Dreams of Steel (26 page)

"Of course. Get on with it. Find him. Stick tight. He's dangerous to us."

The men hurried out, obviously eager to be away from her. "They're terrified of you," Croaker observed. His voice came back when he was alone with her.

"Naturally. They think I'm the daughter of their goddess. Why don't you get cleaned up? I can smell you from here. I'll have them bring you new clothes."

The bath and clothes were the only good things that happened that day.

Chapter Forty-Eight

I did not get the sleep I needed. The dreams were bad. I wandered the caverns under the earth, awash in the stench of decay. The caverns were no longer cold. The old men were rotting. They were still alive but decaying. When I passed through their line of sight I felt their appeal, their blame. I really tried. But I could get no nearer whatever my destination was supposed to be.

The thing trying to recruit me was getting impatient.

Narayan wakened me. "I'm sorry, Mistress. It's important." He looked like he had seen a ghost.

I sat up. And started vomiting. Narayan sighed. His friends moved to mask me from the men. He looked worried. He feared his investment was going to come up short. I was going to die on him.

I was not worried about that. More the opposite, that I would not die and never escape the misery. What was wrong with me? This was getting old, every morning sick-and not that great the rest of the day.

I didn't have time to be sick. I had work to do. I had worlds to conquer. "Help me up, Ram. Did I mess myself?"

"No, Mistress."

"Thank the goddess for small favors. What is it, Narayan?"

"Better you see for yourself. Come, Mistress. Please?"

Ram had brought horses. I collected myself, let him help me mount. We headed for the hills. As we left camp I saw Blade and Swan and Mather with their heads together, exercised about something. Narayan did not ride but he could lope along when he wanted.

He was right. Seeing was better than hearing. I might not have believed a verbal report.

The plain had flooded. At the north and south ends water roared out of the hills. The aqueducts had gone mad. I said, "Now we know where those work parties headed. They must have diverted both rivers. How deep is it?"

"At least ten feet already."

I tried guessing how high it could rise. The hills were deceptive. It was hard to tell. The plain was lower than the land beyond the hills but not much. The water should not get more than sixty feet deep. But that would be enough to flood the city.

Mogaba was in a fix. He had no way out-unless he built boats or rafts. Shadowspinner would not have to waste a man to keep him tied up.

"Good gods! Where did the Shadowlanders go?" I had a bad feeling I had one foot in a bear trap.

Narayan summoned a man on scout duty. He told us the Shadowlanders had pulled out in two forces, north and south, shortly after sunrise.

I consulted maps in my head, told Narayan, "We have to run. Fast. Or we'll be dead before noon. Get up here behind me. You. Soldier. Get up behind Ram and hang on. Are there other men out here?"

"A few, Mistress."

"They'll have to look out for themselves. Let's go!"

We were a sight, I'm sure, only one of us a competent rider and she so sick she had to stop twice to throw up. But we got back to camp before the hammer fell.

Blade had them ready to march. Now I knew what he'd been up to with Swan and Mather. He had heard about the water and had sensed its significance. He awaited orders.

"Send cavalry north and south to scout and harass.

"Done already. Two hundred men each direction."

"Good. You're a natural." I'd already recalled, rejected, and reexamined a trick that had been played on my armies in the north. Hurry was essential. I could see what might be dust north of us. "Move the infantry into the hills. I want every horseman to cut brush and drag it behind, headed due east. Get messengers off to the skirmishers. I want contact kept as long as possible. Draw them eastward and keep leading them as long as they'll follow."

The ruse would not work after dark-if it worked at all. Then Shadowspinners' pet shadows would tell him he'd been taken. But that would be time enough to elude him.

If he kept chasing me Mogaba's men would escape. He would not want that.

Blade wasted no time. Swan and Mather dashed around helping. Our differences would wait.

A new sense of confidence and discipline was apparent as the troops moved into the hills. They trusted me and Blade to get them through this. The horsemen headed out, raising enough dust for a horde on the march.

