by Glen Cook
Swan said he had heard the Shadowmasters were fortifying the south bank of the Ghoja ford. Another indication the enemy would put his main force over there. I hoped it would come out that way. On the maps the terrain looked very favorable.
Two hours after we split the drizzle resumed. Perfect weather for the dreary thoughts tramping my brain.
Despite my adventure yesterday it seemed forever since I had been alone long enough to think a thought through. So with Goblin still as the grave I expected to do some serious brooding about where Lady and I were going. But she hardly crossed my mind. Instead, I mulled over what I’d gotten me and the Company into.
I was in charge but not in control. As far back as that monastery things had been happening that I could not control and could not unravel into sense. Gea-Xle and the river worsened matters. Now I felt like driftwood tumbling through a rapid. I had only the slightest idea who was doing what to whom, and why, but I was locked into the middle of it. Unless this last frantic gesture showed me an out.
For all I knew if I let the Prahbrindrah suck me in I would be enlisting on the “wrong” side. Now I knew how the Captain felt when Soulcatcher dragged us into the Lady’s service. We were fighting in the Forsberg campaigns before the rest of us began to suspect we’d made a mistake.
It is not necessary for mercenary soldiers to know what is going on. It is sufficient for them to do the job for which they have taken the gold. That had been drummed into me from the moment I enlisted. There is neither right nor wrong, neither good nor evil, only our side and theirs. The honor of the Company lies within, directed one brother toward another. Without, honor lies only in keeping faith with the sponsor.
Nothing I knew of the Company’s experiences resembled our present circumstance. For the first time—mainly by my doing—we were fighting for ourselves first. Our contract, if we accepted it, would be coincidental to our own desires. A tool. If I kept my head and perspective as I should, Taglios and all Taglians would become instruments of our desires.
Yet I doubted. I liked what I had seen of the Taglian people and especially liked their spirit. After the wounds they had taken keeping their independence they were still fired up for the Shadowmasters. And I had a good notion I wouldn’t like those folks if I got to know them. So before it was fairly begun I’d broken the prime rule and become emotionally involved. Fool that I am.
That damned rain had a personal grudge. It got no heavier but it never let up. Yet to east and west I saw light that indicated clear skies in those directions. The gods, if such existed, were laying on the misery especially for me.
The last tenanted place we passed lay six miles from the Ghoja ford. Beyond, the countryside had been abandoned. It had been empty for months. It was not bad land, either. The locals must have had a big fear on to uproot and flee. A change of overlords usually isn’t that traumatic for peasants. The five thousand who had come north and not returned must have had a real way about them.
The country was not rugged. It was mostly cleared land that rolled gently, and the road was not awful, considering, though it had not been built to carry military traffic. Nowhere did I see any fortifications, man-made or natural. I’d seen none of the former anywhere in Taglian territory. There would be no place to run and few places to hide in the event of disaster. I became a bit more respectful of Swan and his buddies, daring what they had.
The ground, when soaked, became a clayey, clinging mud that exercised the strength and patience even of my tireless steed. Note to the chief of staff. Plan our battles for clear, dry days.
Right. And while we’re at it, let’s order up only blind enemies.
You have to take what is handed you in this trade.
“You’re damned broody today, Croaker,” Goblin said, after a long while.
“Me? You been chattering like a stone yourself.”
“I’m troubled about all this.”
He was troubled. That was a very un-Goblin-like remark. It meant he was worried right down to his toenails. “You don’t think we can handle it if we have to take the commission?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe. You always grab something out of the trick bag. But we’re getting worn out, Croaker. There’s no zest in it anymore. What if we did pull it off, and broke through, and got to Khatovar, and ended up with a big nothing?”
“That’s been the risk since we started. I never claimed anything for this trip. It’s just something I thought had to be done because I pledged to do it. And when I turn the Annals over to Murgen I’ll extract the same oath from him.”
“I guess we don’t have anything better to do.”
“To the end of the world and back again. It’s an accomplishment of sorts.”
“I wonder about the first purpose.”
“So do I, old friend. It got lost somewhere between here and Gea-Xle. And I think these Taglians know something about it. But they’re not talking. Going to have to try some old-fashioned Company double shuffle on them sometime.”
The drizzle had its good side, I suppose. It lessened visibility. We were over the last crest and headed down toward the Main and Ghoja ford before I realized we had come that far. Sentries on the south bank would have spotted us immediately in better weather.
Goblin sensed it first. “We’re there, Croaker. The river’s right down there.”
We reined in. I asked, “You feel anything on the other side?”
“People. Not alert. But there’s a couple poor fools on sentry duty.”
“What kind of outfit does it feel like?”
“Sloppy. Third-rate. I could get a better look if I had a little time.”
“Take some time. I’m going to roam around and look it over.”
