“Good soldier?”
He knew. “The best. Always makes up for his smallness and lack of strength by using his head.” Which was something Croaker particularly appreciated.
“Then let’s just forget we didn’t see something here. Don’t even let Sleepy know you know.” He resumed his examination.
It would not be the first time a woman had been with the Company disguised as a man. The Annals recalled several instances where amazing discoveries had been made about one of our forebrethren, usually after they got themselves killed somehow.
Still... It would be uncomfortable, knowing.
“What I don’t like about your Annals is that they’re more about you than they are about the Company.”
“What?” I did not understand.
“I mean you focus everything on yourself. Except for a few chapters you adapted from Lady’s dispatches or Bucket or One-Eye or somebody, you never report anything that doesn’t involve you or that you didn’t see yourself. You’re too self-absorbed. Why should we give a rat’s ass about your recurring nightmares? And, except for Dejagore, your sense of place is usually pretty weak. If I weren’t here myself I’d have a lot of trouble picturing this whole end of the world.”
My first reaction, of course, was to defend my babies from the butcher. But I kept my mouth shut. You gain nothing by arguing with your critics. You get more satisfying results teaching pigs to sing. With fewer ulcers.
You have to trust your own muse. Even if she has a clubfoot and is subject to unpredictable seizures.
I think the Old Man said something like that himself a time or two over the years.
I did not mention it.
“You could work on writing a little more sparely, too.”
“Sparely?”
“You tend to go on a lot longer than you need to. At times.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind. You think we ought to put something on her?”
It was plain he had plenty more to say about my Annals but was uncomfortable about it. He was willing to accept a change of subject. “Yes. There’s no permanent physical damage. Lady’s got some old things stored in that black chest. They’ll be a little big, probably, but—”
“Thought we weren’t going to know anything about Sleepy being a girl.”
“When’s the last time you saw Lady in a dress?”
“Good point.” I opened the chest. “Though there’s still never any doubt.”
Croaker grunted. He was studying Sleepy intently, frowning.
“New wearing off?” I asked.
He smiled weakly. “Sort of. You’ll understand someday.”
I picked some things. “Not what I want to hear, boss.” Always way back there, however much I loved my wife, was a niggle when I recalled that she was the daughter of Ky Gota.
He chuckled. “Get some pants on her before my dearly beloved walks in.”
We finished just in time, too. Lady arrived in a foul humor. “I found nothing useful. Nothing. How is he?”
“Beat up, starved and suffering from extended exposure. Otherwise, he’s fine. Physically.”
“But absent mentally?” Lady stared at the kid. There was nothing in Sleepy’s eyes.
Croaker grunted. “In a coma with his eyes open.”
“Speaking of sleepers,” I said, “our favorite fireman was wide awake today. And the way he looked at me, he’s all home in here.”
I swear Sleepy’s cheek twitched. But maybe it was just a trick of the lamp.
“Not good,” Lady said. “And I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home.”
“What’re we going to do with Sleepy?”
The Captain had an answer all set. “You’re going to take him with you. And get to work teaching him your trade.” For an instant a shadow crossed his face, as though all thoughts of the future brought despair.
“I can’t—” Move a girl into my bunker?
“Yes you can.” Because Sleepy was just one of the guys. Wasn’t he? “And keep me posted on his progress.”
Lady comes home and he starts to give me the rush. How do you figure that? “Get your ass up,” I told Sleepy. “We’re going over to my house. We’re gonna figure out what you did with my horse.”
Sleepy did not respond.
Thai Dei and I ended up lugging him across on a litter, along with the treasures we had exhumed. I would like Sleepy a whole lot less before we got to the other side.
As we passed the prison kennel the shapeshifter began to rumble and growl. She roared a leopardlike challenge as we drew abreast. “Ah, go fuck yourself,” I said. Sleepy was getting heavy already.
The big cat howled and tried to push her claws between the cruel spears confining her. “I think maybe she could use a few drinks,” I told Thai Dei.
“Perhaps she is coming into her season.”
92
The stars were out. The campfire was low. Thai Dei and I and some of my pals were mellow on One-Eye’s beer and filled to the nostrils with roast pig. I flipped a bone into the fire. It began to crackle. “This is living,” Bucket rumbled, punctuating with a belch.
“If you like to camp out,” I said. “The weather’s right. Me, you give me my druthers, I’d be living like we did in Taglios. Without all the work.”
“What work? I never seen you lift a finger.”
“I had to keep Sarie smiling.”
“Rub it in, shithead.”
Rudy asked, “That guy snore like that all the time?”
He meant Thai Dei, who was splashed against the outside wall of our bunker, snorting and roaring, out cold. He had put away a lot, for him. The other Nyueng Bao were shunning him.
“Only when he’s had a good time.”
“First time, huh?”
“That I know about. But I wasn’t there the night he got married.”
Somebody said, “You got the Old Man’s ear. Whyn’t you whisper some sweet nothings about us heading on up the mountain?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“’Cause when we get to Khatovar all the travelling and fighting and shit will be over.” Pause. “Won’t it?”