Blade, Swan, Mather, Narayan, and I watched from a low hill. "That will do it if he can be fooled at all,"

I said. "He'll see us just slipping out, get excited, try to nab us on the run."

Swan raised crossed fingers to the sky. Blade asked, "What's our next move?"

"Drift north through the hills."

"He's biting," Mather said.

Blade said, "It occurs to me that, for speed's sake, he would have left behind anyone not in top condition."

I told him, "You are learning. And you're turning nasty."

"Nasty business."

"Yes. The rest of you understand?"

Swan wanted it explained. "Spinner would leave his injured and second-line troops behind so they wouldn't slow him down. They should be up where the north road enters the hills. We can take them by surprise. Narayan, send some scouts ahead."

Narayan was pleased with me now. There was a lot of killing going on. There was promise of a real Year of the Skulls.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Smoke drifted into the darkness, glanced right and left, cursed softly. There they were again. Those men! He could not shake them. They knew where he was going before he went.

It was disheartening and frightening. The longer he delayed visiting his contacts the stronger Longshadow's image grew within his mind and the more terrified he became on a level so deep it was a part of his soul. Something terrible had been done to him, something that had reached into him as deeply as a man could be reached. Somehow Longshadow had hidden a fragment of himself inside him, to drive him into executing the Shadowmaster's will.

The voice within had become a shriek. If he did not shake the watchers he would not be able to avoid betraying his contacts.

He pretended not to notice the men, though they did nothing to remain anonymous. Did she know and just want to scare him away from his contacts? Maybe. Maybe it did not matter if he betrayed them.

He started walking.

His shadows followed.

He tried to elude them, relying on a superior knowledge of the city. He had haunted the shadows and alleys and-hidden ways all his life. As he knew the palace better than anyone living, so he knew Taglios. He gave it his best. And when ne stepped out of a shanty warren where he got lost twice himself trying to get back out, one of his stalkers was waiting, leaning against a building.

The man grinned.

Longshadow filled Smoke's mind. The Shadowmaster was angry. His patience was failing.

Smoke stamped across the street. "How the hell do you keep track of me?"

The man spat to one side, smiled again. "You can't evade the eye of Kina, wizard."

"Kina!" Another terror to pile atop his fear of Longshadow.

"You can run but you can't hide. You can twist and wiggle but you can't get off the hook. You can skulk and whisper in locked rooms but you can't keep secrets. Each breath you draw is numbered."

The fear deepened.

"And always has been."

Smoke turned to run.

"There's a way out."

"What?"

"There's a way out. Look at you. Maintain your allegiance to the Shadowmaster and you're dead if your Taglian friends find out. If they don't kill you, he will when he's done with you. But you can get out. You can come home. You can shake the terror that's like a beast starving for your soul."

Smoke was too frightened to wonder why the thug did not talk like a street creature. "How?" He would try anything to get out from under the Shadowmaster's thumb.

"Come to Kina."

"Oh. No!" He nearly shrieked. The only escape was to yield himself to a greater horror? "No!"

"Up to you, wizard. But life isn't going to get any better."

This time Smoke did run. He did not care if he was followed. Exercise reduced panic. As he neared his destination he realized that he had not seen any bats since leaving the palace. That was new. Where were the Shadowmasters' messengers?

He bustled into a tall slum tenement, hurried upstairs, pounded on a door. A voice said, "Enter."

He froze two steps inside the doorway.

The man he had been talking to leaned against the opposite wall. There were eight corpses in the room, all strangled. The man said, "The goddess doesn't want your master to know her daughter is here."

Smoke squeaked like a stomped rat. He fled. The man laughed.

The man amongst the corpses shrank. He became the imp Frogface, who chuckled, then faded away.

Smoke calmed down before he reached the palace. His mind started working. He had one bolt left. It could bite him as easily as his enemies, but... Engulfed by the darkness he could but flee toward the only light he saw.

He would not yield to Kina.

