thing a foot to a side, opened a little door. A face looked out. It was a beautiful face, like the face of his lover, though less careworn and lacking life’s animation.
Impossible.
His stomach knotted again. He recalled the day that head had been struck from its body, to lie in the dust staring up at him and Lady. Her sister. It had been a blow well-earned. Soulcatcher had betrayed the Lady. Soulcatcher had meant to supplant her sister as ruler of the empire.
“I can’t do anything like that.”
“Of course you can. And you will. Because it will keep both of you alive. We all want to live, don’t we? I want her to live because I want her to hurt. I want to live because I want to watch her hurt. You want to live because of her, because you revere the Company, because...” Gentle laughter. “Because where there’s life there’s hope.”
Chapter Twelve
Thunder stampeded. Silver lightning lashed the wine-dark clouds, cracked the umber sky. A mold-grey horde howled across a basalt plain, toward the golden chariots of the gods.
A figure stepped from the line, ten feet tall, polished ebony, naked, lifting each foot knee-high to the side, then swinging the leg forward and stamping down. The earth shook.
The figure was female, perfection but hairless, wore a girdle of children’s skulls. Her face was protean, one moment radiant dark beauty, the next a nightmare of burning eyes and vampire fangs.
The figure seized a demon and devoured him, rending, tearing, flinging entrails. Demon blood spurted and sprayed. It burned holes in the face of the plain. The figure’s jaws distended. She swallowed the demon’s head whole. A lump ran down her neck like a mouse bulging a snake’s throat.
The horde beset her. And could do her no harm. She devoured another screaming devil, then another and another. With each she grew and waxed more terrible.
“I am here, Daughter. Open to me. I am your dream. I am power.”
The voice floated like gossamer in golden caverns where old men sat beside the way, frozen in time, immortal, unable to move an eyelid. Mad, some covered by fairy webs of ice, as though a thousand spiders had spun with threads of frozen water. Above, an enchanted forest of icicles hung from the cavern roof.
“Come. I am what you seek. You are my child.”
But the footing was treacherous, making it impossible to advance or retreat.
The voice called, summoned, with infinite patience.
This time I remembered both dreams when I wakened. I still shivered with the chill of those caverns. The dream was different every time, I thought, and yet was the same. A summoning.
I’m not stupid. I’ve seen enough incredibilities to know the dreams were more than nightmares. Something had singled me out. Something was trying to recruit me, to what cause I couldn’t yet guess. The method was ancient. I’ve used it a thousand times. Offer power, wealth, whatever the desire is, dangling the lure till the fish bites, never revealing the cost.
Did this thing know me? Unlikely. I was receptive so it was trying to pull me.
I wouldn’t accept it as a god, though it might want to be thought one. I’ve met only one god, Old Father Tree, master of the Plain of Fear. And he’s no god in the accepted sense, only a being of immense longevity and power.
This world has shown me just two beings stronger than I. My husband, the Dominator, whom I cast into oblivion. In a thousand years he may be remembered as a dark god.
And Father Tree, greater than ever I could have been, who has roots anchoring him. He can project his power outside the Plain of Fear only through his servants.
Croaker told me about a third power that lies buried under Father Tree, imprisoned while the tree survives. The tree is immortal by human standards.
Where there are three great powers there could be more. The world is old. Yesterday is shrouded. Those who become great in one age often do so by mining the secrets of ages past. Who knows how many great evils lie beneath this haunted earth?
Who knows but what the gods of all men in all ages are but echoes of those who followed a path like mine and have, nevertheless, fallen victim to implacable time?
Not a thought to soothe the soul. Time is the enemy whose patience can’t be exhausted.
“Mistress? Are you troubled?” Narayan’s grin was absent. He showed genuine concern.
“Oh.” He’d come up quietly. “No. A bad dream that lingered. Nightmares are the coin we pay for doing what we have to do.”
He looked at me oddly.
“Do you have nightmares, Narayan?” I’d begun to press him quietly, to weigh his answers to questions probing his flanks.
