The Many Deaths of the Black Company

  This time would be a bitch. There was no way he was going to recover all the Taglian dead. “Find me some priests. Every kind we have.” He needed advice about what to do with so many bodies, this close to home.

  The Company, Mogaba was sure, would just fling their share of Taglian corpses into one big ugly hole, cover them over and forget about them.

  99

  By the Military Cemetery: Missing Persons

  Tobo was distraught. Murgen was distracted. He walked around bumping into things, trapped inside his own interior world. I had not seen him so lost since his Annalist days.

  No trace of Sahra had surfaced, even with the Unknown Shadows hunting. So far Tobo had determined only that she had not fallen into enemy hands. The Taglians were not looking. They were unaware, even, that they ought to bear the woman a grudge.

  Sahra always had had a knack for going unnoticed.

  “She’s dead,” Lady told me. “She was hurt, she crawled in somewhere to hide, and she died there.” Which was plausible enough. Several bodies had been discovered in circumstances that fit the scenario. And Sahra was not alone in being missing. Every company in the force was unable to account for someone. Most, probably, had run away or were prisoners of war. But the hidden folk kept finding others dead in places where no one had yet thought to look.

  I hoped Lady’s simple explanation was the correct one. I dreaded the chance that Sahra had been captured by somebody who would use her to manipulate Tobo.

  The upside was that there was a paucity of villains who might be interested. Mogaba was exonerated. Soulcatcher was buried. Booboo and the Khadidas were entombed in the big fortress guarding the southern approaches to Taglios, behind a door that could not be opened by any key still within the stronghold. Others who might have tried something sly—say the Howler or the Voroshk—had perfect alibis.

  So it came down to Sahra being dead and lost or lost and wandering around in a shock so profound that she could not recall who she was or where she belonged.

  Sleepy posted a huge reward for “the capture of an older Nyueng Bao woman wanted for questioning in regard to espionage against agents of the Prahbrindrah Drah.” Murgen provided a description that included the shapes and locations of moles and a birthmark unfamiliar to anyone else.

  “It doesn’t make much sense, does it?” my darling whispered to me. “People go at the oddest times and from the oddest causes.”

  “Soldiers live,” I murmured.

  “You’re turning that into a mantra.”

  “You feel guilty. You wonder why him and not me, then you’re glad it was him and not you, then you feel guilty. Soldiers live. And wonder why.”

  “One soldier lives because the gods know that I still haven’t gotten my fair share of loving. Put that pen away and come on over here.”

  “You’ve sure turned into a pushy broad in your old age.”

  “Yeah? You should’ve seen me four hundred years ago.”

  * * *

  Tobo announced, “Mogaba’s had the Khadidas and the Daughter of Night moved to the palace. In a remarkable coincidence the Protector was seen publicly for the first time in months only a few hours later. She was extremely angry with the Taglians and brought one of her punishments down on their heads.” He grinned. “Most likely that had something to do with all the graffiti that’s begun appearing. All the good old stuff. ‘Water sleeps.’ ‘My brother unforgiven.’ And even some that aren’t my doing. ‘You shall lie in the ashes ten thousand years, eating only wind.’ I love that one.”

  That one caught my attention. I had heard it before, somewhere. But I had heard them all before.

  “‘Rajadharma’ is everywhere. Anyone who can write seems to put that one up. Then there’s ‘Madhuprlya’ which means ‘A Friend of the Wine’ and is a popular nickname for Ghopal Singh. Seems the lord of the Greys has a taste for the grape. The one I don’t get, and which seems to trouble the Greys more than ‘Madhuprlya,’ is, ‘Thi Kim is coming.’ It doesn’t make sense. Everybody assumes Nyueng Bao are involved because Thi Kim is translatable only from Nyueng Bao. As ‘death walk.’ Except that here it’s written as a proper name.”

  I said, “If it’s used as a name or title it would more properly come through as ‘Deathwalker’ or ‘Death Walking.’ Not so? In olden times a Deathwalker was a suspected plague carrier.”

