Soldiers Live (37 page)

The Grove of Doom:

A Big Surprise
The Daughter of Night was ready to scream with the boredom and psychic
oppression of life in the Grove of Doom. Life with Narayan had not been perfect
but she had understood it. Life with the Khadidas was intolerable. The possessed
little man was insufferable. Every day, all day, there were lessons. Almost
always about things she already knew. Unless it was philosophical stuff about
how she ought to give herself up completely to the will of Kina. About how she
should strive to rid herself of even the most stubborn tatters of personality
and become nothing but a vessel for Kina, not the Daughter of Night anymore but
the Khadidasa.

The Khadidas droned his arguments at her while she sat with arms around shins,

chin on her knees, on the steps of the Deceiver temple. Visiting Deceiver
pilgrims came and went, cleaning the temple. She paid no attention. She was
recalling more than one other time when she had been right here with Papa
Narayan. Looking back, those days seemed almost a normal family life, now.

She began to replay thoughts from times past, immediately became restless, and
wondered why. She had not thought of men in that way since she had heard about
Narayan’s death.

Someone came down from the temple, passed by her. He set himself to fling a pail
of dirty water. There was a solid thump. The bucket man made a startled little
squeak and toppled backward. He fell on the steps beside the girl, looking up at
his messiah from amazed eyes. She watched the light fade from them.

An arrow stood out of his chest. It had struck him through the heart. The girl
did not notice the colorful markings on the shaft, which identified not only the
archer’s unit but the bowman as well. She started to look around. Thumps and
cries surrounded her. Arrows hissed close and thumped behind her as they found
her new companion. She started to dig inside, to release the “love me” effect. A
blunt arrow struck her squarely in the breastbone. A second struck her lower.

She pitched forward, trying to puke up her ankle-bones.

The first few arrows seemed not to inconvenience the Khadidas at all. But they
kept coming. And coming. And then there were Taglian soldiers all over. A high
officer shouted, “Cut off the heads. We’ll take them with us. Leave the bodies
in the boneyard. For the ravens.”

Another officer strode toward the Daughter of Night. The other Taglians all
deferred to him. The girl’s first response was to notice that he was incredibly
handsome. Then she recalled having seen him before, years ago, when she had been
a captive of the Black Company. He had been brought to see Narayan. “My brother
Aridatha,” she gasped out. “It seems my fate is to spend life as a prisoner.”

She continued to clutch her stomach. A huge Shadar soldier stood over her, ready
to club her at the first hint of anything untoward.

The Taglian officer was startled but only for a moment. He grasped the part
about being her brother. “You’re the Daughter of Night. It’s my job to make sure
you don’t fulfill your destiny.” He eyed the thing lying beside her, motionless
now but not dead. In the conventional sense. He had met Goblin that night, too.

“That is the Khadidas now,” she said. “Not the wizard. It’s not dead. And you
can’t kill it. It has the Goddess in it.”

The Taglian made swift gestures. Soldiers bound the Goblin thing, then stuffed
it into a hemp sack—after yanking the arrows out of its flesh. “I wouldn’t count
on that.”

“Kina is in him.”

“Suppose I chop him into little pieces, Booboo? Then have my men burn the pieces
at places separated by a hundred miles. I didn’t know my father and I certainly
don’t honor what he was. But, even so, that creature murdered him.”

“What did you call me?”

“Eh? You mean Booboo?”

“Yes. That. Why did you do that?” She forced herself to look away from what was
happening to the martyred Deceivers as she forced her mind away from the
accusation leveled against the Khadidas.

“Your mother and father and everyone in the Black Company who cares about you
calls you Booboo. Because it isn’t as unwieldy as ‘the Daughter of Night.’ Come
on. Get up. I have to keep these men moving. No tricks, either. If you misbehave
you’ll get hurt. These men are very scared of you.”

A twinge of surprise ran through the girl. They were concerned enough about her
to have a pet name for her? Narayan had not dared go that far, though she knew
that he had been devoted to her.

Despite Aridatha’s warning she tried to turn on the “love me” effect. It would
not come. She could not tell if that was because she was so rattled or because
of the Khadidas. The Goblin thing had shown the ability to interfere with her
before, usually when she was not conforming to the standards it set.

For an instant she hoped her captors would shred the Khadidas and roast the
scraps in a hundred scattered trash pits. Then she forced her personal feelings
aside. This was no time. This was the time to concentrate on making sure she and
the Khadidas survived until they found their opportunity to begin their great
work.

That that chance would come she did not doubt. Kina would find a way. Kina
always did. Kina was the darkness. And the darkness always came.

The girl remained completely docile and cooperative. She could not help noticing
how restless she became each time the handsome general came near her. But he was
too busy to notice her. He had received orders changing his mission.

Beside the Cemetery:

More Confusion
There’s another division out there, east of the Rock Road somewhere,” Swan told
Sleepy and her staff. “My impression is that it was supposed to push past and
get behind us. But it suddenly turned back north. Without us taking prisoners or
getting help from the hidden folk we’ll never know why.”

