by Glen Cook
Now I understood their caste system. It was based on number of successful murders.
Narayan was, likely, secretly, a wealthy man. The followers of Kina always robbed their victims.
They were more egalitarian than other cults. Narayan, of low caste and cursed with a Shadar name, had become jamadar of his band. Because he was a brilliant tactician and favored of Kina-meaning he was lucky, I assumed-according to Sindhu. He was famous among the Stranglers. A living legend.
“He doesn’t need arm-holders,” Sindhu said. “Only the best black cloths kill so quickly and efficiently that they don’t need arm-holders.”
A living legend, and my lieutenant. Interesting. “Arm-holders?” He used the word as a title more than as a job description.
“A band consists of many specialists, Mistress. The newest members begin as grave-diggers and bone-breakers. Many never advance beyond that level, for they develop no skill with the rumel. The yellow rumel men are the lowest ranked Stranglers. Apprentices. They seldom have a chance to kill, being mostly assigned as arm-holders for red rumel men and as scouts and victim-finders. Red rumel men do most of the strangling. Few win the black rumel. Those almost always become jamadars or priests. The priests do the divining and take omens, intercede with Kina, and keep the chronicles and accounts of the company. When it becomes necessary they act as judges.”
“I was never a priest,” Narayan said. “A priest has to be educated.”
Never a priest but once a slave. He’d managed to keep his rumel throughout his captivity. I wondered if he had fought back, dealing silent death.
“Sometimes. When the moment was propitious,” he admitted. “But Kina teaches us not to slay indiscriminately, nor in anger, but only for her glory. We do not slay for political reasons-except for the safety of the brotherhood.”
Interesting. “How many followers do you suppose Kina claims?”
“There is no way to tell, Mistress.” Narayan seemed almost relieved by this line of questioning. “We are outlawed. We come under sentence of death the moment we take our oath to Kina. A jamadar will know how many there are in his band and will have contacts with a few other jamadars but he’ll have no idea how many bands there are or how strong they might be. There are ways we have to recognize one another, ways we communicate, but seldom do we dare gather in large numbers. The risks are too great.”
Sindhu said, “The Festival of Lights is our great gathering, when each band sends men to the rites at the Grove of Doom.”
Narayan silenced him with a gesture. “A great holy day but little different than the Shadar festival of the same name. Many of the band captains, come but bring few of their followers. The priests attend, of course. Decisions are made and cases judged but I would guess that not one in twenty believers attends. I would guess that there are between one and two thousand of us today, more than half living in Taglian territory.”
Not many at all, then. And only a minority of those truly skilled murderers. But what a force to unleash in the darkness if I could make it my instrument.
“And now the true question, Narayan. The heart of the thing. Where do I fit? Why have you chosen me? And for what?”
Chapter Twenty
Crowing and clatter wakened Croaker. He rose and went to the temple entrance. Ghostly dawn light permeated the misty wood.
Soulcatcher had returned. The black stallions were lathered. They had run long and hard. The sorceress was besieged by squawking crows. She cursed them and beat them back, beckoned him. He went out, asked, “Where have you been? Things have been happening.”
“So I gather. I went for your armor.” She indicated the horse she hadn’t ridden.
“You went all the way to Dejagore? For that? Why?”
“We’ll need it. Tell me what happened.”
“How were they? My men.”
“Holding out. Better than I expected. They may hang on for quite a while. Shadowspinner isn’t at his best.” The voice she chose rasped with irritation. When she continued, though, it had become that of
a cajoling child. “Tell me. It’ll take forever to get it out of them. They all try to tell me at once.”
“The Howler came past yesterday.”
She raised that wooden box to eye level, though she didn’t make him look at the face inside. “The Howler? Tell me.”
He did.
“The game grows more interesting. How did Longshadow lure him out of his swamp?”
“I don’t know.”
“I was speaking rhetorically, Croaker. Go inside. I’m tired. I was in a bad mood already.”
