Bleak Seasons (8 page)

Goblin and One-Eye had chosen to stay close to me. The real Goblin and One-Eye.

I checked every few minutes to make sure. Their attention was on the hills, not
the excitement across town or any of their own schemes. Strange lights moved out
there.

A band of southerners sent out earlier returned at a gallop, half their number
missing. They flew as though devils worse than their boss were after them. They
dared ride the way they did only because Stormshadow had been obsessive when she
leveled the plain and because there was light from the city.

Fires were burning. Only a few so far, but fires.

Sparkle told me, “They’re pulling out down below.”

I leaned over and looked. Nobody tried to pick me off. Maybe they thought I was
another ghost.

Sure enough, the Shadowlanders were going, leaving us all those wonderful
grapnels without ropes, for us to dump on our “maybe we can use these someday”

pile.

One-Eye said, “Guess we can put up our swords and go back to our tonk games
now.”

Overlooking the fact that Dejagore was being invaded elsewhere, I observed,

“This is the second time you’ve come out with that silliness. What moron is
going to play with you? Can’t be anybody that dumb still alive.” One-Eye cheats
at cards. And he cheats badly. He gets caught every time. Nobody will play with
him.

“Hey, Murgen. Listen. I’ve reformed. Really. Never again will I dishonor my
talent to . . . ”

Why listen? He’s said it all before, countless times. The first thing we do
after we swear a recruit into the Company is warn him not to play cards with
One-Eye.

A party of Shadowlanders withdrawn from my sector headed for the hills. They all
had torches. It looked like the Shadowmaster himself might be driving them.

“Cletus! Longinus! You guys far enough along that you can drop a barrage on that
crowd?” The brothers were repairing their engines as fast as they could. Two
were ready, cocked and loaded. Not much of a barrage. One-Eye asked, “Why do
that?”

“Why not? We might get lucky. And can we piss off Shadowspinner more than he
already is? He’s already vowed to kill us all.”

The ballistas thumped. The shafts they hurled did not hit the Shadowmaster.

Distractedly, he replied with a spear of energy that dissolved several cubic
yards of wall far from any of my guys.

The racket from across town kept getting louder. Some seemed closer than the far
wall.

“They’re inside,” Sparkle said.

“A lot of them,” Bucket agreed. “This could get to be a big cleanup job.” I
liked that positive thinking.

I shrugged. Mogaba liked to keep the cleanups for himself and the Nar and their
Taglians.

Fine with me. Mogaba can eat all the pain he can swallow.

I really wanted to take a nap. This long day just kept getting longer. Oh, well.

Soon enough I would get to sleep forever.

A short while later I got word that small groups of southerners were in the
streets murdering anybody they could catch.

“Sir?”

“Sleepy. What’s up, youngster?” Sleepy was a Taglian Shadar we swore into the
Company just before I decided to take up this pen. He always looked like he was
having trouble keeping his eyes open. He also looked like he was about fourteen
years old, which was possible. He was paranoid in the extreme, apparently for
good reason. He was a good-looking youth. And pretty boys are fair game amongst
Taglian men of all three major religious groups. The Stranglers use their more
attractive sons to lure victims to their deaths.

Different land, different customs. You may not like them but you do have to live
with them. Sleepy liked our ways better than his own.

“Sir,” he said, “the Nar aren’t trying to keep the southerners from heading this
way. They don’t bother them at all anymore after they get through and off the
wall as long as they don’t head into Mogaba’s barracks area.”

“Is that deliberate?” Bucket asked.

Someone muttered, “Now ask a stupid question.”

“What do you think?” One-Eye snapped. “This is the last straw. If that
bigheaded, self-important dick shows his face around here . . . ”

“Save it, One-Eye.” This was hard to accept. But I could see Mogaba being
capable of channeling the enemy our way so as to resolve questions of precedence
inside the Company. His morality would allow him to picture it as a brilliant
solution to several problems. “Instead of standing around bitching about it how
about we do some thinking? Best way to fix Mogaba would be to shove his plan up
his ass, no grease.”

While the others tried to manage that difficult exercise—thinking—I questioned
Sleepy more closely. Unfortunately, he could not add much but the general routes
the southerners were using to push deeper into the city.

You couldn’t blame the Shadowlanders. Most soldiers of most times jump at the
chance to go where resistance is weakest.

Maybe we could use that to pull some into some sort of killing pocket.

