. She did help, though why she did isn’t explained. She met the demons in battle, overthrew them, and devoured them and all their wickedness.”
The Radisha paused a moment. Then, “Kina became much worse than she had been, gaining the names Devourer, Destroyer, Destructor. She became a force beyond the gods, outside the balance of Light and Shadow, enemy of all. She became a terror so great Light and Shadow joined forces against her. Her father himself tricked her into falling into an enchanted sleep.”
Blade muttered, “Makes as much sense as the story of any other god. Meaning it don’t.”
Squeaking, Smoke said, “Kina is a personification of that force some call entropy.” To the Radisha, “Correct me if I’m wrong.”
The Radisha ignored him. “Before Kina fell asleep she realized she’d been tricked. She took a huge breath, exhaled a minute fraction of her soul-essence, no more than a ghost of a ghost. That specter wanders the world in search of living vessels it can possess and use to bring on the Year of the Skulls. If that avatar can free enough souls and cause enough pain, Kina can be wakened.”
Swan chuckled like an old woman scolding. “You believe any of that stuff?”
“What I believe doesn’t matter, Swan. The Deceivers believe. If the rumor spreads that Kina has been seen, and there’s any evidence to support it, they’ll preach a crusade of murder and torture. Wait!” She raised a hand. “The Taglian people are ripe for an outburst of violence. By damming the normal discharge for generations they’ve created a reservoir of potential violence. The Deceivers would like that to explode, to bring on the Year of the Skulls. My brother and I would prefer to harness and direct that ferocity.”
Blade grumbled about the absurdities of the theological imagination and why didn’t people have sense enough to smother would-be priests in their cradles?
The Radisha said, “We don’t think the Deceivers have a formal, hierarchical priesthood. They seem to form loose bands, or companies, under an elected captain. The captain appoints a priest, an omen reader, and so forth. His authority is limited. He has little influence outside his band unless he’s done something to gain a reputation.”
Blade said, “They don’t sound so bad to me.”
The Radisha scowled. “The main qualification of a priest seems to be education and probity toward his own kind. The bands indulge in crimes of all sorts. Once a year they share out their spoils according to the priest’s estimation of the members’ contributions toward the glory of Kina. To support his decisions, in the event of dispute, the priest keeps a detailed chronicle of the band’s activities.”
“Fine and dandy,” Swan said. “But how about we get to what you want us to do? We supposed to drag Smoke around to see if we can sniff out what really happened to the Shadowmasters’ soldiers?”
“Yes.”
“Why bother?”
“I thought I just explained...” The Radisha controlled herself. “If that was a true apparition of Kina we have bigger troubles than we thought. The Shadowmasters may be the lesser half.”
“I warned you!” Smoke squealed. “I warned you a hundred times. But you wouldn’t listen. You had to bargain with devils.”
“Shut up.” The Radisha glared. “I’m as tired of you as Swan is. Go find out what happened. And learn what you can about the woman Lady, too.”
“I can handle that,” Swan said, grinning. “Come on, old buddy.” He grabbed Smoke’s shoulder. He asked the Radisha, “Think you can manage Jahamaraj Jah without us?”
“I can manage him.”
Mounted, ready to ride, waiting for Blade and Smoke, Swan asked, “Cordy, you get the feeling you’re out in the woods in the middle of the night and everybody’s doing their damnedest to hide the light?”
“Uhm.” Mather was more the thinker than Willow or Blade. “They’re afraid if we know the whole story we’ll desert. They’re desperate. They’ve lost the Black Company. We’re all that’s left.”
“Like the old days.”
“Uhm.”
The old days. Before the coming of the professionals. When their adopted homeland had made them reluctant captains because the feuding cults couldn’t tolerate taking orders from native nonbelievers. A year in the field, playing blind lead the blind, overcoming political shenanigans daily, had convinced Swan that Blade had a point, that it wouldn’t hurt the world a bit if you rid it of a few hundred thousand selected priests.
“You buy that Kina stuff?”
“I don’t think she told any lies. She just forgot to tell the whole truth.”
“Maybe when we get Smoke out there forty miles from nowhere we can squeeze it out of him.”
“Maybe. As long as we don’t forget what he is. We scare him too much and he’s liable to show us what kind of wizard he is. Button it. They’re coming.”
Smoke looked like he was headed for the gallows. Blade looked as unhappy as ever. But Swan knew he was pleased. Blade figured he was going to get a chance to kick some deserving asses.
Chapter Eleven
The wounded man thought he was trapped in a drug dream. He’d been a physician. He knew drugs did strange things to the mind. Dreams were strange enough.... He couldn’t wake up.
