We headed for camp. I asked, “You bring any of your men with you?”
“Some. More will straggle in.”
“Good. I won’t have to use Sindawe.”
36
Ghoja
I felt like a fool in the getup Lady put on me. A real Ten Who Were Taken costume, baroque black armor with little threads of bloody light slithering over it. Made me look about nine feet tall when I was up on one of those black stallions. The helmet was the worst. It had big black wings on the side, a tall gismo with fluffy black feathers on the crown, and what looked like fire burning behind the visor.
One-Eye thought it would look intimidating as hell from a distance. Goblin figured my enemies would laugh themselves to death.
Lady got into an outfit just as outrageous, black, grotesque helmet, fires.
I sat there on my horse feeling weird. My people were ready. One-Eye sent Frogface to watch the enemy. Lady’s helpers brought shields and lances and swords. The shields had grim symbols on them, the lances matching pennons. She said, “I’ve created two nasties. With luck we can turn them into something with an image like the Taken. Their names are Widowmaker and Lifetaker. Which one do you want to be?”
I closed my visor. “Widowmaker.”
She fish-eyed me a good ten seconds before she told somebody to hand me my stuff. I took all my old familiar hardware along, too.
Frogface popped up. “Get ready, chief. They’re about to hit the water.”
“Right. Spread the word.”
I glanced right. I glanced left. Everyone and everything was ready. I had done all I could. It was in the hands of the gods or the jaws of fate.
Frogface was down in the mist when the enemy hit the water. He popped back. I gave a signal. A hundred drums started pounding. Lady and I crossed the ridgeline. I guess we made a good show. Over in the fortress people scurried around and pointed.
I drew the sword Lady had given me, gestured for them to turn back. They did not. I would not have in their place. But I’ll bet they were damned uneasy. I advanced down the hill and touched that burning blade to the charcoal strip.
Flame ripped across the slope. It burned out in twenty seconds but left the charcoal glowing. I got back quickly. The fumes were powerful.
Frogface popped up. “They’re pouring across now, chief.”
I could not yet see them through the mists. “Tell them to stop the drums.”
Instant silence. Then the clangor of troops in the mist. And their cursing and coughing in the sulphur-laden air. Frogface returned. I told him, “Tell Mogaba to bring them over.”
The drums started talking again. “March them in a straight line,” I muttered. “That’s all I ask, Mogaba. March them in a straight line.”
They came. I dared not look to see how they were doing. But they passed me soon enough. And they were holding formation.
They assumed positions across the slope from the creek, then down to the river on the left, with the hinge between legions at the road. Perfection.
The enemy began coming out of the mist, swirling it, staggering, disordered, coughing furiously, cursing. They encountered the barrier of charcoal and did not know what to do.
I gestured with my sword.
Missiles flew.
It looked like pure unreasoning panic had seized the fortress. The enemy captains saw they had walked into it and did not know how to respond. They chased their tails and fussed and did not do anything.
Their soldiers just kept coming, not knowing what they were walking into until they came out of the mist and found themselves stopped by the charcoal.
The mist began to drift off downriver. Shifter could not hold it any longer. But a little had been enough.
They had some competent sergeants on the other side. They began bringing up water and cutting paths through the coals with trenching tools. They began getting their men into ragged formations, behind their shields, safer from arrows and javelins. I signalled again. The wheeled ballistae opened up.
Daring the enemy’s worst, Mogaba and Ochiba rode back and forth in front of their men, exhorting them to stand fast, to maintain the integrity of their line.
My role was cruel, now. I could do nothing but sit there with the breeze playing around me, being symbolic.
They got aisles cleared through the charcoal and rushed through. A lot got dead for their trouble. The ballistae ran out of missiles and withdrew, but arrows and javelins continued to rain on those coming up from the ford, taking a terrible toll.
More and more pressure all along the line. But the legions did not bend, and gave as good as they got. Their lungs were not burned raw by sulphur gasses.
Over half the enemy had crossed the river. A third of those had fallen. The captains in the fortress remained indecisive.
The Shadowmasters’ troops kept coming across. A furious desperation began to animate them. Eighty percent over. Ninety percent. The Taglians began to give a step here and there. I remained frozen, an iron symbol. “Frogface,” I muttered into my helmet, “I need you now.”
The imp materialized, perched on my mount’s neck. “What you need, chief?” I filled him up with orders I wanted relayed to Murgen, to Otto and Hagop, to Sindawe, to damned near everybody I could think of. Some ordered next steps of the plan, some involved innovations.
The morning had been remarkably crow-free. Now that changed. Two monsters, damned near as big as chickens, settled on my shoulders. They were nobody’s imagination. I felt their weight. Others saw them. Lady turned to look at them.
A flock passed over the battlefield, circled the fortress, settled into the trees along the riverbank.
The enemy infantry was across. Their train was getting organized to follow.
Thousands of the Shadowmasters’ men were down. I doubted they had the advantage of numbers anymore. But experience had begun to tell. My Taglians were giving ground. I felt the first flutters of panic nipping at their formations.
Frogface materialized. “Couple wagons with ballista shafts came in, chief.”
