50

Light in the darkness, again. I began to be I, though without a name. I shied from the light. The light was not a pleasant place. The pain would be waiting. But something farther beneath my surface turned to the light like a drowning man fighting toward lifesaving air.

I became aware that I was flesh. I felt my muscles, tightened till some were cramped. My throat was painfully dry. I tried to talk. “Speaker . . . ” I rasped.

Someone stirred but no one replied. I was slumped in a chair.

The Nyueng Bao had no furniture in their place, which was little more than an animal den. Had they returned me to my own people?

I forced an eye open.

What the hell? What was this place? A dungeon? A torture chamber? Had Mogaba snatched me? There was a skinny little Taglian over there, tied into a chair just like mine, and another man was strapped onto a table.

That was Smoke, the Taglian royal wizard! I levered myself up. That hurt. A lot. The prisoner in the chair watched me warily. “Where am I?” I asked.

His wariness redoubled. His lips pursed. He said nothing. I looked around. I was in a dusty, almost barren chamber but the nature of the stone answered my question. I was in Taglios. This was the Royal Palace. There is no stone like this stone anywhere else.

How?

Ever seen paint run down a wall? That is what happened to reality. Right in front of my eyes it ran and dribbled and streaked. The man in the chair squeaked. He shook. I have no idea what he thought he saw. But reality drifted away and I was in a grey place, confused, filled with memories of things never experienced or seen. Then the confusion began to sort itself out and the grey washed away and in a short time I was in a room somewhere in the Palace at Trogo Taglios. Smoke lay on his table breathing slowly and shallowly as always. The Deceiver was in his seat. He earned a narrow-eyed glare because of the way he was sweating. What was he up to now?

His eyes bugged. What did he see when he looked at me? I rose, aware that I had to be recovering from one of my spells. But there was no one here who could have brought me back. Didn’t it take Croaker or One-Eye to drag me up out of the depths of darkness?

Hints of memory stirred in the deeps of my mind. I snatched at them, tried desperately to hang on. Something in a cavern. A song of shadow. Waking up once in a past long ago but still only a moment earlier in this time.

I was weak. This business was debilitating. And thirst was becoming a rage within me.

I could do something about that. A pitcher and metal cup stood on the table beside Smoke’s head. Beneath the cup I found a scrap of paper torn from a larger sheet. It carried a message in Croaker’s tight script. No time to coddle you now, Murgen. If you wake up on your own drink this water. There is food in the box. One-Eye or I will be back as soon as possible.

The scrap might have come from a procurement request. The Old Man hates to waste any fragment of blank paper. Paper is too damned dear.

I checked the tin box on the other side of Smoke’s head. It was filled with heavy, unleavened cakes of the sort my mother-in-law bakes despite all pleas to desist. In fact, on closer examination, I knew no one else could have baked them. If I survived here I would owe Croaker a swift kick in the slats.

P.S. Check the Strangler’s bonds. He nearly got away once already.

So that was what he was doing when I woke up. He wanted to worm out so he could murder me and my pal Smoke and then make a run for it.

I drank from the pitcher. The Deceiver looked at me with a longing you could almost smell. “Want a sip?” I asked. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

The man was not yet ready to sell his soul for a drink of water.

Soon after I wolfed down one of Mother Gota’s sinkers I felt my strength returning. “Let’s get you cinched up good and tight,” I told my companion. “Wouldn’t want you wandering off and getting hurt.”

He stared at me in silence while I fixed him up. He didn’t need to speak to let me know what was on his mind. I told him, “This is the risk you took when you signed on with the bad guys.”

He would not argue but he refused to agree. I was confused.

I was the bad guy because I wasn’t blazing hot on the effort to bring Kina back into the world. I patted his head. “You could be right, brother. But I hope not. Here.” I snatched up the cloth and drew it back over him, where it belonged. Then I drank some more water and ate part of a roll and when I got to feeling frisky I decided to return to my apartment. It was subjective as hell but it was an age since I had seen my wife. In reality it could not have been more than a few hours. I got lost.

51

Of course I got lost. It was inevitable. The future me within me did not recall anything else but it did remember that I was going to get lost, then find my way to someplace I was not trying to go. That much came to me just after I realized that I did not have a clue how to get back to any familiar part of the Palace. I stopped to take stock.

At that moment I had enough near-current memories of other Murgens from other times that I was ready to trust any memory from any time, though it came with no supporting context whatsoever.

This memory of getting lost carried flavors of the excitement of unexpected discovery and powerful overtones of pain. An echo told me I did not want to find my way again.

Somewhere, while still stubbornly trying to get out, I came upon a gloomy hallway that seemed to smell of old magic. A few yards away a shattered door hung precariously upon a single hinge.

Discovery beckoned. I went forward unafraid.

One look inside told me I had found Smoke’s secret library—the place where the only surviving copies of the first several Annals had been gathered and sealed away so there would be no chance we Black Company types would ever chance upon them. I wanted to read them so badly. But I had not come to read. I did not have time to sort the wheat from the chaff of a hundred other books. I had to get back to my family.

I strove valiantly but could not get there. Head spinning, I tried to retrace my steps. It looked like I would have to wait with Smoke until One-Eye or the Old Man turned up. They could lead me out the easy way and maybe tell me why I did not want to go, because that part would not come to mind clearly. I got back to Smoke easily, with no misturns. I had begun to suspect that there were spells webbed into that part of the Palace, cast so no intruder could find his way around the maze without One-Eye’s blessing. It might be that all paths led to the same destination. Or maybe they all led away if you did not start out with Smoke to begin.

That would not surprise me, though I had no idea if One-Eye had the skill and power to manage it. Nor would it surprise me to find out that he did not remember casting the spell in the first place, so had made no provision for me to get around it.

The Deceiver was wiggling when I returned, my step so soft he did not sense my presence immediately. He froze when he did. Give that man credit for determination.

I settled into the empty chair. I waited. Nobody came. It seemed hours passed but probably it was just a few long minutes. I got up and tramped around, back and forth. I tormented the Strangler some but that just made me feel bad, too. I covered him up and sat down again.

I stared at Smoke. I thought about the Black Company and its tribulations. I remembered what Smoke could do.

Why not? Just to kill time? But where to go? What to see? When?

Why not the great enemy again?

It was easy this time. Nothing to it. Like closing my eyes and drifting off into a reverie.

I did not go without some reluctance. I was spending way too much time beyond the normal pale, against my will. Why add to my confusion by going wandering on my own, too?

With almost a snap and pop I found myself adrift outside fortress Overlook. The mad sorcerer Longshadow stood atop one of his tall towers, amidst reflected light, less than ten feet away. I suffered a mild panic. He was looking right at me.

Right through me.

Behind him, stance mocking, was that wretch Narayan Singh, with Croaker’s kid, the mortal flesh of Kina, the Daughter of Night, the One Foretold who would bring on the Deceivers’ Year of the Skulls, which will end with the awakening of their goddess. Singh never let the child out of his sight. Singh was a dangerous tool but Longshadow needed every ally willing to join him.

Quite a few folks seemed willing to sign on against the Black Company.

A figure emerged from a hatchway apparently dark only because of the intensity of the light surrounding the mad wizard. This man was tall, ebony, lithe as a panther. No anger touched me because emotions turn pale in Smoke’s domain, although this was Mogaba, the most dangerous of the Shadowlander generals.

I suspect Longshadow appreciated Mogaba less for his abilities than because he could be trusted. Mogaba has nowhere to run. The Company stands astride every road to safety.

I cannot understand why Croaker does not hate Mogaba. Hell, he makes excuses for the man, even feels sorry for him. He takes his feud with Blade much more to heart.

Mogaba said, “Howler brought news. The storm system no longer works.”

Longshadow grunted. “I saw. My small shadows remain useful. I recall that I predicted they would catch on quickly. Have you any thoughts on how the woman Senjak could regain her powers when, by the nature of these things, she ought to be at the mercy of anyone who knows her True Name?”

I had a feeling he really wanted to know how Howler could survive a Lady with her powers restored and her old, wicked knowledge intact. Longshadow viewed the world through a lens of paranoia.

I wondered myself. About Lady’s powers. Croaker guessed it had something to do with crossing the equator. That did not sound plausible. Neither One-Eye nor Goblin would hazard a guess. Lady herself refused to discuss it. I had no idea what she believed. Nobody pressed. That was not something you did if you wanted to stay friendly with somebody like Lady. She can get real unpleasant if she doesn’t like you.

“No ideas,” Mogaba said. “It isn’t something I understand.” There were many things Mogaba did not understand, including any languages native to that region. He communicated with Longshadow using his improved but still flawed Taglian. “Maybe she changed her name.”

Could they do that?

I realized the remark was Mogaba’s attempt at a joke. But Longshadow did mull it over as though it was possible in some subjective fashion.

The moment passed. Longshadow faced Singh. “Deceiver. Why are you here? What machinations has the Howler involved you in now?”

Mogaba answered for Narayan. “The Black Company jumped them in their holy grove and killed everyone but him and the girl. Your shadowweavers barely had time to call for Howler before they died. Howler found these two hiding a few miles away and got them out only yards ahead of the pursuit.”

So. This was only a short while after our raid. And here was a surprise. I believed Narayan had gotten warning from the Shadowmaster. But he had not. So how had he shaken the sleep spell?

Mention of the shadowweavers rocked Longshadow. I thought he would fly into one of his famed foamy-mouthed rages. Those strange little old men were a resource he dared not squander. It took a lifetime to train them. And we have taken care of a bunch of them over the years.

Longshadow sucked in a deep breath, held it, restrained his insanity. “My error. I should not have sent them. Have you any idea how our enemies could appear at a time so propitious to their cause?”

Nobody volunteered the news that we could hover over his shoulder any time the urge hit.

Longshadow observed, “This is not good. Each day they develop new resources. Each day ours dwindle.” He glared at Singh. “What are we getting from these Deceivers?”

Mogaba replied. “They spy. Before long they will undertake selected assassinations. The enemy shows no awareness of that program. If their assassinations succeed the results will be of more value that anything but a decisive encounter on the battlefield.”

Mogaba invited comment from Singh with his glance but Narayan held his tongue.

Mogaba said, “Unfortunately, the intelligence the Deceivers gather grows less reliable with each report. The enemy have enjoyed considerable success in their efforts to eliminate the cult.”

Still no one else spoke.

Mogaba continued, “Lady and Croaker have become very aggressive against spies. I believe that indicates a major move is imminent.”

“It’s winter,” Longshadow said. “And my enemies are in no hurry. They are content to nibble me to death. This so-called Liberator will never be satisfied that he has men and weapons enough.”

He was right about that. Croaker never stopped going after more.

The Howler joined the group, stifling a scream as he did so. He husked, “The enemy labor battalions have completed the paved road linking Taglios and Stormgard. A similar road is almost complete from Stormgard to Shadowlight.”

Shadowlight lies near the heart of the most populous and prosperous region of the Shadowlands. Shadowspinner had been overlord there. Nominally, the city and its environs still owed allegiance to Longshadow. Yet our soldiers were building a road in the area untroubled.

I wondered why. Croaker’s strategic plan did not require it. He had no intention of besieging Shadowlight. That would tie up too many men for far too long.

Mogaba grumbled, “They press us everywhere. No day passes but that we hear of the fall of another town or village. Many places the locals no longer resist at all. And it would be folly to assume that Croaker and Lady will respect the season.”

Longshadow turned his dread mask toward Mogaba, who flinched. “Have you done anything to make it difficult to sustain a major campaign, General?”

An army must live off the land if it ventures far from home. You cannot carry enough food and fodder to sustain it any length of time.

“Very little.” Mogaba didn’t show an ounce of contrition. “I have my orders. And our enemies know what those orders are.

“What?” Now Longshadow was testy.

“They expect me to sit still.” Mogaba indicated Singh, who nodded agreement reluctantly. “Their strategy assumes that I will defend one fixed point. Because your orders constrain me to do just that they scatter their forces and attack everywhere. Blade cannot blunt their sword alone. The villages will not resist because the people know no help will come. I could defeat the fools in detail, in a short while, if our strategy changed suddenly.”

I don’t think so, I thought, floating there smug in the knowledge that we had Smoke.

“No!” Longshadow forced his quaking flesh to face southward. He glared at the plain of glittering stone. “We will discuss military matters in private only, General.”

Howler delivered a horrible scream edged with mockery. Singh practically dove through the hatchway. His contempt for the Shadowmaster was obvious to everyone but Longshadow himself though it was likely Longshadow would not have cared. To the Shadowmaster the Strangler was little more than a useful termite. In his mind none of us were much more than pesky insects.

The child left last. She considered Longshadow coldly. Her eyes seemed as old and wicked as time itself. She was a scary little thing for sure.

I wondered what the Old Man thought when he saw her.

Or if he even dared look.

Longshadow said, “They don’t think I know what I’m doing.”

“My soldiers are wasted where they are,” Mogaba replied. “They’re losing what edge they had.”

“You may be right. But to attack in any direction you will have to leave what protection I am able to afford you. Without my lost comrades I cannot reach nearly as far as once I did. Will you risk their sorcery without mine to support you?” Mogaba grunted. He glared at the glittering plain. “You believe I am a coward for fearing that, General?”

“I stipulate the danger. I grant the value of your protection. But there is much that I could do anyway. Blade has been allowed to act on a limited scale and has accomplished great things. For certain he has demonstrated repeatedly how these Taglians will collapse if you attack their weaknesses.”

“You trust Blade?”

“More than most. Like me, he has nowhere else to run. But I trust no one completely. Our allies least of all. Neither Howler nor the Deceiver joined us out of love for our cause.”

“Indeed.” Apparently amused, Longshadow seemed to relax. “I must explain, General.” Mogaba’s surprise told me that this was an extraordinary eventuality. “I do not stay bottled up here because of the plain. I can leave Overlook for short periods. I will if I must. The Shadowgate wards are fresh and strong and reliable and entirely under my control. But if I do venture out I will have to so do by stealth.” Mogaba grunted again.

“The reason I stay here is that there are some less obvious players in this game.”

Mogaba frowned. Sounded like a crock to me, too.

“Howler springs from that clan once known as The Ten Who Were Taken.”

“I know.”

“Stormshadow matriculated from that slave school as well. Another graduate was Senjak’s sister. They called her Soulcatcher.”

“I believe we’ve met.”

“Yes. She embarrassed you at Stormgard.” Actually, that was Lady that time. Wasn’t it?

Mogaba nodded. I was surprised. Time seemed to have given him the ability to manage his temper.

“Some years ago circumstances deceived Howler and I. We took Soulcatcher prisoner under the impression that we had captured her sister. She was masquerading as Senjak at the time so the mistake was more her fault than ours. She escaped during some confusion that arose later. Although we did not treat her severely she bears us a unreasonable ill will. She has done us mischief before now and awaits the opportunity to do us major harm.”

