“All right. I surrender. I’ll sit on the damned rock until it hatches. Oh, Dad also said to tell you that Narayan Singh is somewhere close by. He can sense the Deceiver but he can’t pinpoint him. Kina is protecting him with her dreams. Dad says you should ask the white crow to look for him. If you can find it and get it to sit still long enough.”
“Crowhunter. Maybe I’ll call myself that. It sounds more glamorous than Sleepy.”
“Tobo sounds more glamorous than Sleepy.” Tobo headed for the boulder and settled in an approved attitude. I hoped I had planted seeds that would take root and sprout while he was trying to think of everything else but.
“At least you get to change your name when you grow up.…” Stupid. Anytime I feel like it I can tell everyone to call me whatever strikes my fancy.
Crowhunter gave up her name. She was a failure. The white monster was nowhere to be found. So I went and spent some time with Sahra even though she did not welcome me right away. We recalled old days, hard times, her husband’s lack of perfection, till I thought she was relaxed enough to actually listen to what I had to say about Tobo.
The villain himself scored a coup by showing up with an olive branch at the perfect time. I elected to remove myself while things were going well. I hoped the peace would last but did not count on forever.
I would settle for one halcyon week. In a week we would know if it was possible to resurrect the Captured. In a week we would either be dead on the glittering plain or ready to return as a force of ultimate destruction. Or maybe …
68
The warning horn sounded deep in the night, when even those who were stuck with guard duty were at their most sluggish. But the man on horn duty was married to his job. He kept blowing and blowing. In minutes our entire encampment was seething. And I was out there with my heart in my throat, striding along, making sure the chaos was only apparent, not real. Everyone remained calm and focused. There was no panic. I was pleased. Even a little training and discipline are better than none.
I ducked into Goblin’s tent. Sahra and Tobo were there already and not at one another’s throats. I must have gotten through to the kid. I should keep after them both. In my copious free time. I bent close to the mist projector. “What’s the word?”
Murgen whispered, “Soulcatcher is airborne and moving south. She plans to arrive shortly after sunrise. She has a good idea where you are. During her rest time she sent a shadow down to scout your position. She didn’t learn a lot more. The shadow didn’t dare get close enough to eavesdrop. She plans to don one of her disguises and infiltrate your camp so she can find out what you’re really up to. From the beginning, she’s operated under the assumption that we’re dead out here. Even though she didn’t kill us directly when she trapped us. She flew out of there believing we’d be dead in just a few days. I expect learning that Croaker and Lady are still alive is going to be the kind of shock that ruins her whole century.”
“How fast is she moving? Strike that. You said she’d get here just after sunrise. Is Mogaba with her?” That would make a big difference in how fresh she would be when when she arrived. Which would determine the shape of what I started doing now.
“No. If she manages to get in among you and unearths all the answers to the questions she has, she’ll smash you, scatter you, grab the Key, then go back for the Great General.” Murgen sneered when he used Mogaba’s title. The fact that we never beat him once, heads up, during the Kiaulune wars, did nothing to ease our contempt for him as a deserter and traitor.
“Warn me if she does anything unexpected. Sahra, have you checked on your mother?”
“Briefly. Doj and JoJo are helping her and One-Eye. I think she was a little delirious. She kept muttering about a noose and a land of unknown shadows and calling the heaven and earth and the day and the night.”
“All evil dies there an endless death.”
“That, too. What is it?”
“I don’t know. A phrase I picked up somewhere. It has to do with the plain but I don’t know what. Doj might be able to tell you. He promised to be cooperative and forthcoming but since I passed on his offer to make me his apprentice, that hasn’t materialized. My fault as much as his, probably. I haven’t taken time to press him. I have work to do.” I ducked out.
The excitement had become more rigorously organized. There were torches and lanterns to light the road to the Shadowgate. A band of our bravest were up near the gate already, arranging more lighting and fine-tuning the colored powders used as road marks. Loaded animals were beginning to line up. Likewise a train of carts. Babies cried, children whined, a dog barked without pause. Sounds of men slipping through the darkness beyond the light came from all around. Prisoners who had been sure we meant to drag them onto the plain to become human sacrifices were being chivied toward the New Town. Some of the harder men had wanted to use them as bearers instead of the animals, disposing of them as their usefulness ended. I had demurred. They would become obstinate and obstreperous after the first few died and we would not be able to eat them after we ate up the consumables they carried. Not that the majority of us would eat flesh anyway. But those who could would from the beginning.
I spied Willow Swan strolling through the mob. He spun off orders like a drill instructor. I approached him. “Gone nostalgic for the good old days when you were the boss Grey?”
“A true genius, whose name we won’t bring up in present company, sent all the master sergeants to make preparations at the Shadowgate. She didn’t detail anybody to keep things moving down here.”
The unnamed genius had to admit that he was right. River, Runmust, Spiff, all the men I had known the longest and trusted the most, were up there or somewhere out in the darkness. I guess I just assumed Sahra and I could handle everything else. Forgetting that I would be sprinting around making decisions for everyone who could not make up their minds for themselves. “Thanks. If I don’t get a better offer by my fortieth birthday, I’ll marry you yet.”