  “Goblin,” Lady said. “It’s Deceivers announcing the coming of the Khadidas. A dead man still walking around. By the grace or curse of Kina. And a plague carrier, too, if you count the religious side.”

  “Maybe.” Tobo did not seem convinced. I did not blame him. I had a feeling it was something more sinister myself. Based on nothing whatsoever, because Lady’s suggestion ought to be true.

  I nodded in the general direction of where Sleepy should be. “She said anything about what she’s planning?”

  “Not unless you count her complaining about the headbutting she’s been doing with our friends from the Land of Unknown Shadows. Every brigade commander is whining about needing replacements. But none of them want local recruits—because of the language problem more than because of their lack of equipment and training—but none of them wants to see their own brigade disbanded so its soldiers can fill open slots elsewhere.”

  But there was no choice and everyone recognized that fact. The best answer was simple enough. And Sleepy found it without consulting me.

  Instead of disbanding the hardest hit units she took the one least distressed and distributed its people amongst the others, keeping whole groups together. Being with people you know and trust is critical to a soldier. She made sure the officers got better jobs whenever possible. The displaced brigade commander became her chief of staff, with the assurance that he would be given command of all the native troops we raised, however numerous they might become.

  Maximum result with least distress to oversized egos. Only a few men ended up completely disappointed.

  Life has turned into a preoccupation with administrative detail.

  Is that what happens when you get old? You worry more about people and their interaction than you do about drama and the violence and the wicked deeds those people do?

  That is us. The Black Company. Wicked deeds done dirt cheap. But by damn! You had better pony up when payment is due. Otherwise, if we must, we will come back from the grave itself to make sure our accounts are properly balanced.

  I said some of that aloud one afternoon. Tobo told me, “You’re mad, old man.”

  “As a hatter.” A reflection. “Speaking of which. You know whatever happened to One-Eye’s old hat?” I was going to need that disgusting flea farm one day soon. Desperately. One-Eye had told me I would but I had not listened closely enough. I had listened and understood that One-Eye’s wondrous spear would have to be employed in ways that the little wizard had defined well back into his healthier days. But that hat had been such a commonplace, and so foul, that it had not clung to its place in my mind.

  “It may be in my junk wagon,” Tobo told me. “If it’s not there it’ll be with mom’s stuff.” He winced. Sahra remained missing. “We took everything of his and Nana Gota’s when we left Hsien.”

  “I need to find it. Fairly soon.”

  Tobo wondered why but did not ask. What a good boy. He did say, “If I was you I’d think about getting my stuff together, ready to move.” For this Annalist all the junk and paper and pens and ink and notes and whatnot can build into piles that threaten to swamp. “Sleepy would rather stay here and spend some treasure refitting and recruiting and training and getting stronger but I convinced her that won’t work. Things aren’t going to slow down anywhere else. Right now we have more sorcery available than ever before in the Company’s history.”

  “I’ve said so myself.” More than once, in jeremiads about counting too much on powers and skills not part of the traditional Company arsenal.

  “Yes, you did. But you didn’t say anything about it fading away.”

  “Sure I did.?
??

  “You want it to go away. And it will. Because these aren’t the kind of people who’re likely to be content to do what we’ve got them doing. So we ought to use them up while we can.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We need to go after Taglios while we have the power to hit it hard.”

  Was he starting to sound just the slightest bit bigheaded? Like he might know better than the Captain what we ought to do? Was it going to be squabble on with Sleepy now that his mother was no longer around?

  Might better keep an eye on our baby boy. He was overdue to outgrow all that.

  I said, “You could be right.”

  100

  Taglios: The Palace

  Ghopal Singh’s report was not reassuring. “The graffiti is everywhere but we just can’t catch anybody doing it. It’s much worse than it was five years ago. Nowadays, with a lot of people on our side, you’d think we’d be able to come up with a clue. All we get is nonsense about ghosts and demons and things you can see only if you’re not looking for them.”

  Mogaba steepled long fingers under his chin. “The thing is, Ghopal, I’ve seen both demons and ghosts with my own eyes. When I had just become part of the Black Company one of the Company wizards had a pet demon. It later turned out to be our enemy, but that doesn’t matter. It was a demon. And during the siege of Dejagore ghosts often came and went. We all saw them, though hardly anyone ever talked about them.