I even got a chuckle out of my predicament. “I bet Croaker would have seen this
coming a month ago, as paranoid as he was about supposed friends and allies.”

A nearby crow squawked agreement.

I should have considered the possibility. I really should have. Farfetched is
not the same as impossible. I should have had something planned.

One-Eye became as serious as ever he gets. “You know what this means? If the kid
is right?”

“The Company is at war with itself?”

The little guy waved that off like it was just another annoying gnat of reality.

“Suppose Mogaba is giving them a golden bridge so they can get rid of us for
him? They still have to get through the pilgrims to reach us.”

I didn’t need to think long to see what he meant. “That asshole. He going to
make them kill Shadowlanders in self-defense. He’s going to use them up killing
his enemies for him.”

“Maybe he’s a bigger snake than anybody thought,” Bucket growled. “It’s for sure
he’s changed a lot since Gea-Xle.”

“This ain’t right,” I muttered, although swords would enter the fight on our
side whether or not they wanted to. Other than a few small skirmishes with lost
invaders during past attacks the worst that had happened to the Nyueng Bao was
that their pilgrimage had gotten them trapped in the middle of somebody else’s
war. From the first clash of steel they had worked hard to maintain their
neutrality.

Shadowspinner has his spies in the city. He would know the Nyueng Bao had no
interest in antagonizing him.

“What do you think they’ll do?” Goblin asked. “The Nyueng Bao, I mean.” His
voice sounded odd. How much beer had he put away?

“How the hell would I know? Depends on how they see things. If they think Mogaba
dragged them into it on purpose it might get unhealthy to belong to the Company.

Mogaba could see this as a chance to squish us into a crack between a rock and a
hard place. I’d better go see their Speaker and let him know what’s happening.

Bucket. Make up a twenty man patrol and go looking for southerners. See if
Sleepy is right. One-Eye, go with him. Spot for him and cover our guys. Sparkle,

you watch things here. Send Sleepy after me if it gets too much to handle.”

Nobody argued. When things get tight the guys do become less fractious.

I descended the stairway to the street.

I played the game the way I thought the Nyueng Bao would want. Ever since
childhood I have suspected you get along better if you respect people’s ways and
wishes regardless of your apparent relative strengths.

That doesn’t mean you let people walk on you. It doesn’t mean you eat their pain
for them. You need to demand respect for yourself, too.

Dejagore’s byways are close and fetid. Typical of a fortified city. I went to an
obscure intersection where under normal circumstances I could expect to be seen
by Nyueng Bao watchers. They are a cautious people. They watch all the time. I
announced, “I would see the Speaker. Harm is headed his way. I would have him
know what I know.”

I didn’t see anybody. I didn’t hear anybody. I expected nothing else. Someone
who strolled into my territory would see and hear nothing, either, but death
would be nearby.

The only sounds came from fighting several blocks away.

I waited.

Suddenly, in that instant when my attention finally wandered, Ky Dam’s son
materialized. He made no more noise than a tiptoeing moth. He was a wide, short
man of indeterminate age. He carried an unusually long sword but it remained
sheathed across his back. He stared at me hard. I stared back. It cost me
nothing. He grunted, indicated that I should follow. We walked no more than
eighty yards. He indicated a doorway. “Keep smiling,” I told him. I couldn’t
resist. He was always around somewhere, watching. I never saw him smile. I
pushed the door inward.

Curtains hung two feet inside. Very weak light slipped through a rent. I closed
the door carefully once I understood that I would be entering alone, before I
parted the curtains. Wouldn’t do to let light splash into the street.

The place turned out to be about as pleasant as you can get in a city.

The Speaker sat on a mat on a dirty floor near the one candle offering light.

There were about a dozen people visible, of all ages and sexes. I saw four
children, all small, six adults of an age to be their parents, and one old woman
of granny age who glowered like she had a special bunk in Hell reserved for me
even though she’d never seen me before. I saw nobody who could pass as her
husband. Maybe he was the guy outside. Then there was a woman as old as Ky Dam,

a fragile flower time-diminished to little more than skin-covered sticks, though
an agile intelligence still burned in her eyes. You would get nothing past this
woman.

Of material things I saw little but the clothing the people wore, a few ragged
blankets, a couple of clay cups and a pot maybe used for cooking. And more
swords nearly as long and fine as that carried by the Speaker’s son.

In the darkness beyond the candlelight someone groaned. It was the sound of
someone delirious.

