The Many Deaths of the Black Company (Chronicle of the Black Company) (119 page)

Ghopal looked from him to the crow and back, gradually gaining understanding of both. He grew increasingly agitated and afraid as he did so.

The bird was capable of a range of voices, though it was only a haunted crow. “Turn this vessel shoreward. Now. I will tolerate no disobedience.”

“You hold no terror for me anymore, old whore,” Mogaba replied. “You hold no power over me. I won’t be your toy or cats-paw tonight or ever again.”

“You have no idea how much you will regret this. I won’t be imprisoned forever. You will be the first chore on my list when I return. Ghopal Singh. Turn this disgusting tub around … awk!”

Ghopal had whacked the bird with the flat of his oar. Flailing, losing feathers, shrieking, it flung from the rigging into the fetid, muddy river. The retiring commander of the Greys observed, “That bird has an amazingly fowl vocabulary.” He grinned. Then he began digging through the bag he had carried aboard. He really needed a sip of wine. His kinsmen scowled. “Glower all you want, you magpies! I’m my own man now!”

The tenor of the bird’s incessant natter changed suddenly, becoming pure corvine terror. It flapped in panic as the surface of the river lifted it up.

The rising water tilted the boat precariously. Ghopal lost his grasp on his bottle. One of his cousins took a wild swing with his oar, swatting a gallon of water out of the thing taking form. His effort had no enduring effect.

“Holy shit!” Ghopal said from flat on his back. “What the hell is that?” He was staring over Mogaba’s shoulder.

A
thing
loomed against the light of fires burning in the city. A thing resembling a huge duck capable of a grin filled with wicked, glistening teeth. And the thing was not alone.

“Oh, man,” one of Ghopal’s cousins sighed. “They’re all around us. What are they?”

Mogaba sighed himself. He did not say that the monsters were not the sort of things people saw and lived to describe.

123

Taglios: Crow Talk

Aridatha Singh had just gotten back to sleep when fiery pain pierced the back of his right hand. He leapt up and flung his arm out. He thought his lamp had somehow spilled burning oil and feared his cot would be on fire. But the lamp was not burning.

Not fire. Something had bitten him, then. Or maybe clawed him. And he had thrown it across the room, where it was struggling feebly and making incoherent chicken noises. Those people were attacking him directly now? He shouted for the sentries.

Once light filled the room he discovered that his visitor was an albino crow. One of the men threw a blanket over the bird and wrapped it up. Another examined Aridatha’s hand. “That’s one ragged looking critter, General. You might want to see a physician. It might be diseased.”

“Send for soap and hot water.… It doesn’t look like the skin is broken much.… What is that?”

The blanket with the bird inside had begun talking.

“It’s talking,” the soldier said, so utterly amazed that he could do nothing but state the obvious.

“Seal the window. Close the door. Get yourselves ready to hit it with something when we turn it loose.” He recalled that one of the Company chieftains sometimes carried ravens on his shoulders. And one of those was white.

Escape was no longer an option for the bird. Aridatha directed, “Turn it loose now.”

The crow looked like someone had tried to drown it, then had decided to pluck it featherless instead. It was in terrible shape.

The bedraggled beast cocked its head right, left, surveying the chamber. It made an obvious effort to put aside its anger, to collect its pride and dignity.

Aridatha did not think this was the raven he had seen with that man Croaker. This one seemed smaller, yet more substantial.

The bird studied Singh first with one eye, then with the other. Then it eyed the sentries. It seemed to be awaiting something.

“You have something to say, say it,” Aridatha suggested.

“Send them out.”

“I don’t think so.” He motioned two soldiers into positions where they would be better able to swat the crow.

“I am not accustomed to…”

“Nor am I in the habit of taking back chat from birds. I assume you bring a message. Deliver it. Or I’ll wring your neck and go on about my business.”

“I fear you will live to regret this, Aridatha Singh.”

In that moment, with the bird’s voice changing, Singh understood that he was in touch with the Protector. But her enemies had buried her beneath the glittering plain. Had they not? “I await your message. If it’s just a threat I’ll have Vasudha step on your head.”

