Bleak Seasons (26 page)

Then there were Taglians everywhere, most paying no attention to us. I did not
have much trouble defending myself. Those people were smaller and weaker and had
a much shorter reach. And what I managed by brute power Thai Dei accomplished
through maneuver. Hardly anyone was interested in us by the time we reached the
Speaker’s door.

I had guessed wrong before. Five or six Taglians had gotten inside. They just
were not going to leave again. Not walking.

Thai Dei barked something in Nyueng Bao. A voice replied. I took a wild swing at
one last particularly stupid Taglian, spending the rest of the edge of my blade
on his helmet. Then I shoved the door shut and barred it. And looked around for
something to pile against it. Unfortunately, the Kys were so poor their best
furniture consisted of ragged reed mats.

A lamp’s flame rose, then another and another. For the first time I saw the
entire room the Kys occupied. I saw the mauled corpses of several invaders. They
had become focused on exploiting the beautiful woman before they finished
everyone else. Ky Gota was still mutilating the Taglian corpses. But not all the
corpses were Taglian. Not even the majority were Taglian. Only a small
percentage were Taglian.

Sahra was holding her children to her chest but neither would ever know fear
again. Sahra’s eyes were empty.

Thai Dei made a sound like a kitten’s whimper. He threw himself onto a woman.

The woman lay face downward upon two little ones she had attempted to shield
with her body. Her effort had not been in vain. The youngest, less than a year
old, was crying.

No Taglians seemed inclined to try the door. I dropped to my knees where I had
sat talking to the Speaker so often. It appeared he and Hong Tray had watched
death arrive and had engaged it in their places of honor. The old man was
stretched out with his head and shoulders in Hong Tray’s lap but his lower body
remained almost as it had been when he was seated. His wife slumped forward over
him.

The racket outside picked up. “Thai Dei!” I yelled. “Get your ass pulled
together, man.”

What? The old woman was still breathing, making a raspy, bubbly sound. Gently, I
lifted her.

She was alive and even aware. Her eyes unglazed. She seemed unsurprised to see
me. She smiled. She managed to whisper despite the blood in her throat. “Don’t
waste time on me. Take Sahra. Take the children.” Her wound was a sword thrust
that had gone in outside her right breast and downward through her lung. At her
age it was a miracle she had lived this long.

She smiled again, whispered, “Be good to her, Standardbearer.”

“I will,” I promised, not understanding what she meant.

Hong Tray managed a wink and a wince of pain. She leaned forward onto Ky Dam
again.

The racket outside increased again. “Thai Dei!” I leapt over the bodies, flung a
foot that glanced off Thai Dei’s behind. “If you don’t get your ass up and get
organized we’re not going to help anybody.” I spotted a couple more kids
cowering in the back. One of them had lighted the lamps. Other than Sahra and
her mother no adults appeared to have survived. “Sahra!” I snapped. “Get up!” I
slapped her. “Round up those kids back there.” They were too terrified to trust
me even if they knew me.

I was still an outsider.

A little yelling was all Thai Dei and his sister needed. Their universe suddenly
regained structure and direction, though they could not see its sense. They just
needed somebody to get them started.

We found only one more living child and no more surviving adults.

“Thai Dei. Can you keep these kids together if we make a run for the alley?” The
Taglians would cease to be a problem if we made it that far. In there one man
could hold off a horde till help arrived.

He shook his head. “They are too frightened and too badly hurt.”

I was afraid of that. “Then we’ll carry them. Can you settle your mother down?

She’ll need to help. Sahra. Take the baby. I’ll carry the girl. On my back. I
want my hands free. Tell her to hang on tight but to keep her hands out of my
face. If she don’t think she can do that let me know now. We’ll tie her wrists
together.”

Sahra nodded. She was past her hysteria. She knelt beside Hong Tray, held the
old woman for a moment, then removed her jade bracelet. With a deep sigh and
evident reluctance, she slipped the bracelet onto her own left wrist. Then she
turned to Ky Gota and began trying to calm her.

Thai Dei talked to the children, translating my my instructions. I realized that
Sahra never spoke at all, not even in a whisper.