“Never, Mistress. I sleep like a baby.” He turned slowly, surveyed the camp. The countryside was shrouded in mist. “What’s the agenda today?”
“Do we have practice weapons enough for a mock combat? One battalion against the other?” I had enough men to field two battalions of four hundred men, with a few hundred left to carry out camp duties and provide one inept cavalry troop.
“Barely. You want that?”
“I’d like to. But how can we reward the victors?” Training involved competitions now, with rewards for winning and for effort. Superior effort, even in losing, deserves recognition. Recognition encourages soldiers to give their best.
“There’s relief from fatigues, foraging, and sentry duty.”
“That’s a possibility.” I was also considering letting individuals send for their wives after we moved to Ghoja.
Ram brought me a breakfast bowl. We weren’t eating well but we were getting bulk enough, so far. Narayan asked, “How much longer can you stall here?”
“Not long.” Time was turning against us. The existence of the band had to be known up north. Potential political enemies would be digging in.
“Instead of mock combat we’ll have a review. Spread a rumor that I’m thinking of moving out if what I see pleases me.” That ought to motivate them.
“Yes, Mistress.” Narayan retreated. He gathered his cronies, a dozen men who showed snips of colored cloth at their waists.
An interesting group. They sprang from all three major religions, two minor cults, and from among the liberated foreign slaves. They pretty much ran the camp though only Narayan and Ram had official standing. They kept the peace. The men weren’t quite sure how to take them, but responded seriously because of that aura of the sinister that I’d noted myself.
Narayan admitted nothing. He handled my probes deftly. There was no doubt he directed the dozen, though several sprang from higher castes.
I kept an eye on him. Time would betray him-if he didn’t open up, as he hinted he might.
For the moment he was too useful to press.
I nodded approval. “They almost look like soldiers.” We’d have to get them uniform dress.
Narayan nodded. He seemed smug, as though his genius had produced our triumph and sparked a renascent spirit.
“How’re the riding lessons coming?” Just making talk. I knew. Abysmally. None of these clowns belonged to a caste that got closer to a horse than to trail along behind cleaning up. But, damn, it would be a sin to waste those mounts.
“Poorly. Though a few men show promise. Not including myself or Ram. We were born to walk.”
“Show promise” had become his favorite expression. In reference to everything. As he taught me to use the strangler’s kerchief, or rumel, at my insistence, he said I showed promise.
I suspected he was surprised at how easily I picked it up. Its manipulation came as naturally as breathing, as though it was a skill I’d had all along. Maybe it came of centuries of practice at the quick, subtle gestures needed to manipulate sorceries.
“You were saying you were going to move?” Narayan asked. “Mistress.” The honorific was becoming an afterthought. Narayan remained Taglian. He was beginning to take me for granted.
“Our foragers are having to range pretty far.”
Narayan didn’t reply but seemed reluctant to go.
I had a feeling I was
being watched. At first I credited it to the crows. They kept me uncomfortable. Now I understood Croaker’s reaction better. They didn’t behave the way crows ought. I’d mentioned them to Narayan. He’d grinned and called them a good omen.
Meaning they were a bad omen for someone else. ‘I scanned our surroundings. The crows were there, in their scores, but... “Narayan, collect the dozen best horsemen. I’m taking a patrol out.”
“But... Do you think...?”
How could I get through? “I’m no garden rose. I’m taking a patrol out.”
“As you command, Mistress, so shall it be.”
It had better, Narayan. It had better.
Chapter Thirteen
Swan glanced at Blade. The black man’s attitude toward Smoke had grown from disdain into contempt. The wizard had no more spine than a worm. He shook like a leaf.
Cordy said, “That’s her.”
Swan nodded. He grinned but kept his thoughts to himself. “She’s putting something together. That gang is more organized than any I’ve seen down here.”
They backed off the knoll from which they’d been watching the camp. Blade said, “We going to drop in?” He had hold of the wizard’s sleeve like he expected the runt to run.
