“Terror?”
“You were right, what you said last night. There’s a growing fear of the Company out there. Like you said, it was in olden times. I don’t understand but it’s helping keep the peace just when I expected a lot more trouble.”
“If you need provocations and the villains don’t provide them, feel free to create your own. Aridatha, you know what needs doing. Do it. As quickly as possible. Before events move so fast they rob us of more chances.” Though it could happen almost momentarily, Mogaba had abandoned any real hope of catching the Protector unaware as she returned to the city.
At the moment it seemed she did not plan to return until the Black Company invasion was settled.
51
The Taglian Territories: The Middle Ground
Soulcatcher, in full leather and fuller ire, stalked the perimeter of the encampment midway between Ghoja and Dejagore. A dozen frightened officers followed, each silently appealing for mercy to his choice of god or gods. The Protector in a rage was a disaster no one wanted to experience. Her excesses made no more sense than do those of a tornado.
“They haven’t moved. For six days now they’ve hardly taken a step. After hurtling northward like the storm itself, so fast we were killing ourselves trying to pull something together fast enough to stop them. What’re they doing? What changed suddenly?” As always when she was under stress Soulcatcher was a babble of conflicting voices. That added to the uneasiness of the men tagging after her. None had had any experience with her before her arrival in camp. The actuality was more unnerving than the stories predicted. She seemed every bit as cruel and capricious as any god. Several graves beyond the perimeter attested to the violence of her temper.
These sycophants would never find out but those who died had been chosen only after extended supernatural espionage. Not one had been a devoted servant of the Protectorate. Each had said so aloud. Additionally, none had been particularly competent leaders and that had been clear to their soldiers and compatriots. They had attained their positions through nepotism or cronyism, not ability.
Soulcatcher was culling her officer corps. She was disappointed that necessity prevented her from doing more. That corps was terrible. But she would take no responsibility for that. Of course.
How poor would it have been without the efforts of the Great General? Probably an awful, corrupt joke without a punchline. Without Mogaba’s dedicated nurturing there would have been little to assemble here.
How to keep it here? The desertion rate was supportable now but showing signs of rising. Was that the enemy strategy? Wait until the Taglian armies melted because of the demands of the approaching harvest? Would they charge north again then? It sounded like a Black Company sort of thing to do. Indications were, they had the wealth to maintain a force in the field a long time.
Mogaba’s messages indicated his own suspicions concerning a similar strategy. He was tailoring his own approach toward getting his enemy to take the long way around, into a trap.
Soulcatcher did not believe there would be any chance to trap the Black Company. Their intelligence resources were much too wonderful. While her own continued to fade. All species of crows were becoming endangered. Mice, bats, rats, owls, those sorts of creatures had no range. There seemed to be no modern sources of quality crystal or worthy mercury with which to create a scrying glass or bowl. The shadows she still controlled were few and feeble and frightened and she refused to risk them in enemy territory, often because each time she did a few more would not come back. And for now she was cut off from her only source of replacements.
She glanced skyward, saw vultures circling to the north, over woods which ran from right to left for as far as she could see. The growth followed a shallow stream. Her sister had won a small victory over the Shadowmasters there, ages ago, soon after the Black Company had suffered the disaster that led to the siege of Dejagore.
“I’m going to walk up there and see what those vultures find so interesting.”
No one gave in to the urge to protest.
Maybe the vultures would dine on her.
“None of you need to come with me.”
Relief was obvious.
52
The Nether Taglian Territories: Lady Made Grumpy Noises
Lady was in a towering rage. I could not recall ever having seen her so close to losing control. “How the hell could they let that happen? Somebody was supposed to stay in that little shit’s pocket every second!”
No one bothered to respond. She did not want answers. Not really. She wanted somebody to hurt.
Tobo was quietly busy talking to things that were there only when you looked away. Big things, little things, human-looking things and things that had escaped from madmen’s nightmares. Goblin was going to be found. Goblin was going to be tracked and harassed and hurt if at all possible, all the live-long day. Insofar as this fragment of the Company was concerned Goblin was going to be the main mission from this day forward. He was to be hunted down and exorcised—or exterminated—before he could engineer any more disasters on Kina’s behalf.
Though long out of practice and definitely out of the habit, Lady hurled a deadly spell at an inoffensive scrub pine. The tree began to wilt almost immediately.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded. “I thought you couldn’t…”
“Be quiet. Let me think.” So astonished was Lady that she forgot to be angry about Goblin.
I was quiet. I gave her all the thinking room a girl could want.
Was there a silver lining inside our latest black cloud?
My at-the-moment not very lucky wife called, “Tobo. Next message you send north, ask if the little shit got away with one of the gate keys. Or anything else unusual.”
Tobo made little gestures to the air, then replied, “I checked on that already. He got away with nothing more than two horses and one saddle. Not even a sausage. He’s probably eating bugs. The only unusual thing mentioned is that nobody noticed him. An eventuation almost certainly artificial in origin.”
“Because?”
