The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company (Chronicles of the Black Company) (60 page)

I was a hundred yards from the old walled camp. Sindhu was at its shattered gate. He thought the way was clear. We might actually get our shot at Shadowspinner.

All hell broke loose.

Half a hundred fireballs jumped straight up to push back the night. Their light betrayed a hundred men stealing toward the camp. Taglian men and big black men. Some were in hand-shaking distance of my Stranglers.

I looked into the eyes of their commander, Mogaba the Nar, from thirty feet away. He had had the same idea as I’d had.

45

Longshadow glanced across a table where a bowl of mercury sat, reflecting the frightened, wavering face of his slave Smoke. The Howler floated over there. Between them they had just enough strength to communicate with the little wizard. The Howler was amused.

The slave had nothing good to report. Senjak not only was not available, she had evaded his eye well enough to have moved south perhaps as far as Stormgard. Longshadow flung a hand out above the bowl and broke the pattern. Smoke faded, chaotic colors melting.

Howler chuckled. “You should have seduced him. You’re too enamored of brute force. Took more time to do it the hard way. And now he’s a bent tool. And they don’t trust him.”

“Don’t tell me how to…” This was not one of his powerless minions. This one was almost as strong as he. He would not endure attempts at intimidation. He had to be placated, lulled. Seduced.

“Let’s check on our colleague at Stormgard.”

They joined talents. Though Longshadow could reach that far without help, help did forge the connection more quickly.

It was apparent Shadowspinner was preoccupied. He responded only sporadically. The magnitude and scope of his troubles became clear only slowly.

“Damn it all!” Four thousand men lost. Chaos among the besiegers. Who knew how many more men lost tonight. Shadowspinner falling back on his last desperate device for keeping the city sealed.… “That’s Senjak herself this time. Has to be. And she’s recovered some of her skills.”

“Or she’s found someone to provide them.”

That was Howler, always finding extra explanations, confusing issues. Damn him. It would be a pleasure killing him. Maybe it would take a century to finish him.

“Whatever. She’s there. We can end the threat she poses. Have you completed the new carpet?”

“It’s ready.”

“I’ll give you three capable men from my Guard. Bring her here. We will enjoy her for ages to come.” Would Howler accept that? He was not naive.

It was a risk, sending him. He might run off with Senjak. The knowledge she possessed …

Forewarned is forearmed. He would send his best three men.

“Fail in this and there will be but one answer left. I shall have to loose one of the big ones off the Plain.”

The Howler’s concentration broke momentarily. A terrible wail tore through his lips. Then the little bundle of rags chuckled. “Consider her caught. I have a score to settle myself.”

Longshadow watched the ragbag drift out, taking its odor with it. Maybe its first torment would consist of soap and water.

He sent for his best three Guards and briefed them, then tried contacting Shadowspinner again. Spinner did not respond. He was preoccupied. Or dead.

He retreated to his crystal tower. Crows perched on its top peered down. It was time he did something about them. Permanently. After he sent shadows to Dejagore.

46

Mogaba was much more surprised to see me than I was to see him. An immense displeasure marred his features, a grand measure of his surprise. He was always in control of what he showed the world.

The look persisted only a moment. He altered his course to join me. Before he reached me Ram was beside me, between him and me, and Abda had materialized to my left. Narayan was making certain no outsider caused me grief.

Up ahead Sindhu cursed the light and ordered men to move. It was hit fast or die.

“Lady,” Mogaba said. “We thought you dead.” He was a big man without an ounce of waste on him, muscled like a fictional hero. He was blacker than Blade and a consummate commander, one of the Nar, descendants of the original Black Company. Croaker had enlisted him in Gea-Xle during our southward journey. The Nar constituted a separate warrior class there. With a thousand Nar I could have cleaned the Shadowmasters out as fast as the men could march.

There were only fifteen or twenty left alive, I guessed. All loyal to Mogaba.

“Did you? I’m tougher than you think.” His men piled into the camp with mine, trying to reach Shadowspinner before he reacted. I suspected Mogaba’s men had triggered the lights. In Spinner’s place I would have expected an attack from him before one from me.