  “Most people blamed Nyueng Bao conjurers.”

  Aridatha Singh observed, “The reality of demons and ghosts doesn’t affect the situation. Whether spooks or clever agitators are writing these messages, the messages are there. And enough people can read that the whole population knows what’s being written.”

  “What would you do about it?” Mogaba asked.

  “Keep watching for vandals but ignore it otherwise. If the people believe we’re indifferent to the criticism they won’t take it seriously either.”

  “A notion I hoped to put forward myself,” Ghopal said. “Because people in the street have no more idea than we do who’s putting that stuff up. Which makes them just as nervous as it makes us.”

  Mogaba grimaced, “Approved, then. With this caveat. Some of those slogans don’t fit the traditional mold. ‘Thi Kim is coming.’ We still don’t know what that means.”

  “The Walking Death is coming,” Ghopal said. “You have to think that means the Daughter of Night’s companion.”

  “You think it’s Deceiver work, then?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “But Thi Kim is Nyueng Bao. I’ve never heard of any Nyueng Bao Deceivers.”

  Ghopal grunted. That had gotten past him.

  Aridatha made a joke of it. “We’ll know him when he gets here. People will start dying.”

  “Ha, and one more out of charity, ha,” Mogaba replied. “In the meantime, we need to make a decision about our guests. We’ll have a lot of trouble keeping them under control. Especially the wizard. Goblin. Who insists on being addressed as the Khadidas. He did help cow the mob when we had the girl pretend she was the Protector. But he has no interest in our cause. He’ll devour us the instant he stops seeing us as valuable to his cause. Which is bringing on the end of the world.”

  Neither of the Singhs responded. Each understood that there was more to the Great General’s words than he was actually saying. That something particularly delicate would come up had been evident from the moment it had become clear that no one else would participate in the meeting.

  “I’m thinking we should get rid of him. Right now. Before he gets too comfortable and sure of himself.”

  “And the Daughter of Night?” Aridatha asked.

  “She’s not much threat on her own.” Meaning the Daughter of Night could be spared. If that was what Aridatha wanted. “Though my guess is, she’s too set in her ways to be redeemed.”

  Aridatha’s coloring was pale enough to betray his embarrassment. “That isn’t what I had in mind.”

  Ghopal came to his rescue. Inadvertently, having failed to catch the unspoken. “How do we get close enough to do anything? She’ll make us love her so much we’ll want to chop off our own toes.”

  “There must be ways around that.”

  “I’d be happy to hear suggestions.”

  “Well, it’s obvious she can’t do it all the time, whenever she wants, or Aridatha couldn’t have caught her.”

  “Unless she wanted to be caught.”

  Mogaba feared there might be something to that suggestion. “And that power doesn’t work on weapons. Or poisons.”

  “Sorcery might be a possibility,” Ghopal suggested. “You think anyone knows either of their true names?”

  Mogaba shook his head. “I don’t think even our enemies could do much there. The girl hasn’t had any name but the Daughter of Night. The Goblin thing is two creatures in one, with the Kina side ruling. The man who knew the Goblin side’s secrets is dead. So we can focus on treachery and poison right away.”

  “I don’t want to harp,” Aridatha said, “but I do have to remind everybody that the girl’s parents aren’t that far away. And right now our prospects don’t look that great.”

  Mogaba suspected that to be a subtle invitation to discuss his plans. He did not accept.

  He did not accept because these days he no longer had any grand plan. He believed his days were numbered, as some of the graffiti insisted. ALL THEIR DAYS ARE NUMBERED. But the things that made him Mogaba, positive and negative, compelled him to struggle on.

  101

  Beside the Cemetery: Plans

  Lady had been preoccupied since our visit to Shivetya’s fortress. More than usual. A couple of times I walked in on her while she was practicing her sorcery. I did not ask. The answer was plain. Her ability to steal Kina’s power had returned full strength just when the Khadidas had come forward to take control of Goblin.