“You think if you left Overlook she might invite herself inside and forget to leave the door unlocked?”

“Exactly.”

Ha! Imagine hijacking that incredible fortress.

Mogaba sighed. “So whether I like it or not it will have to be decided on the Plain of Charandaprash.”

“Yes. Will you win?”

“Yes.” Mogaba never did lack confidence. “As long as Croaker remains the man I knew, scarred by that streak of softness.”

“If?”

“He hides behind a hundred masks. His soft streak may be another of those.”

“So this man concerns you despite your desire to discount him.”

“We continue to play to his strengths, not to attack his weaknesses. We allow him time to think, to plan, to maneuver, so he does not need to be subtle. His forces advance everywhere. Along the frontier the people are more afraid of the Black Company than of you. For pure viciousness there is nothing to match his war against Singh’s kind. The Croaker I remember would have taken prisoners. He would have pardoned Stranglers willing to abandon their religion.”

Right, I thought sarcastically. Then I reconsidered. Mogaba might be correct. Croaker had been forgiving, once upon a time.

“Maybe Senjak wants the example made.”

“Possibly, She is that hard. But her influence doesn’t explain Croaker’s having spent seven thousand lives trying to get Blade.”

What? This was news. “Blade deserted him.”

“I deserted him. And I was Company. Blade was only an adventurer, not a brother. He hasn’t come after me that way. With Blade he’s fighting a personal war.”

The falling out with Blade and Blade’s subsequent flight and defection baffled a lot of people, especially his buddies Cordy and Willow. And my name can go to the top of the list. Whispers were that Croaker stumbled onto something real going on between Lady and Blade. Whatever, it was certain that he was as obsessive about Blade as he was about Narayan Singh.

Lady did not interfere in Croaker’s vendetta. Neither did she help.

“That troubles you?”

“Croaker confuses me. In some ways he has become dangerously unpredictable. At the same time he becomes more and more the high priest of the Black Company legend, admitting no other gods before his precious Annals.”

That was not true. Croaker grew less interested all the time. But allow Mogaba his hyperbole. He wanted to sell something.

Mogaba continued, “I fear he may become so skewed he’ll attack in a way so novel we won’t recognize it until it’s too late.”

“As long as he comes. Only disaster awaits him.”

“He’ll come. But is the overall outcome so certain?” I got the feeling both men nurtured major doubts, but each mostly about the other.

“You circle back upon my constraints. Desist. You fear him?”

“I dread him. More than I dread Lady. Lady is straightforward in her enmity. She comes right at you with everything she has. Croaker is determined to flim-flam you into looking somewhere else while he sticks a knife in your back. He will come at you with everything he has, too, but how will he use it? He is not a man of honor.”

Mogaba didn’t really mean that Croaker was dishonorable but that he was not a gentleman in the sense that meant so much to Mogaba—who could not be considered a cavalier himself anymore.

Mogaba continued, “He is no longer sane. I do not believe he is sure what he is doing himself. These days he has to face much for which there is no precedent in his Annals.”

Wrong again, chappie. After four hundred years there is a precedent for everything in the Annals somewhere. The trick is knowing how to look.

“He has limits, General.”

“Of course. Those Taglians are factious and divisive.”

“And that could be his undoing. Politically he will have no option but to try his luck at Charandaprash soon. Where we will crush him.”

“And if I do? We should consider the possibilities of life unplagued by this disease called the Black Company.”

“Oh?”

“Winning one battle will not be enough. If even one of them survives and maintains possession of the Lance of Passion new armies will rise against us. Lady proved that.”

“Then you will have the pleasure of crushing them again.” Mogaba wanted to argue but elected not to bark into the wind.

“Once Overlook is complete you can hare off on any adventure you like, with my approval and with my total support.”

“Adventure?”

“I understand you better than you suppose. You were Gea-Xle’s greatest warrior but you could not prove that to yourself. In the Black Company you were overshadowed by your captain and Senjak. It was necessary for you to have command in order to demonstrate your scope and genius. When you did have an opportunity all your efforts were sabotaged and suborned. You came to me because the Black Company would not allow you the opportunity you need.”

Mogaba nodded. He did not seem pleased with himself, though. And that surprised me. I had thought him too self-centered to entertain moral doubts.

“Go. Conquer the world, General. I’ll enjoy helping you. But you have to crush the Black Company first. You have to stop the Taglians. Because you will have nothing if I fall. Will the Strangler be much help, really?”

“He could be. He talks big about his goddess getting involved but I won’t count on that. I’ve never seen the gods actually take a hand in mortal affairs.”

Odd. Mogaba’s god was Narayan’s goddess, more or less. Had Mogaba lost his faith? Maybe Dejagore had scarred him deeply, too.

“Use them up. Leave none over to turn on us later.” In my imagination the Shadowmaster was always this huge stinking devil incarnate, a colorful lunatic the magnitude of the worst Taken back in the north. But the real Longshadow was just a mean-spirited old man blessed with too much power.

He told Mogaba, “If this becomes the Year of the Skulls I want it to be our year. Not theirs.”

“Understood. What do you think of the child?”

Longshadow grunted uncomfortably.

“Spooky, right? A thousand years old. Her mother in miniature, only worse. More intense, with a deeper darkness inside.”

He could be right. The kid definitely looked weird and evil from my ghost’s eye view.

The Shadowmaster mused, “We may have to hurry her into the embrace of her goddess.”

Mogaba shrugged. He turned to go. “Anyone else you want to see alone?”

“Howler. Wait!”

“What?”

“Where is the Lance of Passion?”

“Wherever Croaker is, I imagine. Or the Standardbearer. That’s still that serpent Murgen, I believe.”

I love you too, Mogaba.

“We must take possession. Might that not be a task for the Deceivers? Even destroying the Black Company may not be enough in the long run. And one other thing for the Deceivers. Have them find out why Senjak wants all that bamboo.”

“Bamboo?”

Was there an echo?

“She has been stripping the Taglian territories for months. Wherever her soldiers go they loot bamboo.”

“That is curious. I will find out.” I followed Mogaba for a moment. Once he was clear of the parapet he muttered, “Bamboo. I have to humor a lunatic.”

I tried to travel south of Overlook. Smoke went only a short way before he balked. Well.

I would find out sooner than I wanted, I supposed. After we settled Longshadow and Overlook the plain was next on the list of obstacles blocking our path to Khatovar.

52

I returned to the chamber with Smoke and our stinky pet Strangler. I was hungry and thirsty but also so excited I shook. I had not uncovered much of resounding import, but, gods! The potential!

I drank from the pitcher, cleared my throat, lifted the corner of the cloth covering the prisoner. “You in there? Want a drink? Want to tell me?” He was asleep. “Be that way.”

So what now? Help had not arrived. I gnawed on one of Mother Gota’s stones. That eased my hunger. That was all I wanted at the moment.

What now? Keep going out until somebody came to reclaim me? See Lady? Look for Goblin? Hunt for Blade? How about finding out where Soulcatcher was hiding? She had to be out there somewhere, though we had not stubbed our toes on her lately. No place was free of crows if a member of the Company was around.

Soulcatcher is patient. That is her scariest trait.

It was kid-in-the-candy-shop time.

I decided to look for Soulcatcher. She was the oldest mystery going right now.

Smoke jumped right out, but then he stalled. His soul, or ka, or whatever, became more agitated as I grew more insistent. “All right! She always was more trouble than I want to deal with, anyway. Let’s find her goofy sister.”

Lady did not intimidate Smoke at all.

I found her in the citadel at Dejagore, in the conference chamber with four men, leaning over a map. The frontier markings on the map lay far south of Dejagore. Earlier boundaries were noted and identified by date.

She needed a new map. Her old one was too busy. She had won too many skirmishes.

Lady is a beauty even fresh from the field. She looks way too young for Croaker although she is far older than One-Eye. One-Eye never mastered any youth sorcery.

Two of Lady’s companions were Company men, Gea-Xle Nar anxious to show the world that Mogaba and his traitors were mutants, that their like would not be seen again. I did not buy that. Neither did Lady or the Old Man. We were confident that Mogaba had left somebody behind. Croaker once told me, “Watch out for somebody to start pointing fingers. That’ll be the traitor.”

A third man was the Prahbrindrah Drah, the ruling Prince of Taglios. He was about as nondescript, for a Taglian, as a man could be and still be breathing. He put in the last four years learning the arts of war. He commanded a full division now, the right wing of the field army. Lady and the Old Man took pains to entangle him deeply in their war machine so he had a personal stake to maintain there.

The last man was the improbable Willow Swan. When I focused on him Smoke became agitated, which proved to me Smoke’s self was partially aware on some plane. He and Swan had gotten on like rats and mice.

These days Swan is the captain of the Royal Guards detachment assigned to Dejagore.

Swan wears his cornsilk hair longer than Lady does her shoulder-length black hair. Sometimes Willow braids his but at the moment it was pulled back into a ponytail. Lady’s hair was back in a tail, too. Usually she lets it hang free. She did keep it combed and clean when she could.

A soldier by accident, Swan did not want to be a hero. His Guards existed outside the army and functioned mainly as military police. He and they owed their allegiance directly to the Prince and his sister.

Lady said, “Howler has quit attacking outposts.”

“You said he ain’t stupid,” Swan replied.

“I got too close when I missed him. That scared him off for good.”

One of the Nar observed, “Our raids must trouble them.”

“They trouble me, Isi. And I authorized them.” Lady shivered momentarily.

“They are effective.”

“Beyond a doubt.”

The Prince asked, “But would the Liberator approve?”

Lady’s smile revealed glistening white teeth that were almost too perfect. She had mastered the cosmetic sorceries early. “He doesn’t approve. Definitely. But he won’t interfere. I’m the one who is here and I’m relying on my own experience.”

The Prince asked, “Will Longshadow unleash Mogaba?” The Nar brigadiers tensed. Mogaba shamed them greatly by letting pride and vanity seduce him away from the ancient ideals of the Nar. Not to mention he was going to be blue-assed hell in a fight.

Swan asked, “You take any prisoners down there?”

“Yes. And what they knew would fit into a thimble with room left for a stork’s nest. Nobody responsible down there ever sits around the campfire swapping secrets with the troops.”

Swan stared at her while her gaze was directed elsewhere. He saw a woman five and a half feet tall, blue-eyed, 110 perfectly arranged pounds. She was big for this part of the world. She looked like she might turn twenty soon. That old black magic. Swan was transparent.

Lady is cold and hard and committed and deadlier than a sword with a will of its own, but these guys just can’t seem to help themselves. It started with the Old Man way back but the parade goes on. The fever cost Blade big.

Despite what may have happened with Blade I am convinced that Lady is the Captain’s woman absolutely. Whatever happened, Croaker took it to heart. He drove a good man over to the enemy and became something as cold as Lady himself. Half the time, anymore, Croaker is this living wargod so fierce that when he barks even the Prince and the Radisha jump. Aloud, Lady wondered what Howler’s raids were meant to accomplish. Swan blurted Bucket’s answer. “He wanted to pick off Black Company guys. That’s obvious.”

“Isi?” Lady asked. “Is there more?”

One of the Nar replied, “Mogaba wouldn’t test himself against lesser men. Longshadow might want to remove those so he can better manipulate Mogaba’s obsessions. Or he might be trying to initiate the final battle by being a continuous irritant.”

The Prince nodded to himself. Now he was watching Lady with that gleam in his eye.

Was it the fatal lure of evil?

“Perhaps he does want to bring Croaker to the front.”

How many times over the centuries has Lady stood like that, about to loose fire and sword? She said, “We do need to move this headquarters nearer to the action. The communications lag has become unacceptable. Swan. Hand me that map there.”

Swan plucked a map off a sideboard cluttered with mystic paraphernalia. His caution indicated that he found that stuff obscure and wanted it to stay that way.

The map portrayed the far south. A large blank space on its left was labelled Shindai Kus, which was a desert. Beyond the unmapped nether edge of the desert was additional blank space labeled Ocean.

Beginning in the Shindai Kus, running east and curving northward, are mountains generically refered to as the Dandha Presh. They become rougher and rougher as they swerve around to form, eventually, the eastern limits of the Taglian territories. The range changes its local name frequently. It is supposed to be impassable east of the Shindai Kus except through the high pass at Charandaprash.

Longshadow, Shadowcatch and Overlook lie on the far side of the Dandha Presh. Mogaba’s army was the cork in the pass bottlenecking the road south. For ages a common subject when officers were not listening was how badly would we get whipped if we took a crack at Mogaba.

A racket apparently arose outside because Swan jumped to the window. “A courier,” he announced. I could hear no sound from outside that room. In fact, when I did glance out the window I could see nothing but greyness. Strange.

Lady elbowed Swan aside. “Can’t be good news. Get him before he talks too much.”

Swan returned quickly. “It’s not too bad. Seems a really huge mob of Shadar and Vehdna fanatics were chasing Blade and had the bad luck to catch him.”

What? That wasn’t news. I knew about it. The Shadowmaster knew about it . . . Of course. Lady did not have a Smoke or a screaming-nut sidekick with a flying carpet. And I had known for just a little while. Maybe it seemed longer because I learned it so far away.

“What are you babbling?” Lady demanded.

“Blade wiped out over five thousand religious goofs who were after him to punish him for his religious excesses.” Blade was pretty hard on temples and priests when he had the opportunity.

His religious attitude had a lot to do with his running away, too. He had made thorough, blood-bitter enemies of all Taglian priests long before his falling out with the Old Man. The devout considered his fall from favor a blessing from heaven.

I was confident that the priests secretly looked forward to all of our fates becoming gifts from the angels.

“Five thousand?”

“Maybe more. Maybe up to seven thousand.”

“Loose on their own? How could that happen?” Neither the ruling family nor we liked having huge groups of armed men not under our control blundering around righting wrongs. “Out. All of you, out of here. Come back in two hours.”

Lady started murmuring the instant she was alone. “That damned Croaker.” She grabbed stuff off the sideboard. “He’s out of his mind.”

I learned that you got damned focused out there with Smoke. Time could rush past if you let yourself become introspective.

Fragments of all that was happening to me came to me in no rational order and I almost got lost trying to piece the puzzle together.

Realization, and resulting terror, feeble as it was out there, brought me back to the present in the place I was watching when I lost my concentration. Hours had passed.

Lady was still grumbling about the Old Man. “What’s the matter with him? How could he believe those damned rumors?”

She was angry. She had managed some mystic scrying of the distant battlefield as it appeared after the event. All that carnage had left her more upset. “Damned fool!” It was the worst disaster for Taglian arms since Dejagore.