Some fractured shard of rationality lodged in a corner of his brain watched, sensed, wondered vaguely as he drifted eternally a few feet above a landscape he seldom saw. Sometimes branches passed overhead. Sometimes there were hills in the corners of his eyes. Once he wakened while drifting through tall grass. Once he felt he was passing over a broad expanse of water.
Occasionally a huge black horse looked down at him. He thought he knew the beast but couldn’t assemble the pieces in his mind.
Sometimes a figure in shapeless robing bestrode the beast, stared down out of an empty cowl.
These things were all real, he suspected. But they fell into no meaningful pattern. Only the horse seemed familiar.
Hell. He couldn’t recall who he was. His thoughts wouldn’t sequence. Probable pasts kept intruding on the apparent now, often as real.
Those intrusions were shards of battle, uncertain on the jagged edges, bright as blood in the center. Great slaughters, all. Sometimes names
attached themselves. Lords. Charm. Beryl. Roses. Horse. Dejagore. Juniper. The Barrowland. Queen’s Bridge. Dejagore again. Dejagore often.
Infrequently he recalled a face. The woman had marvellous blue eyes, long black hair, and always wore black. She must have been important to him. Yes. The only woman... Whenever she appeared she vanished again in moments, replaced by the faces of men. Unlike the bloodlettings, he could put no names to them. Yet he had known them. He felt they were ghosts, waiting to welcome him among them.
Occasionally pain consumed his chest. He was his most alert when it was most intense. The world almost made sense then. But the creature in black would come and he would tumble back amongst the dreams.
Was the black companion Death? Was this his passage to the nether realm? His mind wouldn’t function well enough to examine the proposition.
He hadn’t been religious. He’d believed that death was it. When you died you were dead, like a squished bug or drowned rat, and your immortality was in the minds of those you left behind.
He slept far more than he was awake. Thus time eluded him.
He experienced a moment of profound deja vu as he passed beneath a solitary half-dead tree, shortly before entering a dark wood. That tree had been important somehow, sometime.
He drifted through the wood, out, across a clearing, in through the entrance of a building. It was dark inside.
A lamp found life at the edge of his vision. He descended. A flat surface pressed against his back.
The figure in black came, bent over him. A hand concealed in a black glove touched him. Consciousness fled.
He awakened ravenous. A lance of agony bored through his chest, throbbed. He was drenched in his own sweat. His head ached, felt as though it was stuffed with sodden cotton. He was running a fever. His mind worked well enough to catalog symptoms and conclude that he had been wounded and was suffering from a severe cold. That could be a lethal combination.
Memories came tumbling back like a rowdy litter of kittens, all over one another, not making much sense.
He’d led forty thousand men into battle outside Dejagore. It hadn’t gone well. He’d been trying to rally the troops. An arrow out of nowhere had driven through his breastplate and chest, miraculously finding nothing vital. He’d fallen. His standardbearer had donned his armor, trying to turn the tide with a valiant fiction.
Obviously Murgen had failed.
He made a strangling sound through a desert throat.
The figure in black appeared.
Now he remembered. It had dogged the Black Company down the length of the world, accompanied by a horde of crows. He tried to sit up.
The pain was too much for him. He was too weak.
He knew this dread thing!
It came out of nowhere, a lightning bolt, but it was conviction.
Soulcatcher!
The impossible. The dead walking...
Soulcatcher. One-time mentor. One-time mistress of the Black Company. More recently a deadly enemy, but still long ago. Supposedly dead for a decade and a half.
He’d been there. He’d seen her slain. He’d helped hunt her down....
He tried to rise again, some vague force driving him to fight the unfightable.
A gloved hand stayed him. A gentle voice told him, “Don’t strain yourself. You aren’t healing well. You haven’t been eating or taking enough fluids. Are you awake? Are you sensible?”
He managed a feeble nod.
“Good. I’m going to prop you up in a slightly elevated position. I’m going to feed you broth. Don’t waste energy. Let your strength come back.”
She propped him, had him sip through a reed. He downed a pint of broth. And kept it down. Soon a glimmer of strength trickled through his flesh.
“That’s enough for now. Now we’ll get you cleaned up.”
He was a disgusting mess. “How long?” he croaked.
She placed a pot of water in his hands, inserted another reed. “Sip. Don’t talk.” She started cutting his clothing off him.
“It’s been seven days since you were hit, Croaker.” Her voice had become another voice entirely. It changed every time she paused. This voice was masculine, mocking, though he wasn’t the mockery’s object. “Your comrades still control Dejagore, to the embarrassment of the Shadowmasters. Your Mogaba is in command. He’s stubborn but he could be embarrassed himself. And however stubborn he is, he can’t hold out forever. The powers ranged against him are too great.”
He tried to ask a question. She forestalled him. The mocking voice asked, “Her?” Wicked chuckle. “Yes. She survived. There’d be no point to this if she hadn’t.”
