Dreams of Steel (16 page)

Most were probably dead.

Whips and carrots and emotional manipulations. I'd been at it so long I could do it in my sleep.

A messenger came. There were priests at the barracks to see me. "Took them long enough," I muttered. Were they late because they were off balance or because they waited till they were ready for a confrontation? No matter. They would wait till we finished.

The rain stopped. It was never much more than a drizzling nuisance.

Once we cleared the square I dismounted and walked with Narayan. We were seventy fewer now. He had let that many go. I asked, "Did you notice the bats?"

"A few, Mistress." He was puzzled.

"Are they special among the omens of Kina?"

"I don't think so. But I was never a priest."

"They're significant to me."

"Eh?"

"They tell me, plain as a shout, that the Shadowmasters have spies here. General order to the men. Kill all bats. If they can, find out where they're roosting. Watch out for foreigners. Pass the word to the populace, too. There are spies among us again and I want to lay hands on a few."

We'd probably end up swamped with useless reports about harmless people, but... A few wouldn't be harmless. And those needed their teeth pulled.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The men waiting included delegations from all three religious hierarchies. They were not pleased that I had kept them waiting. I did not apologize. I was not in a good humor and did not mind a confrontation.

They'd had to wait in the mess hall because there was nowhere else to put them. Even there they had to crowd up because they had to get out of the way of men who had nowhere else to spread their blankets.

Before I went in I told Narayan, "First score to my credit. They came to me."

"Probably because none of them want you making a private deal with the others."

"Probably." I put on my best scowl, laid on a light glamor, clanked into the mess hall. "Good morning. I'm honored but I'm also pressed for time. If you have something to discuss please get to the point. I'm an hour behind schedule and didn't budget time for socializing."

They didn't know how to take me. A woman talking hard was something new.

Somebody shot an obnoxious question from the back.

"All right. A position statement. That should save time. My religious attitude is indifference. I'll stay indifferent as long as religion ignores me. My position on social issues is the same. I'm a soldier, one of the Black Company, which contracted with the Prahbrindrah Drah to rid Taglios of the Shadowmasters. My Captain fell. I replaced him. I will fulfill the contract. If that statement doesn't answer your questions then you probably have questions you have no right to ask.

"My predecessor was a patient man. He worried about offending people. I don't share those qualities. I'm direct and unpleasant when aroused. Questions?"

They had them. Of course. They yammered. I picked a man I recognized, one who was offensive and was not loved by his peers. He was a bald Gunni in scarlet. "Tal. You're being unpleasant. Stop it. You have no legitimate business here. None of you have, really. I said I have no interest in religion. You have little cause to be interested in things military. Let's leave each other to our own competences."

Beautiful Tal played his part as though rehearsed. His response was more than offensive, it was a direct challenge predicated upon my sex, speaking to my failure to commit suttee.

I tossed him a Golden Hammer, not to the heart but to the right shoulder. It spun him around and knocked him down. He screamed for more than a minute before he passed out.

It got real quiet. Everyone, including poor fuddled Narayan, stared at me wide-eyed.

"You see? I'm not my predecessor. He would have remained polite. He would have clung to persuasion and diplomacy long past the point where a demonstration is a more effective way to communicate. Go tend to priestly matters. I'll tend to making war and to wartime discipline."

That should not be hard for them to figure out. The Company's contract made the Captain virtual military dictator for a year. Croaker had not used the power. I did not expect to. But it was there if needed.

"Go. I have work to do."

They went. Quietly. Thoughtfully.

"Well," Narayan said after they left. "Well."

"Now they know I'm no fainter. Now they know I'm mission-oriented and don't care who I stomp if they get in the way."

"They're bad men to make enemies."

"They make the choice. Yes! I know. But they're confused. It'll take them a while to decide what to do. Then they'll all get in each other's ways. I've bought time. I need intelligence sources, Narayan. Find Ram. Tell him I want those men he brought to me earlier. It's time to look at those sites." Before he could argue, I added, "And tell him if he plans to keep on being my shadow he'd better learn to ride. I expect to be moving around a lot, now."

