Lady said Singh was worth his weight in rubies if he was delivered alive.
She never offered anything for her daughter.
The sky darkened suddenly. Never have I seen so many crows. It seemed the sun would go out.
46
I raced to find Croaker and Soulcatcher. Smoke was so far off balance I actually got close to Lady’s mad sister. She was dancing around in a rage, talking to herself in different voices, cursing Lady for having too much initiative, cursing her crows for not getting to the battle and back with information fast enough to suit her. “It’s not time!” she raged. “There’s no conjunction yet! This can’t happen now!”
I hustled off to find Croaker when Smoke began to strain away from the woman. We soared upward, terrifying the crows, leaving a discernible wake through their swarm. I hoped Soulcatcher was not alert enough to catch it.
There had been times when she had seemed aware of my presence. Though that had been on occasions when I was loose from my own place in time, mostly.
Croaker was easy to spot. He was headed for camp at a gallop, trailing a comet tail of crows. His giant black stallion seemed almost to fly.
I rose higher still, to see if there were developments elsewhere in need of noting.
Smoke seemed to enjoy rising up where the eagles soar. We went higher than ever before, until the surface of the earth was so far below that I could not make out such trivial details as men and animals, till only the most vast works of man stood out from the snowy background. The Dandha Presh gleamed like a row of teeth in the north. In the west a pile of dark clouds promised more hard weather for later. In the south the plain of grey stone sparkled as though strewn with newly minted coins. The plain as a whole faded away into grey nothingness, yet at the extremity of vision something loomed within the grey.
All Overlook’s north face seemed to be on fire.
I swooped down there to discover that Howler and Longshadow had gotten together and launched a counterattack against the troops holding the top of the wall. Then Lady had come to the aid of her people. Every man who could work a bamboo pole was doing so, often apparently not aiming at anything.
Amidst all the other lights the air shimmered with fragments of something that recalled the northern lights we had seen ages ago when the Company was way up at the Barrowland. None of these shards was bigger than a platter. They flew around like a swarm of gnats. The air was filled with a sound like sharp steel in rapid motion. The shimmers slashed everything but Longshadow’s most densely spell-protected stone.
Lady was up near the edge of the emergency housing that had been erected for Shadowlander refugees. Her usual gang of worshippers surrounded her, ready to repel any physical attack. She was doing whatever it was that was throwing those blades of light around up there, keeping the defenders under cover and Howler and Longshadow too busy to trouble her or any of her soldiers.
The blades of light did not appear to be under Lady’s direct command but orbited a point she did control most of the time.
A tower collapsed into the interior of the fortress. A pillar of dust, reflecting colorfully, rose to be carried away by the wind bringing the storm from the west.
The outside of the fortress, once so ivory, was a mess of stains. I figured the housekeeping staff would be real put out.
The flying black speck that was the Old Man was almost back to his headquarters. I knew he would want to see me first. Reluctantly I left the great show for flesh.
“What the hell is going on?” One-Eye demanded as I let myself down from the wagon. The show must have impressed him because he was all business. He had food and drink waiting.
“Croaker’s almost here. I’ll tell you both.”
Right on cue the Old Man popped over the nearest rise and hurtled toward us. His mount was still in motion when he left his saddle. He grunted as his boots hit the ground. “Tell me.” He understood that we were waiting.
I told him everything I knew. Including the fact that he was sneaking around with his wife’s sister when the shitstorm hit. He stared over my shoulder toward Overlook the whole time. His expression was cold, stony. I offered the observation that Lady had in no way exceeded her authority within the general orders of the organization. That cold look turned my way.
I had no trouble meeting it. A couple of brushes with Kina can do wonders for the trivial fears of the world.
“You got something on your mind, Murgen?”
“You don’t tell anybody what’s going on, you got to accept it when they go ahead and get on with the job.”
I thought smoke was going to roll out of his ears.
A skinny, mangy mongrel raced past and on the dead run clamped jaws on a startled crow. He got a wing.
All the crows in the world descended on him before he could enjoy his dinner.
“A parable,” One-Eye said. “Observe! Black crows. Black dog. The eternal struggle.”
“Black philosopher,” Croaker grumbled.
“Black Company.”
Croaker said, “Let’s go have a chat with my esteemed paramour. Where is she, Murgen?”
I told him.
“Let’s go.” But he had to stop and pick up his Widowmaker costume. Which allowed me time to borrow Thai Dei’s grey mare and get a head start. Croaker frowned but did not ask when he caught up. Thai Dei insisted on coming along even though he had to jog now.
He did not keep up.
Neither did I, of course.
If Lady and the Old Man indulged in a head-butting contest it was over before I got there. Maybe I could take Smoke back to look their meeting over. When I got there they were looking up at the tall white wall and deciding how best to exploit the situation.