“Because he’s being damned hard to notice right now. The Black Hounds shouldn’t be having trouble finding and following him. But they are. He’s as elusive as a ghost. Each time they do make contact it’s because he’s been following the road, without deviating, and they can just wait for him to show up.”
“Following the road where?”
“North. Toward the junction with the Rock Road. Though because he isn’t talking his plans are unclear.”
Tobo still had a sense of humor about what was going on.
I asked Lady, “How did you manage to murder that tree?”
She mused, “A good question. Without a good answer. I never felt any sharpened Kina presence.”
“You think it might have to do with Goblin? We know Kina must’ve put a piece of herself into him or he wouldn’t even be alive.”
“I would’ve sensed something before. I think. Tobo. Did you feel anything weird about Goblin?”
“Of course.” The boy was curt. He was trying to work. Old folks kept interrupting. “He wasn’t Uncle Goblin anymore. But he wasn’t any more powerful than he was before, either.”
I said, “Maybe it was something that didn’t come out until he got the chance to kill Narayan.”
Debate on the why increasingly focused on the fact that crippled old Narayan had been in no shape to run or do anything on behalf of his Goddess and, if left in our hands, would have been compelled to reveal whatever he knew eventually. And while most of us would view his murder as a betrayal by his Goddess, what we knew of Deceiver doctrine suggested that he might actually see it as a reward. Having been strangled for the Goddess, Narayan would go directly to Deceiver paradise where, no doubt, his rewards would be commensurate with his service.
I tend toward the cynical view where religion is concerned.
After a silence so extended I decided she was not listening, my beloved responded, “You might just be smarter th
an you look. She’d expect us to be suspicious enough to watch every breath Goblin took. So she’d want him to seem as normal as possible until he got a solid chance to get away.” She began to pace. “Poor Goblin. That would’ve been mostly him, maybe even really trying to help his old friends as much as he could. And he’ll still be partly Goblin, but a prisoner inside his own body.” The hollowness of her voice indicated that she might have been through that herself, once upon a time.
“Which tells us nothing of his purpose. Or of Kina’s.”
“She’s in prison. She wants out. That doesn’t take any special figuring.”
“But there’ll be a grand plan. Old Goblin didn’t get his soul eaten up just so he could be flung across the pond of the world like a skipping stone. He’s going to go somewhere and he’s going to do something and if he gets away with it all the rest of us are going to end up really sorry.”
Lady grunted. She was still mostly angry.
I said, “He headed north. What’s up there that would interest Kina?”
Tobo interrupted his sweet talk with his pets. “Booboo.” He sounded as unhappy as I felt. “He’s going to take Narayan’s place watching over the Daughter of Night.”
“Yeah. Only there’ll be a big chunk of Goddess in him so he’ll be a lot more dangerous than Narayan ever was.”
Lady glared around her with an expression that made me think she did not have much trouble seeing Tobo’s friends. “Do you think my sister can be made to hear one of those?”
You could have heard a stack of pans drop. Even the animals quieted down.
I asked, “You have something in mind?”
“Yes. We send her a message. Tell her what’s going on with Goblin. It’s as much in her interest to stop him as it is in ours.”
“And she has a personal interest,” Tobo reminded us.
I understood immediately but Lady needed it explained. “Goblin is the reason Soulcatcher has a bad leg.”
“Oh. Of course. I remember now.”
She ought. She was there, spying on everything through the eyes of a white crow, during the kidnapping of the Radisha. That same night Goblin managed to trick Soulcatcher into springing a booby trap. The result had been serious and irreversible damage to her right heel.
Tobo said, “She gets around pretty well now. She wears a special boot and brace and is supported by several specialized spells. She only limps when she’s really tired.”
“Ah. She’ll definitely want to chat with Goblin, then. She’s always been a sore loser.”
“Just a thought,” I offered. “What happens if Soulcatcher turns Goblin into her own version of the Taken? And maybe Booboo, too? Word is, there were times when she showed a few powers of her own.”
“Make a slave out of a Goddess?” Lady was incredulous. I raised an eyebrow. She protested, “What I did wasn’t the same thing at all. What I did was pure parasitism. I wormed in so she couldn’t get me out without hurting herself.”
“And now you’re getting a little of that back?”
“But it doesn’t feel the same. Tobo. Can you send a message to my sister or not?”
“I can try. In fact, I can do it. Easily. The real question would be whether or not she’d listen.”
“She’ll listen or I’ll kick her butt.”
It took all of us a moment to realize she was joking. She did so so rarely.
Tobo began concentrating on the task of getting an extended message to Soulcatcher.
Again I cautioned, “There’s a risk in this.”
Lady just made one of her grumpy noises. She was turning into a cranky old witch.
53
The Taglian Territories: A Haunted Wood
Soulcatcher glanced back before entering the wood. “So where are they all?” And in a firm male voice she demanded, “What happened to all the suck-ups?”
Another voice, “Somebody should’ve wanted to kiss up.”
A puzzled voice asked, “They always do, don’t they?”
“Are we losing it here?”