The site was what I had been told it would be. The road wandered down a long, bare slope to the ford, which lay just above an elbow in the river. Below the elbow a creek ran into the river from my side, though I had to go make sure because it lay behind higher ground. The creek had a beard of the usual growth along both banks. There was also a slight rise in the other direction, so that the road to the ford ran down the center of a slight concavity. Above the ford the river arched southward in a slow, lazy curve. On my side its bank was anywhere from two to eight feet high and overgrown with trees and brush everywhere but at the crossing itself.
I examined all that very carefully, on foot, while my mount waited with Goblin beyond the ridge. I sneaked down to the edge of the ford itself and spent a half hour sitting in the wet bushes staring at the fortifications on the other side.
We were not going to get across here. Not easily.
Were they worried about us coming to them? Why?
I used the old triangulation trick to figure out that the watchtower of the fortress stood about seventy feet high, then withdrew and tried to calculate what could be seen from its parapet. Most of the light was gone when I finished.
“Find out what you need to know?” Goblin asked when I rejoined him.
“I think so. Not what I wanted, either. Unless you can cheer me up. Could we force a crossing?”
“Against what’s in there now? Probably. With the water down. If we tried in the dead of the night and caught them napping.”
“And when the water does go down they’ll have ten thousand men hanging around over there.”
“Don’t look good, does it?”
“No. Let’s find a place to get out of the rain.”
“I can stand to ride back if you can.”
“Let’s try. We’ll sleep dry if we make it. What do you think of the men over there? Professionals?”
“My guess is they’re just a little better than men disguised as soldiers.”
“They looked pretty sloppy to me, too. But maybe they don’t have to be any better in these parts.”
I had seen and watched four men while I was crouching near the ford. They had not impressed me. Neither had the design or construction of the fortifications. Clearly, these Shadowmasters had brought in no p
rofessionals to train their forces and they had not developed a good edge on what they did have.
“’Course, maybe we saw what we were supposed to see.”
“There’s always that.” An interesting thought, maybe worth some consideration, because at that moment I noticed a couple of bedraggled crows watching us from a dead branch on an elm tree. I started to look around for the stump, thought the hell with it. I would handle that when the time came.
“You remember Shifter’s woman, Goblin?”
“Yeah. So?”
“You said you thought she seemed familiar back in Gea-Xle. Now it’s all of a sudden coming on me that maybe you were right. I’m sure we ran into her somewhere before. But I can’t for the life of me think where or when.”
“Does it matter?”
“Probably not. Just one of those things that nag at you. Let’s cut off to the left here.”
“What the hell for?”
“There’s a town on the map, called Vejagedhya, that I want to look at.”
“I thought we were going back—”
“It’ll only take a few minutes extra.”
“Right.” Grumble, grumble, ragglesnatz.
“Looks like we might have to fight. I need to know the country.”
Fraggin snigglebark.
We ate cold food as we rode. It is not often that I do so, but at such moments I sometimes envy the man with a cottage and wife.
Everything costs something. It was ghost country we rode, spooky country. The hand of man was evident everywhere, even in darkness. Some of the homes we inspected looked like they had been closed up only yesterday. But not once did we encounter another human being. “I’m surprised thieves haven’t been working all this.”
“Don’t tell One-Eye.”
I forced a chuckle. “I guess they were smart enough to take their valuables with them.”
“These people do seem determined to pay whatever price they have to, don’t they?” He sounded impressed.
Grudgingly, I was developing a case of respect. “And it looks like the Company is going to be their one toss of the bones with fate.”
“If you let them.”
There was the town, Vejagedhya. It might once have been home to as many as a thousand people. Now it was even more spooky than the abandoned farms. Out there, at least, we had encountered wildlife. In the town I saw nothing but a few crows fluttering from roof to roof.
The townsfolk had not locked their doors. We checked maybe two dozen buildings. “It would do for a headquarters,” I told Goblin.
He grunted. After a while, he asked, “You making up your mind?”
“Beginning to look made up for me. Right? But we’ll see what the others have to say.”
We headed north. Goblin did not have much to say after that. That gave me time to dwell on and invent deeper meanings to my roles as Captain and potential warlord.
If there was no choice but to fight, and to lead a nation, I was going to make demands. I was not going to let the Taglians put me in a position where they could second-guess and override my every decision. I had watched my predecessors get half crazy dealing with that. If the Taglians hooked me, I was going to hook them right back.
We might call it something prettier, but by damn I was going to be a military dictator.
Me. Croaker. The itinerant military physician and amateur historian. Able to indulge in all the abuses I’d damned in princes for so long. It was a sobering notion.
If we bought it, and took the commission, and I got what I would demand, I might have Wheezer follow me around and remind me that I’m mortal. He wasn’t good for much else.
The rain let up as we were riding into town.
Now I knew the gods loved me.
29
Smoke’s Hideout
Smoke was perched on a tall stool, bent over a huge old book. The room was filled with books. It looked like a wave of books had swept in and left tidal pools behind. Not only were there shelves dripping books, there were books stacked hip-high on the floor, books on tables and chairs, even books piled on the sill of the room’s one small, high window. Smoke read by the light of a single candle. The room was sealed so tight the smoke had begun to irritate his nose and eyes.
