She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company (6 page)

I was having a bizarre dream about Cordy Mather and the Radisha when somebody
poked me. I groaned, cracked an eyelid. I knew I did not have to stand a watch.

I had helped with the cooking. I cursed, pulled my blankets over my head and
tried to get back to the Palace, where Mather was arguing with the Radisha about
her plans to shaft the Black Company after the Shadowmaster fell. It almost felt
like I was actually there rather than dreaming.

“Wake up.” Uncle Doj prodded me again.

I tried to cling to the dream. There was more to it. Something nebulous but
dangerous about the Radisha. Something that had Mather upset in a major way.

I thought I might be working out something important ins my sleep.

“Wake up, Bone Warrior.”

That did it. I hated it when Nyueng Bao called me that, never explaining what
they meant. I grunted, “What?”

“Trouble is coming.”

Thai Dei stepped out of the darkness. He spoke! “One-Eye told me to warn you.”

“What’re you doing up here?” His arm had not yet healed completely.

I glanced at the Captain. He was awake. He had a bird perched on one shoulder,

beak moving at his ear. He eyed Thai Dei and Uncle Doj but said nothing. He
clambered to his feet wearily, collected a couple of bamboo poles and trudged
around to where he could see the lake. I followed him. Uncle Doj tagged along
behind me. It amazed me that a man so short and wide could move so quietly and
gracefully.

I saw nothing new out there in the darkness. Occasional flecks of light
continued to streak the tapestry of the night. “Like fireflies.” There were a
million stars. The guys who expected snow were going to be disappointed.

“Hush,” Croaker said. He was listening to something. The damned bird on his
shoulder?

Where was the other one?

A crimson ball zipped away from one wagon just like scores before it. But when
this one neared the island it dipped violently and swerved to the right,

scattering the rippling water with ten thousand rubies. At water level the ball
became a splash of blood that faded immediately.

There was no reflection off the water anywhere nearby.

“Shadows.”

A half-dozen balls streaked out. They defined a river of darkness snaking across
the lake. Then balls started flying around over the remnants of the village that
had been burning while that boat sank.

The discharges there reached panic level quickly. The Captain ordered, “Swing
one of the wagons around. Give them some support down there. And let’s see if we
can’t get a couple more wagons up here fast.”

Some individuals were plinking at the village already, for whatever help that
would provide. Croaker told the crew of the second wagon, “Cut loose on that
island. Everything you’ve got. Murgen. I want everybody awake and up here. The
shit-storm is about to hit.”

I ran off to tap-dance on a couple of snorers famous for their bugle calls.

Both wagons cut loose about the same time. Their trigger cranks squealed and
rattled as they whirled. Bamboo tubes discharged color in furious series. How
many balls could a wagon launch? A shitload.

Cavalry tubes carried fifteen charges. Standard infantry and infantry long
carried thirty and forty charges respectively. The hundreds of tubes on each
wagon were longer still.

The fireflies went mad. Every single ball launched darted downward after a
shadow. Each made its dip nearer shore.

“Lots of shadows,” Croaker observed laconically. This was a new thing but a
thing we had feared for years. Shadows attacking in waves and a flood instead of
sneaking around like spies and assassins.

The Old Man seemed calm. Me, I damned near drizzled down my leg. I ran, but only
far enough to get hold of the standard and a bundle of bamboo. I planted the
former beside the Old Man, got the business end of a pole pointed southward,

found the handgrip trigger mechanism and started turning. Each quarter turn sent
another fireball streaking. I told Thai Dei, “Grab you some bamboo, brother. You
too, uncle. This isn’t going to be anything you can stop with a sword.”

Balls were arcing over from the far slope now. There were enough in transit to
define the wave of darkness headed our way. Fireballs plunged into that darkness
like bright hail, flared, faded. This was the nightmare tide we had dreaded for
so long, the hellpower of the Shadowmaster unleashed.

Balls consumed shadows by the thousand. The flood came on. Unlike mortal
soldiers those things could do nothing but follow commands. Sorcery compelled
them.