Swan made a halfhearted effort to click his heels. “So. How old are you today?”
“Seventeen.”
“That’s about what I guessed. With maybe another twenty years of experience, plus wear and tear.”
“It’s tough being a teenager today. Just ask Tobo. Nobody’s ever had it as awful as he does.”
He chuckled. “Speaking of kids, who’s handling the Daughter of Night? Which I don’t want to be me.”
“Darn! I figured Goblin and Doj for that. But Goblin’s tied up helping keep track of Soulcatcher, and Doj has Gota and One-Eye to worry about. Thanks for reminding me.” I headed back toward Goblin’s tent. “Hey, Short Wart! Leave it to Tobo and Sahra a while. We got to get the Daughter of Night loaded up.”
Goblin came out muttering, surveyed the excitement, grumbled, “All right. Let’s get at it. Only, how come the fuck we never gave her a name? So what if she don’t want one. She don’t want to live in no cage, either. Even Booboo would be easier than calling her Daughter of Night all the time. Whoa! What the fuck is that?” He stared past me, downhill.
I turned, saw a pair of red eyes bobbing in the darkness, coming closer fast. I grabbed for my sword. Then I frowned as I heard the hoofbeats. Then I said, “Hey, buddy! Is that you? What the heck are you doing here? I thought you had yourself a job working for the traitor.”
The old black stallion stepped close, lowered its head to nuzzle the hair beside my right ear. I hugged it around the neck. We had been friends once upon a time but I had not thought we were so close that it would desert Mogaba and track me down over hundreds of miles once it discovered that I was still alive. The creatures had been created to serve the Lady of the Tower but were supposed to be used to passing from one secondary master to another. This one had been Murgen’s before it had become mine, then I had lost it.
“You ought to get out of here,” I told it. “Your timing’s really lousy. Soulcatcher is going to be all over us in just a few hours. If we’re not already up there on that pl
ain.”
The horse surveyed my companions and what it could see of the Company, shuddered. Then, turning its gaze on Swan, the stallion managed a very human snort.
I patted its neck. “I’m not sure I don’t agree with you, but Willow does have his redeeming qualities. He just keeps them well hidden. Go ahead and tag along if you want. I’m not riding. Not without a saddle.”
Swan chuckled. “So much for the conquering Vehdna horsemen whose pride disdained both saddles and stirrups.”
“Admitting no shortcomings of my own, I still have to observe that most of those proud horsemen were over six feet tall.”
“I’ll find you a ladder. And promise never to say a word about how those proud conquerors fared as soon as they ran into cavalry who did favor saddles and stirrups.”
“Bite him, buddy.”
To my amazement, the stallion snorted and nipped at Willow’s shoulder. Swan leaped back. “You always did have a temper and bad manners, half-ass.”
“Might be the company.”
“Far be it from me to interfere with your sparking, Crowhunter,” Goblin said, “but I thought you had a notion to do something with Booboo.”
“Sarcastic, eavesdropping mudsucker. I did, didn’t I? And I overlooked our old pal Khusavir Pete, too. I haven’t checked in on him lately, either. Is he still healthy?” The horse nuzzled me again. I patted its neck. Maybe it felt more nostalgic about our good old days than I did.
“I can check. You definitely overlooked him in your master plan.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t. Not a bit. I have a very special mission cooked up specially for Khusavir Pete. And if he pulls it off, not only will he get to stay alive, I’ll forgive everything he did at Kushkhoshi.”
Somebody shouted. A scarlet fireball blistered across the night. It missed its target. It did not miss a tent, however. Then another tent after that, then the crude wooden barracks the men had built while they were waiting for me to arrive. All three began to smolder.
“That was Narayan Singh,” Willow Swan said, stating what two-score people had seen during the carmine instant. “And he had Booboo—”
“Can it, Swan.” I started yelling at everyone nearby, trying to organize a pursuit.
Goblin told me, “Calm down, Sleepy. All we need to do is wait till she starts screaming, then go pick her up.”
I had forgotten the incredible array of control spells attached to the Daughter of Night. Her pain would increase geometrically as she moved farther away from her cage. Then at some distance known only to Goblin and One-Eye, choke spells would kick in and tighten rapidly. Narayan could take her away from us but only at the cost of killing her. Unless …
I asked.
“The spells have to be taken off from outside. She could be her mother and sister, the Shadowmasters and the Ten Who Were Taken all rolled into one and she’d still have to have somebody else help her get loose.”
“All right. Then we’ll wait for the screams.”
There were no screams. Not then or ever.
Murgen looked hard. He could find no sign. Kina was dreaming strongly, protecting her own. Goblin remained adamant that they had to be close by, that there was no way the Daughter of Night had shed her connection to her cage.
I told Swan, “Then you gather up some men and drag that cage up to the Shadowgate. We’ll make her follow us.”
The warning horn sounded again. Soulcatcher had crossed the summit. She was on our side of the Dandha Presh. There were hints of light in the east.