The girl I was going to carry was about six years old. And she did not want to
go.

“Tie her on, then, damn it!” I snapped. I had begun to shake. I did not know how
much longer I would retain full control. “We’re running out of time.”

Only the baby was unhurt. A boy of about four looked like he would not make it.

He for sure would not if I did not get him to One-Eye in a hurry.

Water splashed and a man shrieked right outside. A body slammed against the
door, which creaked and gave a little. Sahra swatted the girl to calm her,

fitted her onto my back. I asked, “How about your mother?”

Never mind. The Troll was with us now. She had a two-year-old of indeterminate
sex riding her left hip and the business end of a broken spear clutched in her
right hand. She was ready for Taglians.

Getting ready actually took less time than it requires to tell it.

Sahra carried the baby. Thai Dei tied the wounded boy onto his back, kept his
sword in hand. He and I went to the door. I peeked through cracks between the
mutilated timbers. A Taglian soldier lurched past outside. I asked, “You first?

Or me? One to lead, one as rearguard.”

“Me. From this day forward.”

What?

“Back!” I snapped. But he glimpsed the hurtling shape at the same time. He slid
to the right as I moved to the left of the doorway. We were out of the way when
the door blew inward. We jumped at the intruder, recognized him barely in time.

“Uncle Doj?”

He was a lucky man. The weight of the children we carried had slowed us just
enough to allow us time to see who had blown in.

“Go,” I told Thai Dei. We did not need to hold a conference.

Thai Dei encountered a pair of Taglians immediately. I jumped out and drove one
away. Ky Gota wobbled out behind us. She stuck the tip of her spearhead into the
throat of the nearest Taglian. Then she settled the child more comfortably on
her hip, turned on the other soldier.

A white crow swooped past, laughing like a troop of monkeys.

The surviving Taglian was not a foolish young man. He headed for the nearest
gang of his countrymen.

“Go! Go!” I barked at Thai Dei. “Gota. Sahra. Follow Thai Dei. Uncle! Where are
you? We’re gonna leave your ass here.”

Uncle Doj stepped outside as the Taglian pointed us out to his comrades. “Take
the child away, Standardbearer. Ash Wand will be your shield.”

He put on an amazing display though I glimpsed only a few furious moments. That
funny little wide man took on the whole mob of Taglians and killed six of them
in about as many seconds. The rest took off.

Then we splashed into the alley. We reached safety moments later. In minutes
One-Eye was working on the wounded children, albeit not cheerfully. And I was
deploying some of the Old Crew, with Goblin, for a limited counterattack.

That night was the final watershed. There was never any pretense of friendship
with Mogaba again. I had no doubts myself that he would have come after us if
the “mistaken” attack on the Nyueng Bao had been a success.

Fighting continued until the water got too deep.

Despite insistence by One-Eye and others that protecting the Nyueng Bao was not
our mission I did salvage a third of the pilgrims, about six hundred people. The
cost of the attack to Mogaba was bitter. The following morning most of the
remaining Taglians found themselves in positions where they had to commit for or
against Mogaba.

The Taglians who had been with us from the beginning stuck with us. So did those
who had deserted to join us. More came over from Mogaba’s side now but not a
tenth as many as I expected. Tell the truth, I was disappointed. But Mogaba
could make a hell of a speech to the troops when he wanted.

“It’s that old time curse again,” Goblin told me. “Even now they’re more afraid
of yesterday than they are of now.”

And the water kept rising.

I took the Nyueng Bao down into our warrens. Uncle Doj was amazed. “We never
suspected.”

“Good. Then neither do our enemies, whose brilliance is eclipsed by yours.” I
brought the Old Crew inside, too. We packed people in as comfortably as we
could. The warrens were quite spacious for sixty men. Adding six hundred Nyueng
Bao did cramp things some.

We had to learn to recognize one another, too. My men had been trained to strike
instantly at any unfamiliar face encountered underground.