My pole went dry. I grabbed another one. Uncle Doj and Thai Dei began to grasp
the situation. They found poles and got into the act, though Thai Dei was not
very fast one-handed.

The dark tide came off the water and headed upslope. As it drew closer I began
to make out individual shadows.

I saw these things first way back when we first came to Taglios, in the days
when there were four Shadowmasters and together they could reach a lot farther
than could Longshadow now. The skrinsa shadowweavers came north to kill us. They
failed. But in their time they used small shadows, few bigger than my fist. I
never saw one bigger than a cat.

Some in this flood dwarfed cattle. Those absorbed fireballs with no apparent
effect. I saw dozens survive multiple hits. I muttered, “Maybe Lady wasn’t as
clever as she thought.”

Croaker replied, “Think what it would be like without her cleverness.”

We would be dead already. “Got you.”

Closer. Closer. The dark wall was but a hundred yards distant now, the shadows
far fewer in number and moving slower but relentless nevertheless.

Now the wagons could not depress their aim low enough to hit the shadows. They
shifted their attentions to that island.

Uncle Doj shouted, drew Ash Wand. I have no idea what he thought that would do
to the huge clot of darkness racing straight toward us while a swarm of small
shadows scurried around it like frightened offspring. No sword held any power
against this darkness.

I tried to burn a hole through the clot’s heart, poised on the brink of panic.

Death ravened closer and closer.

Balls from the rear began falling around us as little shadows slithered in
amongst the rocks.

The screams began.

The dark mass became a bonfire as fireballs hammered it. It slowed, slowed some
more, but never stopped coming. It reared like a boar grizzly issuing his
challenge. I spun my hand grip hard, yelled some kind of nonsense. That killer
slice of hell’s breath strained to get at me but could not. It was as though the
thing, at the last instant, had encountered some invisible and unbreakable
barrier.

The darkness radiated a dank psychic horror I imagined went with the grave, a
hunger known only by things undead, an odor of the soul I remembered from too
many bad dreams about bone-strewn wastelands and old men bound up in cocoons of
spun ice. My terror grew stronger. I yanked at my handgrip long after my pole
went dry, long after there was no more reason to crank.

The shadow kept trying to get to me until the barrage of fireballs consumed its
last whisper of darkness.

The excitement faded quickly. Only balls launched toward the island found many
targets.

The rock outcrop was taking a pounding from Lady’s division, too, the troops
over there having figured out what was happening. I thought the volume of fire
so heavy it might actually consume the island.

Then Croaker ordered fire reduced to precautionary levels. “No sense wasting our
tools. We’re going to run into this sort of thing again.” He stared at me for
half a minute. Then he asked, “How did we get surprised like this?” He used that
Juniper tongue.

I shrugged. “Don’t ask me.” I chose Forsberger because I did not know the other
well enough. “I was busy carrying the standard.” Meaning I was cut off from
Smoke most of the time these days for what he considered sufficient reason. He
was going to have to count on One-Eye to provide his warnings.

“Shit,” he said, without much venom. “Goddamn shit. Don’t get clever with—”

A grand shriek rolled across the lake. Lady’s troops loosed a furious barrage at
something that darted up from the island and raced away southward. Croaker
grunted. “The Howler!”

“We got them scared now, boss. The Shadowmaster is sending the big boys out to
play.”

Croaker showed me a twitch of the lip. Not much. His sense of humor had gone to
hell lately. Maybe he lost it when he was Soulcatcher’s prisoner. Or maybe when
he came back to find out that he was a father but chances were he would never
see his kid.

Howler escaped.

We stood down eventually but hardly anyone got any more sleep.

Dawn did come. It found our dead already burned or buried by soldiers who had
been unable to sleep. I did not have to look at one tormented face.

There was no shortage of tormented landscape. It looked as though small
lightnings had been on a year-long rampage around the lake. Already some of the
more daring troopers were down at the water’s edge collecting dead fish.

Of the things that had attacked us there was no trace at all.

Croaker suggested, “You might spend a little more time with Smoke.” Which, of
course, was more than a suggestion, though given reluctantly. He had given up
counting on One-Eye for anything but grief.