From some hidden recess in the sideboard she produced a piece of black cloth. I was startled, despite having studied her Annals closely. That was the silk rumel of a master Strangler. She began exercising with the killing scarf.

Maybe that helped her relax.

She was upset because she had been left out of something. Usually she was the Captain’s partner.

Got you a clue, woman, I thought. Lately he is cutting everybody out.

Lady’s scarf flashed. She was good. I wondered. Was there still some connection with Kina?

Did Croaker fear there might be?

They were not called Deceivers for nothing.

She calmed herself. She sent for her council. Once they gathered she said, “There were survivors from that battle. Some are still there burying the dead. Catch me a few.”

53

Croaker never came to the hidden room. Neither did One-Eye, nor even the Radisha to torment our prisoner. Nobody wakened me.

I drifted back there almost without design, perhaps summoned by my body. I had been gone a long time. Longer than the subjective time spent out there. My stretch of introspection must have extended farther than it had seemed.

My stomach was roaring. But Mother Gota’s baked rocks were all gone.

The Strangler had gotten the cloth off himself again. He watched me wide-eyed. I got the feeling he had been about to do something that I would regret.

I discovered that he had managed to work one hand free. “You naughty boy.” I took a long pull off the pitcher of water, then fixed him up again. Then I tried to decide whether to risk the labyrinth once more, in an effort to get to some of Mother Gota’s lethal chow, or to stay and take yet another look at the wide world through Smoke’s eyes while I awaited help.

“Water.”

“Sorry, pal. I don’t think so. Unless maybe you want to tell me what your buddies are up to.” My belly grumbled again.

The Strangler did not answer. Weak as he was, his will remained firm. Even ignoring my own presence it seemed somebody should have come to feed him.

It was late. Maybe Mother Gota was asleep and Sarie would handle my meal. She did not cook like she was out for vengeance.

I was at the doorway, trying to make up my mind. Was there some way to mark my passage? Some way to follow footprints in the dust? But there was no light. This part of the Palace was not in regular use. No one maintained any candles or torches. The lamp in the chamber behind me would be the only light available. Unless I waited till daylight, when the sun would steal in through random cracks and tiny windows.

I glanced back at the lamp. It had been burning a long time. No one had been by to fuel it. I ought to see about refilling it before I did anything else.

There was a metallic sound from far, far away, come around a hundred corners and down the rambling halls. It chilled me despite Taglios’s natural heat and humidity.

“Water.”

“Shut up.” I found a beaker of lamp oil, cocked my head while I worked. The metallic sound did not repeat itself.

I had not covered the Strangler again. When I glanced at him I discovered his deathshead face stretched in a grin. It was the grin of Death.

Spilling oil, I flung myself out of there.

I got lost again. Fast.

54

Lost in the Palace was not a matter for panic so I didn’t. I confess to a certain amount of frustration, though.

You would think my situation vulnerable to the application of common sense. I sure thought so.

One good rule proved to be not to enter any corridor dustier than the one I was using. Another was to avoid apparent shortcuts religiously. They never led anywhere I wanted to go. Most important was, don’t yield to emotion or frustration.

The Palace is the only place in the world where you can step through a doorway and end up on a different floor. I found out the hard way. And it was not any sort of elf magic. It came from the place being a conglomeration of ages and ages of add-ons built upon very uneven ground.

My anxiety reached the point where I elected to pursue what seemed the wimp route. I decided to go down to ground level, find one of the Palace’s thousand postern doors, which can be opened only from the inside, and get out into the street. Out there I would know where I was. I would walk around to the entrance I used regularly. Then I would be home.

It is really dark in there in the middle of the night. I found that out after I stumbled descending a stair and dropped my lamp.

It broke, of course. And for a while there was a lot of light down below. But soon the fire burned out.

Oh, well. It was a certainty that there would be a door to the street below. The stairwell curved down against an exterior wall. I had leaned out a window to make sure before I ever entered it.

Descending an ancient stair that spirals isn’t easy when there are no handrails and you cannot see what you are doing. Nevertheless, I got to the bottom without breaking any bones, although I did slip a couple of times and endured one long spell of vertigo after passing through the smoke from the burned lamp fuel.

Eventually the stair ended. I felt around for a door. As I did so I frowned. What was I doing? Took me a moment to reach back into my head and bring up the answer.

I found the door, felt around for a release. I found an old fashioned wooden latch bar, which was not what I expected at all.

I yanked, pushed. The door swung outward.

Wrong answer to your problem, Murgen.

Within that fastness nothing moves, though at times mists of light shimmer as they leak over from beyond the gates of dream. Shadows linger in corners. And way down inside the core of the place, in the feeblest throb of the heart of darkness, there is life of a sort.

A massive wooden throne stands upon a dais at the heart of a chamber so vast only a sun could light it all. Upon that throne a body sprawls, veiled by shoals of shadow, pinioned by silver knives driven through its feet and hands. Sometimes that body sighs softly in its sleep, impelled by bitter dreams acrawl behind its sightless eyes.

This is survival of a sort.

In the night, when the wind no longer licks through its unglazed windows, nor prances along its untenanted halls, nor whispers to its million creeping shadows, that fortress is filled with the silence of stone.

55

No will.

No identity. At home in the house of pain.

56

There you are! Where have you been? Welcome back to the house of pain!

57

The house of pain. I went there but do not remember the journey or the visit.

I was on hands and knees on broken pavement. My palms and knees hurt. I lifted a hand. My palm was torn. Blood oozed from a dozen abrasions. My mind was numb. I raised my other hand, began picking out bits of paving brick.

Fifty yards away the side of a building glowed olive, pulsating. A circle of masonry blew outward. Shadows sprang out of the darkness. With weapons bare they scrambled through the hole. Shouts and the clang of metal came from inside.

I got up and wandered that direction, vaguely interested but not sure why, not even thinking definable thoughts.

“Hey!” A shadow at that hole stared at me. I did not yell so that must have been the shadow. “That you, Murgen?”

I kept walking, head spinning. My course curved to the right. I banged into the side of a building. After that I had a sure means of navigation. Like a drunk I steered by keeping one hand on the wall.

“Here he is!” The shadow pointed at me.

“Candles?”

“Yeah. You all right? What did they do to you?”

I had little pains everywhere. I felt like I had been stabbed and cut and burned. “Who? Nobody did anything . . . ” Did they? “Where am I? When?”

“Huh?”

A man leaned through the side of the building. He wore a scarf wrapped around his face. Only his eyes were visible. He studied me momentarily, popped back inside. Somebody in there yelled.

People jumped into the street. Some carried bloody weapons. All were masked. A couple grabbed my arms and took off.

We scurried through darkened streets in a nighted city and no one would answer my panted questions so for a while I had no idea when I was, or where. Then we crossed an open space from which I glimpsed the citadel of Dejagore.

That answered my most immediate questions.

But a new crop sprouted. Why were we outside the Company’s part of town? How had I gotten there? Why didn’t I have any memories of this? I recalled sitting with Ky Dam, secretly lusting after his granddaughter . . . 

The men accompanying me removed their wraps and masks. They were Company. Plus Uncle Doj and a couple of Nyueng Bao sprites. We ducked into an alleyway that led to Nyueng Bao territory. “Slow down,” I gasped. “What’s going on?”

“Somebody snatched you,” Candles explained. “At first we thought Mogaba did it.”

“Huh?”

“Shadowspinner’s taken his whole army off after Lady. We could walk away if we wanted. We thought he decided to take a hostage.”

I did not believe Spinner was gone. “Uncle Doj. The last thing I remember was sipping tea with the Speaker.”

“You began to behave oddly, Stone Soldier.”

I growled. He did not apologize.

“The Speaker thought perhaps you had been drinking before you arrived. He instructed Thai Dei to take you home. He was offended. You proved to be such a burden that Thai Dei was unable to defend himself when you were attacked. He was beaten badly but managed to get home with word. Your friends began looking for you as soon as we informed them.” His tone suggested that he wondered why they had bothered. “They seem more skilled than they pretend. They pinpointed you quickly. You were not in the citadel, which is where Mogaba would have confined you.”

“How did I get clear across town?” I winced. In addition to the other pains I had a hangover-type headache. I had been drugged.

Nobody had an answer for me.

“Is this the same night, Uncle?”

“Yes. But many hours later.”

“And it definitely wasn’t Mogaba that grabbed me?”

“No. There were no Nar in that place. In fact, soon after you were taken someone attacked Mogaba, too. They may have planned to murder him.”

“Jaicuri?” Maybe the locals wanted to get to the heart of the problem.

“Perhaps.” He did not sound convinced. Maybe he should have taken prisoners.

“Where’s One-Eye?” Only One-Eye could have ripped that hole in the wall back there.

Candles told me, “Covering our backtrail.”

“Good.” I was near normal now. Which meant I was as confused as ever, I guess. Whoever grabbed me had done some slick work to sneak through Nyueng Bao territory unnoticed.

Uncle Doj divined my thoughts. “We have not determined how the villains managed to ambush you, nor how the others got so close to Mogaba. Those four did pay in blood.”

“He killed them?”

“By all reports it was an epic battle, four against one.”

“Goody for Mogaba. Even he deserves a little happiness in life.” We were approaching the tenement that masqueraded as Company headquarters. I invited everybody in. The boys got a fire going. When One-Eye showed up I suggested he see if he could not scare up some beer, that I had heard there was some floating around and we sure could use a drink.

Grumbling, One-Eye returned to the night. Before long he and Goblin turned up lugging a barrel. “On me,” I told everybody. One-Eye made a whining noise.

I stripped down and flopped onto a table. Which is why the fire. To take the edge off the chill. “How do I look, One-Eye?”

His tone was that of a man responding to a stupid question. “Like a guy that’s been tortured. You don’t know how you ended up in the street?”

“My guess is they heard you coming and tossed me out to distract you while they got away.”

“Didn’t work. Roll onto your side.”

I spotted a face outside the open door. “Come in here. Have a beer with us.”

The outsider Sindhu joined us. He accepted a mug but appeared to be very uncomfortable.

I noted how closely Uncle Doj watched him.

58

It was still that same adventurous night. I was still disoriented, still hurting and definitely still exhausted but here I was wrapping a rope around me so I could rappel down the outside of the wall. “You sure the Nar can’t see us from the gate tower?”

“Damn it, Kid, will you just go? You fuss worse than a mother-in-law.”

One-Eye might know. He has had several.

I started down. Why did I let Goblin and One-Eye con me into this?

Two Taglian soldiers were waiting when I reached the crude raft. They helped me board. I asked, “How deep is the water?”

“Seven feet,” the taller man replied. “We can pole across.”

The rope stirred. I held it. Soon the outsider Sindhu dropped onto the raft. Mine was the only help he got. The Taglians wouldn’t even acknowledge his existence. I tugged the rope three times hard to let the top end know we were going. “Start poling.”

The Taglians were volunteers chosen in part because they were well rested. They were quite happy to be leaving the city and depressed because they would not get to stay gone.

They considered this crossing an experiment. If we made it over, slipped through the southerners, then got back to Dejagore tomorrow night or the next soon whole fleets would hazard the crossing.

If we got back. If Shadowspinner’s men did not intercept us. If we found Lady at all, which the soldiers did not know to be part of the mission . . . 

One-Eye and Goblin browbeat me into looking for Lady. Never mind them injuries, Kid. They ain’t shit. Sindhu was along because Ky Dam thought it was a good idea to get him out of Dejagore. Sindhu’s opinion had not been asked. The Taglians were supposed to guard me and provide strong backs. Uncle Doj had wanted to come but had failed to convince the Speaker.

The crossing was uneventful. Once we stepped ashore I retrieved a tiny green wooden box from my pocket and released the moth inside. It would fly back to Goblin, its arrival announcing my safe arrival.

I had several more boxes, each a different color and each containing a moth to be released in a particular circumstance. As we started to move up a ravine Sindhu quietly volunteered to take the point. “I am experienced at this sort of thing,” he told me. And I believed him within minutes. He moved very slowly, very carefully, making no sound.

I did all right but not as well. The two Taglians might as well have worn cowbells.

We had not gone far before Sindhu hissed a warning. We froze while grumbling Shadowlanders filed across our track twenty yards uphill. I caught only enough conversation to understand that they prefered a warm blanket to a night patrol through the hills. Surprise. You would think things would be different in somebody else’s army.

We encountered another patrol an hour later. It, too, passed without detecting our presence.

We were past the ridgeline when dawn began creeping in from the east, extending visibility to the point where it was too dangerous to keep moving. Sindhu told me, “We must find a place of concealment.”

Standard procedure in unfriendly territory. And it was no problem. The ravines out there were choked with brush. A man could disappear underneath easily as long as he remembered not to wear his orange nightshirt.

We disappeared. I started snoring seconds after we went to ground. And I did not go anywhere else, or anywhen.

The smell of smoke wakened me. I sat up. Sindhu rose at almost the same instant. I found a crow studying me from so close I had to cross my eyes to focus on him. The Taglian who was supposed to be keeping watch was sleeping. So much for well-rested. I said nothing. Neither did Sindhu.

In moments my fears were confirmed. A southern voice called out. Another answered. Crows laughed. Sindhu whispered, “They know we are here?” It sounded like he had trouble believing that.

I lifted a finger, requesting silence. I listened, picked out a few words. “They know somebody is here. They don’t know who. They’re unhappy because they can’t just kill us. The Shadowmaster wants prisoners.”

“They aren’t trying to lure us out?”

“They don’t know any of us can understand some of their dialect.” The albino crow in front of me cawed and flapped its way up out of the brush. About twenty others joined it.

“If we cannot evade them we must surrender. We must not fight.” Sindhu was an unhappy young man.

I agreed. I was an unhappy young man myself. The Taglian soldiers were two more unhappy young men.

We evaded nothing and no one. The crows found our efforts amusing.

59

Time had no meaning. The Shadowmaster’s camp lay somewhere north of Dejagore. We four were among the earliest prisoners taken but more soon joined us in our pen. Lots of Mogaba’s guys wanted to leave town.

He would have less trouble feeding the ones who stayed behind.

One-Eye and Goblin seemed to hold our part of town together. Nobody I knew became a prisoner.

I did not send any more moths so they knew I had found trouble instead of Lady.

Even our guards had no notion how Spinner meant to use us. We were happier not knowing, probably.

I spent uncounted days in total misery. Piglets in a feed lot live better than we did. More and more prisoners arrived. The food was inadequate. After a few meals everybody got the runs. There were no sewage provisions, not even a simple slit trench. They would not let us dig our own. Maybe they did not want us getting too comfortable.

In fact our life was not much worse than that of the Shadowlander private soldiers. They had nothing anymore and could expect only nothing. They indulged in a ferocious desertion rate despite the Shadowmaster’s reputation. They hated Shadowspinner for putting them into such an awful state. They took their anger out on us.