I went back outside after darkness fell. Thai Dei and Uncle Doj dogged me. I
assembled the Taglian officers who had attached themselves to the Old Crew. I
told them, “I believe that we have done all we can here. I believe it is time to
begin evacuating everyone who wants to get out of this hellhole.” I did not know
why but was convinced that not much work would be required to evade or outwit
the Shadowlander pickets ashore. “I will send one of my wizards to cover you.”

They did not buy it. One captain wondered aloud if I intended to drive them into
slavery so I could make it easier to feed my own men.

I had not thought this through, had not considered possible difficulties. I had
forgotten that many of these men had attached themselves to us only because they
believed that that was their best shot at staying alive. “Never mind. If you
guys want to stay and die with us we’ll be happy to have you. I was just trying
to release you from your soldier’s oaths so you would have some chance.”

After dark, too, we let the Nyueng Bao men go back home to look for salvage and
survivors and stores. They did not find much. Mogaba’s soldiers had been
thorough in their own search and the water had risen to cover everything.

Mogaba’s men, using makeshift boats and rafts, began attacking Jaicuri occupied
buildings one by one, harvesting stores forced out of hiding by the rising
water.

Mogaba had drowned his own supplies.

When I was sure nobody would notice I pulled all my brothers inside. We bolted
up and locked up and left Dejagore to its misery. We took the Nyueng Bao
survivors with us. Excepting a few men who kept watch from lookouts accessible
only from inside we withdrew into the deepest, most hidden parts of the warrens,

behind booby traps and secret doors and a web of confusion spells scattered by
Goblin and One-Eye, who left only the occasional flicker of a doppelganger to
mark our passing.

I started out sharing my quarters with eight guests. After just a few hours I
told Uncle Doj, “Let’s you and me take a walk.”

With all those Nyueng Bao down there the air was stuffy and getting riper fast.

Light was provided by candles so scattered you could get lost trekking from one
to the next.

Uncle Doj was close to being spooked. “I hate it, too,” I told him. “It keeps me
riding the edge of a scream. But we’ll manage. We lived this way for years
once.”

“No one can live like this. Not for long.”

“The Company did, though. It was a terrible place. It was called the Plain of
Fear, with good reason. It was filled with weird creatures and every one of them
would kill you in a blink. We were hunted constantly by armies led by wizards
way worse than Shadowspinner. But we gutted it out. And we came through it.

Right here in these tunnels you have five survivors who can tell you about it.”

The light was too bad to read him, though that was difficult in broad daylight.

I told him, “I’m going to go crazy if all of you stay with me. I need room.

Nobody can get around without stepping on somebody right now.”

“I understand. But I do not know how to help.”

“We have empty rooms. Thai Dei and his baby can have one. You could. Sahra could
share one with her mother.”

He smiled. “You are open and honest but pay too little attention to Nyueng Bao
ways. Many things happened the night you helped Thai Dei rescue this family.”

I snorted. “Some rescue.”

“You saved all who could be saved.”

“What a good boy am I.”

“You had neither an obligation nor any cause of honor.” In actuality he used
honor and obligation in lieu of Nyueng Bao concepts of similar but not identical
meaning which include overtones of free will participation in a divine
machination.

“I did what seemed like the right thing.”

“Indeed. Without any appeal or obligation. Which caused your current
predicament.”

“I must be missing something.”

“Because you are not Nyueng Bao. Thai Dei will not leave you now. He is the
oldest male. He owes you six lives. His baby will not leave him. Sahra will not
leave because she must remain under her brother’s protection until she marries.

And, as you can see, she may be a while getting through the horror. In this
city, upon this pilgrimage she never wanted to make, she has lost everything
that ever meant anything to her. Except her mother.”

“A man might almost think the gods had it in for her,” I said, then hoped that
did not sound too much like a wisecrack.

“One might. Standardbearer, the only good thing she recalls about that hellnight
is you. She will cling to you the way a desperate swimmer will cling to a rock
in a rushing stream.”

It was time to be careful. A big part of me wished her clinging was more than
metaphorical. “How about Ky Gota and those other kids?”

“The children can be adopted into the families of their mothers. Gota, surely,