A new voice, female but as hard as a diamond arrowpoint, snarled, “She tried to kill me! Ha-ha! Yes. You were there, my love. You helped. But I don’t hold a grudge. You were under her spell. You didn’t know what you were doing. You’ll redeem yourself by helping me take my revenge.”
The man didn’t respond.
She bathed him. She was free with the water.
He’d been diminished by his wound but he was still a big man, four inches over six feet tall. He was about forty-five years old. His hair was an average, unnoteworthy brown. He’d begun to go bald in front. His eyes were hard, humorless, icy blue, narrow and deeply set. He had a ragged, greying beard surrounding a thin-lipped mouth that seldom smiled. His face bore scattered reminders of a childhood pox and more than a few memories of acne. He might have been moderately good-looking once. Time had been unkind. Even in repose his face looked hard and a little off center.
He didn’t look like what he had been all his adult life, the Black Company’s historian and physician. His appearance was more suited to the role he had inherited, that of Captain.
He’d described himself as looking like a child molester waiting for a chance to strike. He wasn’t comfortable with his appearance.
Soulcatcher scrubbed him with a vigor that recalled his mother’s. “Don’t take the skin off.”
“Your wound is healing slowly. You’ll have to tell me what I did wrong.” She’d never been a healer. She was a destroyer.
Croaker was puzzled by her interest. He wasn’t valuable. What was he? Just a dinged-up old mercenary, alive well beyond the expectations of his kind. He squeaked a question.
She laughed, voice filled with childlike delight. “Vengeance, dear. A simple, gentle, guileful vengeance. And I won’t lay a hand on her. I’ll let her do it to herself.” She patted his cheek, drew a finger along the line of his jaw.
“It took a while but I knew the moment was inevitable. Fated. The consummation, the exchange of the magic, deadly three words. Fated. I sensed it before you met.” Again the childlike laughter. “She was an age finding something so precious. My vengeance will be to take it away.”
Croaker closed his eyes. He could not yet reason closely. He understood only that he was in no immediate danger. The plot was easily voided. He would become a tool of no value, broken.
He put it out of mind. First he had to heal. Time enough later to do what had to be done.
More laughter. This from a woman adult and knowing. “Remember when we campaigned together, Croaker? The trick we played on Raker? The fun we had tormenting Limper?”
He grunted. He remembered. Everything but the fun.
“Remember how you always thought I could read your mind?”
He remembered that. And the terror it had inspired. That old fear crept back.
“You do remember.” She laughed again. “I’m so glad. We’re going to have such fun. The whole world thinks we’re dead. You can get away with anything when you’re dead.” Her laugh gained an edge of madness. “We’ll haunt them, Croaker. That’s what we’ll do.”
He’d regained enough strength to walk. With help. His captor made him walk, forced him to gain strength. But still he slept most of the time. And dreamed terrible dreams when he did.
The place anchored the dreams. He didn’t know that. His dreams told him it wasn’t a good place, that
the very trees and earth and stone remembered evils done there.
He felt they were true dreams but found no supporting evidence while he was awake. Unless he counted the ominous crows. Always there were the crows, tens and hundreds and thousands of crows.
Standing in the doorway to their shelter-a half-ruined stone structure, buried in vegetation, in the heart of a dark wood-he asked, “What is this place? The wood where I chased you a few months ago?”
“Yes. It’s the holy grove of those who worship Kina. If we cleared the creepers you could see carved representations. Once it was important to the Black Company, who took it from the Shadar. The ground is filled with bones.”
He turned slowly, looked into her empty cowl. He wouldn’t look at the box she carried. He knew what must be in it. “The Black Company?”
“They made sacrifices here. One hundred thousand prisoners of war.”
Croaker blanched. That wasn’t something he wanted to hear. He had a long romance with the history of the Company. There was no place in that for a wicked past. “Truth?”
“Truth, my love. I’ve seen the books the wizard Smoke concealed from you in Taglios. They include the missing volumes of your Annals. Your forebears were cruel men. Their mission required the sacrifice of a million souls.”
His stomach knotted. “To what? To whom? Why?” She hesitated. He knew she wasn’t being honest when she said, “That wasn’t clear. Your lieutenant Mogaba might know, though.”
It wasn’t what she said but the way she said it, the voice she used. He shuddered. And he believed. Mogaba had been strange and secretive throughout his association with the Company. What was he doing to the Company’s traditions now?
“Kina’s disciples come here twice a year. Their Festival of Lights comes in a month. We have to finish before then.”
Troubled, Croaker asked, “Why are we here?” “We’rerecovering our health.” She laughed. “Where we won’t be bothered. Everyone shuns this place. Once I’ve nursed you back you’re going to help me.” Still amused, she pushed back her cowl. She had no head. She lifted that box she always carried, a battered