I do not know how long we were there. I lost track. I was busy trying to die from dysentery. I noticed only that there was a sudden absence of crows one day. I was so used to having crows around that anymore I noticed them only when they were not there.

I faded in and out. I suffered a bunch of my spells. They were more frequent now and left me emotionally drained. The shits left me physically drained.

If I could only get some sleep . . . 

Sindhu wakened me. I recoiled from his touch. It was astonishingly cold and seemed vaguely reptilian. I was the only man in the pen he knew so he wanted to be my pal. I was willing to do without a friend. He offered me a cup of water. It was a rather nice tin cup. Where did he get that? “Drink,” he said. “It’s clean water.” All around us prisoners lay in the mud twitching endlessly in haunted sleep. Some cried out. Sindhu continued, “Something is going to happen.”

“What?”

“I felt the breath of the goddess.”

For an instant I smelled something that was not the stink of vomit or unwashed bodies or dead men or pools of liquid shit, too.

“Ah,” Sindhu whispered. “It’s happening now.” I looked where he pointed.

The happening something was going on inside the big tent belonging to the Shadowmaster. Lights of strange color flickered and flared. “Maybe he’s getting something special ready for somebody.” Maybe he had Lady spotted.

Sindhu snorted. He seemed to thrive in these conditions.

The something went on a long time but attracted no attention. I became suspicious. I had Goblin’s ward against sleep spells set on me. Oh . . . ? I dragged myself to the compound fence. When nobody smashed me back with the butt of a spear I was sure. The camp was under an enchantment.

Sindhu’s water gave me strength quickly and started my brain perking. It occurred to me that if no one was inclined to stop me this might be the perfect time to take leave of the Shadowmaster’s hospitality. I started worming my way between the fence rails.

My stomach rumbled in protest. I ignored it. Sindhu grabbed my arm. His grip was iron. He said, “Wait.”

I waited. What the hell? That was one of my favorite arms. I didn’t want to deprive myself of its company.

The moon began to rise, a big old squashed orange egg in the east. Sindhu continued to restrain me and continued to stare at the big tent.

A shriek drifted down from high above. “Holy shit,” I muttered. “Not him.”

Sindhu cursed, too. He was so startled that he let me go. He glared upward.

“That’s the Howler,” I told him. “Really bad news. Shadowspinner could take advanced cruelty lessons from him.”

The side of Spinner’s tent opened. Out rushed a bunch of people carrying what proved to be human body parts. I recognized some of them. The people, that is. Who could mistake Willow Swan with his wild yellow mane? Or Lady, who carried a severed head by its mangy hair? And Blade was only a step behind her, his ebony skin shiny in the moonlight. I did not recognize any of the others.

The sleep spell on the camp, laid rather poorly, unravelled. Southerners jumped up to ask what was happening. Metal clanged and jingled as weapons and mail were located.

One of Lady’s companions, a huge Shadar, started bellowing something about bowing down to the true Daughter of Night.

Sindhu chuckled. Nothing bothered him, it seemed. He could take anything.

He was not holding on to me but I no longer had the strength or inclination to go anywhere.

60

They pulled it off, Lady and her damnfool gang. Audacity pays. They slipped into the camp, murdered Shadowspinner, and when they got caught they convinced the southerners that it was all fated and they should not go doing anything because of that. I could not be much of a witness to their mass conversion. My bowels overruled my desire to observe. I spent most of my time making a worse mess of myself.

At some point our former guards decided to bring us to Lady’s attention in an effort to curry favor.

Blade recognized us as they brought us out of the pen.

Blade looks like he might have been born Nar. Like them he is tall, black and muscular, without an ounce of fat on him. He says little but has a strong presence. His background is shadowy. He ran with Willow Swan and Cordy Mather, who saved him from crocodiles several thousand miles north of Taglios. What everyone knew for sure, what Blade made no effort to hide, was that he hated priests, singly, collectively, and without any prejudice whatsoever where belief system was concerned. Once I thought he was an atheist who hated the whole idea of gods and religion, but after further exposure I decided it was only the retailers of religion he detested. That suggested sharp incidents in his past.

No matter now. Blade took Sindhu and I away from our guards. “Standardbearer, you stink.”

“Call out the ladies in waiting. Let them give me a bath.” I could not remember my last bath. In Dejagore we did not waste water on trivialities.

Of course, now we could bathe all we wanted although the water would be unclean.

Blade obtained fresh clothing by the expedient of robbing some southern officers, had us clean up and visit the inadequate field physicians Croaker had tried to train for the Taglian forces.

They knew less about stopping the drizzling shits than I did.

It was daylight when Lady saw me. She already knew the prisoners were deserters from the city. She was blunt. “Why did you run out, Murgen?”

“I didn’t. We decided somebody had to come find you. I lost the election . . . Uh.” She was in a bleak mood, apparently pretty sick herself. Never mind the humor, Murgen. “One-Eye and Goblin figured I was the only trustworthy guy who had any chance of getting through. They couldn’t leave. I didn’t make it, though.”

“Why did you feel the need to send someone?”

“Mogaba elected himself god. With the water around us, keeping the southerners back, he doesn’t need to get along with anybody who doesn’t agree.”

Sindhu said, “The black men believe they serve the goddess, mistress. But their heresies are grotesque. They have become worse than unbelievers.”

I pricked up my ears. Maybe I would learn something about Sindhu’s bunch. I had bones to pick with them. I had not yet found any evidence to suggest that it was not them who kidnapped me and took a crack at murdering Mogaba.

Still, I could not imagine why they would bother.

Sindhu and Lady talked. Her questions sounded vaguely doctrinal. Sindhu’s replies made no sense.

Once Lady interrupted the interview to be sick. A skinny little gink named Narayan, who kept hanging around, seemed inordinately pleased. I noted that Sindhu showed him considerable deference.

I was not happy. The little I knew of their cult assured me that I did not want them influencing my captains.

The interview ended. Blade’s cronies took me away. I got to hang out with Swan and Mather, meaning I had somebody to speak a reasonable language with for a while, but soon I felt like a forgotten man.

“What are we doing?” I asked Swan.

“I don’t know. Cordy and I just tag along behind Her Lordship pretending not to be watching her for the Prabrindrah Drah and Radisha.”

“Pretending?”

“Ain’t much good being a spy if everybody knows it, is there? Anyway, Cordy gets to do all the worrying. He’s the one playing pattycake with the Woman.”

“You mean that ain’t just a vicious rumor? He’s really plooking the Radisha?”

“Hard to believe, ain’t it? She’s got a face like . . . Hey! Cordy! Where’s them cards? We got us a pigeon here thinks he can play tonk.”

“Thinks? Swan, you’re gonna think I invented the game if you get into it with me.”

Mather was a nondescript character of average height with ginger hair who stood out only because he was white in a land where nobody but harem girls, kept out of the sun from birth, had fair skin. He asked, “Willow’s mouth running away with him again?”

“Maybe. I’ve made a career of playing tonk. Hell, they boot you out of the Black Company if you don’t make journeyman player.”

Mather shrugged. “Then you’ll twist Willow’s head back around straight for him. Here. Deal. I’ll see if the mighty general Blade wants to sit in.”

Swan grumbled, “That would take him out of sight of Lady.” Sounded like some sour grapes there. Mather showed him a smirk that confirmed my guess.

“What is it about her?” I asked. “Every damned guy that walks on his hind legs gets near her for five minutes, he starts floating around with his tongue hanging down, banging into things. But I’ve been around her for years. I can see she’s got the right stuff in the right places put together about as good as you could want but I don’t think I could get excited even if she didn’t used to be the Lady and she wasn’t married to the Old Man.” Not that that was literally true. They had not even bothered to jump over a sword.

Swan shuffled. “Cut?”

I cut. I always cut. One-Eye taught me that.

Swan asked, “You really don’t feel it? Man, she comes around me and my brain goes south. And she’s a widow now so . . . ”

“I don’t think so.”

“What?”

“She ain’t no widow. Croaker is still alive.”

“Shit. That’d be my luck, too. You want to stack Cordy a hand, make him think he’s got a winner, then skunk him?” As soon as I shook my head he wanted to know how come I thought Croaker was alive. I evaded a definitive answer for the few moments it took Mather to return.

“Blade’s too busy looking for an angle to use while he’s close to the magic. You load me up again, Willow?No? Bullshit. Let’s just pick them up and deal them over.”

“Ain’t this the story of my life?” I grumbled. “Look here.” I had two aces, a pair of deuces and a trey. An automatic winner, damned near couldn’t be beat. “And that’s a true natural, no help.”

Swan snickered. “Don’t matter. You don’t got anything to do anyway.”

“You got a point. Why don’t you guys come over to Dejagore? I’ll buy you a mug of One-Eye’s home brew.”

“Ha! Competition, huh?” Swan and Mather had gone into the brewing business back when they first came to Taglios. They were out of the racket now, among their reasons the fact that the priests of all the native religions condemned the use of alcohol.

“I doubt it. The only thing good about their brew is it gets you skunked.”

“That was the only good thing about the rat piss we made,” Mather said. “My dear old daddy the brewmaster rolled over every time we tapped another keg.”

“We never laid any beer up,” Swan countered. “Soon as it was ripe we skimmed the scum off and poured it down Taglian throats. And don’t buy that shit about his daddy, neither. Old Man Mather was a tax assessor who was so dumb he didn’t take bribes.”

“Shut up and deal.” Mather snatched up his cards. “He did brew his own beer. And Swan’s old man was a hod carrier.”

“But a handsome one, Cordy. And a lover. I inherited his good looks.”

“You take after your mother. And if you don’t do something about that hair pretty soon you’re going to wind up in somebody’s harem.”

This was a side of these guys I had not seen before. But I had not spent much time loafing with them. They were not Company. I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on my cards and let them tell me about who they used to be before the wander-dust settled on their shoes and set them roving against all odds. “What about you, Murgen?” Swan asked after he noticed that I was winning more than my share of hands. “Where did you come from?”

I told them about growing up on a farm. There wasn’t anything exciting about my life until I decided that farming wasn’t what I wanted to do. I joined one of Lady’s armies, found out I didn’t like the way things were done there, deserted and joined up with the Black Company, which was the only place I could hide with the provost after me.

Mather asked, “You ever regret leaving home?”

“Every goddamned day, Mather. Every goddamned day. It was boring raising potatoes but not one time did I ever did have a spud try to stick a knife in me. I was hardly ever hungry and almost never cold and the landlord was all right. He made sure his tenants had enough before he took his share. He didn’t live much better than we did. Oh, and the only magic we ever saw was the kind your wandering conjurers perform at town fairs.”

“So why not go home?”

“Can’t.”

“If you’re careful and don’t look prosperous and don’t go around pissing people off you can travel almost anywhere safely. We did.”

“I can’t go home because home ain’t there no more. A Rebel army came through a couple years after I left.” The Company passed through later still, marching from somewhere unpleasant to somewhere where we would be unhappy. The whole country had been turned desert in the name of freedom from the tyranny of the Lady’s empire.

61

Lady sent for me after six days. I had shaken the runs and had eaten well enough to regain a few of the pounds I lost in the pen. I still looked like a refugee from hell. And I was. I was indeed.

Lady did not look good. Tired, pale, under severe pressure, apparently still fighting the sickness that had her puking the other day. She wasted no time on small talk. “I’m sending you back to Dejagore, Murgen. We’re getting disturbing reports about Mogaba.”

I nodded. I had heard some of them. Every night more rafts crossed the lake. The deserters and refugees always were astonished to learn that Shadowspinner was dead and Lady controlled his army though that was evaporating through desertion, too.

Lady was a hard one. My guess was she meant to let the problem posed by Mogaba solve itself despite what that would cost Taglios and the Black Company.

“Why?” That was not smart. All those Taglians in there had relatives back home. Many were people of place and substance, for it was that sort who had volunteered to defend Taglios.

“I need you to just go back and be yourself. But write things down. Hone your skills. Keep the Company together. Be prepared for anything.”

I grunted. That wasn’t something I wanted to hear, knowing that the siege could be ended right now.

Lady sensed my reservations. She smiled wanly, made a sudden gesture. “Sleep, Murgen.”

I collapsed on the spot.

She was her nasty old self.

My mind would not clear. The Taglians who had helped me leave Dejagore were like zombies. They did not talk and seemed almost blind. “Down!” I muttered. “Patrol coming.” They did what I said but like men heavily drugged.

Patrols were few by day. It was easy to elude them. It was not their mission to keep people out, anyway. We reached lakeside without any trouble.

“Rest,” I ordered. “Wait for dark.” I was not sure why we had crossed the hills by day. I did not recall starting. “Have I been acting real weird?” I asked.

The taller Taglian shook his head slowly, not quite sure. He was more confused than I was.

I said, “I feel like I walked out of a fog a couple hours ago. I remember getting captured. I remember them keeping us in a nasty pen. I know there was a fight or something. But I don’t remember how we got away.”

“Nor do I, sir,” the shorter soldier said. “I do have a very strong feeling that we need to get back to our comrades quickly. But I don’t know why.”

“How about you?”

The taller man nodded, frowning. He was going to bust a vein trying to remember.

I said, “Maybe Shadowspinner did something to us and let us go. That’s worth keeping in mind—especially if you have urges that really surprise you.”

After dark we stole along the shoreline till we found a raft, jumped aboard and headed for Dejagore. And discovered immediately that we were going to get nowhere using poles. The water was too deep. We ended up using poles and broken boards as inefficient paddles. It took us half the night to make the crossing. And then, naturally, everything went to hell.

One-Eye was on watch and had been passing the time making love to a keg of beer. He heard water splash and people ask for a hand up and concluded that the evil hordes were upon him, whereupon he flung fireballs hither and yon so any handy archers could plink us.

One-Eye recognized me before more than three or four arrows whizzed past. He yelled for a ceasefire. But the damage had been done. The Nar at the North Gate saw us.

We were far enough away that they should not recognize faces. But the possibility that the Old Crew might have outside contacts would get Mogaba’s interest.

“Hey, Kid, good to see you,” One-Eye said as I clambered to the top of the wall. “We thought you was dead. We was going to have a funeral in a few more days if we got time. I been stalling it, account of if you was officially dead then I’d have to start keeping the Annals.” Generously, he offered me a drink from his very own unwashed for a fortnight mug. I declined the honor. “You all right, Kid?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you can tell me.” I told him what I could remember.

“You have another spell?”

“If I did these guys had it with me.”

“Interesting. Come around and see me about it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I’m gonna be off watch in ten minutes and I intend to hit the sack. And you need some sleep yourself.”

My pal. Don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have One-Eye to worry about me.