“Very well. Until the day, Aridatha Singh. Aridatha Singh, you are now my viceroy in Taglios. Mogaba and Ghopal are no more. I will instruct you as to what steps to take.…”

“Excuse me. The Great General and General Singh have been killed?”

“They tried to do something foolish. For their trouble the enemy’s shadow creatures destroyed them. Which elevates you to…”

Aridatha turned his back on the crow. “Jitendra. Get that word out. I want every company to disengage. The only exception is to be where the enemy won’t let them. And get the word across the lines that I’m prepared to discuss terms.”

The white crow flew into a cursing rage.

“Throw the blanket on that thing again, Vasudha. We may have some use for it later but I don’t want to listen to its nagging now.”

“You could get you a wife if you needed that, General.”

124

Taglios: The Sandbar

Already there were stories on the street about how the Great General had sacrificed himself in order to void the strictures of all the oaths and vows binding him and his allies. Because he had wanted to spare the city further devastation by the invading rebels and outlanders. Amazing. We had just started taking charge and already people were nostalgic for the good old days of the Protectorate.

Hard to blame them, I suppose. It was a generation ago that the Prahbrindrah Drah last saw the inside of his capital city.

Let them feel however they wanted. As long as they stayed out of my way.

*   *   *

Tobo and I drifted above the Palace, studying the ruin. Smoke still found its way out of the rock pile. Every few hours a little more caved in. A third had collapsed already. That third included almost all of the occupied modern sector. Maybe the abandoned parts had been constructed from sterner stuff. They had survived generations of neglect.

Even during the worst fighting Aridatha had used volunteers from the City Battalions to keep sifting the ruins for survivors to rescue and bodies to deliver to distraught relatives. He continued in that role, now reinforced by units formerly committed to the fighting. Elsewhere, whole battalions now engaged the more stubborn fires instead of invaders.

I asked Tobo, “You really think they’re still in there somewhere?” I meant Booboo and Goblin.

“I know they are. The hidden folk have seen them. They just can’t remember how to get to them.”

“Strange as it may seem, I need them out of there alive. Without them I can’t keep my promise to Shivetya.”

Tobo grunted. I had not included him in my planning. In fact, the inner circle still consisted of a council of one. Me. And I intended to keep it that way. Nothing spoken, nothing betrayed.

“I think Arkana’s in love.” Below, the Voroshk girl had come up with another excuse to consult Aridatha Singh.

Tobo grunted again. He was better than he had been but victory had given him no satisfaction. He would be a long time getting over the loss of his mom and dad.

I asked, “Have you found any trace of Mogaba or Ghopal Singh?” Aridatha said they were dead. He claimed to have been told so by the white crow—not an entirely reliable witness.

The boy studied me before responding. “They drowned. While trying to escape upriver. By boat. Evidently the boat capsized.”

“I see.”

My tone made him stare at me intently. I could not see his expression, of course. The Voroshk apparel concealed that. And mine masked my features. We continued to dress up because some people did not approve of our conquest. Incidents abounded.

Mostly, though, Taglios had heaved a huge collective sigh and began getting on with the business of life. Thus far there had been almost no retribution against those who had served the displaced regime. Most people seemed of the opinion that the Greys had done more good than harm, since they had repressed criminal behavior with a ferocity greater than they had shown to enemies of the Great General and the Protector.

In general, the masses of people were entirely indifferent to who ruled Taglios and its dependencies. The who seldom touched their lives deeply, one way or another.

The human species never ceases to amaze me. I would have bet more people would have cared a lot more. But from the inside nothing is ever what it looks like from without.

R
AJADHARMA
graffiti continued to appear. Some folks are never satisfied. T
HI
K
IM
I
S
H
ERE
was turning up now, too. I had not pressed the kid on that. He did not want to talk about it.

I would let it ride even though that mystery was not yet solved to my satisfaction. There had to be more to his relationship with the Unknown Shadows than had become obvious so far.

I left the boy and circled the Palace. Our men had replaced the City Battalions on that perimeter. They made a colorful line. City troops were clearing rubble, particularly in areas where Tobo’s friends believed people were trapped. A number remained alive, caught inside interior rooms that had not collapsed. Now thirst was their implacable enemy.