“Get them up to the engines. Then tell Otto and Hagop it’s time.”
Maybe seven hundred horsemen had straggled in from Numa by then. They were dead tired. But they were in place and ready.
They did what they were supposed to do. They stumbled up out of the cover of the creek. They sliced through the chaos behind the enemy line like the fabled hot knife through butter. Soft butter. Then they came back across the hillside, cutting at the back of the enemy line. Like scythes felling wheat.
Murgen came over the hill behind me, displaying the Black Company standard boldly. Sindawe’s bunch were behind him. Murgen halted between Lady and me, a few steps back.
The artillery began feeling for the range to the fortress.
Goblin and One-Eye and maybe even Shifter had been at work, using little charms to decompose the mortar between stones.
“It’s going to work,” I muttered. “I think we’re going to do it.”
The cavalry sortie did it. They did not get sorted out for another charge before men began running for the ford. The second charge bogged down in the sheer mass of fleeing men.
Mogaba, I love you.
The men he had trained did not break formation and charge. He and Ochiba hustled up and down their lines, getting the ranks dressed and the injured out of the way.
Ballista shafts were knocking stones out of the fortress wall. The captains up top gawked. A few of feeble courage abandoned the battlements.
I raised my sword and pointed. The drums started. I began walking my mount forward. Lady kept pace, as did Murgen and the standard. One-Eye and Goblin worked up a more terrible glamor around us. My two crows shrieked. They could be heard above the tumult.
The enemy train was all crowded up the other side of the ford. Now the teamsters fled, leaving them blocking the retreat of their comrades.
We had them in a bottle, the cork was in, and most of them had their backs to us.
Th
e grim work began.
I continued my slow advance. People stayed away from me and Lady and the standard. Archers on the battlements tried dropping me, but somebody had put some pretty good spells on my armor. Nothing got through, though for a while it was like being in a barrel somebody was whacking with a hammer.
Enemy soldiers began jumping in the river and swimming for it.
The ballistae had a good range, all their shafts striking in a small area. The watchtower creaked and grumbled. Then rumbled. A big chunk fell out, and soon the whole tower collapsed, taking parts of the fortress wall with it.
I pushed into the river, across the ford, and on up between wagons. The standard and Sindawe’s men followed. The only enemies I saw were heeling and toeing it south.
Amazing. I never struck a blow myself.
It was almost workaday stuff for Sindawe’s bunch to begin clearing the wagons, for some to worm through behind Murgen and cover him while he planted the standard on the fortress wall.
Fighting continued on the north bank but the thing had been decided. It was over and won and I did not believe it. It had been close to being too easy. I had not used all the arrows in my quiver.
Though chaos continued around me I took out my map case to check out what lay to the south.
37
Shadowlight: Coal-Dark Tears
Rage and panic contended in the fountained hall at Shadowlight. Moonshadow mewled dire prophecies. Stormshadow raged. One maintained a silence as deep as that within a buried coffin. And one was not there at all, though a Voice spoke for him, dark and mocking.
“I said a million men might not be enough.”
“Silence, worm!” Stormshadow snarled.
“They have obliterated your invincible armies, children. They have forced bridgeheads everywhere. What will you do now, whimpering dogs? Your provinces are a prostrate and naked woman. A two-hundred-mile jaunt behind the Lance of Passion and they will be hammering at the gates of Stormgard. What will you do, what will you do, what will you do? Oh, woe, what hast befallen thee?” Insane laughter rolled out of that black absence in the air.
Stormshadow snarled, “You haven’t been a whole hell of a lot of help, have you? You and your games. Trying to catch Dorotea Senjak? How well did you do? Eh? What would you have done with their Captain? Did you have a bargain in mind? Some deal to trade us for the power they bring? Did you think you could use them to close the Gate? If you did you’re the greatest fool of all.”
“Whine, children. Moan and wail. They are upon you. Maybe if you beg I’ll save you yet again.”
Moonshadow snapped, “Bold chatter from one without the ability to save himself. Yes. In the traditions of their Company they caught us off balance. They did what is for them old routine: the impossible. But the fighting along the Main was just one move in the game. Only a pawn has vanished from the board. If they come south, every step will carry them a step nearer their dooms.”
Laughter.
The silent one broke his fast of words. “There are three of us, in the fullness of our power. But two great ones dog the path of the Black Company. And they have little interest in furthering its goals. And she is a cripple, feeble as a mouse.”
More laughter. “Once upon a time someone named the true name of Dorotea Senjak. So now she is the Lady no more. She has no more powers than a talented child. But do you believe she lost her memory when she lost those powers? You do not. Or you would not accuse me as you have. Perhaps she will grow frightened enough or desperate enough to confide in the great one who changes.”
No retort. That was the dread that haunted them all.
Moonshadow said, “The reports are confused. Still, a great disaster has befallen our army. But we are dealing with the Black Company. The chance has always existed. We have prepared for it. We will regain our composure. We will deal with them. But there is a mystery from the fighting at Ghoja. Two dire figures were seen there, great dark beings on giant steeds that breathed fire. Beings immune to the bite of darts. The names Widowmaker and Lifetaker have been breathed by those who stood with the Black Company.”