62

Bucket wakened me. “One of Mogaba’s guys is here, Murgen. Says His Majesty wants to see you.”

I groaned. “Does it have to be so bright out there?” I had not bothered to go down into the warrens.

“He’s pissed off. We’ve been pretending you were here but couldn’t talk to him. Goblin and One-Eye put doubles of you on the wall sometimes so the Nar could see you.”

“And now you have the real Murgen back you want to throw him to the wolf.”

“Uh . . . Well . . . He didn’t ask for nobody else.” Meaning he did not want Goblin or One-Eye. He wanted to stay away from those two.

“Find my bitty buddies and tell them I need them. Now.” The wizards turned up at their own leisure, of course. I told them, “Put me in a litter and lug me over to the citadel. We’re going to admit that you’ve been lying about me but only because I was totally sick. What we were doing on that raft last night was taking baths. You thought it would be cute to pop off a few fireballs while I had my pants down.”

One-Eye started to complain but before he could start I growled, “I’m not face Mogaba without backup. He don’t have any reason to be nice anymore.”

“He won’t be in a good mood,” Goblin predicted. “There’s been rioting. Food shortages are getting really bad. He won’t turn one grain of rice loose. Even his handpicked Taglian sergeants have started to desert.”

“It’s all falling apart for him,” I said. “He was going to take over and show the world wonders but his followers can’t match his iron will.”

“And we’re some kind of philanthropic brotherhood?” One-Eye muttered.

“We never kill nobody who don’t ask for it. Come on. Let’s do it. And be ready for anything. Both of you.”

But first we went up to the battlements, both so I could see this world by daylight and so the Nar at the North Gate could see me looking sick before I presented myself that way.

The water level was just eight feet below the ramparts, higher than Hong Tray’s prediction. “Any flooding inside?”

“Mogaba sealed the gates somehow. He has Jaicuri working parties bucket-brigading what seepage there is.”

“Good for him. How about down below?”

“There’s some seepage in the catacombs. Not a lot. We could keep up by hauling it up in buckets.”

I grunted. I stared at Shadowspinner’s lake. I saw more corpses than I could count. “Those didn’t float up from the mounds, did they?”

Goblin told me, “Mogaba threw people off the wall during the riots. And some might be from rafts that turned over or broke up.”

I squinted. I could just make out a mounted patrol beyond the water. A raft with Jaicuri piled high had been caught by daylight. The people aboard were trying to move away from the waiting patrol by paddling with their hands.

Thai Dei turned up so we knew his people were watching. I figured he would want me to visit the Speaker. But he said nothing. I told my bearers, “Take me to his worship.”

As we approached I observed, “The citadel looks like something out of a spook story.” And it did, with the sky overcast behind it and crows swarming around. Dejagore was a paradise for crows. They were going to get too fat to fly. Maybe we would get fat eating them.

The Nar at the entrance would not let One-Eye and Goblin inside. “So take me home,” I told them.

“Wait!”

“Stick it, buddy. I got no need to put up with Mogaba’s crap. The Lieutenant is alive. So is the Captain, probably. Mogaba ain’t shit nowhere but inside his own head anymore.”

“You could have at least argued until we were rested up.”

One-Eye started shuffling sideways so he could turn and head back down the steps.

Ochiba caught us before we reached street level. He was cast in the same mold as all Nar. His face remained neutral. “Apologies, Standardbearer. Won’t you reconsider?”

“Reconsider what? I don’t especially want to see Mogaba. He’s been eating magic mushrooms or chewing lucky weed or something. I been shitting my guts out for over a week. I ain’t in no shape to play games with no homicidal lunatic.”

Something fluttered behind Ochiba’s dark eyes. Maybe he agreed. Maybe there was another war going on inside him, a struggle between keeping faith with Gea-Xle’s greatest Nar ever and keeping faith with his own humanity.

I was not going to pursue it. Any hint of outside interest would push waverers in the direction of “That’s the way it’s always been.”

That was the top two, then, quietly questioning Mogaba’s way. If these guys doubted him things were probably worse than I thought.

“As you wish.” Ochiba told the sentries, “Let the litterbearers in.”

Nobody missed the significance of who my litterbearers were. It was a pretty direct statement.

I felt comfortably confrontational.

63

Was Mogaba happy to see Goblin and One-Eye, and them looking so fit? You better believe he wasn’t. But he did not pursue his displeasure. He just ticked something on his mental get-even slate. He would make me even more unhappy than he had planned. Later.

“Can you sit up?” he asked, almost like he cared.

“Yeah. I made sure. That’s partly why I took so long. That and I wanted to make sure I’d stay rational.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve been suffering severe fevers and dysentery for over a week. Last night they took me out and threw me in the water to cool me down. That worked.”

“I see. Come to the table, please.”

Goblin and One-Eye helped me into a chair. They put on a fine show.

There were just six people in the conference chamber, us three and Mogaba, Ochiba and Sindawe. Through the window behind Mogaba I saw water and hills. And crows. They squabbled over space on the window sill, though none would come inside. An albino turned an especially baleful pink eye my way.

I suppose we looked too hungry.

For one instant I saw that same room in another time, with Lady and some of the same faces around the same table. Mogaba was not among them. The window behind them opened on greyness.

One-Eye pinched my earlobe. “Kid, now ain’t the time.”

Mogaba watched intently.

“Less recovered than I thought,” I explained. I wondered what the vision meant. And vision it was because it was too fully realized for imagination.

Mogaba settled into a chair opposite me. He pretended solicitousness, avoided his usual assertiveness.

“We face numerous grave problems, Standardbearer. They are out there and indifferent to whatever animosities we have developed amongst ourselves.”

Goddamn! Was he going to turn reasonable on me?

“They will be there whether or not we want to believe the Lieutenant or Captain survived. We will have to face them because I do not expect to be relieved any time soon.”

I would not argue with that.

“We would be better off had Lady not interfered this last time. We are isolated and trapped now because the Shadowmaster was forced to find a solution for managing two fronts.”

I nodded. We were in a worse situation. On the other hand, we would not have yowling hordes piling over the wall every few nights anymore. Nor would Mogaba be flinging men hither and yon without regard for their lives, just trying to irritate the Southerners into doing something stupid.

Mogaba glanced out the window. We could see two Shadowlander patrols raising dust in the hills. “He can starve us out now.”

“Maybe.”

Mogaba grimaced but controlled his anger. “Yes?”

“For no rational reason I feel confident that our friends will break us out.”

“I must confess that I remain a stranger to that sort of faith. Although I concede the importance of maintaining an optimistic aspect in front of the soldiers.”

Was I going to argue? No. He was more right than I could be.

“So, Standardbearer, how do we survive a protracted siege when most of our food stores are exhausted? How do we recover the standard once we do get out of these straits?”

“I don’t have any answers. Although I think the standard is in friendly hands already.” Why was he interested? Almost every time we talked he asked something about the standard. Did he believe possessing it would legitimize him?

“How so?” He was surprised.

“The Widowmaker that was here the first time carried the real standard.”

“You’re sure?”

“I know it,” I promised.

“Then share your thoughts about food.”

“We could try fishing.” Wisecracking was not a good idea with Mogaba. It just made Mogaba angry.

“Ain’t no joke,” Goblin snapped. “That water comes down here from regular rivers. There’s got to be fish.”

The little shit wasn’t as stupid as he acted sometimes.

Mogaba frowned. “Do we have anyone who knows anything about fishing?” he asked Sindawe.

“I doubt it.” They meant among their Taglian soldiers, of course. Nar are warriors, back for a dozen generations. They do not sully themselves doing unheroic work.

I was negligent. I failed to mention that the Nyueng Bao came from country where fishing was, probably, a way of life.

“It’s a thought,” Mogaba told me. “And there is always baked crow.” He glanced back at the window. “But most Taglians won’t eat flesh.”

“A conundrum,” I agreed.

“I will not surrender.”

No reply seemed adequate.

“You have no resources either?”

“Less than you,” I lied. We still had a little rice from the catacombs. But not much. We were stretching ourselves every way possible, in accordance with hints recorded in the Annals. We did not look like famine victims. Not quite yet.

We looked, I noted, less well fed than did the Nar.

“Suggestions for reducing the number of unproductive mouths?”

“I’m letting my worn out Taglians and any locals who want build rafts and go. But I don’t let them take anything with them.”

He controlled his anger again. “That does consume valuable timber. But it is another thought worth consideration.”

I studied Sindawe and Ochiba. They remained jet statues. They were not even breathing, it seemed. They expressed no opinions.

Mogaba glared at me. “I feared this meeting would be this nonproductive. You haven’t even thrown the Annals in my face.”

“The Annals aren’t magic. What they say about sieges is plain commonsense stuff. Be stubborn. Ration. Don’t support the nonproductive. Control the spread of plague. Don’t exhaust your enemy’s patience if there is no hope of outlasting him. If surrender is inevitable do it while your enemy is still amenable to terms.”

“This enemy never offered.”

I wondered about that, although the Shadowmasters did have a tendency to think like gods.

“Thank you, Standardbearer. We will examine our options and keep you informed of what we mean to do.”

Goblin and One-Eye helped me ease my chair back. They settled me into the litter. Mogaba said nothing else and I could think of nothing I wanted to tell him. The other Nar just stood there awkwardly and watched us go.

“What was that in aid of?” I asked once we were clear. “I expected yelling and threats.”

“He wanted to pick your brains,” Goblin said.

“While he made up his mind if he was going to kill you,” One-Eye added cheerfully.

“Oh, that’s real encouraging.”

“He did decide, Murgen. And he didn’t pick the option you want to hear. It’s time to start being real careful.”

We did make it home unharmed.

64

“sDon’t bother dragging me up there till we find out what Uncle wants.” Goblin and One-Eye were at the foot of steps leading to the battlements. Doj was up top, looking down.

“I wasn’t planning to carry your dead ass anywhere anyhow anymore,” One-Eye told me. “Far as I’m concerned this exercise was for camouflage.”

Uncle Doj started downward.

I stared at the wall. Tiny beads of sweat covered it, but that was because the stone was cooler than the air, not because water had begun seeping through from outside.

The Shadowmasters were good builders.

“Stone Soldier. You are well?”

“Not bad for a guy with the runs. Ready to dance on your grave, Stubby. We got business?”

“The Speaker wishes to see you. Your excursion was not successful?” He moved his head to indicate my trip outside.

“If you call spending two weeks as a guest of the Shadowmaster a success I tore them up, Uncle. Otherwise, all I did was get sick, lose some weight, then have barely enough sense left to run for it when some Taglians hit Shadowspinner’s camp with a nuisance raid. That’s all right. I can walk that far.” Just don’t let me fall down any rabbit holes.

I could walk to the Speaker’s place easily but why give up the pretense of weakness if it might be useful?

Nothing changed with the Speaker’s crew. Except that this time one smell was absent. I noticed that as soon as I stepped inside. I could not identify the missing odor, though.

The Speaker was ready. Hong Tray was in place. The beautiful one had tea brewing.

Ky Dam smiled. “Thai Dei ran ahead.” He read my curiosity from my glance and flaring nostrils. “Danh has gone to his judgment. At last. A bleak season has ended for this house.”

I could not help myself. I looked at the young woman. I found her looking at me. Her gaze shifted immediately, but not so fast that I did not feel guilty when I returned attention to the Speaker.

The old man missed nothing. Neither did he get excited about something best left ignored. He was wise, was Ky Dam.

I had come to respect that frail oldster a lot.

“The hard times have come, Standardbearer, and will lead to more terrible tomorrows.” He reviewed my discussion with Mogaba well enough to convince me that someone had watched us.

“Why tell me this?”

“To support my claim when I tell you we spy on the black men. After your departure they spoke only their native tongue until they sent messengers to the tribunes of the cohorts and other senior Taglians. They are to gather at suppertime.”

“Sounds big.”

The old man bowed slightly, “I would like you to see something for yourself. You know these men more certainly than do I. You can determine if my suspicions are well-founded.”

“You want me to spy on that meeting?”

“Something of the sort.” The old man did not tell me the whole story. Not then. He wanted me walking into it cold. “Doj will conduct you.”

65

Doj conducted me. The way led through cellars as intricately connected as ours but less care had been used in the tunneling. The people who did this just wanted to be able to sneak away. They had had no intention of hiding. They must have been Jaicuri collaborators in Stormshadow’s administration, acting for her. She would have wanted an emergency exit.

“I’m surprised at you,” I told Uncle Doj. “I wouldn’t think underground would occur to swamp people. I don’t suppose there are a lot of tunnels in the delta.”

“Not many.” He smiled.

My guess is they found the escape route through sheer blind luck, maybe coupled with an informed suspicion about how Stormshadow’s mind worked.

Getting into the citadel, then, was no problem, though it required some crawling. The architects had not been concerned with Stormshadow’s dignity. It was tough for me. I was not yet back to my best.

We came to a small open space beneath a ladder. That rose straight up into infinity, so far as I could see by the light of one feeble candle. I had a feeling the candle was a luxury laid on for me, that the Nyueng Bao made this journey entirely in darkness.

I could not have endured that. I dislike enclosed places intensely despite having lived in them. Close places, darkness, recurring spells and visions were not a combination I wanted to tempt.

I did seem more stable lately, I reflected. I set a hand and foot on the ladder.

Uncle Doj grabbed my wrist, shook his head.

“What? Isn’t that the way to the council chamber?” My whisper rattled off like the scurry of mice.

“Not what the Speaker wants you to see.” Doj used almost no air when he whispered. “Come.”

There was no crawling now, just a lot of easing along sideways in an airspace almost too narrow for Uncle. His belly was going to ache from rubbing against stone.

I learned that there was a lot more to Stormshadow’s citadel than I had seen in the little time I spent there these past few months. Down below there, beneath the surrounding plazas, were countless unsuspected storerooms and prison cells, armories and barracks rooms, cisterns and smithies. I whispered, “They have supplies down here to hold out for years.” Meaning the Nar and their favorites, holed up inside the citadel. Stormshadow had laid in a great store against the evil day.

Mogaba had lied to me, just trying to find out how well off we Old Crew were.

Was that what the old man wanted me to know?

Was this why the Nyueng Bao had seemed to prosper while everyone else became gaunt? Were they nibbling at these stores like mice, taking just a little here and there so their predations would go unnoticed?

Uncle Doj beckoned. “Hurry.”

Soon I began to hear a distant chanting. “We may not be in time, Bone Warrior. Hurry.”

I didn’t slug him mostly because the racket would have alerted the singing men.

I knew they were Nar before I saw a thing. I had heard the rhythms and style before, though not these particular lyrics. Always before, though, there had been joy in their work songs and celebrations. This song was cold and grim.