He went. He didn’t want to test her temper. Outside, she chattered with a flock of crows so dense she disappeared among them. Somehow she brought confusion out of chaos. Minutes later the temple vibrated to the beat of countless wings. A black cloud flew away south.
Soulcatcher came inside. Croaker kept his distance, kept his mouth shut. Not much intimidated him but he wasn’t one to stick his hand in a cobra’s mouth.
Morning came. Croaker wakened. Soulcatcher appeared to be sleeping soundly. He resisted temptation. It was less than a flutter of a thought, anyway. He wouldn’t catch her off guard that easily. Chances were she wasn’t asleep at all. Resting, yes. Maybe testing him. He couldn’t recall ever having seen her sleep.
He made himself breakfast.
Soulcatcher wakened while he cooked. He didn’t notice. A dramatic pink flash startled him. He whirled. Pinkish smoke swirled beyond the sorceress. A child-sized creature pranced out, flipped the woman a salute, sauntered over to him. “How they hanging, chief? Long time, no see.”
“Want an honest answer or one that will please you, Frogface?”
“Hey! You ain’t surprised to see me.”
“No. I figured you were a plant. One-Eye doesn’t have what it takes to manage a demon.”
“Hey! Hey! Let’s watch our tongue, eh, Cap? I ain’t no demon. I’m an imp.”
“Sorry about the ethnic slur. You did fool me, some. I thought you belonged to Shapeshifter.”
“That lump? What could he offer?”
Croaker shrugged. “You been in Dejagore?” He contained an old anger. The imp, supposedly helping the Black Company, had been absent in the final debacle there. “What’s the news?”
The imp stood only two feet tall though he had the proportions of an adult. He glanced at Soulcatcher, received some intangible permission. “That Mogaba is one bad actor, chief. He’s giving the Shadowmasters’ boys all the trouble they ever wanted. Making them look like fools. Eating them up a nibble at a time. ‘Course, it can’t last. He keeps getting into it with your old buddies One-Eye, Goblin, and Murgen. They don’t like the way he operates. He don’t like them all the time telling him about it. You get a split there, or Shadowspinner breaks loose, you got a whole new game.”
Croaker settled with his meal. “Shadowspinner breaks loose?”
“Yeah. He got hurt in the fight, you know. His old buddy from down south, Longshadow, got a whammy in on him while he was down. Keeps him from using his talents. Them Shadowmasters was a lovely bunch, all the time trying to slide around behind each other even when they was up to their asses in alligators. Longshadow, he’s got a notion he can play Shadowspinner just loose enough to let him wipe Dejagore, then squish the clown and make himself king of the world.”
In a voice little more than a whisper the sorceress said, “He has the Howler to consider, now. And me.”
The imp’s grin faded. “You ain’t as secret as you think, boss. They know you’re down here. They all did, from the beginning.”
“Damn!” She paced. “I thought I’d been more careful.”
“Hey! Not to worry. None of them got the faintest where you are now. And maybe when we get done with them they’ll wish they was nicer to you in the old days. Eh? Eh?” He laughed, childlike.
Croaker had encountered Frogface first in Gea-Xle, far to the north. One-Eye, one of the Company wizards, had bought him there. Everyone bu
t One-Eye had doubted the imp’s provenance and loyalty, though Frogface had made himself useful.
Croaker asked Soulcatcher, “You have something planned?”
“Yes. Stand up.” He did. She rested one gloved hand against his chest. “Uhm. You’ve healed enough. And I’m running out of time.”
Nervous excitement flooded him. He knew what she wanted and did not want to do it. “I thought that was why he was here. Do you trust him enough to have him watch me?”
“Hey, chief,” the imp said, “you hurt my feelings. Sure she does. I done hitched my star.”
“One word from me and he spends eternity in torment.” Her voice was a merry little girl’s. She could be chilling in her choices.