I glanced around. My in-laws were nowhere in sight. I told him, “One-Eye did
send warning.”

“It wasn’t what I’d call timely. It must have taken Howler and Longshadow days
to set last night up. We should have been ready.”

“Maybe not being ready will work out for the best, though.”

“Why? How?”

“If we’d ambushed their ambush they would’ve started wondering how we knew about
it. The way it worked out they’ll just sit around cussing Lady for thinking
ahead.”

“You got a point. But I still want a little more warning. Just don’t go getting
hung up on ghostwalking.”

“What about the standard? I don’t know where Sleepy is these days and there
isn’t another sworn brother handy.” Nobody who was not Company was going to
touch our most holy of relics. The standard, actually the lance from which the
standard hangs, is the only artifact we have which has remained with the Company
since its beginnings. The oldest Annals have all been recopied time and time
again, undergoing translation after translation.

Croaker told me, “I’ll manage it. You get sick and have to ride for a while.” He
did and I did. Wearing his full Widowmaker armor he became terrible to behold
once he took up the standard. A dark aura seemed to envelop him.

Much of that had to do with spells Lady had built into and onto the armor, layer
after layer, for years. Even though Widowmaker was pure powerless invention, the
vision was supposed to suggest something way beyond the ordinary, was supposed
to stir the observer’s superstitions. So was the Lifetaker character Lady had
created for herself. But hers had grown into its legend. Or had been something
more than invention to start.

When Lady donned that armor she resembled one of the avatars of the goddess
Kina. Some of her soldiers and more of her enemies half believed that when she
donned the Lifetaker garb she became possessed by the dark goddess. I did not
like that idea and did not accept it but Lady never discouraged it.

It did touch near a suspicion I have entertained from the time I first read
Lady’s volume of the Annals.

Could it be possible she was still a tool of that Mother of Night? Maybe
unwittingly?

Uncle Doj and Thai Dei scowled suspiciously when I told them I was sick again
and was going to ride in One-Eye’s wagon for a while. I am sure Uncle Doj now
knew Smoke was aboard and wanted to find out why the comatose wizard was
important enough for us to carry off to war. He did not press me, though. He
remained sensitive to Croaker’s scrutiny.

“How you doing, Kid?” One-Eye asked as I clambered aboard. He sounded depressed.

Maybe he had a good ass-chewing from the Old Man. Again.

“You missed some big fun last night.”

“Not hardly. And I can tell you that I’m too damned old for this crap. Croaker
don’t get us to Khatovar pretty damned soon I’m gonna drop out and take up leek
farming.”

“I’ve got some good turnip seed. And rutabagas. I could use a manager . . . ”

“Work for you? Bullshit. Anyway, I know where I can get me some good ground
cheap. Up in the Dhojar Prine. I could take Goblin along and make him lead field
hand.”

He was just making chin music and we both knew it. I suggested, “You want to run
a big operation you’re going to need a good woman to help. My mother-in-law
would just love to remarry.”

Sourly, he told me, “I had it all scoped out to fix Goblin up with her. That
would’ve been my all-time masterpiece. But he had to go and disappear.”

“Gods just can’t take a fucking joke, can they?”

“No shit. You should get more sleep. You look like you’ve been up all night. And
you’re getting a little testy.”

Like a demon summoned by the naming of its name Mother Gota came waddling around
the side of One-Eye’s wagon. One-Eye squeaked in surprise. I gulped air. She was
supposed to be a long way back up the road.

But, then, Thai Dei was supposed to be back there recuperating, too.

The old woman was lugging so many weapons she looked like a dwarfish arms
merchant. She looked up. Her usual grim scowl was missing. She smiled at
One-Eye, showing us her absent teeth.

One-Eye gave me a look of hopeless appeal. “They can’t take a joke. Not even a
little one, not even once. Don’t stress him, Kid. I got the cough fixed but now
he ain’t taking his soup so good.” Ignoring the Nyueng Bao woman, he settled
himself on the driver’s seat, cracked a whip.