Uncle Doj left the candle, tugged my elbow. We continued to step sideways until, suddenly, we were in an ordinary passageway, not some tight, secret squeeze behind a wall. Nothing concealed the entrance to the hidden ways. That was just a shadowed corner unlikely to entice a closer look.

There was light out there, from candles in sconces widely spaced. The people in charge were frugal despite their wealth.

Uncle Doj placed a finger to his lips. We were near dangerous people who might detect us in an instant. He dropped to his knees and led me right into a large chamber where most of the Nar had gathered. Lighting was nonexistent except down where they were. Doj got behind a pillar. I squatted behind a low, dusty table just inside the doorway. I wished I was as dark as the Nar. My forehead must be shining like a little half moon.

This life hardens you. Too soon you have seen so much that when you encounter another something terrible you don’t howl and run in circles, snapping at your tail. But most of us still appreciate horror if horror is there. Horror was there.

There was an altar. Mogaba and Ochiba were involved in something ceremonial. Above the altar stood a small statue of dark stone, a four-armed woman dancing. I was too far away to make out details but I was pretty sure sure she had vampire fangs and six teats. She might be wearing a necklace of baby skulls. The Nar might give her another name but she was Kina. The worship offered by the Nar was not that described in the Jaicuri scriptures, though.

The Deceivers do not want to spill blood. That is why they are called Stranglers.

The Nar not only spilled blood on behalf of their goddess, they drank it. And it looked like they had been doing so for some time down there. Drained corpses hung to one side. Their latest sacrifice, a hapless Jaicuri, got hoisted up with those soon after I arrived.

The Nar were practical in their religion. After the grim ceremony ended they began butchering one of the bodies.

I got down and crawled out of there. I did not give one rat’s ass what Uncle Doj thought.

I have seen a lot with the Company, including tortures and cruelties almost beyond comprehension and inhumanities I do not have the capacity to fathom, but never had I encountered socially-sanctioned cannibalism.

I did not puke or boil over in outrage. That would be silly. I just put distance between me and that till I could speak without worrying about who might overhear. “I have seen enough. Let’s get out of here.”

Uncle Doj responded with a thin smile and lifted eyebrow.

“I have to relay this. I have to write it down. We may not survive this siege. They will. Word of what they are has to survive, too.” He watched me closely. Was he wondering if the rest of us also enjoyed the occasional long pig roast as well?

Probably.

This sort of thing might go some toward explaining our ambiguous reception in these parts.

Mogaba could not read. If it did not occur to him that the dark side of the Nar was no secret anymore I could leave word in my Annals, to be salvaged by Lady or the Old Man.

“They are all down there,” Uncle said. “So we will return by a swifter path.” By which he meant we would stroll through regular passageways just like we belonged there.

“What’s that noise?” I asked.

Uncle gestured for silence. We stole forward.

We discovered a group of Taglian soldiers bricking up a sallyport we could have used to leave. Why were they doing that? That door could not be broken open from the outside. It still had Stormshadow’s spells protecting it.

Uncle pulled me back, headed another direction. Obviously he knew the citadel quite well. And I had no difficulty imagining him roaming around in there all the time, just for the hell of it. He seemed like that kind of guy.

66

You look like somebody ate your favorite puppy,” Goblin told me. Cracks like that could be heard all the time now that there were no more dogs. There were just two sources of meat left. The Nar exploited both. We restricted ourselves to stupid crows.

I told Goblin and One-Eye what I had seen. Uncle Doj stood behind me, quietly disgruntled because I wanted to see my own people before I visited the Speaker. I was barely halfway through it when One-Eye interrupted. “You got to tell the whole Company this one, Kid.” For once he was as serious as a spear through the gut.

And for once Goblin agreed with One-Eye without any big groan and moan about the unfairness of it all. “You need to get this word out exactly the way you want it known to everybody. There’s going to be a lot of talk. You don’t want anybody building it up worse than it is when they pass it along.”

“Get them together, then. While I’m waiting I’m going to skim those Jaicuri books. There may be something else I need to tell them.”

“May I join you?” Uncle Doj asked.

“No. Go tell the old man that I’ll be there as soon as I can. This is family.”

“As you will.” He said something to Thai Dei, stalked away.

Bucket interrupted my reading. “Got them together, Murgen. All but Clete. He’s off somewhere whoring and even his brothers don’t know where to find him.”

“All right.”

“It something bad? You got that look.”

“Yeah.”

“It can get worse than it already is?”

“You’re going to hear all about it in just a little bit.”

In five minutes I got up in front of sixty men and told my tale, marvelling as I did that a band so frail and few could be so feared. More, I marvelled that there were so many of us when, hardly more than two years ago, there were just seven of us pretending to be the Black Company.

“You guys want to keep it down until I’m done?” The news had them excited in a grim way. “Listen up. That is the word. They’re making human sacrifices and eating the corpses. But that ain’t the whole story. Ever since they joined us at Gea-Xle they’ve been hinting and even saying right out that us northern guys are heretics. That means they think the whole Company used to do things their way.”

That started everybody talking and yelling.

I pounded a mason’s hammer on a block of wood. “Shut up, you morons! It ain’t the way the Company ever was. The Nar never kept any Annals. They would know that if they had. But they can’t even read.”

I could not be absolutely sure that human sacrifice was never a Company rite. We were missing several early volumes of the Annals and I now suspected strongly that our earliest forebrethren did follow a dark and hungry god with breath so foul and cruel that even oral histories were enough to keep the native people terrified.

Most of the guys did not care about the implications. They were just angry because the Nar were going to make life harder for them.

I told them, “This is one more thing to make trouble between us and them. I want you all to realize that we might have to fight them before we get out of here.

“Tonight I’m bringing back some traditional business that we have let slide since Croaker got to be Captain. We are going to have regular readings from the Annals so you all know what you have become part of. This first reading is from the Book of Kette, this part probably set down by the Annalist Agrip when the Company was in service to the Paingod of Cho’n Delor.” Our forebrethren endured a long and bitter siege then, though there had been a lot more of them to suffer. Additionally, I planned readings from books Croaker recorded on the Plain of Fear, when the Company lived underground for so long.

I dismissed the men to supper. “One-Eye. No more groaning when I announce a reading. All right? These guys didn’t live through that stuff.”

“Cho’n Delor was way before my time, too.”

“Then you need to hear about it.”

“Kid, I been hearing about it for two hundred years. Every damned Annalist that ever was wallowed in the horrors of Cho’n Delor. I wish I could get my hands on those guys who did the Book of Kette. You know Kette wasn’t even the Annalist? He was the . . . ”

“Goblin. Grab Otto and Hagop. I want a little confab with the oldest Old Crew.”

We five put our heads together, conjured a little something for the meanness. Once we had a scheme I said, “I’ll see what the Speaker thinks.”

67

Ky Dam listened patiently, as an adult will to a bright child with an ingenious but impractical idea. He told me, “You are aware this could spark fighting?”

“Sure. But that’s inevitable. Doj says Mogaba decided that at our meeting. Goblin and One-Eye agree.” So did Hagop and Otto. None of us favored a get along effort. “There are more of us than there are Nar.” But their Taglians way outnumbered ours and there was no way to guess how the Taglians with either group would jump.

The old man turned to Hong Tray. A quizzical expression accentuated the lines at the corners of his eyes.

Ky Sahra knelt beside me, presenting tea. This was a step beyond anything previous. She met my wondering gaze. I don’t think I slobbered.

Hong Tray observed without reaction. That made her far calmer than I was. She focused on her husband, nodded. He said, “There will be fighting. Soon. The Jaicuri will revolt.”

That was not what I wanted to hear. I asked, “Will they bother your people or mine?” I should not have shoved in. I apologized immediately.

Ky Sahra poured more tea for me, before even she served her grandparents.

Ky Gota manifested like a demon conjured for its serrated tongue. She barked at her daughter in a harsh, lilting gale.

The old man looked up, said one word sharply. Hong Tray supported him with a complete sentence in what I would have to call a sharp whisper. It seemed she could speak no other way.

Ky Gota withdrew. There were well-defined limits and absolute hierarchy inside the Ky family.

I glanced at the beautiful woman. She met my eye again, rocked back and rose. Flushing.

Was something going on? They would not try to manipulate me, would they?

It would not work. No woman, not even this woman, was that special. And Ky Dam had seen enough of me to guess that about me.

If he wanted to manipulate me he would have better luck trading me the straight poop on why the hell everybody pissed blue when the Company got mentioned.

He and the old woman batted whispers back and forth in flurries. Suddenly, he told me, “We will join you in this enterprise, Standardbearer. Provisionally. Hong believes that fighting between the Jaicuri and the soldiers of the black men is imminent. It will be fierce but might not touch the rest of us. That would provide sufficient distraction. But I must insist that Doj has the option to end it if it risks calling unfriendly attention to our people.”

“Excellent. Of course. Done. Though I would have tried it without you.”

Ky Dam permitted himself a small smile, either at my enthusiasm or at the prospect of adding a little more misery to Mogaba’s life.

After dark, assuming the riots got started, we were going to steal Mogaba’s food stores.

68

It started like a well-rehearsed play where Mogaba’s characters were desperate to please their audience. The rioting, that is. Uncle Doj and I formed work parties to take advantage. We got into the storage chambers without challenge, ten Old Crew and ten Nyueng Bao. We started dragging off sacks of rice and flour, sugar and beans. The riots were nasty from the start. They swamped the whole southern half of Dejagore. Every man Mogaba controlled was out there helping crush the rebellion. And every Jaicuri man and boy seemed to want to get at the Nar, even if they had to exterminate the whole First Legion to reach them.

My people went on the alert, established in strong positions, long before nightfall. Likewise the Nyueng Bao, who had no immediate trouble. We ambushed one mob. A shower of missiles from front, sides, and above swiftly changed their minds.

Mogaba’s men had more problems. They were not ready. Worse, they were scattered, often in isolated work parties and patrols.

For a while everybody joked and cracked wise and speculated on Mogaba’s first words after the fighting ended and he found his cellars plundered.

I ran into Bucket my second trip back. “Beans,” I told him, dropping a huge sack. “The change of diet will do us good.”

“It’s real bloody out there this time, Murgen. Mogaba has asked for support twice. We told him we couldn’t find you.”

“Well, keep on not being able. Unless it looks like we would end up worse off if we didn’t help.”

“That’s not likely. He has most of the weapons. His men have been throwing people off the wall by the hundreds, just anybody, whether or not they’re rebelling, men, women and children.”

“That’s Mogaba’s way. What about those fires?” There were a few. Whenever there is disorder somebody starts burning things down.

“They’re burning themselves out.”

“Everything is going fine, then. But keep an eye out.”

I went back to my looting happy as the proverbial clam. This might be the end of Mogaba as a royal pain in the ass.

Uncle Doj caught me in the storage chamber later. “Some Taglian soldiers are abandoning their posts for the safety of the citadel. If we continue this raiding we will get caught.”

“Yeah. If we don’t get spotted Mogaba will blame it on natives who knew about the passageways.” This raid was going to cost us our opportunity to spy on any more staff meetings.

It was worth it.

Would I feel the same way tomorrow, when Mogaba began looking for his stores? When I had a full belly?

“There is a small problem, Standardbearer,” Uncle Doj said a while later. Each of us staggered under a last sack of rice. We were the last brigands out.

“What’s that?”

“News of our success is sure to leak.”

“Why? Only a few people know. It’s in all their interests to stay clammed.”

“Someone talked about what I showed you earlier.”

“Huh?”

“The dark ceremonies. Someone talked. The rumors sparked tonight’s riots.”

“I don’t believe that. They were too organized.”

“There was an organized cadre, naturally, but this uprising was more widespread. It is also out of control.”

“Whatever you say.” He had spent his evening with me. He had had no chance to observe any riots.

Before he could respond Thai Dei popped out of the darkness. He gobbled away, becoming too animated for the space. If he killed my candle I was going to choke him. As soon as I found him. “What’s happening?”

“The black men are trying to break open the north gate and flood the city.”

“They’re what?” That would take care of the riots, all right. But not even Mogaba would go that far. Would he?

Uncle Doj and I did our best to run carrying sacks of rice. I bet we looked silly.

69

“Otto. Hagop. One-Eye. Goblin. Geek. Freak. Bucket and Candles. You guys come with me. The al-Khul company will help us. Wheezer went to get them. We’ll go straight along the battlements. If the Nar get in the way we trample them. If they fight us, we kill them. That understood?”

Not even Goblin or One-Eye tried to lawyer. We were some of the people Mogaba meant to drown.

The Taglians arrived. They were Vehdna by religion and the best Taglians attached to the Company. They were reliable and almost friendly. Of six hundred who had come south from Taglios months ago only about sixty were left.

I explained what was happening, what I wanted to do about it and how they could help. They would overrun anyone trying to open the gate after Goblin and One-Eye softened them up. “Don’t hurt anybody unless they just plain force you.”

“Why not?” Candles demanded. “They’re trying to hurt us,”

“Mogaba is. These guys are just following orders. I’ll bet you we don’t find any Nar there when we get there. And I’ll bet you that if they open the gate they get hurt as bad as anybody else. Mogaba doesn’t need them anymore.”

“Let’s just do it,” Goblin groused. “Or go back and catch a few beers.”

I moved them out.

Maybe my blackouts gave me the gift of prophecy. There were no Nar at the North Gate. The fighting was so brief and desultory it almost did not take place. The Taglians working there fled. Damn! Mogaba would find out who foiled his latest nastiness. I told One-Eye, “This will mean no more pretending we’re buddies.”

“Yeah. Show me how to sneak into the citadel. I’ll put a sleep spell on him, then leave pieces of him all over his crazy temple.”

That did not sound like a bad idea.

We had no opportunity to implement it.

Somebody yelled up at me. I peered down into the gloom. It was Uncle Doj. I had not included any Nyueng Bao in this. I had not seen any need to put them onto Mogaba’s bad side, too.

“What?”

He shouted, “This was a diversion! The real flooding will start at . . . ”

“Oh, shit! Yeah.” Mogaba did know me well enough to anticipate that I might interfere. “Come on!” I snapped. “Everyone!” I hustled down to the street. “Where?” I demanded of Doj.

“East Gate.”

Would Mogaba also anticipate me crossing town to spoil his game, amidst the Jaicuri uprising?

He might. He might hope my crew would get trapped and overrun, or badly cut up. There was no guessing what he thought anymore. He was crazy.

One-Eye and Goblin eased us past bands of both Jaicuri and Taglians. We skirmished with the Jaicuri twice, our numbers and sorcery telling quickly. The light of scattered fires set scary shadows dancing everywhere.

What a time for the Shadowmaster to send his monsters out to play.