“That too,” the imp said, all of a sudden surly. “It’s a hard life, Cap. Nobody don’t never trust me. Don’t never give me no slack. One teensy slipup and it’s roast forever. Or worse. You mortals got it made, man.”
Croaker snorted. “What do you think one slipup will get me?”
“It only hurts for a little while for you.”
Soulcatcher said, “Enough banter. Croaker, calm yourself. Get yourself ready for surgery. The imp and I will ready everything else.”
Nude and headless, the sorceress floated four feet off the floor, shoulders elevated. Her unboxed head sat on a stone table nearby, eyes alert. Croaker scanned the body. It was perfect though pale and waxy. He’d seen only one to compare. Her sister’s.
He glanced at the imp, perched on the head of a stone monster that protruded from the wall. The imp winked. “Show us what you got, Cap.” Croaker was not reassured.
He glanced at his hands. They were steady, a legacy of surgeries performed on a dozen battlefields under terrifying conditions.
He stepped to the table. The sorceress had gathered the best surgical instruments the world had to offer. “This will take a while, imp. If I tell you to do something, you do it now. Understood?”
“Sure, chief. Might help if I knew what you were going to do.”
“I’ll start by removing the scar tissue. That’ll be delicate. You’ll have to help control bleeding.” He didn’t know if there would be bleeding or not. He’d never carved on somebody who should have been dead fifteen years ago. He could not believe this operation was possible. But Catcher being alive was impossible.
How much control would she have? How much would she participate? His would be the least part here, physical preparation for the mating of head and neck. The rest, tying nerve to nerve and blood vessel to blood vessel, would be up to her.
It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t.
He went to work. Soon he was concentrating enough to forget the price of failure.
Chapter Twenty-One
Longshadow watched the upper limb of the sun slide below the horizon. He barked an order. A wrinkly little brown man whispered, “Yes, my lord.” He scurried out of the crystal room. Longshadow remained motionless, watched the day fade.
“Welcome the enemy hours.” It was summertime. Longshadow preferred summers. The nights were shorter.
He was less troubled, less fearful, now. Those nights after the Stormgard debacle had included a crisis of confidence now past. He was not cocky but was sure of himself now. Everything he touched was turning to gold, unfolding to perfection. The Howler was on his way from the swamps, undetected. The siege of Stormgard continued to enervate Shadowspinner’s armies. Spinner remained impotent. She seemed to have faded, content to avenge herself on Dorotea Senjak. Senjak was playing her own game unaware that she was playing his. Soon, now, she would stumble. He had just one move to make. And it was time.
Each seventy feet along Overlook’s wall stood a tower topped by crystal. Inside each cylinder was a large curved mirror. Fires came to life within those towers. The flames burned brightly. The mirrors hurled light onto the old road descending from the plain of glittering stone. No shadow could move there unseen.
His confidence was back. He could leave the night watch to others. He had other business to conduct. There were reports to receive, orders to send, communiques to issue. He turned his back on the outside world, approached a crystal sphere on a pedestal at the heart of the chamber.
The sphere was four feet in diameter. Channels wormholed through it to a hollow at the heart. Shimmers of light rippled over its surface. Snakes of light wriggled through the channels inside. Longshadow rested withered hands on the sphere. Surface light absorbed them. His hands sank into the globe slowly, as though melting through ice. He grasped serpents of light, manipulated them.
A port opened where the sphere rested on the pedestal, unsealing one channel. Darkness oozed in. It came reluctantly, compelled, fighting every inch. It hated the light as the Shadowmaster hated darkness. It filled the heart of the sphere.
Longshadow spoke to it. The light on the sphere rippled, crept up his arms. The sphere vibrated. A sound weaker than a whisper came off it. Longshadow listened. Then he sent the shadow away and summoned another.
To the fourth such shadow he said, “Take this message to Taglios: ‘Create the agent.’ “
As the shadow oozed away, fleeing the light, the Shadowmaster suddenly felt that he was no longer alone. Frightened, he tried to turn to look at the road from the plain.