I did not know. “I don’t have a clue. You go twenty feet on up the hill and you’ve gotten to the limit of what I know.”
“I thought everything was in them old books.”
Everything was. But I did not have the right old books. I glanced at Thai Dei. It was starting to look like he had the right idea. “I’ve had all the fun I can stand, guys.” I unfolded sore knees, got up, headed for bed. As I stepped over Thai Dei I said, “Don’t wake me up for anything less than a shadow breakout. And make sure you leave some pig for Uncle.”
It was a good thing the bunker roof was low enough to make me get down on my hands and knees inside. I did not have as far to fall.
I tripped over Sleepy first, then over One-Eye’s spear, which I had no idea why we had brought along but we had and which I had left lying in the middle of the rock floor.
I fell onto my pallet without crippling myself.
I know I went dreamwalking but do not remember where I went. I have vague recollections of Sarie and a trivial brush with a Soulcatcher as eager to avoid me as I was to avoid her. I woke up with a headache, a big thirst, a desperate need to hit the latrine and a very short temper.
“Oh, cut the bullshit, you old fraud,” I told Uncle Doj after I slithered out of the shack. He was giving an indifferent Thai Dei Nyueng Bao hell, using all the buzzwords that get trotted out when somebody cuts loose and makes an ass of himself. “Damn, it’s bright out here. Thai Dei, get your ass up. Drink some water. Shit.” I put away some water myself. I was a little green. If it did not rain soon I would have to have some more carried up.
“Standardbearer.”
“Uh?” I found myself surrounded by Isi and Ochiba. “You guys pop out of the ground or something?”
“We’ve been waiting,” Isi said.
“Your people are stubborn about protecting your re
st,” Ochiba added.
Their manner was disturbing, somehow. “Good for them. What’s up?” Obviously, they had not trekked over for the exercise.
Isi had more of the Jewel Cities dialect than Ochiba but even he did not speak it well. Still, he got the message through. “The Captain and Lieutenant want you should know that prisoner Smoke is perished.”
“Perished? Perished like in dead?”
“As a stone,” Ochiba managed.
I recalled some pretty frisky stones, met long before these stiffnecks joined the gang. I did not mention them. Nobody cares about the Plain of Fear nowadays.
“Murdered,” Isi added, because he thought I had missed the point.
My mouth hung open. Finally, I said, “Come on over here where we can talk.” I grabbed a crow killer and led them across the slope far enough that no one could eavesdrop. “Let’s have some details.” The weapon proved needless. The black birds were not out.
“His throat was cut,” Isi said.
How could that happen? “How could that happen? Somebody would have to climb over Singh and Longshadow and Howler... he wasn’t out of the kennel somewhere, was he?” I would have been even more shocked if he had been killed in Croaker’s dugout.
“He was imprisoned.”
“I presume we don’t have whoever did it.” My first suspect in any sneak killing would be Narayan Singh or some tag-end member of his brotherhood. But the Deceivers did not spill blood. Narayan certainly would not, even in self-defense.
“No.”
“Do we know who did it?”
“No.”
“I’m coming over.” I headed back into camp, “Shiner! Rudy! Spiff! Kloo! Bucket!” I bellowed and my officers and sergeants reacted like they thought we were about to suffer an unexpected visit from Mogaba and the entire Taglian army. I was loud. My hangover etched my entire universe in uncompromising blacks and whites.
“Sorry,” I said, not meaning it. “It’s not as bad as I sound. A minor emergency across the way. I’m going over. Raise the state of alert a notch. Tell them to drop the tonk games till they get their gear in shape.” I drank another pint of water, then donated an equal quantity to the earth spirits. “Ochiba. Isi. Let’s go.”
Thai Dei shook the embrace of gravity, grabbed a bamboo pole he used as a staff. He stumbled after me, stubbornly keeping pace.
Thai Dei defined who and what he was against a bevy of inflexible standards that ignored his own desires, his likes and dislikes, and his pain.
Uncle Doj cancelled the Mother Gota show, straightened his apparel, touched the hilt of Ash Wand to make sure the sword had not deserted him, then trudged along after us. That morning he looked very tired and very old.
“There was no need for you to come over,” Croaker grumbled. He looked old and tired himself this morning. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“I knew Smoke better than anybody. I thought maybe—”
“Wasting time. Unless you were so close you can raise his ghost.”
I wondered. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure it does. Somebody doesn’t want us to spy on them.” I started to protest that Smoke was a big secret, thought better of that. The Old Man did not want a debate. Instead, I asked, “What did the others have to say?”
Questions would have been asked, perhaps with great vigor. “Nobody saw nothing. Nobody knows nothing. But I think Howler has an idea. And I think he’s scared somebody might find out and come after him.”
“Then the smart thing to do would be for him to tell us what he knows.” Torture would not get it out of the little shit. He was older than Lady and had been screaming in pain before she met him.
“So Lady told him. He’s considering the angles.”
“This might be a chance to get him on our side.”
“Like I said, Murgen. You didn’t need to come over. We’re almost as smart as you. Just takes us a little longer to work these things out.”