I wasted no time. I made myself comfortable and went ghostwalking.

I like the word “consternation.” It sounds like what it means.

There was a shitload of consternation surrounding Mogaba when I arrived. He and
his gang had gotten an incoherent report from Howler, who was not exactly in
pristine condition when he reached Charandaprash. He and his carpet both had
been hit by Lady’s marksmen.

An important point was that Howler and the Shadowmaster had cooked up the
night’s festivities without ever having consulted Mogaba. Mogaba was pissed off,

the way generals get whenever their expertise is disdained.

Blade’s force had joined Mogaba’s. Croaker had talked about trying to cut him
off but nothing had developed. There had been no time for planning and launching
a strong enough force.

Usually the boss does manage to separate the wishful from the possible, whatever
his own feelings.

Upon arriving, Blade took charge of the division forming Mogaba’s left flank,

meaning he would be head to head with the Prahbrindrah Drah when the field
armies collided. It was interesting to note that all the division commanders of
the Shadowlander main force, along with the head general himself, were renegades
who had gone over from our side.

They were all competent soldiers but I doubted that Longshadow cared. What
mattered to him most was that they would be strongly motivated to avoid defeat
and capture.

I scurried ahead to Overlook, to be there when Howler reported from the front.

It ought to be entertaining. Longshadow turned into a raving, foamy-mouthed
madman when things really went wrong.

I had to adjust my position in time only slightly to watch the screaming
sorcerer arrive on a carpet that was a herd of holes held together by a handful
of threads. It was a wonder it did not fall apart under him.

Longshadow listened to Howler’s report. He was angry but he did not fault his
ally. Which was odd. He was not one to assume much blame himself. Howler
observed, “She was a step ahead this time.”

“Did any of our assets survive the skirmish?” Skirmish?

“No.”

“Time to keep the skildirsha behind the Dandha Presh, then. For now we’ll use
them only for communications and reconnaissance. What of the skrinsa? Any out
there?”

“Not living. Not that I transported.”

“Excellent.”

This was scary. Longshadow always dealt with bad news by turning into a raving
lunatic.

The Howler said, “Husband those who still live. Order them to begin teaching
their craft to any with the capacity to learn it. If your mighty general fails
and the Company breaks through at Charandaprash, shadowweavers will be
priceless.”

Longshadow grunted, fiddled with his mask. “You knew the woman. Senjak. Does she
have the power to break our armies?”

“She would have in olden times. It’s possible she may be strong enough now.

Unless we go up there to preoccupy her while our troops exterminate hers.”

I found it interesting that they believed Lady was in charge, whatever
appearance we presented. Possibly that was because Howler had been under her
thumb for so long, virtually her slave. He might not be capable of believing her
anything less than the master. Too, they seemed unable to recognize the fact
that our better motivated troops had beaten theirs regularly without any
sorcerous, mystical or divine assistance.

Longshadow asked, “Are there a great many of them coming?”

“Yes. Although they have broken with past practice. Many are camp followers
weakened by trying to live off a land already scoured by military foragers.”

True. And even the soldiers were less than one hundred percent. However much
groundwork we had laid, the last leg of the journey passed through barren
country.

“But their force is larger?”

“The combat force is, yes, slightly. But it consists of less disciplined troops.

The evidence all says she’s made this move out of political expediency. The
Taglian priesthoods have recovered from the blow she struck them four years ago.

They have started testing her. She’s just diverting them. Singh’s spies say all
the senior Taglians expect this campaign to end in defeat.”

“Get some rest. Prepare the other carpet. If I must go up there then I must
accept the risk fully. I’ll want to arrive there before Mogaba succumbs to the
temptation to take the fight to his enemies.”

Even now, after natural disaster had stalled construction on Overlook
indefinitely, Longshadow was determined to stall for time instead of taking the
offensive.

I am no military genius but I have read the available Annals a few times.

Nowhere in there did I ever find mention of anybody who won a war sitting on his
ass.

Much as I hate the man personally, professionally I can feel sorry for Mogaba.

For about fifteen seconds. Before we cut his throat.