"Yes, Mistress." He hurried off, paused just before he left, looked back, frowned. He was wondering who was using who and who had the upper hand. Good. Let him. While he was wondering I'd get my foundations set solidly.

The men in the mess hall all stared at me with varying degrees of awe. Few met my gaze. "Rest while you can, soldiers. The sands are running through the glass."

I went to my quarters to wait for Ram.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Croaker stared into the drizzly night, fingers nervously twisting strands of grass. One of the horses made a sound out there. He thought about walking over there, mounting up bareback, riding away. He would stand a fifty-fifty chance of staying ahead.

Except that things had changed. Now Catcher did not have to catch up physically.

He held up the figure he had made, a man shape two inches tall. The grass gave off a garlic odor. He shrugged, flipped it out into the rain, took more strands of grass from a pocket. He had made hundreds now. Grass figures had become a sort of measure of time.

A steady banging came from behind him. He turned away from the night, walked slowly toward the woman. She had produced a set of armorer's tools from somewhere. This was the second day running she had spent building something. Obviously black armor, but why?

She glanced at the horse figure he was twisting. "I may get you some paper and ink."

"Would you?" There was a lot he wanted to set down. He had grown used to keeping a journal.

"I may. That's no pastime for a grown man."

He shrugged, put the horse aside. "Take a break. Time to check you over."

She no longer wore robes. She was outfitted as she had been when first he had met her, in tight black leather that somehow left her sex ambiguous. Her Soulcatcher costume, she called it. She hadn't bothered with the helmet yet.

She set her tools aside, looked at him with mischief in her eyes. "You sound depressed." The voice she chose was merry.

"I am depressed. Stand up." She did. He peeled away the leather around her neck. "It's healing quickly. I'll remove the sutures tomorrow, maybe."

"Will there be much scarring?"

"I don't know. Depends on how well your healing, spells work. I didn't know you were vain."

"I'm human. I'm a woman. I want to look nice." Same voice but less merry.

"You do look nice." He did not think before he spoke. Just making a statement of fact. She looked nice in the sense that she was a beautiful woman. Like her sister. He had become very conscious of that since she had changed her style of dress. That left him nagged by low-grade guilt.

She laughed. "I'm reading your mind, Croaker."

She was not, literally. She would not be pleased with him if she was. But she had been around a long time and had studied people. She could read books from a few physical clues.

He grunted. He was getting used to it. There was no point trying hard to hide from it. "What are you making?"

"Armor. We'll be healed enough to go soon. We'll have great fun."

"I'll bet." He felt a twinge in his chest.. He was almost healed. There had been none of the complications he had expected. He had begun taking forced exercise.

"We're the gadflies here, love. The chaos factor. My beloved sister and the Taglians know nothing about us. Those clubfooted Shadowmasters know I'm here but they don't know about you. They don't know what you've accomplished. They think I'm a nuisance floating around in the dark. I doubt they've entertained the notion that I could be restored."

She rested a hand on his cheek. "I'm more basic than you think."

"Oh?"

Change of voice, businesslike, masculine, at odds with the invitation. "I have eyes everywhere. I know every word spoken by anyone who interests me. A while back I arranged for Longshadow to be diverted while Howler visited Spinner and cut Longshadow's webs of control."

"Damn! He'll hit Dejagore with everything."

"He'll lie low and pretend he's unchanged. The siege costs him nothing. He'll be more interested in improving his position in relation to Longshadow. He knows Longshadow will destroy him when he's no longer useful. We'll have fun. We'll poke around and make them chase their tails. When the dust settles, maybe there'll be no Longshadow, no Shadowspinner, no Howler, just you and me and an empire of our own. Or maybe the spirit will move me some other direction. I don't know. I'm just having fun with it."