Chapter Fifty

As dusk gathered I descended on Longshadow's stay-behinds and routed them completely. The slaughter was great. It failed being complete only because my cavalry was otherwise occupied. We had the field to ourselves before the last light left the sky.

"Old Spinner's going to know in a few minutes," Swan said. "I figure he'll have him a litter of kittens, then he'll get pissed. We ought to go somewhere where he can't catch us."

He was on the right track. Coming through the hills I had been considering going after the group left at the southern approach. Not till Swan spoke did I realize I would not be able to sneak up on that group. Night had come. Night belonged to Shadowspinner. He would know where we were and where we were headed. Unless that was away from him he would be waiting when we arrived.

Too, he might be desperate enough to appeal to Longshadow. Maybe Longshadow had help on the way already. Whatever lay between them, it would not be as great as their enmity for the rest of the world. Though premature, theirs was a squabble over the spoils of conquest.

Blade asked, "Any way we could stay here and masquerade as the Shadowmaster's men?"

"No. I don't have the skill. Our best bet is to go back north till he stops chasing us, then just keep him nervous while we decide what to do next."

Narayan had started worrying about missing his delayed Festival. Though I had passed my first test he was suspicious of my will to become the Daughter of Night. A move north would assuage him. And the men needed time away from danger, to recuperate and digest their successes.

Blade asked, "The men in the city?"

"They're safer than they were. Shadowspinner can't get at them now."

Narayan grumbled. Sindhu was in there.

I said, "Mogaba will cope. He's good at coping." Too good. We would have trouble down the road, him and me.

Nobody liked heading back north, except Narayan. But no one argued.

I had gained ground, definitely.

Chapter Fifty-One

Smoke was no earthshaker as a wizard but within his limitations, which he recognized, he was competent and effective. And forewarned, he was forearmed.

The woman knew his every move? Then she commanded some unsuspected agency for espionage. He needed blind that only a few minutes.

He scuttled through the palace, ducking his employers, who were looking for him. He dodged into one of his shielded rooms, barred the door.

Obviously his shielding had been penetrated because that man had implied she knew everything, meaning she had been peeking here, too. She was more than she pretended. Much more. She was the Daughter of Night. And that fool the prince had been blinded by her. Hadn't they been out to the gardens again tonight?

No one could stop her but him. Maybe he could shake loose from Longshadow later.

The Shadowmaster's face formed in his head. His legs turned to jelly. He shook his head violently, forced the apparition away, hurriedly set about checking his defenses.

He found a pinhole through which some wicked spirit could have oozed. Or a shadow, for that matter.

He plugged it. Then he worked a spell that pressed his limits. It would conceal his whereabouts till he became the object of a very determined search. Secure, he filled a small silver bowl from a mercury flask, working as swiftly as he dared. Before he was finished he feared that he had been too slow.

Someone tried the door. He jumped but concentrated on opening the path to Overlook. It came. It came. More quickly than he expected, it came. The Shadowmaster had been thinking of him, too.

The racket at the door became pounding and shouting. He ignored it.

The dread face appeared on the surface of the mercury, amazed. It mouthed words. There was no sound. The Shadowmaster was too far, Smoke's power too feeble. The little wizard gestured violently, Pay attention! He was startled by his own temerity. But this was a desperate hour. Desperate measures were necessary.

Smoke grabbed paper and ink and scribbled. They were trying to break down the door. Damn, the woman had reacted quickly.

He held his message up for Longshadow. The Shadowmaster read. He reread. Then Longshadow looked him in the eye and nodded. He appeared bewildered. Carefully, he mouthed words so Smoke could read his lips.

The door began to give. And something else was trying to get in now, clawing and tearing at the plugged pinhole.

The door gave a little more.

Smoke got half the message before the pinhole plug broke. Dense smoke boiled into the room. A face glared out of it. Hideous and fanged and filled with grim purpose, it came for him. He squealed, jumped up, overturned table and bowl.

The door gave way as the demon caught him. He screamed and tumbled down into an abyss of terror.