“Do you have the Lance?” he asked. The question took me from the blind side. I would have thought he’d want to talk about the siege or which of us had the stronger claim to the Captaincy.

“What lance?”

He smiled. Relieved. “The standard. Murgen lost it.”

He was stretching the truth somehow. I turned the conversation to business. We would not have much time. The Shadowlanders were getting ready to interrupt. “How bad off are you? I have no veterans and few trained men. I can only harass them, not break you out.”

“We aren’t in good shape. Their last assault nearly overcame us. Where did you get your power? Who are you riding with? Murgen saw Croaker die.”

“The enemies of the Shadowmasters are my friends.” Better to be cryptic than to hand him free information.

“Why don’t you put an end to the Shadowmasters?”

I could not answer without lying. I lied. “My friend is no longer with me.”

“Who was up there today?”

“Anyone can wear armor.”

He smiled tightly, showing a thin strip of sharp teeth. “The Captaincy, then. You don’t plan to let me get out of here. Do you?”

We spoke the language of the Jewel Cities, both disinclined to let our companions in on our conversation.

Men started screaming inside the encampment. I shouted, “Narayan! Come on!” The Shadowlanders west of us would be ready to move any moment. I told Mogaba, “There’s no problem with the Captaincy. The progression was established. When the Captain dies the Lieutenant steps into his shoes.”

“The tradition is for the Captain to be elected.”

We were both right.

Mogaba shouted, “Sindawe! Let’s go! It won’t work.” His archers and artillerymen on the wall were hard at work, laying down fire to cover his withdrawal. “We know where we stand, Lady.”

“Do we? I have no enemies but those who choose to make themselves my enemies. I’m interested only in the destruction of the Shadowmasters.” My men flew past me. Mogaba’s flew past him. A wall of Shadowlanders hurtled toward us.

Mogaba showed me that smile, turned, headed for the city and the safety of ropes hanging down the wall.

Ram gouged me. “Move, Mistress!”

I moved.

A gang of Shadowlanders came after my band, thinking us the easier meat. In the hills some observer had initiative enough to bluff them by sounding trumpets. They slackened the chase. We vanished into the dark ravines.

We assembled. I asked Narayan, “Did we get close?”

“We would have had him if those others hadn’t alerted him. Sindhu wasn’t ten feet from him.”

“Where is he?” Sindhu had not come back. I hated to lose him.

Narayan grinned. “He’s healthy. We lost only two Stranglers. Those you don’t see got caught in the confusion and fled to the city.”

For once I did not mind his grin. “Quick thinking, Narayan. You think he’ll find many friends there?”

“A few. Mostly I wanted him to get to your friends. Those who might not be enchanted with that Mogaba.”

Mogaba was not much of a problem yet. He was in no position to trouble me. The cure for him was to let him rot. I could just pretend to look for ways to relieve the city while actually only training my men till they suffered the illusion they were soldiers. Meantime, Mogaba could wear the enemy down for me.

The flaw, of course, was that Shadowspinner had allies who might decide to help him.

Dejagore and its surroundings were not worth much anymore but the city did have symbolic value. The Shadowlands were more heavily populated down south. The peoples there would be watching. The fate of Dejagore could decide the fate of the Shadowmasters’ empire. If they lost the city and we looked likely to move south again the oppressed might revolt.

All that passed through my mind while I tried to muster strength enough to cross the hills to our camp.

I could not make it. Ram had to help me.

47

The riders paused to consider the hill beside the road. The woman said, “She’s sure gotten them busy.” What had been a bald hilltop a few weeks ago now boasted a maze of stonework. Construction looked like a day and night project.

“She gets things done.” Croaker wondered how Lady was getting on down south. He wondered why they had come here.

“She does. Damn her.” The sorceress touched him gently, like a lover. She did that all the time now. And she looked so much like Lady. He had trouble resisting.

She smiled. She knew what he was thinking. He had his justifications lined up. She had the battle halfway won.

He ground his teeth, stared at the fortress and ignored her. She touched him again. He tried to remark on the layout of the fortress, found nothing would come out. He looked at her again, wide-eyed.