We encountered barricades erected to protect the soldiers trying to open the gate. This time we faced Nar as well as Taglians. A lot of shouting went back and forth. Some of their Gunni Taglians tried to run away when our Vehdna Taglians convinced them that Mogaba was trying to drown everybody. The Nar cut down several would be deserters. I told Goblin and One-Eye, “You break up whatever they’re doing to open the gate. The rest of you, let’s chase them off. Go for the Nar first.” An instant later an arrow found the eye of a Nar named Endibo. Another of the Nar speared the Geek, an incredibly handsome youngster who joined the Company while we were crossing the savannah north of Gea-Xle, several years earlier. One-Eye hung the uncomplimentary name on him. He wore it with pride, refusing to be called anything else.

For the first time in its history, insofar as I was aware, Company brother slew sworn brother in willful combat.

Geek’s blood brother Freak slew the Nar responsible for Geek’s death but I never learned the Nar’s name so I cannot remember him here.

Most of the First Legion Taglians took off then. Many of the al-Khul soldiers did not want to fight, either, although those other Taglians were Gunni. Still, quickly, a genuine small battle had friend hacking at supposed friend.

I happened to glance back and notice that armed Jaicuri had begun to gather to watch. Uncle Doj faced them alone, poised in an odd but apparently relaxed ready stance, long sword vertical.

“Oh, shit!” Goblin shrieked. “Gods damn it! Look out!”

“What?”

“We’re too late. It’s going to go.”

Something began to grind and groan like the hinges of the world breaking loose. The masonry blocking the gateway bulged inward.

The fighting stopped fast. Everybody faced the gate.

A sudden spear of water shot through the bulge.

Every man there took off, Nar and Black Company, Gunni and Vehdna Taglian, Jaicuri and lone Nyueng Bao running side by side, splitting up, heading whatever direction felt safest but everybody always getting away from that gate.

The masonry gave one final, mighty groan. The water roared triumphantly and charged inside.

70

The water thundered through the gate but there was no evidence of it yet where I stood. I was in a good mood, considering. While passing the citadel I saw the Nar trying to shuffle their own kind inside without admitting any Taglians. I chuckled. Mogaba was going to bust a vein when he found the water coming in through his cellars.

I now understood why those soldiers had been bricking up. The flood was no spur of the moment plan. Mogaba must have nurtured the idea from the moment that Shadowspinner had used water to isolate Dejagore.

As we parted I told Uncle Doj, “Swim over and see me sometime.” Fifteen minutes later I was discussing waterproofing. Our measures had begun the day we started our warrens but not in anticipation of anything like this. Enemies employing smoke and fire had been our real concern.

“Longo, you guys explored every part of those catacombs? They aren’t open anywhere?” I was surprised that Stormshadow had not broken into them when she was building the citadel. Maybe she got her location advice from knowledgeable locals.

“I didn’t see anything. There were plastered good way back when because they were below the level of the plain. But if you put seventy feet of water out there and thirty in the streets sooner or later it will find a way in. The best we can do really is fight a holding action.”

“How about just sealing them off?”

“We could try. But I wouldn’t bother until flooding became a threat. We close them off, spring a leak up here, we got no place for the water to drain.”

I shrugged. “Is everything that could be damaged up high?” The guys started preparing for the worst back when the plain started flooding. We were not weighed down with a lot of possessions.

“We’re all right. We can hold out for a long time yet. We might want to beef up our fortifications a little, though.”

“Do what you can.” Longo and his brothers always saw a little more that could be done.

71

Mogaba counterattacked while the water was still just ankle deep and the rest of the city was just starting to panic. He used all his Taglians and encouraged cruel behavior. The slaughter was terrible.

I may never discover the truth about the attack on the Nyueng Bao. It has been said that the Taglian tribune Pal Subhir misunderstood his orders. Others, like me, believe Mogaba was responsible, maybe because he suspected the Nyueng Bao of looting his stores.

I know he knew some had been plundered. He found out right away because he sent soldiers down to see if any water was getting inside. By questioning a few Jaicuri prisoners he discovered that no locals were crowing about snatching a ton of food. Too, somebody in my outfit might have shot off his mouth again.

Whatever, Pal Subhir’s cohort, with transfer replacements to bring it to full strength, attacked the Nyueng Bao. The tribune cannot testify. He died early. In fact, a lot of Taglians died during the attack. But reinforcements kept turning up, which is why I believe Mogaba engineered the massacre.

I knew nothing about it at first. I had located no listening posts outside our perimeter. I had no way of making sure my people would be secure out there. And where we bordered the Nyueng Bao community there was no reason to doubt that we would receive ample warning.

Thai Dei was, as always, nearby. I had gone to the top of an enfilading tower to stare at the nighted hills and brood. Would help ever come? Lately no news at all came in from outside.

Plenty of people wanted to leave. I could hear some of them out there now, willing to take their chances with the Shadowmaster. Fickle folk. A little hunger and stress and they forgot all about liberty.

“What is that?” Thai Dei astonished me by asking a whole question. I was amazed. I looked where he pointed.

“Looks like a fire.”

“That is near grandfather’s house. I must go.”

More curious than suspicious, I said, “I’ll go with you.”

He started to argue, shrugged, told me. “Do not suffer any spells. I cannot care for you.”

So the Nyueng Bao knew about my blackouts. And apparently suspected they were epileptic. Interesting.

Thai Dei surely learned plenty just standing around with his ears flapping and his jaw tight shut. My guys hardly noticed him anymore.

Nowhere was the water yet deeper than halfway to my knees. But it grabbed my feet when I tried to run. And Thai Dei was in a hurry. He was sure something was wrong. And he was correct.

We ran through that alley where I had stumbled before and had plunged into hell. For a second I thought I had run from Dejagore into another nightmare.

Taglian soldiers were dragging Nyueng Bao women and children and old people out of the buildings and throwing them to soldiers in the street. Those soldiers hacked and slashed. Their faces were distorted with the horror of their actions but they were out of control, far past the point where they could stop. The flicker of firelight made everything seem more hellish and surreal.

I had seen this before. I had seen my own brothers this way, a few times, back in the north. The blood smell takes control and kills the mind and deadens the soul and there is nothing human left.

Thai Dei howled a tortured cry and flung himself toward the building the Ky family occupied, sword wheeling overhead. The place showed no obvious signs of having been invaded. I followed him, my own blade bare, unsure why, though I thought fleetingly of the woman Sahra. Probably my actions were as thoughtless as those of the Taglians.

Taglians got in our way. Thai Dei engaged in some sort of bobbing, weaving dance. Two soldiers fell, their throats spurting. I beat another around with my sword, leaving him a collection of bruises and a lesson about dueling a guy a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier.

Then there were Taglians everywhere, most paying no attention to us. I did not have much trouble defending myself. Those people were smaller and weaker and had a much shorter reach. And what I managed by brute power Thai Dei accomplished through maneuver. Hardly anyone was interested in us by the time we reached the Speaker’s door.

I had guessed wrong before. Five or six Taglians had gotten inside. They just were not going to leave again. Not walking.

Thai Dei barked something in Nyueng Bao. A voice replied. I took a wild swing at one last particularly stupid Taglian, spending the rest of the edge of my blade on his helmet. Then I shoved the door shut and barred it. And looked around for something to pile against it. Unfortunately, the Kys were so poor their best furniture consisted of ragged reed mats.

A lamp’s flame rose, then another and another. For the first time I saw the entire room the Kys occupied. I saw the mauled corpses of several invaders. They had become focused on exploiting the beautiful woman before they finished everyone else. Ky Gota was still mutilating the Taglian corpses. But not all the corpses were Taglian. Not even the majority were Taglian. Only a small percentage were Taglian.

Sahra was holding her children to her chest but neither would ever know fear again. Sahra’s eyes were empty.

Thai Dei made a sound like a kitten’s whimper. He threw himself onto a woman. The woman lay face downward upon two little ones she had attempted to shield with her body. Her effort had not been in vain. The youngest, less than a year old, was crying.

No Taglians seemed inclined to try the door. I dropped to my knees where I had sat talking to the Speaker so often. It appeared he and Hong Tray had watched death arrive and had engaged it in their places of honor. The old man was stretched out with his head and shoulders in Hong Tray’s lap but his lower body remained almost as it had been when he was seated. His wife slumped forward over him.

The racket outside picked up. “Thai Dei!” I yelled. “Get your ass pulled together, man.”

What? The old woman was still breathing, making a raspy, bubbly sound. Gently, I lifted her.

She was alive and even aware. Her eyes unglazed. She seemed unsurprised to see me. She smiled. She managed to whisper despite the blood in her throat. “Don’t waste time on me. Take Sahra. Take the children.” Her wound was a sword thrust that had gone in outside her right breast and downward through her lung. At her age it was a miracle she had lived this long.

She smiled again, whispered, “Be good to her, Standardbearer.”

“I will,” I promised, not understanding what she meant.

Hong Tray managed a wink and a wince of pain. She leaned forward onto Ky Dam again.

The racket outside increased again. “Thai Dei!” I leapt over the bodies, flung a foot that glanced off Thai Dei’s behind. “If you don’t get your ass up and get organized we’re not going to help anybody.” I spotted a couple more kids cowering in the back. One of them had lighted the lamps. Other than Sahra and her mother no adults appeared to have survived. “Sahra!” I snapped. “Get up!” I slapped her. “Round up those kids back there.” They were too terrified to trust me even if they knew me.

I was still an outsider.

A little yelling was all Thai Dei and his sister needed. Their universe suddenly regained structure and direction, though they could not see its sense. They just needed somebody to get them started.

We found only one more living child and no more surviving adults.

“Thai Dei. Can you keep these kids together if we make a run for the alley?” The Taglians would cease to be a problem if we made it that far. In there one man could hold off a horde till help arrived.

He shook his head. “They are too frightened and too badly hurt.”

I was afraid of that. “Then we’ll carry them. Can you settle your mother down? She’ll need to help. Sahra. Take the baby. I’ll carry the girl. On my back. I want my hands free. Tell her to hang on tight but to keep her hands out of my face. If she don’t think she can do that let me know now. We’ll tie her wrists together.”

Sahra nodded. She was past her hysteria. She knelt beside Hong Tray, held the old woman for a moment, then removed her jade bracelet. With a deep sigh and evident reluctance, she slipped the bracelet onto her own left wrist. Then she turned to Ky Gota and began trying to calm her.

Thai Dei talked to the children, translating my my instructions. I realized that Sahra never spoke at all, not even in a whisper.

The girl I was going to carry was about six years old. And she did not want to go.

“Tie her on, then, damn it!” I snapped. I had begun to shake. I did not know how much longer I would retain full control. “We’re running out of time.”

Only the baby was unhurt. A boy of about four looked like he would not make it. He for sure would not if I did not get him to One-Eye in a hurry.

Water splashed and a man shrieked right outside. A body slammed against the door, which creaked and gave a little. Sahra swatted the girl to calm her, fitted her onto my back. I asked, “How about your mother?”

Never mind. The Troll was with us now. She had a two-year-old of indeterminate sex riding her left hip and the business end of a broken spear clutched in her right hand. She was ready for Taglians.

Getting ready actually took less time than it requires to tell it.

Sahra carried the baby. Thai Dei tied the wounded boy onto his back, kept his sword in hand. He and I went to the door. I peeked through cracks between the mutilated timbers. A Taglian soldier lurched past outside. I asked, “You first? Or me? One to lead, one as rearguard.”

“Me. From this day forward.”

What?

“Back!” I snapped. But he glimpsed the hurtling shape at the same time. He slid to the right as I moved to the left of the doorway. We were out of the way when the door blew inward. We jumped at the intruder, recognized him barely in time.

“Uncle Doj?”

He was a lucky man. The weight of the children we carried had slowed us just enough to allow us time to see who had blown in.

“Go,” I told Thai Dei. We did not need to hold a conference.

Thai Dei encountered a pair of Taglians immediately. I jumped out and drove one away. Ky Gota wobbled out behind us. She stuck the tip of her spearhead into the throat of the nearest Taglian. Then she settled the child more comfortably on her hip, turned on the other soldier.

A white crow swooped past, laughing like a troop of monkeys.

The surviving Taglian was not a foolish young man. He headed for the nearest gang of his countrymen.

“Go! Go!” I barked at Thai Dei. “Gota. Sahra. Follow Thai Dei. Uncle! Where are you? We’re gonna leave your ass here.”

Uncle Doj stepped outside as the Taglian pointed us out to his comrades. “Take the child away, Standardbearer. Ash Wand will be your shield.”

He put on an amazing display though I glimpsed only a few furious moments. That funny little wide man took on the whole mob of Taglians and killed six of them in about as many seconds. The rest took off.

Then we splashed into the alley. We reached safety moments later. In minutes One-Eye was working on the wounded children, albeit not cheerfully. And I was deploying some of the Old Crew, with Goblin, for a limited counterattack.

72

That night was the final watershed. There was never any pretense of friendship with Mogaba again. I had no doubts myself that he would have come after us if the “mistaken” attack on the Nyueng Bao had been a success.

Fighting continued until the water got too deep.

Despite insistence by One-Eye and others that protecting the Nyueng Bao was not our mission I did salvage a third of the pilgrims, about six hundred people. The cost of the attack to Mogaba was bitter. The following morning most of the remaining Taglians found themselves in positions where they had to commit for or against Mogaba.

The Taglians who had been with us from the beginning stuck with us. So did those who had deserted to join us. More came over from Mogaba’s side now but not a tenth as many as I expected. Tell the truth, I was disappointed. But Mogaba could make a hell of a speech to the troops when he wanted.

“It’s that old time curse again,” Goblin told me. “Even now they’re more afraid of yesterday than they are of now.”

And the water kept rising.

I took the Nyueng Bao down into our warrens. Uncle Doj was amazed. “We never suspected.”

“Good. Then neither do our enemies, whose brilliance is eclipsed by yours.” I brought the Old Crew inside, too. We packed people in as comfortably as we could. The warrens were quite spacious for sixty men. Adding six hundred Nyueng Bao did cramp things some.

We had to learn to recognize one another, too. My men had been trained to strike instantly at any unfamiliar face encountered underground.

I went back outside after darkness fell. Thai Dei and Uncle Doj dogged me. I assembled the Taglian officers who had attached themselves to the Old Crew. I told them, “I believe that we have done all we can here. I believe it is time to begin evacuating everyone who wants to get out of this hellhole.” I did not know why but was convinced that not much work would be required to evade or outwit the Shadowlander pickets ashore. “I will send one of my wizards to cover you.”

They did not buy it. One captain wondered aloud if I intended to drive them into slavery so I could make it easier to feed my own men.

I had not thought this through, had not considered possible difficulties. I had forgotten that many of these men had attached themselves to us only because they believed that that was their best shot at staying alive. “Never mind. If you guys want to stay and die with us we’ll be happy to have you. I was just trying to release you from your soldier’s oaths so you would have some chance.”