Nothing moved there. The shadowtraps were holding. What, then?
Something inky, glossy, flashed through the nearest beam. “Huh?” No shadow, that. A crow! A lot of crows. What were crows doing here?
It was night. Crows didn’t fly at night.
It came, then.
There had been crows around Overlook for weeks, seldom behaving as crows should. “Hers!” He cursed, stamped angrily, childishly. She’d been watching all along. She knew everything!
Fear fled before rage. He’d never had much self-control. He tried to yank his arms free, forgetting there should be no quick movement in the sphere. The crows seemed to laugh at him.
Hell. They swarmed over the surrounding walls, cawing mockingly.
He ripped a hand out of the sphere. Bloody sparks crackled between his fingers. There would be an end to those cackling devils! She wouldn’t spy on him again!
He hurled a bolt. A dozen crows exploded. Blood and feathers splattered the tower. The survivors cawed uproariously.
Sense penetrated rage. Something was wrong. They wanted him to attack them.
Diversion?
The sphere!
A gap remained where he’d freed his hand. The hole penetrated to the core. A darkness was slithering through already.
He screamed.
He clamped down on his fear, removed his other hand slowly. He closed the deadly gap carefully, but not before the shadow escaped.
It darted through the doorway, out of the chamber, down into the bowels of Overlook, fleeing the light.
There was a shadow loose in the fortress!
Somewhere, a scream. The shadow was hunting.
Longshadow forced an icy calm. It was one lone shadow, small, controllable.
Outside, the crows made merry.
He stifled rage. They would not provoke him again. “Your hour will come,” he promised. “Fly to the bitch. Report your failure. I live. I still live!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
When the watchful eye lapses those who are watched invariably sense the instant of freedom.
A prodigious wail escaped the little thing called the Howler. It gobbled at the men carrying it. They raced forward, carried it into the camp of the Shadowmaster Shadowspinner while the watcher in the south was diverted.
The Howler remained just long enough to make contact, speak briefly, exchange views, reach an understanding by which he stood to evade the inevitable treachery of Longshadow, sure to surface the instant the threat from Taglios evaporated.
He was long gone when Longshadow’s seekers found him again. The only evidence of his visit was an improvement in Shadowspinner’s condition. Spinner kept that well hidden.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The breeze had shifted. It came from the northeast now, carrying smoke from across the river. I asked Narayan, “Could we confiscate their wood?” There had been suicides all morning.
“Unwise, Mistress. Interfering might start a rebellion. Your grip isn’t that tight.”
And likely would never be, unpleasant as I found that truth. “Just wishful thinking. Tinkering with customs isn’t my mission.”
Nor his. I had not pressed Narayan about that. I could guess, though. It was implicit in his beliefs. He wanted to bring on the Year of the Skulls. He wanted Kina free. He wanted to become immortal, a Deceiver saint.
“It’s all far away, Mistress. What do we do today?”
“We’re approaching that point where assembling an army begins snowballing.”
“Snowballing?”
I’d used Forsberger for “snowballing,” not thinking. I did not know the Taglian for snow. It did not snow here. Narayan had never seen snow. “It starts growing of its own momentum. In another week, ten days, I’d guess, we’ll begin getting more recruits than we can handle.”
“Even with the Radisha against us?” He was convinced the woman was an enemy.
“That could work for us if we appeal to resentment of the powers that be.”
Narayan understood. Such resentments brought recruits to the Deceivers. “There’s less of that than you hope. This isn’t your land. My people are very fatalistic.”
They were. But they had their handles. There would not be two thousand men under my standard now otherwise. “They’ll respond to the right spark. True?”
“We all will, Mistress.”
“Absolutely. I’ve provided that spark for you and your friends, haven’t I? But how about a spark to fire the masses? One that will make them forget their fear of the Black Company and their objections to a woman commander?” I understood why the Company was feared now. For his sake maybe it was best Croaker had gone before he figured it out. It would have broken his heart.