“Sit,” Ky Dam invited. A second mat lay unrolled beside the candle. In the weak
light the old man seemed more frail than when he visited the wall.

I sat. Though I wasn’t used to it and my tendons weren’t supple enough, I tried
to cross my legs.

I waited.

Ky Dam would invite me to speak when it was time.

I tried to concentrate on the old man, not the people staring at me, nor the
smell of too many folks living in too small a space, of their strange foods, nor
even the odor of sickness.

A woman brought tea. How she made it I don’t know. I never saw any fire. I
didn’t think about that at the moment, though, so startled was I. She was
beautiful. Even in dirt and rags, incredibly beautiful. I brought the hot tea to
my lips and scalded them to shock myself back to business.

I felt sorrow instantly. This one would pay dearly when the southerners took the
town.

A small smile touched Ky Dam’s lips. I noticed amusement on the face of the old
woman, too, and recognized there a similar beauty only externally betrayed by
time. They were used to my initial reaction. Maybe it was some kind of test,

bringing her out of the shadows. Almost too softly to be heard, the old man
said, “She is indeed.” Louder, he added, “You are wise beyond your years,

Soldier of Darkness.”

What was this Soldier of Darkness crap? Every time he addressed me he stuck me
with another name.

I tried a formal head bow of acknowledgment. “Thank you for that compliment,

Speaker.” I hoped he would realize that I was incapable of keeping up with the
subtleties of proper manners amongst the Nyueng Bao.

“I sense in you a great anxiety held in check only by chains of will.” He sipped
tea calmly but eyed me in a way that told me hastiness would be tolerated if I
thought it really necessary.

I said, “Great evils stalk the night, Speaker. Unexpected monsters have slipped
their leashes.”

“So I surmised when you were kind enough to permit me atop your section of
wall.”

“There is a new beast loose. One I never expected to see.” In retrospect I
realize we were speaking of two different things. “One I do not know how to
handle.” I strove to keep my Taglian pronunciations clear. Men conversing in a
tongue native to neither sorely tempt the devils of misunderstanding.

He seemed puzzled. “I do not understand you.”

I glanced around. Did all his people live like this all the time? They were
packed in way tighter than we were. Of course, we could enforce our claims to
space with our swords. “Do you know about the Black Company? Do you know our
recent history?” Rather than await an answer I sketched our immediate past. Ky
Dam was one of those rare people who listened with every ounce of his being.

I finished. The old man said, “Time has, perhaps, made of you shadows of the
Soldiers of Darkness. You have been gone so long and have journeyed so far that
you have strayed from your Way completely. Nor are the followers of the warrior
prince Mogaba hewing any nearer the true path.”

I did not hide my thoughts well, Ky Dam and his woman found me amusing again.

“But I am not one of you, Standardbearer. My knowledge has drifted far from the
truth as well. Perhaps there is no real truth today because there is no one who
knows it anymore.”

I didn’t have a clue what the hell he was talking about. “You have wandered long
and far, Standardbearer. But you may yet come home again.” His expression
darkened momentarily. “Though you wish that you had not. Where is your standard,

Standardbearer?”

“I don’t know. It vanished during the big battle on the plain outside. I jammed
its butt into the earth when I decided to put on my Captain’s armor in order to
pretend that he had not fallen, so the troops would rally, but . . . ”

The old man raised a hand. “I think it may be very close tonight.”

I hate this obscurity crap old people and wizards like to perpetrate. I am
convinced that they do it only because it gives them a feeling of power. Screw
the missing standard. It was not germane, now, tonight. I said, “The Nar
chieftain wants to be Captain of the Black Company. He does not approve of the
ways of those of us from the far north.”

I paused but the old man had dried up. He waited. I said, “Mogaba is flawless as
a warrior but he has shortcomings in some areas of leadership.”

Ky Dam then proved to be less than the totally inscrutable and eternally patient
old-timer you are led to expect in these situations.

“You came to warn me that he has chosen to lessen his problems by letting
southerners do his knifework, Standardbearer?”

“Huh?”

“One of my grandsons was in a position to overhear while Mogaba debated
tonight’s actions with his lieutenants Ochiba, Sindawe, Ranjalpirindi and Chal
Ghanda Ghan. Because Taglian conspirators were present the Nar failed to
squabble in their native tongue though Mogaba showed limited facility with the
Taglian.”

“Excuse me? Sir?”