After dark, too, we let the Nyueng Bao men go back home to look for salvage and survivors and stores. They did not find much. Mogaba’s soldiers had been thorough in their own search and the water had risen to cover everything.

Mogaba’s men, using makeshift boats and rafts, began attacking Jaicuri occupied buildings one by one, harvesting stores forced out of hiding by the rising water.

Mogaba had drowned his own supplies.

73

When I was sure nobody would notice I pulled all my brothers inside. We bolted up and locked up and left Dejagore to its misery. We took the Nyueng Bao survivors with us. Excepting a few men who kept watch from lookouts accessible only from inside we withdrew into the deepest, most hidden parts of the warrens, behind booby traps and secret doors and a web of confusion spells scattered by Goblin and One-Eye, who left only the occasional flicker of a doppelganger to mark our passing.

I started out sharing my quarters with eight guests. After just a few hours I told Uncle Doj, “Let’s you and me take a walk.”

With all those Nyueng Bao down there the air was stuffy and getting riper fast. Light was provided by candles so scattered you could get lost trekking from one to the next.

Uncle Doj was close to being spooked. “I hate it, too,” I told him. “It keeps me riding the edge of a scream. But we’ll manage. We lived this way for years once.”

“No one can live like this. Not for long.”

“The Company did, though. It was a terrible place. It was called the Plain of Fear, with good reason. It was filled with weird creatures and every one of them would kill you in a blink. We were hunted constantly by armies led by wizards way worse than Shadowspinner. But we gutted it out. And we came through it. Right here in these tunnels you have five survivors who can tell you about it.”

The light was too bad to read him, though that was difficult in broad daylight. I told him, “I’m going to go crazy if all of you stay with me. I need room. Nobody can get around without stepping on somebody right now.”

“I understand. But I do not know how to help.”

“We have empty rooms. Thai Dei and his baby can have one. You could. Sahra could share one with her mother.”

He smiled. “You are open and honest but pay too little attention to Nyueng Bao ways. Many things happened the night you helped Thai Dei rescue this family.”

I snorted. “Some rescue.”

“You saved all who could be saved.”

“What a good boy am I.”

“You had neither an obligation nor any cause of honor.” In actuality he used honor and obligation in lieu of Nyueng Bao concepts of similar but not identical meaning which include overtones of free will participation in a divine machination.

“I did what seemed like the right thing.”

“Indeed. Without any appeal or obligation. Which caused your current predicament.”

“I must be missing something.”

“Because you are not Nyueng Bao. Thai Dei will not leave you now. He is the oldest male. He owes you six lives. His baby will not leave him. Sahra will not leave because she must remain under her brother’s protection until she marries. And, as you can see, she may be a while getting through the horror. In this city, upon this pilgrimage she never wanted to make, she has lost everything that ever meant anything to her. Except her mother.”

“A man might almost think the gods had it in for her,” I said, then hoped that did not sound too much like a wisecrack.

“One might. Standardbearer, the only good thing she recalls about that hellnight is you. She will cling to you the way a desperate swimmer will cling to a rock in a rushing stream.”

It was time to be careful. A big part of me wished her clinging was more than metaphorical. “How about Ky Gota and those other kids?”

“The children can be adopted into the families of their mothers. Gota, surely, can move.” Doj continued muttering under his breath, which was uncharacteristic. Sounded like something about wanting to move her a couple thousand miles. “Though she will not take it well.”

“Don’t tell me you’re less than enchanted with Ky Gota too?”

“No one is enchanted with that ill-tempered lizard.”

“And I once thought that you two were married.”

He stopped cold, stunned. “You’re mad!”

“I changed my mind, didn’t I?”

“Hong Tray, old witch, what hast thou wished upon me?”

“What?”

“Talking to myself, Standardbearer. Engaging in the debate I cannot lose. That woman, Hong Tray, my mother’s cousin, was a witch. She could see into the future sometimes and if what she saw failed to please her she wanted it changed. And she had some strange ideas about that.”

“I trust you know what you’re talking about.”

He did not get it. “Not entirely. The witch toyed with all our destinies but never explained. Perhaps she was blind to her own fate.”

I let myself be distracted. “What will your people do now?”

“We will survive, Standardbearer. Like you Soldiers of Darkness, that is what we do.”

“If you really think you owe me for stumbling in there with Thai Dei, tell me what that means. Soldiers of Darkness. Stone Soldier. Bone Warrior. What do they mean?”

“One might almost accept your protestations.”

“Look at it this way. If I do know what you’re talking about you have nothing to lose by telling me what I already know.”

In that light it was hard to tell but I believe Uncle Doj smiled again. For the second time in one day. “Clever,” he said. And did not explain a thing.

74

Uncle Doj relieved me of most of my guests. I ended up sharing quarters with Thai Dei and his son To Tan, plus Sahra. Sahra helped with the baby and struggled to put together meals, though the Company kitchen could serve everyone in the warrens. She needed to stay busy. Thai Dei followed me almost everywhere. Both he and Sahra were lethargic and uncommunicative and added up to about half a human being between them.

I began to worry. They belonged to a hardy people accustomed to surviving cruel disasters. They should show some signs of recovery.

I assembled the brains of the outfit: Cletus, Loftus, Longinus, Goblin and One-Eye, Otto and Hagop. “I got some questions, troops.”

“He got to be here?” Goblin meant Thai Dei.

“He’s all right. Ignore him.”

“What kind of questions?” One-Eye demanded.

“So far we haven’t had any major health problems in the Company. But there’s cholera and typhoid out there, not to mention plenty of the old fashioned drizzling shits. We all right?”

Goblin muttered something and passed gas loudly.

“Barbarian,” One-Eye sneered. “We’re all right because we follow Croaker’s health rules like they was religious laws. Only we can’t make the rules stick much longer. We’re almost out of fuel. And these Nyueng Bao. They don’t like to bother boiling water and keeping clean and not shitting where they live. We got them going along right now but it ain’t going to last.”

“It’s been overcast and nasty for a few days, I hear. Are we collecting any rainwater?”

“Plenty for us,” Loftus told me. “But not enough for us and them, let alone getting any put back into the cisterns.”

“I was afraid of that. About the fuel, I mean. You guys know any way to fix rice or beans so you can digest them without cooking them?”

Nobody knew. Longinus suggested, “Maybe soaking them a long time in water might help. My mother did that.”

“Damn. I really want us to get through this. But how?”

Goblin seemed to develop a small secret smile at that, like he had a definite idea. He exchanged glances with One-Eye.

“You guys got something?”

“Not yet,” Goblin told me. “There’s an experiment we still have to try.”

“Get on with it.”

“After the meeting. We need you to help.”

“Wonderful. All right. Can anyone tell me what the rest of the city thinks about our disappearance?”

Hagop coughed, clearing his throat. He did not say much ordinarily so everybody paused to listen. “I been doing watches in the lookouts. Sometimes you can hear talk. I don’t think we done our reputation any good. Also, I don’t think we fooled anybody. They don’t talk about us much but nobody figures we just cut out. They think we found some way to dig a hole and fill it up with wine, women and food and pulled it in after us and we ain’t coming back out again till the rest of them are good and dead.”

“Guys, I tried to get the wine, women and banquets but all I could come up with was the hole.”

Out of nowhere, Otto said, “The water’s going down.”

“What?”

“It is, Murgen. It’s down five feet already.”

“Would flooding the city make that much difference? No? Why’s that?”

Goblin and One-Eye exchanged significant looks.

“What?” I demanded.

“After we do our experiment.”

“All right. The rest of you guys. You know the problems. Go see if there’s anything we can do about them.”

75

“Talk to me,” I told the runt wizards.

Goblin said, “We think something was done to you when you were out there.” He jerked his head shoreward.

“What? Get serious! I . . . ”

“We are. You were gone a long time. And you changed. How many disappearing spells have you had since you got back?”

I gave it an honest think. “Only one. Maybe. When I was kidnapped. I don’t remember anything about it. I’m sure they drugged me. I was drinking tea with the Speaker, then I was in that street where you found me. I have no idea how I got there. I have vague recollections of smelling smoke and going out a door which put me somewhere that I did not expect to be when I got to the other side. I vaguely remember thinking something about being in the house of pain.”

“They tortured you.”

“They did.” I still had the nicks and bruises to prove it. I had no idea what I might have been asked, if anything. I did suspect that Sindhu’s pals were behind my abduction and the attempt on Mogaba.

If so, their life sure took an unpleasant turn when the Black Company found them.

“We’ve been watching you,” Goblin said. “And you have been behaving pretty strange sometimes. What we want to do is put you to sleep and see if we can’t reach the part of you that was there when things happened.”

“I don’t get you.”

“You don’t have to. You just have to cooperate.”

“You’re sure?”

“We’re sure.”

He did not sound sure.

I awakened on my own pallet. Not refreshed. Someone was wiping my hot face with a cold, wet cloth. I opened my eyes. In the light of one tiny candle Sahra looked more lovely than ever. She looked better than imagination. She continued to wipe my face.

I had another hangover type headache. What had they done? I ought at least to get the enjoyment that came before the pain.

To Tan began to fuss. He slept in a basket of evil smelling rags beneath my writing table. I reached over and took his hand. He stopped crying, content to have human contact. He did not cry for his mother much anymore.

I raised my other hand to take Sahra’s. She pushed it back gently. She never spoke. I never did hear her speak, not even to her own children.

I looked around. Thai Dei was gone. Anymore it seemed I had a better chance of shaking my shadow. Thai Dei was there even in the dark.

I started to sit up. Sahra held me down with two fingers. I was too weak to do anything. And my head felt like it doubled in size just rising that foot.

Sahra offered me a hand-carved wooden cup filled with something that smelled so foul my eyes watered. Nyueng Bao swamp medicine. I drank. It tasted worse than it smelled.

She continued to mop my face. I shivered and shook. The pain went away. I began to relax, to feel both energetic and positive. That was good stuff. Maybe they made it smell and taste bad so people would not take it all the time.

We stared at one another a long time, saying nothing but reaching a decision our conscious minds did not entirely recognize at the moment. Hong Tray drifted across my thoughts with a smile and an admonition.

This time I managed a smile when I sat up. Unchallenged. “I have work to do.”

Sahra shook her head. She fished under the table for To Tan, dug him out of his basket. He was in desperate need of changing. Sahra tugged my finger.

“I haven’t done this in twenty years.” Not since I was a kid myself and had baby brothers and sisters and cousins to change. “Stop wiggling, you little turd. You ought to know the drill by now.” To Tan looked back at me with serious big eyes, not understanding my words but catching my tone.

We got him cleaned up and clothed again, in rags that would have embarrassed a beggar. I told Sahra, “I’ll go kill somebody, get him something better to wear.”

She laid a hand lightly on my forearm, restraining me. “That was a joke, hon. You hang around with me, you’re going to hear some dark stuff. I don’t mean it literally. I’m going to work now.”

I moved into the passageway slowly, my legs watery. Sahra followed, To Tan straddling her left hip. We ran into Bucket right away, looking groggy as he headed for his own pallet. I asked, “You seen Goblin and One-Eye?”

“They went upstairs with their magic junk. To the big lookout.”

“Thanks.”

Before we walked five feet, Bucket called, “Longo tell you the water is coming up in the catacombs?”

I sighed and shook my head, listened to the half-hearted rumble of my stomach, wondered if anybody had found a way to get some food cooked, wound my way through the maze to the ladders that would take me up to Goblin and One-Eye.

The light of day might do me good. If I had the strength to climb that far. I had not seen the sun for a long time.

76

I would not see the sun for a while longer. Sahra handed To Tan up through the trapdoor. He was asleep again. I guess you do sleep a lot when you are a baby starving to death.

It was daytime but a driving rain was falling. Hagop sat astride a chair turned backwards, forearms on the chair’s back, staring into the rain morosely. “How long has this been going on?” I asked.

“Day or three.”

“We getting any fresh water out of it?”

“About as much as we can being as we’re hiding out.”

“What’re those two doing?” Goblin and One-Eye were on the floor in the middle of the room, crosslegged, farthest from the moisture blowing inside. They did not look up.

“Wizard stuff. Don’t bother them. They’ll bite your leg off.”

One-Eye grumbled, “And somebody’s gonna lose a set of ears if he don’t stop yakking.”

Hagop and I each spent one of our diminishing supply of single finger salutes. One-Eye did not acknowledge the accolade.

The lookout had a window facing each direction. I went to the biggest.

This rain was not what we called a gullywasher back home but it was strong and steady. I could barely sense the vague loom of the surrounding hills. Nearer at hand I could make out the surface of the water. It was down despite the rain. It was a grey that spoke of sickness.

I saw a Jaicuri raft out there, so loaded with people that it was awash. Men using short boards as paddles labored carefully to drive it toward shore.

I made the rounds of the other windows, studied the city. I was pleased to see our Taglians at their posts the way they had been taught.

“They’ve been doing it by the numbers,” Hagop agreed. “And that gets them left alone.”

“By Mogaba?”

“By everybody. The fighting is almost constant.”

The streets and alleys were now canals. I saw bodies floating everywhere. The stench was overwhelming. The water level, though, was lower than I had expected. I could see the citadel from the east window. There were Nar up top there, ignoring the weather. They moved around the parapet, studying our part of town.

Hagop noticed me watching them. “They’re worried about us. They think we might come sort them out sometime.”

“Sure we will.”

“They’re superstitious about guys like Goblin and One-Eye.”

“Which shows you how dangerous a little ignorance can be.”

“I heard that,” One-Eye grumbled. He and Goblin could have been playing some obscure dice game for all I could tell. I liked it better when they conjured big lights that went around smashing things and burning them up. Destruction I can understand.

Sahra seemed tired of lugging To Tan so I took him. She offered a grateful smile. It lit up the lookout.

One-Eye and Goblin paused to exchange glances amongst themselves and with Hagop.

“What are you guys doing?” I demanded.

“We found out we were right.”

“Yeah? That might be a first. You were right about what?”

“About your head having been tampered with.”

I shuddered to a sudden chill. That is not something anyone welcomes. “Who did it? How?”

“How we haven’t been able to figure out for sure. It might have been managed several ways. Who and what are more interesting, anyway.”

“So give.”

“Who was Lady. And what was knowledge of the fact that she is out there.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a little hard to tell from here, especially when we got tourists and their girlfriends traipsing through the workplace, but it looks like Lady and the Taglians are in charge out there. Their camp is on the other side of the hills, up the north road. The southerners we see patrolling are auxiliaries who report back to Lady.”

“Run through that again.”

Goblin did so.

I said, “You guys go ahead. I’m just going to sit over here in the corner and think.”