Lady was saying, “I fear our supply of bamboo poles is growing too small. It’s certain that Longshadow will send shadows against us at least once.” She spoke Taglian. She did not care who heard what she said. And plenty of ears were nearby, including Blade, Willow Swan and the Nar generals Ochiba and Sindawe, none of whom enjoyed my complete trust. Crows were, as always, plentiful, too.
They were turning the ruins of Kiaulune into a major rookery. Good eating there, I suppose, with the cold weather preserving the corpses of the Shadowmaster’s subjects.
Almost everyone threw rocks at the birds. They had become adept at dodging. I suspected resignation would set in eventually and the only time we would enjoy any privacy would be when Lady used one of the spells she had developed for frightening the birds away.
A ripple of astonished disturbance passed through the circling birds. No one else noticed. But I was alert for it because I had been wondering if One-Eye was going to watch.
If anyone else figured this out... You can do nothing in this world without leaving some mark, somehow. If someone else knows what sort of trace you will leave...
One of the crystal tower tops received so many fireballs that it began to ring. The sound started as a soft hum and rapidly swelled to a raging shriek. The tower top exploded in a cloud of smoke and dust and spinning shards that melted holes in the snow and earth wherever they fell. The event so startled everyone that it distracted even Lady for a moment.
In that brief moment Longshadow counterattacked.
The boots of an invisible giant a thousand feet tall began stomping and kicking the men atop Overlook’s wall and those trying to join them. In the moments it took Lady to overcome her surprise and respond, every ladder got stripped away and the bands holding the secured section of wall got scattered. Many fell to their deaths.
Lady stopped the stomping but all efforts to reestablish a ladder link to the men up top failed. Longshadow was fully into the game.
Croaker stayed and watched for the rest of the day. I stayed with him. Nothing much happened.
We walked back. Croaker said, “Overall, that may have been a net gain.”
“We still have people inside. If we can preserve them.”
“We shall make every effort.”
His min
d was racing. Something had happened outside whatever playscript he had written and he was trying to incorporate it as a positive. He had no attention left over for little questions like why I was using Thai Dei’s horse while my brother-in-law was hoofing it.
Which reminded me that I needed to check up on Sleepy. The weather and the war had not gone the way I had expected here so his life might not have been comfortable lately, either.
The wind rose dramatically during our walk. Pellets of ice came as precursors of the storm. “I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a bad one.”
Croaker grunted. “Pity she didn’t pull it off this morning. We could be inside and warm.”
“At least it ought to be about the last big one of the winter.”
“That reminds me. How are we doing finding seed grain?”
47
The storm lingered a long time. A couple times I almost became lost just getting from my shelter to One-Eye’s wagon or Croaker’s shelter. The blizzard brought air so cold we had to move Smoke into Croaker’s place to keep him from freezing. The soldiers suffered badly, though mostly through their own failure to provide themselves with adequate shelter. Captives had warned them that winter here would be much harsher than any they had ever known.
Once again I got to know the joys of sharing quarters with Mother Gota.
Thai Dei insisted she had to get in out of the weather and I have been developing a soft streak as I get older. I allowed it.
She behaved uncharacteristically for Ky Gota. She kept her own counsel most of the time. She stayed out of the way. She helped Thai Dei dig out cold earth and carry it away so we would have more room. She did not say a disparaging word about all the time I spent writing. She worked hard, though I never had been able to criticize her on that account, ever.
She made me nervous. She was almost human. Though she made very little effort to be pleasant or friendly.
The Captain, though, was sharing space with One-Eye and Smoke for the duration. He was much less happy than I was. And I was not happy because I was getting almost no chance to travel with Smoke. When I did stumble over there they would not let me go ghostwalking long enough to do more than check something specific, which was always something on a list they had prepared but claimed not to have had time to check for themselves.
Croaker did not ghostwalk much but he did not let the blizzard and its aftermath keep him from working on other stuff.
Over there in Overlook, Longshadow and Howler were putting in hours as long as ours. And when he was not with his ally Howler, the Shadowmaster had his head together with Narayan.
Singh seemed to have perked up now that he had an almost friend. The Daughter of Night seemed content to ignore everybody and live entirely within herself.
Fighting continued inside the fortress. I almost had to envy our guys who were trapped in there. They were scared all the time but they were warm and most of the time they had enough to eat.
Fresh snow fell every three days. Harsh winds never stopped blowing. I began to worry about the wood we needed to keep going. The snow was so deep it was almost impossible to get around. Nobody knew how to make snowshoes. Probably only three or four Old Crew guys besides me knew what snowshoes were.
I thought it was a great time for Longshadow to send out some of his pet shadows but he failed to grab the advantage. He was not confident that Howler could withstand Lady by himself, nor, I suspect, did he want to turn his back on his partner for long.
The dreams intensified. They diversified as well. I went to the plain of death and the caves of ice and I went to the Nyueng Bao delta swamps to see Sahra and into the hills and mountains behind us where I caught glimpses of Goblin and Mogaba in huddled hiding places trying to wait out the weather.
Those dreams all seemed very real.