This was news to the others. Stormshadow said, “We must learn more about this. It may explain their luck.”
The hole in the air: “You must act if you do not want to be devoured. I suggest you put aside terror, eschew squabbling, and cease the dispensation of accusation. I suggest you think of a way to go for the jugular.”
No one replied.
“Perhaps I will contribute myself when next fate tries to take its cut.”
“Well,” Stormshadow mused. “The fear has at last penetrated as far as Overlook.”
The bickering resumed, but without heart. Four minds rotated toward thwarting that doom from the north.
38
Invaders of the Shadowlands
Tired is not quite so important when you have just beaten the odds. You’ve got energy to celebrate.
I did not want a celebration. Enemy soldiers were still trying to get away. I wanted my men to get on with what we had to do while they still thought they were supermen. I had my staff together before the chaos started sorting itself out.
“Otto. Hagop. Come morning you head east along the river and break up the force guarding the prisoners building this levee system. Big Bucket, Candles, you guys get this side of the ford cleaned up. Look through these wagons and see what we’ve got. Mogaba, get the battlefield cleaned up. Collect weapons. One-Eye, get our casualties moved back to Vejagedhya. I’ll help when I get time. Don’t let those Taglian butchers do anything stupid.” We had a dozen volunteer physicians along. Their ideas of medicine were pretty primitive.
“Lady. What do we know about this Dejagore?” Dejagore was the nearest big city south of the Main, two hundred miles down the road. “Besides the fact that it’s a walled city?”
“A Shadowmaster makes his headquarters there.”
“Which one?”
“Moonshadow, I think. No. Stormshadow.”
“That’s it?”
“If you’d take prisoners you might find out something from them.”
I raised an eyebrow. She prodding me about excesses? “Keep that in mind, Otto. Bring those prisoners when you catch up.”
“All fifty thousand?”
“As many as don’t run away. I’m hoping some will be mad enough to help us out. The rest we can use for labor.”
Mogaba asked, “You’re going to invade the Shadowlands?”
He knew I was. He wanted a formal declaration. “Yes. They supposedly only have fifty thousand men under arms. We just creamed a third. I don’t think they can get another mob as big together in time if we go at them as hard as we can, as fast as we can.”
“Audacity,” he said.
“Yeah. Keep hitting them and don’t give them a chance to get their feet under them again.”
Lady chided, “They’re sorcerers, Croaker. What happens when they come out themselves?”
“Then Shifter will have to kick in. Don’t worry about the mules, just load the wagons. We’ve worked on sorcerers before.”
Nobody argued. Maybe they should have. But we all felt that fate had handed us an opportunity and we would be idiots to waste it. I figured too that since we had not expected to survive the first contest, we were out nothing by pressing onward.
“I wonder how beloved these Shadowmasters are to their subjects. Can we expect local support?”
No comment. We would find out the hard way.
Talk went on and on. Eventually I left it to help with the medical work, patching and sewing while issuing orders through a procession of messengers. I got me two hours sleep that night.
The cavalry was heading out east and Mogaba’s legion had begun its southward advance when Lady joined me. “Shifter has been scouting. He says you can detect an almost visible change as news of the battle spreads. The mass of people are excited. Those who collaborate with the Shadowmasters are confused and frightened. They’ll probably panic and run when
they hear we’re coming.”
“Good. Even great.” In ten days we would find out for sure how much impact Ghoja had had. I meant to advance on Dejagore at twenty miles a day. The roads south of the Main were dry. How lovely that must have been for them.
Jahamaraj Jah had gotten his survivors into position in time and set a series of clever ambushes. His mob scrubbed two thousand fugitives from Ghoja.
He was not pleased with my invasion plans. He was even less pleased when I drafted his followers and distributed them as replacements for men we had lost. But he did not argue much.
We encountered no resistance. In territories formerly belonging to Taglios we received warm welcomes in villages still occupied by their original inhabitants. The natives were cooler farther south but not inimical. They thought we were too good to be true.
We encountered our first enemy patrols six days south of Ghoja. They avoided contact. I told everybody to look professional and mean.
Otto and Hagop caught up, dragging along thirty thousand people from the levee project. I looked them over. They had not been treated well. There were some very angry, bitter men among them. Hagop said they were all willing to help defeat the Shadowmasters.
“Damn me,” I said. “A year and a half ago there were seven of us. Now we’re a horde. Pick out the ones in the best shape. Arm them with captured weapons. Add them to the legions so every fourth man in Mogaba’s and Ochiba’s is a new one. That would mean trained men left over, so move them over to Sindawe. Give him one in four, too. Should bring him up to strength. Anybody else we arm we can use as auxiliaries, and garrisons for some of these smaller cities.”
The countryside was not heavily populated between the river and here, but nearer Dejagore that would change. “The rest can tag along. We’ll use them somehow.”
But how would I feed them? We’d used up our own supplies and had started on those captured at Ghoja.
Dejagore looked less promising now. Some of the rescued prisoners hailed from that city. They said the walls were forty feet high. The resident Shadowmaster was a demon for keeping them up.