“What your honor compels you to report to me, although you only harbor
suspicions now, is far worse than you fear. Overruling strong objections by his
Nar lieutenants, Mogaba set forth a plan for tonight which will allow
southerners who reach the ramparts and do not dally there to have their ways
behind the wall. Taglian legionnaires will discourage them from attacking any
direction but through our quarter into yours.”

“You knew already? That what you’re saying? Before I got here you had an actual
witness?”

“Thai Dei.”

A young man rose. He was an unpleasant-looking skinny little guy who held a
toddler in his arms.

Ky Dam said, “He does not speak Taglian well but he understands it good enough.

He overheard the plot being hatched. He overheard the arguments of those who
found it dishonorable. He saw an angry Mogaba go so far as to continue during
the visit of a man believed to be an instrument of the Shadowmasters.”

That hit me. It meant that, as of that moment, there existed a tacit agreement
between Mogaba and Shadowspinner good until me and mine had been obliterated.

“This is cruel treachery indeed, Speaker.”

Ky Dam nodded. Then he told me, “There is more, Stone Soldier. Both
Ranjalpirindi and Ghanda Ghan are intimates of the Prahbrindrah Drah. Speaking
with the Prince’s voice they assured Mogaba that, once the siege has been broken
and your band has been eliminated, the Prince will announce his personal support
of Mogaba’s captaincy of your company. In exchange Mogaba will abandon your
previous Captain’s quest to become chief warlord of Taglios. With all powers
necessary to prosecute the war against the Shadowlands.”

“Man, that was some job of eavesdropping.” Thai Dei almost smiled.

“And some job of treachery put together by Brother Mogaba.”

I could see why Ochiba and Sindawe would argue against it. It was a betrayal
almost beyond comprehension.

Mogaba had, indeed, gone through some dark changes since Gea-Xle.

I asked, “What does he have against you people?”

“Nothing, Politically he should be indifferent to us. We have never been a
factor in Taglian affairs. But we mean nothing to him in any other way, either.

He is eager to spend us like found coin. If the southerners attack you after
fighting his forces, then us, huge numbers of his enemies and us resource
gulping undesirables will have been eliminated.”

“Once I admired this man greatly, Speaker.”

“Men change, Standardbearer. And this one more than most. He is an actor and but
one wicked purpose impels all his acting.”

“Speaker?”

“This Mogaba is the center of, and the reason for, everything that Mogaba does.

Mogaba will sacrifice his best friend upon an altar to himself, though probably
not even a god could convince the friend that that possibility exists. Mogaba’s
every wicked order draws another veil off the black blotch devouring his soul.

He has changed as the most perfect pomegranate will change when the mold gets
inside its skin.”

Here we go, talking old-timer sideways again.

“Standardbearer! Though I know of the black danger to my people already I am
honored that you believed us worthy of a warning, however pressing your other
concerns. That was an act of generosity and friendship. We do not forget those
who have extended their hands.”

“Thank you. I am pleased by your response.” You’d better believe. “And if Mogaba
allows you to be attacked . . . ”

“The problem is upon us already, Stone Soldier. Southerners are dying right now,

only yards away. Once it became evident that we were trapped here we all learned
every nuance of the ground upon which we might fight. This is not our swamp but
the principles of battle remain the same. We have been prepared for this night
for many weeks. It remained to be seen only who would chose to become our
enemy.”

“Huh?” I could be stupid as a stone when I ran into something cold.

“You should rejoin those who look to you for leadership. Do so secure in the
knowledge that you have the friendship of the Nyueng Bao.”

“An honor.”

“Or curse.” The old man chuckled.

“Does that mean your people will actually talk to mine?”

“That might be a little too much.” He chuckled again. His wife smiled, too. What
a wild joker he was! The man was a laugh riot. He said, “Thai Dei. Go with this
man. You may speak if spoken to, but only as my mouth. Bone Warrior. This is my
grandson. He will understand you. Send him to me if you have a need to
communicate. Do not be frivolous.”

“I understand.” I tried to get up, embarrassed myself by failing to get my legs
untangled. One of the kids laughed. I dared glance around for a reaction from
the dream woman who brought the tea, sure I was not fooling Ky Dam. A baby slept
in her lap. A toddler dozed under her left arm. She was awake, watching. She
looked tired, frightened, confused and determined. About like the rest of us.

Whenever that moaning came from the darkness she winced and looked that way. The
pain was a part of her.

I bowed myself out. The Nyueng Bao Thai Dei led me back to familiar territory.