“I don’t like it.”
“This isn’t fun anymore.” Petulant, spoiled child voice.
“Most of the time we’re just going through the motions. There aren’t any challenges here.”
“Even when there are it’s almost impossible to get impassioned enough to care.”
Most of those voices were businesslike but jaded.
“It’s hard to keep going on fuel like hunger for revenge alone.”
“It’s hard to be alone, period.”
That remark brought on an extended silence. Soulcatcher did not have a voice for expressing the emotional costs of being who she was. Not out loud. Ferocious mad-killer sorcerers do not whine because nobody likes them.
The growth along the creek had a sharp boundary. In another time the land must have been groomed by human occupation. Soulcatcher listened. The wood, which was a little more than a mile wide, seemed remarkably silent. There should have been a racket from work parties harvesting firewood and timber for use around the camp. But there was nothing. And she did not recall authorizing a holiday. Something had frightened the soldiers away.
Yet she sensed no danger.
After a moment, though, she did detect a supernatural presence.
She glanced upward. Those vultures continued to circle. They were lower now. They seemed to be wheeling above the presence she sensed.
Warily, she probed farther and deeper. She had remarkably well-honed senses when she cared to concentrate.
This presence was like nothing in her experience. Something like a powerful shadow, yet with a strong implication of working intelligence. Not a demon or some such otherworldly entity, though. Something that felt like it was a part of nature but still having about it a hint of not belonging to this world. But how? Not of this world but not otherworldly?… Something very powerful but not driven by malice. At the moment. Something timeless, accustomed to patience, mildly impatient right now, again a smart-shadow thing like those stalkers down south had been.
Soulcatcher extended her senses to their maximum. This thing was waiting for her. For her alone. It had repulsed everything but those vultures. She had to be careful. Despite her ennui she did not want to trigger a fatal ambush.
There was nothing.
She stepped forward.
She did so while assembling a quiver of sudden and deadly spells. She squinted behind her mask, looking for this thing that wanted to see her.
It grew stronger but less focused as she moved toward it. For a moment it seemed that it was all around her—even while being in one place somewhere ahead of her. When she did arrive where her senses told her it ought to be, she saw nothing.
That place was a small clearing just off the Rock Road, across the shallow stream. She saw several Vehdna grave markers and a few Gunni memorial posts with time-gnawed prayer wheels on top. This must be where her sister fought the Shadowlander cavalry during her flight from Dejagore. In a time so long ago that she still had believed Narayan Singh to be her friend and champion.
Sunlight tumbled through the leaves overhead. It dappled the clearing. Soulcatcher settled on a rotten log that protruded from what might once must have been an earthwork. “I’m here. I’m waiting.”
Something large moved at the edge of her vision. She got the impression of a black feline. But when she turned she saw nothing.
“So that’s the way it’s going to be, eh?”
“Thus it must be. Ever.” The response seemed to come from nowhere in particular and it was not clear whether she heard it with her ears or inside her head.
“What do you want from me?” Soulcatcher used a deep masculine voice heavy with menace.
The presence was amused, not intimidated. “I bring a message from your old friend Croaker.”
Croaker was no friend. In fact, she was distinctly piqued with that man. He had not been entirely cooperative when she had tried to seduce him and now he had refused to stay buried after she h
ad tried to kill him. Still, he was the reason she had a head on her shoulders these days. And that tiny edge would be why this communication was arriving in his name.
“Go ahead.”
The whatever-it-was did as she bid. As she listened she poked around in an effort to fathom its true nature. While searching for some handle she could grasp to make it over into an agent of her own.
It sensed what she was doing. It was amused. Not troubled. Not frightened. Not inclined to react. Just amused.
Soulcatcher reviewed the story carefully once the spook had finished relating it. It sounded plausible. If incomplete. But why expect those people to be entirely forthcoming in such a situation?
Try as she might she could discover no obvious trap. They sounded worried down there. This news could explain their sudden shift of strategy.
Goblin possessed by Kina. Narayan Singh dead. The Daughter of Night running loose.… Not running loose at all! In the hands of her troops, on the Rock Road somewhere south of Dejagore, very probably looking for an opportunity to get loose.
Goblin might arrange that.
She bounced up off the rotten log, ennui gone. “Tell Croaker he can consider communications opened. I’ll take steps to deal with the situation. Go! Go!”
A flicker. Like a shadow passing through and deserting at the same time. It left a deeply felt chill and one more uncertain glimpse of an impossibly large, catlike form moving away at an impossible pace.
From the nearby Rock Road came the rattle and clop of a large party headed south. Camels seemed to be involved. That meant civilians. There were no camels in her armies. She hated camels. They were filthy animals with nasty tempers even on their best days.
She leapt across the creek and hurried to the edge of the woods, emerging not a hundred feet from where a caravan was doing the same. Civilian it was, but most of the wagons and camels and mules would discharge their cargo in her camp.
The caravaners spied her. They were startled. And frightened.
Her blood was moving again. She always enjoyed the impact she made when she appeared unexpectedly.