He shook his head slightly. Hard to believe, but it sounded true. Her schemes could kill thousands, could distress millions, and to her it was play.

"I'll never understand you."

She giggled the giggle of a girl with nothing between the ears. She was neither young nor empty-headed. "I don't understand myself. But I gave up trying a long time ago. It's distracting."

Games. From the first she had been involved in tortuous maneuvers and manipulations, to no obvious end. Her great pleasure was to watch a scheme flower and devour its victim. Her only plot to fail had been the one meant to displace her sister. And she had not failed completely then because she had survived, somehow.

She said, "Soon Kina's followers will start arriving. We'll have to be somewhere else. So let's go down to Dejagore and cause some confusion. We ought to get there about the time Spinner figures he's ready to make an independent move. Be interesting to see how it goes."

Croaker did not understand but did not ask. He was used to her talking in riddles. She let him know what she wanted him to know when she was ready to tell him. No point pressing her. He could do little but bide his time and hope.

"It's late," she said. "We've done enough for today. Let's turn in."

He grunted, not eager. The place gave him the creeps when he thought about it, which meant every night as he fell asleep. Which meant at least one potent nightmare. He would be glad to get out.

Maybe out there he could vanish-if he could think of a way to hide from the crows.

Fifteen minutes after the lamp went out Soulcatcher asked, "Are you awake?"

"Yeah."

"It's cold in here."

"Uhm." It always was. Most nights he fell asleep shivering.

"Why don't you come over here?"

The shivering worsened. "I don't think so."

She laughed. "Some other time."

He fell asleep worrying about how she always got her way instead of about the temple. His dreams were more troubling than nightmares.

Once he wakened momentarily. The lamp was alive again. Soulcatcher was murmuring with a clatch of crows. The subject seemed to be events in Taglios. She appeared pleased. He drifted off without understanding what it was about.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Neither potential campsite was perfect. One had been fortified before, in ancient times. For centuries people had carried the stone off for use elsewhere. I chose that site.

"Nobody remembers the name," I told Ram as we rode toward town. "Makes you think."

"Huh? About what?"

"The fleeting nature of things. Taglios' entire history could have been influenced by what happened there and now nobody remembers the name."

He looked at me oddly, straining for understanding. He wanted to understand but he didn't have the capacity. The past was last week, the future tomorrow. There was no reality in anything that happened before he was born.

He was not stupid. He seemed big and dull and slow but possessed an average intellect. He just had not learned to employ it.

"Never mind. It doesn't matter. I'm just being moody." He understood moody. He expected it. His wife and mother had been "moody."

He did not have time now to think, anyway. He was too busy staying on his horse.

We returned to the barracks. There was another crowd looking for their loved ones. Narayan was handling them efficiently. They eyed me curiously. Not at all the way they had looked at Croaker. Him they had hailed Liberator everywhere. Me, I was a freak without the sense to know she was not a man. I would grow on them. Just a matter of creating a legend.

Narayan caught up with me. "There was a messenger from the palace. The prince wants you to dine with him tonight. Someplace called the grove."

"Oh?" That was where I had met him first. Croaker had taken me. The grove was an outdoor place frequented by the rich and influential. "Request or order?"

"Invitation. Will you do me the honor of, like that." "Did you accept?"

"No. How could I guess what you'd want to do?" "Good. Send a message. I accept. What time?" "He wasn't specific."

It would slow me down but I might accomplish something that would save fussing and feuding later. At least I'd learn how much grief I could expect from the state. "I'm going to sketch out the camp I want built. We'll send one company plus five hundred recruits to start. Pick whoever you think we should get out of the city. That mess outside. How's it going?" "Well enough, Mistress." "Any volunteers showing?" "A few."

"And intelligence? Have you gotten anything started?"

"Lot of people want to tell us things. Mostly about foreigners. Nothing really interesting."

"Keep at it. Let me do those sketches. After that I'll make a list to give the Prahbrindrah. After