The Unknown Shadows became a hot topic. There were a few still around but they
would not be bullied into helping. Tobo had not told them to help.

Tempers did not improve during the discussion. Everyone was tired, cranky and
impatient. Sleepy in particular. With no solid evidence whatsoever she was
beginning to believe that Mogaba had gotten the best of her yet again. And the
thing was not over yet.

The Great General had not yet broken contact entirely. He seemed willing to
continue skirmishing indefinitely.

Swan told everyone, “I think we did well. The casualty ratio ran in our favor,

certainly.”

Sleepy snapped, “But, strategically, Mogaba must be celebrating. He’s pleased
with what he accomplished.” She had no way of knowing any such thing, of course.

She knew only that she was not pleased. Mogaba had surprised her again.

She overlooked the fact that she had managed to drive off a much superior force
once the fighting started, that Mogaba might have been too subtle and clever for
his own good.

Willow Swan did not overlook that. He said, “Mogaba may be back. Once he
understands that he did surprise us and could’ve rolled over us if he’d just
charged in without all the maneuvering.”

Heads bobbed. One brigadier noted that were he in charge on the other side he
would attack again even if he thought his enemies expected him. He would do it
just to see what would happen. And to build in the minds of the attacked a
belief that they had to stay alert. Keeping ready to repel an attack would grind
a force down after several days.

Sahra wandered in. Late and uninterested in the discussion. To no one in
particular she said, “It’s started to rain.”

Because that was important news that might have a serious impact on operations,

Swan stepped out for a look.

The sky was overcast. The smell of rain was in the air. But it was not raining
now and did not look likely to start until well after nightfall, which was only
a short while away. Swan went back inside shaking his head.

That Sahra might have been speaking figuratively or metaphorically became
evident a short while later, when a patrol brought in news that the Grove of
Doom had been cleansed of Deceivers.

“Even of the Daughter of Night and the Goblin thing?” Sleepy demanded.

“We didn’t find their bodies, Captain. And there were plenty of bodies there.

All with their heads missing. Maybe those two managed to escape.”

“Maybe. I wish Tobo would get the hell back here. I really hate this being
blind.”

“You’re totally spoiled,” Swan told her.

“And loving every minute of it. Tso Lien. More work for your recon people. Find
out what happened. And find out if we can run anybody down. Keeping in mind that
it would please Mogaba no end to lead us into a lethal trap.”

“It shall be done, my Captain.”

Swan sneered at Tso Lien’s flowery response. The man hailed from a province
where styles of speech were as important as what was being said. He was another
of those fiercely competent professional officers who had wanted to shed the
feudal chains of Hsien in hopes of making his fortune.

Swan wondered if the men from the Land of Unknown Shadows might not begin
concentrating more on staying alive than on winning a war. Their future fortunes
were in Company hands already, hidden in that cemetery.

Glittering Stone:

Fortress with No Name
Oh, so alert the observing eyes when Lady and I opened the shadowgate. I tossed
in several unnecessary steps just for drama and confusion. Then we were moving
again, flickering southward along the shielded road toward Shivetya’s great
wintry fastness.

The entire plain seemed a chill, grey, wintry place, lacking all glitter. The
standing stones seemed old and tired and not much interested in making any
effort to proclaim the glories of the past. I did not spot any new ones. Not
once did the wind grow warmer than the heart of a loan shark. We saw patches of
ice and snow.

Tobo suggested the plain was getting its weather from somewhere where the season
was less comfortable than our own.

“You think?” I said. “With the Khatovar gate busted completely?” There was no
sense of menace to the plain today. Could the shadows have become that few?

Shukrat said, “Only, it would be the heart of summertime at home, now.”

I grunted. I adjusted my flying log to make more speed. The kids had no trouble
keeping up. I heard Lady curse in the distance as Howler’s carpet fell behind.

Howler could not hurry because his conveyance nearly filled the protected area.

He had to be cautious.

As we neared Shivetya’s fortress, Tobo shouted, “It’s safe to go up now!” He and
Shukrat shot toward the sun. Or where the sun would have stood had the weather
not been vile.

“Don’t you dare!” Murgen barked.

“Too late, buddy. Hang on.” I was rising already, though not with the derring-do
of some immortal teenager. When Murgen squawked I said, “You don’t like the
ride, get off and walk.”

In moments we had a god’s-eye view of the glittering plain.

It was not a view I had seen before, nor was it one I had heard described. From
a half mile up the plain resembled the floor inside the main chamber of the
fortress. That did not surprise me. But the plain’s boundaries did.

Each of the sixteen sectors centered on a shadowgate. Each had its own weather,

season and time of day, which became obscured and confused approaching the
midway points between shadowgates.

“It’s like looking at the rest of the universe from inside a crystal ball,”

Murgen said.

“How come you never mentioned that it looks like this?”

“Because I never saw it like this. Maybe from the ghost realm you can’t see
this.”