All was going as it should. It seemed. But I was not comfortable. I had a sense of there being a wrongness somewhere. Intuition. Based upon subconscious cues.

I drifted away from the Palace, waving in passing to Shukrat, who just had to see Tobo after having completed a courier run to the approaching Prahbrindrah Drah and Radisha. Once out of sight I put on speed and headed for the river.

I started at the downstream end of the waterfront. I drifted upstream. The boats were out. As they would have been had the fighting still been under way. I asked a few questions of terrified fishermen, not at all sure what I might find. The current had had ample time to carry bodies and wreckage down to the delta swamps.

Or perhaps not.

There is a miles-long sandbar just off the curve of the north bank. It has been there so long that it is an island now, with grass on its flanks, brush above that and trees along its highest parts. The channel on its north side is narrow, shallow and choked with mud. An overturned boat lay in the mouth of that channel. One dead man sprawled in the mud. A dozen Taglians clad only in loincloths were trying to right the boat preparatory to dragging it off the bar. None of those men showed the least interest in the corpse. But it was obviously Shadar and they were all Gunni.

The scavengers had a definite interest in not being anywhere around when people came swooping out of the sky in a billowing black cloud. A couple jumped into the channel and swam for the north bank. Others ran into the growth on the island’s spine. A few tried to make it back to the boat that had brought them. It had beached a hundred yards down the bar.

The dead Shadar appeared to have been an officer of the Greys. I discovered a second corpse underneath the boat, also Shadar. There were disturbed crows in and above the nearby trees, which was interesting because we saw so few of those birds anymore.

I made a couple of lazy passes overhead, to finish scaring the birds away, before dropping carefully through the branches.

Mogaba was recognizable only because of the unique color of the bits of skin left to him. Ghopal Singh I identified only by deduction. They had been tortured. Terribly, and for a long time. Mogaba maybe for days. His corpse was not that old.

I slid downstream behind the island and eventually rejoined my own people. I searched out Arkana. “We need to talk, adopted daughter.” I jerked a thumb. Somewhere up high, in the brilliant noonday sun.

She picked up on my concern. She drove upward a thousand feet, tending south, as though we were going to check on the Prahbrindrah Drah’s progress. In fact, a sizable dust cloud could be seen to the south.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I think Tobo may be out of control. Or so close to it as makes no difference. If we’re not careful we might all be sorry his mother isn’t here to scold him. And that Sleepy and Murgen are gone. He may be a grown man but he still needs direction.” I told her what I had found on the sandbar.

“Why tell me? You don’t let anybody in on anything, Pop.”

“Because I’ve seen you making moon eyes at General Singh. And he was a partner with the Great General and Ghopal Singh. If Tobo’s really unhinged he might go after Aridatha next.”

“Why do you blame Tobo?”

I led her through my reasoning, which relied heavily on my assessment of the character of the Great General. “Mogaba knew Aridatha wanted to spare Taglios from the fighting. He wanted that himself. He couldn’t surrender, though. And Aridatha’s sense of honor wouldn’t let him desert Mogaba. So Mogaba decided to arrange it so Aridatha wouldn’t be encumbered. And Tobo got him.”

“You didn’t say why you blame Tobo.”

“Because only Tobo could’ve known what Mogaba was doing and where he would be doing it. There was something badly wrong on the river that night. All the waterfront people felt it and ran off to hide in the city.”

“All right. Suppose it’s true. What’re you going to do?”

“I just did it. I told you to be careful. And now I’m going to see if my wife’s gotten any better since this morning.”

I knew Lady would not have done so. I had begun to lose hope for her.

125

Taglios: An Afternoon Off

I took Lady out for a picnic. With a little help from my adopted daughters. In the vain hope that some sunlight and fresh air would make a difference when even Tobo’s best effort could not shake the enchantment holding her. According to the boy wizard I was supposed to consider myself lucky. If she had not been Lady, had been some ordinary person, she would have been long dead. He assured me this was not the spell that had claimed Sedvod and still gripped Soulcatcher. I could not see any obvious difference—except that Lady was getting no worse.