“Just a precaution, my love. You haven’t surrendered your heart. But in time you’ll come around. Come. Let’s visit our friends.” She urged her stallion forward.

Circling crows led the way. Catcher wanted to attract attention. She got it. She was a beautiful and exotic woman.

He understood when she spoke to a man as though she knew him. She meant to pass as Lady. No wonder she wanted him mute.

No one paid him any heed. As they passed through the press of sweating men and animals, dust and clatter, the stench of labor and dung, only the insects noticed him.

In this he might disappear. If her attention lapsed. If the crows became distracted. Could they pick him out of such a mob?

She led the way toward the works atop the hill, already nearing completion. She paused again and again to speak to men, usually about matters of no consequence. She was not playing the role right if she meant to usurp Lady. Lady’s manner was distant and imperious unless she was striving for a specific result … Of course. She wanted word spread that Lady was back.

What was she up to?

His conscience told him he had to do something. But he could think of nothing.

Nobody recognized him. That did his ego no good. Only months ago all Taglios had hailed him Liberator.

Word ran ahead. As they approached the inner fortress a man came out. The Prahbrindrah Drah himself! He was here directing construction? That was not like him. He stayed holed up where the priests could not get to him. The prince said, “I didn’t expect you back right away.”

“We’ve won a small victory north of Dejagore. The Shadowmasters lost four thousand men. Blade planned the operation and carried it out. I decided to leave him in charge. I came back to recruit and train new formations. You’ve done well here. I take it the priests abandoned their obstructionism?”

“You convinced them.” The prince looked troubled. “But you don’t have any friends now. Don’t leave your back unguarded.” His gaze kept drifting to Croaker. He seemed puzzled. “Your man Ram seems odd today.”

“Touch of dysentery. How is the recruiting going?”

“Slow. Most of the volunteers are helping here. Most men are holding off, waiting to have their minds made up for them.”

“Let them know about the victory. Let them know the siege
can
be broken. Shadowspinner has no strength left. He’s getting no help from Longshadow. He’s on his own with an army so battered only its fear of him holds it together.”

Croaker glanced up at a few clouds sliding east from the sea. Nothing remarkable about them but they did cause thoughts to click. The subtle bitch! He knew exactly what she was doing.

Lady was down there sparring with Shadowspinner, beyond the Main, which became impassable during the rainy season. A touch here, a nudge there, and that contest would go on till it was too late for Lady to get back over the river. The season was not that far away, now. Two months at the most. Lady would be trapped over there with the Shadowmasters. Catcher would have five months to take control here, without interference. Probably without anyone discovering who she was. Her crows would watch the routes north. Messengers would be intercepted.

The bitch! The black-hearted bitch!

The prince frowned at him, sensing his turmoil. But he was preoccupied with the woman. “Maybe we can do the garden again sometime.”

“That would be lovely. But remember, it’s my turn to put on the spread.”

The prince smiled weakly. “If they’ll let you. After last time.”

“I didn’t start it.”

What was that about? Something involving Lady had happened in the gardens? Soulcatcher did not tell him everything. Only what would leave his heart raw.

He sensed someone watching, spied Smoke lurking in shadows. The wizard’s face was a mask of hatred. That faded when he realized he had been spotted. He started shivering, slipped away.

Crows followed, Croaker noted. Of course. Wherever Smoke went he would be watched. Soulcatcher knew all about him.

Catcher asked, “Have my quarters been completed? It’s been a long, dusty road. It’ll take me two hours to get human.”

“They’re not finished but they should do. Shall I have someone take your horses and give you a hand with your things?”

“Yes. Of course. Kind of you.” She did some trick with her eyes. The prince went shy. “There are some men I want to see.” She named names unfamiliar to Croaker. “Send them to my quarters. Ram will entertain them till I’m cleaned up.”

“Of course.” The prince summoned his hangers-on, sent them to find the men she wanted.

At Catcher’s gesture Croaker dismounted and handed his horse over. He followed her as she followed the prince. The crows did a good job scouting, he admitted. Grudgingly. She was pulling it off without a hitch.