It was time to leave.
69
A brutal argument was under way aboard Soulcatcher’s carpet as she approached her destination, skimming the rocks, the sun’s blinding fires behind her. Part of her wanted to forget about assuming a disguise and infiltrating the enemy. That part wanted to arrive as a killing storm, destroying everything and everyone that was not Soulcatcher. But by doing that she would expose herself to the counterefforts of people who had shown themselves very resourceful in the past. Innovation was one of the more irksome traditions of the Black Company.
She grounded the carpet and stepped off, concealed it using a minor spell. Then she crept toward the Company encampment, a few yards at a time, until she found a good hiding place where she could undertake the illusion creations and modest shapechanges that would render her unrecognizable. That work required total concentration.
Back in the brush, not far from where she had set down, Uncle Doj crept forward and after having used his small wizard’s skills to make sure there were no booby traps, demolished Soulcatcher’s flying carpet in a straightforward, no-nonsense manner using a hatchet. He might be old and a step slower, but he was still very quick and very sneaky. He was almost all the way back to the Shadowgate when Soulcatcher appeared, looking the epitome of scruffy young manhood.
A white crow, balanced precariously in a bit of rain-hungry brush, observed her passage. When she could no longer glance back and see anything damning, the bird flapped into the place where she had changed and started going through the clothing and whatnot she had left behind. The bird kept making noises like it was talking to itself.
Soulcatcher entered the encampment where she had expected to find the remnants of the Black Company. It was empty. But up ahead she saw a long column already beyond the Shadowgate. One man with a sword across his back had not passed through the gate yet but he was moving swiftly, and a number of people were waiting for him just on the other side.
They did have the Key! And they had used the damned thing! She should have gotten here faster! She should have attacked! Dammit, everyone knew subtlety was no good with these people. Hey! They had to have known that she was coming. There was no other explanation for this. They had known she was coming and they knew where she was now and …
The first fireball was so accurately directed that it would have taken her head off if she had not been getting down already. In another moment the damned things were streaking in from several different sources. They set brush afire and shattered rocks. She got down on her stomach and crawled. Before she worried about her dignity, she had to get away from the focal point of the fire. Unfortunately, her efforts did not seem to matter. The assassins seemed to know exactly where she was and her disguise did not fool them for an instant.
As a swarm of fireballs closed in, she flung herself into a deep hole that had been a cesspit not that long ago. No matter. Right now shelter was priceless. Now the snipers could not get her without coming out of hiding and coming to her.
She took advantage of the respite to engineer, prepare and launch a counterattack. That involved a lot of color and fire and boiling, oily explosions, none of which did much harm because her surviving attackers had fled through the Shadowgate as soon as she went into the pit.
She climbed out. Nothing happened. She glared up the hill. So. Even the snipers were beyond the Shadowgate now. Nearly a dozen people were standing around there, waiting to see what she would do. She calmed herself. She could not let them goad her into doing something stupid. The Shadowgate was in extremely delicate shape. One angry, thoughtless move on her part might damage it beyond repair.
She conquered the rage that threatened to conquer her. She was ancient in her wickedness. Time was an intimate ally. She knew how to abide.
She limped uphill, urging her anger to bleed off in movement, with an ease no normal being could manage.
The slope immediately below the Shadowgate was covered with swaths and patches of colored chalk. A carefully marked safe path passed through. Soulcatcher did not yield to temptation and try to follow it. There was a chance that they had forgotten that she had gone this way before. Or perhaps they refused to believe she could recall that in those days the safe path had entered the Shadowgate eight feet farther west, just beyond that rusty, twisted iron cage lying on its side as though it was exhausted and dying. She waved a finger. “Naughty, naughty.”
Willow Swan—damn his treacherous, should-be-dead bones!—and the Nyueng Ba
o family stared back impassively. The pale-faced little wizard Goblin smirked, obviously remembering whose fault it was that she could no longer walk normally. And the ugly little woman smiled evilly. She said, “I wasn’t trying to suck you in, Sweet Stuff. I did suck you in.” She lifted a hand and raised a middle finger in a sign obviously learned from a northerner. “Water sleeps, Protector.”
What the hell did that mean?
70
No human being can jump as high as Soulcatcher did. Nevertheless, she managed to get her heels ten feet off the ground a gnat’s breath before the fireball ripped through the air where she had stood. I should have kept my big darned mouth shut. Gloating will do you in every time. How many stories and sagas are there where the hero survives because his captor insists on wasting time bragging and gloating before the execution? Add another one to the roll, where Company Annalist Sleepy does the incredibly dumb deed and leaves the target not quite relaxed enough.
Of course, she was fast. Epically fast. Poor old Khusavir Pete only got off two more fireballs before Soulcatcher got to him where we had left him chained.
It did not play out the way I hoped, only the way I expected. Now Khusavir Pete would have a hard time repaying any debt he still owed us.
I caught a glimpse of motion, the white crow plunging like a striking hawk. It pulled out and glided away. I murmured to myself, “Sister, sister.” I was beginning to read the messages.