“Not yet. I want to circle around, check it out down south. Shouldn’t be that far to where they hit the Shadowmasters’ men. I want to see the place. If we can find it.”
Cordy asked, “Think they know we’re here?”
“What?” The idea startled Swan.
“You said they’re organized. Nobody ever accused the Lady of not being efficient. She should have pickets out.”
Swan thought. No one had entered or left the camp, but Mather had a point. If they wanted to remain unnoticed they’d better move on. “You’re right. Let’s go. Blade, you were down here before. Know how to cross that creek somewhere that’s not too far out of the way?”
Blade nodded. In those desperate days before the Black Company picked up the reins he’d led guerrillas behind the Shadowmasters’ main forces.
“Lead on. Smoke, old buddy, I wish I could get a peek inside your head. I never seen anybody so ready to drizzle down his leg.”
The wizard said nothing.
Blade found a game ford three miles east of the south road, led the way through woods narrower than Swan expected. When they reached the southern side, Blade said, “Road’s two miles that way.”
“I figured.” The sky was dark with buzzards. “That’s where we’ll find our dead men.”
That was the place.
The air was still. The stench hung like a poisonous miasma. Neither Swan nor Mather had a stomach strong enough to let them take a close look. Blade, though, seemed to have no sense of smell.
He returned. Swan said, “You look green around the gills.”
“Not much but bones left. Been a while. Two hundred, three hundred men. Hard to tell now. Animals been at them. One thing. No heads.”
“Eh?”
“No heads. Somebody cut them off.”
Smoke moaned, then chucked his breakfast. His mount shied.
“No heads?” Swan asked. “I don’t get it.”
Mather said, “I’ve got an idea. Come on.” He rode south, toward where crows circled, dipped, and squabbled.
They found the heads.
Blade asked, “Want to get a count?” He chuckled.
“No. Let’s drop in on our friends.”
Smoke made protesting noises.
Cordy asked, “You still hot to trot with your proud beauty?”
Swan couldn’t think of a flip answer. “Maybe I’m starting to see Smoke’s viewpoint. Don’t let me get on her bad side.”
Blade said, “Only a mile to their camp straight up the road.”
Swan snorted. “We’ll go around, thank you.”
After they crossed the game ford, Mather suggested, “Suppose we go up the road a ways and come down like we don’t know nothing about back there? See what they say if they think we just rode in.”
“Stop whining, Smoke,” Swan said. “Go with it. You got no choice. You’re right, Cordy. It’ll give us a clue if she’s going to play games.”
They rode north till they were behind a rise, turned west to the road, then turned south. They were almost back to the crest when Mather, in the lead, yelled, “Yo! Lookout!”
Chapter Fourteen
We crossed the creek into the wood, walking our mounts behind Sindhu, who had scouted till he knew every leaf and twig of the surrounding terrain. He led us along a meandering game trail which paralleled the creek going westward. I wondered what had become of the game. We hadn’t seen anything bigger than a squirrel. A few native deer might have eased the food problem, though neither Gunni nor Shadar touch meat.
It was a long walk. My companions grumbled and bickered.
The watching presence centered on a grove on a knoll whence it would be possible to observe events in our camp. I’d lapsed. I’d been thinking too far ahead. If I’d had the sense of a goose I’d have had a squad posted there. The outlying pickets were too scattered to spot everything moving in the area, even if people weren’t sneaking around. Fugitives slipped through all the time. They left their traces.
I had a good idea what I’d find on that knoll. Somebody from up north who’d heard rumors and had gotten worried that I might be trouble. I meant to be a lot, for the Shadowmasters and anybody who got between us.
We crossed the creek a few miles downstream, out of sight of the knoll, moved back to the east, and discovered that there was no way to approach the grove unseen the last third of a mile. I told the men, “All we can do is ride straight at it. Let’s do it without getting in a hurry. Maybe they won’t run till we’re so close they can’t get away.”