“No doubt. Did you hear Bowalk carrying on last night?”
“The changer? No. What’re you talking about?”
“She went bugfuck when Thai Dei and I went past the cage last night.” I told him.
“She does that sometimes. Lady thinks it might be her animal side getting stronger. She might be trying to attract a boyfriend.”
Uncle Doj, I noted, had gone to the cage soon after our arrival, independently, after a few words with JoJo. He did not understand anything Croaker and I were saying.
“Thai Dei said that’s what it sounded like.”
“Guy might not be as dumb as he looks.” The Old Man focused on Uncle Doj while he talked. I was not sure who he meant. He asked, “How is our foundling?”
“Sleepy? Sleeping.”
“Over here we burn comedians for firewood.”
“What? I made a statement. The kid sleeps. He eats if you put stuff in his hands and show him what to do. He stares a lot. But mostly he just sleeps.”
“All right. Go back. Get to work. Start thinking uphill a little more. I don’t know if it’s nerves or premonition or if I’m just getting antsy but I find myself more and more in a mood to travel on whether or not someone pushes us into it.”
“The Radisha will be pleased.”
“I doubt that. All that paranoia about the Company came from somewhere. She didn’t buy it as bad as Smoke did but she bought it and she still believes it. I don’t believe the source that sold her has ceased to exist. I don’t think she really believes Soulcatcher when Catcher tells her she can weasel out of her infernal bargain without getting hurt.” He was thinking of Kina. These days the popular wisdom was that Kina had put the fear of the Company into the minds of the Taglians and their rulers. We always suspected that they did not plan to keep their half of our agreement and help us reach Khatovar once the Shadowmasters had been overcome.
The Kina hypothesis was attractive but I had a nit to pick. If the Mother of Deceptions was determined to bring on the Year of the Skulls why would she keep the Company away? Did she see the Shadowmasters as tools better suited to achieving the necessary level of destruction?
I shrugged, told Thai Dei, “I guess we’re just not wanted here.”
“What the hell?” Croaker barked.
The shapechanger had begun trying to get to Uncle Doj. Uncle poked her with his swordtip till she settled down.
“Dream for me, Murgen,” Croaker said as I started down the hill. “Right now I’m feeling blind and vulnerable. I need to know what’s going on out there.”
93
There was something going around. Everyone we ran into crossing to our camp wanted to know what was going on. It was not a matter of rampant rumor. Nobody had heard anything outrageous. But every man had developed an unfocused case of nerves. I felt it myself. Everything seemed portentous, though of what no one could say. As I entered the squalid village that had sprung up below the Shadowgate I noted that most of my men were seeing to their arms and equipment, just in case. I made a mental note to take advantage of their nerves and begin whipping them into more presentable shape.
It was time to take some raggedy-ass volunteers and begin molding them into brothers.
Counting soldiers and officials and camp followers at least a hundred thousand Taglians had been involved in Croaker’s last crusade against the Shadowmaster. I have not dwelled on it but death did claim most of those folks, some in the fighting, more by way of disease and accident and hardship. Disease and hardship and Taglians probably accounted for even greater numbers of Shadowlanders. The conflict generated a human disaster far greater than the worst of the earthquakes shaking the region.
Disease remains a problem. Always.
The point is, there has not been a lot of fun and glory down here. The few thousand men who remain with us, many of them permanently crippled in some way, are real nervous sorts. They find signs and portents in everything.
Like most who stumble into the mercenary life they were men their society did not cherish. Ma
ybe they had no families to rejoin. Maybe they had things turned a little sideways inside their heads. Maybe they were criminals or fugitives from enemies or wives or debt collectors. It takes a great deal to bring order and discipline to men of that sort. The Company’s concept of itself as home and family had worked pretty well the past few generations but during that time the outfit never got bigger than a few hundred men. Never had it been so big that each man did not know every other.
I realized that I, for one, despite all pretense to the contrary, had not been doing everything I could to pull the family together. I had let a lack of outside pressure lull me into relaxing.
Paranoia is a must. The more so when times seem fat and favorable.
The guys were nervous now. It was time to work them a little harder.
“A reading from the First Book of Croaker,” I told the force assembled. I was a bit bemused. There must have been six hundred of them. Even the worst of the halt and lame had come. “In those days the Company was in service to the Syndics of Beryl...” It should be a good reading. Unless Otto and Hagop came over those times would be safely in the past, yet would still be close enough that the men would know that veterans of those events were still amongst them. They would know that there were forces ranged against us that their predecessors first encountered then. The very emblem on their badges had been chosen by the Company then. It was an easy connection to the past, comprehensible, with current relevance. It was a doorway through which they could be led to accept the belief that they were part of something that has survived everything for over four hundred years.
I got no cheers. I did get passionate enough to make even the most cynical member of my audience suspect that there might be something to what I said.
I made my speech and did my reading from the roof of my bunker. Sleepy sat beside the doorway throughout, showing all the ambition of a protective gargoyle. I wondered if some forced exercise might not help bring him back.
The uproar of Bucket arguing with Thai Dei wakened me. “What the hell is going on?” I yelled.
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