From up there color came to the plain. Never before had I seen so much color in
the place of glittering stone.

Tobo and Shukrat shot past us, headed down, whooping with glee. I said, “Fun
time is over.” Howler’s carpet had come into view, creeping along the line of
the road down from our own world’s shadowgate.

We entered the fortress through a hole in its roof. That seemed the only damage
that never repaired itself. Maybe the guardian demon found a hole more useful
than a dry floor. Certainly he had no cares about weather.

Although it was daytime outside, our agent on the scene, ancient Baladitya, was
napping. These days he probably spent more time snoozing then he spent awake.

By the time Murgen and I set down, Shukrat was involved in a bitter argument
with Nashun the Researcher and the First Father. She and the Voroshk sorcerers
used their native tongue, of course, but exact words were of no consequence. At
heart the squabble was as old as humanity itself, fug-headed antiques locking
horns with omniscient youth.

“Smells in here,” Murgen observed.

It flat-out stank. Evidently the Voroshk were waiting for the serving staff to
clean up after them. “Guess Shivetya doesn’t have a sense of smell. If I was him
I’d stop feeding them till they learned to take care of their chores.”

Baladitya, I noted, kept up his share of the housework despite tendencies toward
absentmindedness and single-mindedness.

The racket raised by Shukrat and her relatives finally disrupted the copyist’s
snores.

Baladitya was a hairy old scarecrow desperately in need of a change of clothing.

His ragged apparel was all that he had ever worn in my experience. He was almost
as bad as the Howler, although less densely wrapped.

A close encounter with scissors, comb and a tub of warm water would not have
been amiss, either. Tangled wisps of fine white hair floated all around his head
and face. I thought bits might begin floating away, like seeds from a dandelion.

The inside of the fortress was completely creepy. I never relaxed there. It
rubbed me the same way Uncle Doj always had. Wrong. Suspiciously wrong. In a
quiet, unobtrusive way. A way that left me incapable of relaxing. Baladitya
zeroed in on Murgen, wanting to know all about how Sleepy was doing, about how
his old friend Master Santaraksita was doing, about how Tobo was. He had the
Annalist bug. Also, though he had chosen his life out here for the intellectual
adventure, he did miss people.

I suspect the Voroshk were not excellent company. They probably whined
constantly in a language he did not understand, making no effort to communicate
other than by yelling louder and slower.

I glanced upward, wondering when the others would get around to showing up. Then
I strolled away a few steps, to the outer fringe of the dome of sourceless light
that illuminated Baladitya’s work area. I stared at the vast, indistinct bulk of
the demon Shivetya.

The darkness around the devil was deeper than I recalled it, deeper than others
had recorded it. The great wooden throne was equally ill-defined. The humanoid
bulk nailed to the throne by means of silver daggers seemed less substantial
than I remembered. I wondered if the golem became more ethereal as he gave of
himself to sustain his guests.

Visitors have to eat. Shivetya sustains his guests and allies by exuding large,

mushroomlike growths of manna. I recall the taste as slightly sweet and mildly
spicy in that way that leaves you trying to figure out exactly what the spice
might be. Just a few bites provide immense energy and boost your confidence
dramatically. But nobody gets fat eating the stuff. In fact, it is a little
repulsive and you do not touch it until you are hungry or hurting.

Obviously, Shivetya himself was not going to remain chubby forever, either.

I realized that big red eyes had opened. Shivetya was regarding me with more
interest than I was regarding him.

The golem did not speak aloud. We believed that it could not. When it chose to
communicate it did so by speaking directly inside your brain. Some found the
experience no problem. I had not endured it myself, to my recollection, so
cannot describe it. If Shivetya invaded my dreams during the half generation I
lay enchanted in the caverns below I had no recollection of that, either. I have
no memories whatsoever of that time.

Murgen and Lady do remember. Some. They will not discuss it. They prefer to let
what made it into the Annals speak for itself.

It must not have been pleasant.

The shadows left Shivetya looking like he had a dog or jackal’s head, which
sparked a momentary recollection of childhood idols. I guess he was a sort of
lord of the underworld. He just did not do much recruiting.

One huge eye closed, then reopened. The demon of glittering stone showing off
his sense of humor. Knowing that wink would obsess me for days.

Hands took hold of my arm. I glanced down. My sweetheart had arrived. And in
this dim light she looked much younger and happier. I whispered, “You guys
finally made it.”

“Howler is turning into a timid little old man. He’s got the idea that he might
have a future.”

“Let’s stroll off that direction about half a mile and get lost for half an
hour.”

“Well. I’m certainly tempted. But I’m wondering what’s gotten into you.”

I pinched her behind. She squeaked and swatted my arm. I said, “Whoops!”

Both of Shivetya’s eyes were turned our way now.

Lady said, “That sort of takes the edge off the moment, doesn’t it?”

It did. So did several pairs of eyes watching from where the rest of the crowd
were gathered. The youngsters in particular were appalled.

“Oh, well. Life’s a bitch.”