From time to time he grunted, made a note on a piece of paper to his left. He was left-handed.
In all the Palace that room was the best protected from spying eyes. Smoke had woven webs and walls of spells to secure it. No one was supposed to know about it. It did not show on any plan of the Palace.
Smoke felt something touch the outermost of the protective spells, something as light as a mosquito’s weight as it lands. Before he could swing his attention to it it was gone and he was not sure he had not imagined it. Since the incident of the crows and bats he had been almost paranoid.
Intuition told him he had reason. There were forces at work that were way beyond him. His best weapon was the fact that no one knew he existed.
He hoped.
He was a very frightened man these days. Terror lurked in every shadow.
He jumped and squeaked when the door opened.
“Smoke?”
“You startled me, Radisha.”
“Where are they, Smoke? There’s been no word from Swan. Have they gotten away?”
“Leaving most of their people behind? Radisha, be patient.”
“I have no patience left. Even my brother is becoming unsettled. We have only weeks left before the rivers fall.”
“I’m aware of that, madam. Concentrate on what you can do, not what you wish you could do. Every force possible is being bent upon them. But we cannot compel them to help.”
The Radisha kicked over a pile of books. “I’ve never felt so powerless. I don’t like the feeling.”
Smoke shrugged. “Welcome to the world where the rest of us live.”
In a high corner of the room a point no bigger than a pinprick oozed something like a black smoke. The smoke slowly filled out the shape of a small crow. “What are the rest of them doing?”
“Making preparations for war. In case.”
“I wonder. That black officer. Mogaba. Could he be the real captain?”
“No. Why?”
“He’s doing the things I want them to do. He’s acting like they’re going to serve us.”
“It makes sense, Radisha. If their captain comes back convinced they can’t sneak away, they’ll be that much farther ahead.”
“Has he made preparations to run back north?”
“Of course.”
The Radisha looked vexed.
Smoke smiled. “Have you considered being forthright with them?”
She gave him a look to chill the bones.
“I thought not. Not the way of princes. Too simple. Too direct. Too logical. Too honest.”
“You grow too daring, Smoke.”
“Perhaps I do. Though as I recall my mandate from your brother is to remind you occasionally—”
“Enough.”
“They are what they pretend to be, you know. Wholly ignorant of their past.”
“I’m aware of that. It makes no difference. They could become what they were if we let them. Sooner bend the knee to the Shadowmasters than endure that again.”
Smoke shrugged. “As you will. Maybe.” He smiled slyly. “And as the Shadowmasters will, perhaps.”
“You know something?”
“I am constrained by my need to remain unnoticed. But I’ve been able to catch glimpses of our northern friends. They have fallen afoul of more of our little friends from the river. Ferocious things are happening down near the Main.”
“Sorcery?”
“High magnitude. Recalling that which manifested during their passage through the pirate swamps. I no longer dare intrude.”
“Damn! Damn-damn-damn! Are they all right? Have we lost them?”
“I no longer dare intrude. Time will tell.”
The Radisha kicked another pile of books. Smoke’s bland express
ion cracked, became one of intense irritation. She apologized. “It’s frustration.”
“We’re all frustrated. Perhaps you would be less so if you adjusted your ambitions.”
“What do you mean?”
“Perhaps if you followed the course your brother has charted and aimed to climb but one mountain at a time—”
“Bah! Am I, a woman, the only rooster around here?”
“You, a woman, will not be required to pay the price of failure. That will come out of your brother’s purse.”
“Damn you, Smoke! Why are you always right?”
“That is my commission. Go to your brother. Talk. Recalculate. Concentrate on the enemy of the moment. The Shadowmasters must be turned now. The priests will be here forever. Unless you want shut of them badly enough to let the Shadowmasters win, of course.”
“If I could frame just one High Priest for treason … All right. I know. The Shadowmasters have shown they know what to do with clerics. Nobody would believe it. I’m going. If you dare, find out what’s happening down there. If we’ve lost them we’ll have to move quickly. That damned Swan had to go after them, didn’t he?”
“You sent him.”
“Why does everybody do what I tell them? Some of the things I say are stupid.… Get that grin off your face.”
Smoke failed. “Kick over another stack of books.”
The Radisha huffed out of the room.
Smoke sighed. Then he returned to his reading. The book’s author lingered lovingly over impalements and flayings and tortures visited on a generation unlucky enough to have lived when the Free Companies of Khatovar marched out of that strange corner of the world that spawned them.
The books in that room had been confiscated so they would not fall into the hands of the Black Company. Smoke did not believe their being there would keep secrets forever. But maybe long enough for him to find a way to prevent the sort of bloodshed that had occurred in olden times. Maybe.
The best hope, though, lay in the probability that the Company had mutated with time. That it was not wearing a mask. That it had indeed forgotten its grim origins and its search for its past was more a reflex than the determined return that other Companies, come back earlier, had made.