I didn’t know if they could control themselves. The excitement had them again. They were pumped up, scared and eager.
“Let’s go.”
We’d covered half the open ground when the watchers flushed like quail. “Shadar,” somebody noted.
Yes. Mounted Shadar, in uniform, cavalry equipped. “Jahamaraj Jah’s men!” I snapped.
The men cursed. Even those who were Shadar.
Jah was the leading Shadar priest in Taglios. Croaker’s doing. Jah’s concession to his debt hadn’t lasted through the fighting at Dejagore. He and his cavalry had abandoned the field while the outcome was in question. Most of the men had seen them run, or had heard. I’d been pushing the idea that the battle would’ve been ours had Jah stood his ground.
It could be true. Jah had contributed nothing when a feather’s weight might have tilted the balance.
I thought he’d run because he’d suffered an opportunistic flash. He’d intuited that the battle would go poorly and had decided to beat everybody home. He’d play a strong hand there because he’d be the only man with a military force-however inept-to back him up.
He deserved some special thought now.
I didn’t have to order a chase. There were five Shadar. Their flight was proof they were blackhearts. The men rode with blood in their eyes. Unfortunately, the Shadar were better riders.
I did want to talk to them. I urged my stallion to his best pace and closed up fast.
No everyday mount stood a chance against him.
The Shadar hit the north road. As I nosed up on the most laggardly the leaders swept over the crest. And collided with riders headed south.
Horses shied. Men yelled. Riders came unhorsed. I circled a Shadar who regained his feet and tried to run. He’d lost his helmet. I grabbed him by the hair, ran him fifty yards before turning to examine the victims of the collision.
Well. Swan, Mather, and Blade. And that sneaking twit of a hedge wizard, Smoke. What now?
Mather, Smoke, and Blade had kept their seats. Swan was on the ground, groaning and swearing. He got up, swore some more, kicked a fallen Shadar, looked around for his horse.
Smoke was rattled right down to his ankles. He had no color left, was whispe
ring some sort of prayer.
Mather and Blade ignored Swan’s histrionics. I presumed that meant he wasn’t hurt.
My captive tried to get away. I ran him a few yards, let him loose when the horse was moving faster than he could keep up. He flung forward, slid on his face, stopped at Swan’s feet. Swan sat down on him. I asked Mather, “What are you doing here?” He was the only one of the bunch who made straight sense.
“The Radisha sent us. Wants to know what’s happening down here. There have been rumors. Some say you’re alive, some say dead.”
“I’m not yet. Not quite.”
My men arrived. “Ghopal. Hakim. Take these two somewhere and ask them why they were snooping.” They were Narayan’s cronies, the only two who could ride. He’d probably sent them along to keep an eye on things.
Swan got up and leaned against Mather’s leg. “You don’t have to twist no arms to find that out. Been some wild rumors lately. You’ve got Jah jumpy as a cat in a kennel.”
“Oh?”
“Things were going his way. He got back from Dejagore before anybody else. Only bad luck put the Radisha at Ghoja before him. She closed the ford. He still figured he had the world by the oysters, then here comes word somebody’s kicked the feathers off a gang of the Shadowmasters’ boys. Right behind comes a rumor that it was you. You not being dead don’t look so good for Jah’s ambitions. The Company picked up a lot of respect putting it together so fast. Made all those priests look like conniving, selfish jerks.”
Blade chuckled.
Mather said, “You collected some of that respect, being a woman and having everybody know how much you had to do with it falling together.” He looked me in the eye. “But being a woman is going to be a handicap now.”
“I’ve been on my own before, Mather.” And I hadn’t been happy a moment. But happiness is a fleeting creature. It’s no birthright. Not anything I expect but something I accept when I stumble into it. Meantime, power will do nicely. “And Jah has liabilities. He’s vulnerable. I have a thousand men over there. Every one will tell you Jah ran out on us at Dejagore. We would’ve won if it wasn’t for him.”