Even more real seemed my dreams of Soulcatcher, whose lonesome misery was epic. The place she had chosen to hole up seemed to pull snow and wind both, till the former was deeper than she was tall.
The first two times I suffered these dreams I took them passively. The third night my own presence there seemed so real that I tried tinkering with reality.
The dream did not change but my place within it did.
I experimented much more next night.
The morning afterward, after a not entirely inedible breakfast prepared by Mother Gota, I slogged through the snow to visit the Captain.
“Had to get away?” he asked.
“They’re not being bad. The old woman’s even fixing food that’s palatable. If you’re not real picky.”
“What’s up? Where’s your shadow?”
“I guess he didn’t want to deal with the snow.” The snow was the first thing I had seen that made Thai Dei want to back down. This winter was his first extensive experience with the white stuff.
“None of us do. Anything from the old guy?”
“In this weather? You’re kidding.” He was still sure that Uncle Doj was up to something. Maybe I ought to dream about him. “What I wanted you to know is, my dreams are getting really strange.” I explained.
“Is it your imagination or are you really going out?”
“It feels like being out there with Smoke. Almost. I don’t have any feeling of control. So far.”
Croaker grunted. He looked thoughtful, seeing some possibilities. I saw a few myself.
“What I thought was, I could make a quick circuit with Smoke to see how closely reality conforms to what I dreamed.” I had little trouble accepting the possibility because I had been experiencing such unusual dreams for so long.
“Do it. Without wasting any time.”
“What’s your hurry? This snow isn’t going anywhere for a while.”
Croaker grunted again.
He was turning into a genuine old fart.
The flight with Smoke showed me nothing I had not seen in my dreams. It did not show me Soulcatcher. Smoke still refused to get close. But I passed high overhead and saw that she was indeed caught in a side canyon where the snow was extremely deep.
48
The weather changed eventually. The snow melted. We came out of our shelters like a bunch of groundhogs. So did the rest of the world. But most everyone was interested in recovering, not in getting into fights.
Fighting did continue inside Overlook, though mostly Longshadow’s soldiers were satisfied to keep Lady’s troops bottled up. Those men were in no hurry to get themselves killed now they were cut off from the outside. They had control of stores enough for a long time and complete confidence that Lady would make every effort to relieve them.
She would. I used Smoke to look in on some of her planning. She had expected any men who got inside to be cut off for a while. She had chosen shock units and commanders she believed would be able to handle the hardship.
The Prince’s division was fighting in the ruins of Kiaulune and in the hills north of us, where Mogaba persisted in harassing the shit out of us. Lady’s division held the ground between the city and Overlook. One of the Captain’s divisions was around the other side, astride the road to the Shadowgate. The other remained in reserve.
Spring was a real threat on the horizon.
I asked Croaker, “You think the Prahbrindrah Drah is maybe going to get tired of getting the honors in all these fights?”
He gave me a startled look. “Am I that obvious?”
“About what?” I looked around. Only Thai Dei was close enough to hear anything.
“You just... It could be his division is the most incompetent.”
“And least reliable?”
“This army will suffer a lot of casualties before we get to Khatovar, Murgen. Correct me if I’m wrong. It seems to me it would be in the Company’s interest if most of those happened outside our own ranks.”
“Uhm?”
“I trust my Old Division. A lot of those men want to join the Company. Most of them would fight the Prince if I gave the order.”
Lately a lot of Taglians wanted to join
the Company. I think most of the applications were genuine. Guys who take the oath always stick. They never take the oath lightly.
The oath is always administered in secret. Recent recruits have been asked to keep their new allegiances to themselves. No one outside the Company had any idea how strong we really were. Some people inside were getting the mushroom treatment, too, if their name was something like Lady. The Old Man was turning paranoia into a fine art. “I understand that. What I’m wondering is, how come Lady is getting the hurt, too?” If something did not end up on the Prince’s back usually it went to her.
Croaker’s shrug told me he was not quite sure himself. “I guess I don’t want her in any position where she has to deal with too much temptation.”
“And the New Division?”
“I wouldn’t ask them to face off with the Prince. They probably won’t ever be ready to take our side in a civil scrimmage.” He looked me in the eye. This campaign had elevated him to a new level of hardness. This was like trading looks with Kina. I did not look away.
Croaker explained, “I’ll deliver on my promises.” He meant that our employers would not deliver. The Radisha, especially, was determined to screw us. The Prince had been out here long enough to become one of the gang. We never did get a chance to work our magic on his sister.
I said, “I spend a lot of time wishing I’d stayed a farm boy.”
“You still having trouble with the nightmares?”
“Every night. But it’s not like it’s a direct attack. I always work my way through and use the opportunity to scout around. Sure as hell ain’t pleasant, though, I’ll tell you that.” Kina, or somebody or something who wanted me to think she was Kina, was in my dreams all the time. My own conviction was that it was Kina, not Catcher. She was still trying to promise me Sahra back.
I wished she would do something about the odor.