  Lady had herself locked down, under rigid control. Being someone who has crawled all over her for years, I knew she was battling hope.

  She was addicted to the power.

  She had given it up, not entirely of her own volition, to prevent that old horror, her first husband, the Dominator, from resurrecting himself. Then she had gone away with me, knowing there was no way she could survive, powerless, in the world she had created. But she remembered being the Lady. And as years fled by she missed that more and more. And, I think, she missed that most when misfortune led her to a close encounter with a mirror.

  * * *

  A personable Dejagoran youngster we knew as Mihlos Sedona made the rounds, summoning the insiders to join Tobo and the Captain. The kid was only about sixteen but had charmed himself into a job as Sleepy’s personal gopher. A smile and a winning personality is worth more than genius and sour most any day.

  I thought well of Sedona myself. He had remembered to invite me to the party.

  The camp was in turmoil. Sleepy had ordered preparations for movement toward Taglios. Those with the necessary expertise were producing parts for artillery pieces or siege engines to be assembled once we reached the fighting zone. Those without expertise were doing the donkey work. I wondered why Sleepy was having the work done when we did not yet know if we would need the equipment. I expect she just wanted everyone kept busy.

  Can a bird sneer or smirk? The white crow observed from the arm of an incomplete, mobile stone-thrower. In my eye it seemed to do both. “Long flight for you, eh? You just get in?”

  The bird jumped but did not fly away.

  “Be good,” I told it. “I know who you are and I know where you live.”

  Crow laughter, a little strained. Soldiers who remembered when crows were plentiful and dangerous paused to stare.

  The crow winged it toward the cemetery.

  I grumbled, “I do believe our old pal Shivetya is hedging his bets.”

  The day was chilly but the sky was clear. The Captain seemed to think a meeting out in the fresh air would be good for everybody. I slip
ped around behind her headquarters tent.

  Tobo spoke first. “The Great General and his henchmen plan to keep fighting, despite our advantages. Both Generals Singh think it would be better to recognize the Prahbrindrah Drah and save Taglios the damage from heavy fighting. But loyalty is a matter of pride and honor for them, too. And the Great General isn’t the Protector. They consider him their friend. As long as he’s still standing I’m afraid they’re going to stick with him.”

  No surprise there. Not to mention that Ghopal Singh did not have much choice. As director of the Greys he had no friends outside the present establishment. He had committed himself to the Protectorate, not to Taglios.

  Aridatha, on the other hand, and despite his participation in the recent fighting, could be considered apolitical and committed to Taglios. The job he had done was the same job that would have been demanded of him by anyone who happened to be in power.

  That was the consensus. Maybe we were just making excuses. Everybody who met Aridatha liked the guy and wished him good fortune.

  “Enough of that,” Sleepy snapped. “The man’s a paragon. The sort we all want our daughters to marry. Fine. Tobo, get on with it.”

  “Last night the generals decided to destroy the Khadidas. He and the Daughter of Night can’t read minds but they did sense trouble. They broke out of their cells. Which means one of them has more power than they’ve been showing. They’re hiding somewhere in the abandoned part of the Palace. The Greys and the Palace Guard haven’t found them yet. The Khadidas did something that distorted reality around them. Even the hidden folk lost them. They haven’t been able to find them again. Not long after their disappearance somebody raided the kitchen. They stole a lot of food. Then somebody broke into the offices of the Inspector General of the Records and stole a shitload of paper and ink.”

  Murgen blurted, “They’re going to reconstruct the Books of the Dead!” This was the first real emotion he had shown since Sahra’s disappearance.

  “Evidently,” Sleepy said. “Not something they can accomplish quickly but something they’ll manage eventually. If we don’t interfere. And we are going to interfere. Tonight the whole bunch of you are going to fly to Taglios. You’re going to pull the same stunt you did in Jaicur. Using all the power you have available. I want you to capture Ghopal Singh and the Great General. Capture the girl and Goblin. Put Aridatha Singh in charge. Then hunker down. I’ll start the army moving tomorrow. As soon as we’re past the city gate I’ll send for the Prahbrindrah Drah.”