Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South (28 page)

“I guess it had to be. What is it?”

“They’re sending an extra five thousand men. Ten thousand in the Ghoja force. A
thousand each at Theri and Vehdna-Bota. The rest come across at Numa. They tell
me Numa is crossable two days earlier than the Ghoja ford is.”

“That’s bad. They could have three thousand guys behind us when it hits.”

“They will unless they’re morons.”

I closed my eyes and looked at the map. Numa was where I had told Jahamaraj Jah
his Shadar people could make their mark. He had raised twenty-five hundred
cultists only by straining. Most Shadars wanted to wait and get into our
ecumenical force. Three thousand veterans would roll right over him.

“Cavalry?” I asked. “Have Jah meet them at the water’s edge and do what he can,

and fall back, and have our cavalry hit them from the flank as they’re about to
break out?”

“I was considering sneaking Mogaba’s legion down, smash them, then rout march to
Ghoja. But you’re right. Cavalry would be more efficient. Do you trust Otto and
Hagop to handle it?”

I did not. They were having their problems taking charge. Without the
bloodyminded roi to kick ass where that was needed, their force would have been
a travelling circus. “You want it? You done a field command?”

She looked at me hard. “Where have you been?”

Right. I’d been there often enough.

“You want it?”

“If you want me to take it.”

“Singe me to a crisp in the fire of your enthusiasm. All right. But we won’t
tell anybody till it’s time. And Jahamaraj Jah not at all. He’ll try harder if
he don’t know help is coming.”

“All right.”

“Any other news from our seldom-seen friend?”

“No.”

“Who is that woman he’s dragging around?”

She hesitated a moment too long. “I don’t know.”

“Odd. Seems like I’ve seen her somewhere before. But I can’t place her.”

She shrugged. “After a while everybody gets to look like somebody you’ve seen
before.”

“Who do I look like?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Gastrar Telsar of Novok Debraken. The voice is
different, but the heart could be the same. He moralized and debated with
himself, too.”

How could I argue? I’d never heard of the guy.

“He moralized once too often. My husband had him flayed.”

“You think I moralized about Ghoj?”

“Yes. I think you put yourself through hell after the fact. A net gain. You’ve
gotten smart enough to get them first and cry later.”

“I don’t think I want to play this game.”

“No. You wouldn’t. I need some of your time for tailors to take your
measurements.”

“Say what? I got me a flashy uniform already.”

“Not like this one. This one is for boggling the minions of the Shadowmasters.

Part of the showmanship.”

“Right. Whenever. I can work while I’m being measured. Is Shifter going to be
there for the show at Ghoja?”

“We’ll find out the hard way. He didn’t say. I told you, he has his own agenda.”

“Wouldn’t mind having a peek at that. He give you one?”

“No. Mogaba is staging a mock battle between legions today. You going?”

“No. I’m going to be sucking up to the Radisha for more transport. I got the
charcoal. Now I got to get it down there.”

She snorted. “Things were different in my time.”

“You had more power.”

“That’s true. I’ll send the tailors and fitters.”

I wondered what she had in mind . . . . What? Did I see that? What was that? Did
she shake her tail as she was going out? Damn me. My eyes must be starting to
go.

Weekly assessment session. I asked Murgen, “How’s the bat situation?”

“What?” I had caught him from the blind side.

“You brought the bat problem up. I thought you were keeping track.”

“I haven’t seen any for a while.”

“Good. That means Goblin and One-Eye got the right people out of the way. From
where I sit everything looks like it’s going smooth. Probably faster than we had
reason to expect.” I’d had no individual complaints for a while. Lady had found
time to help Otto and Hagop put the fear into their snooty horsemen. “Mogaba?”

“Twelve days left on the worst-case estimate. It’s time to put teams out to
watch the river stages. Worst case might not be absolutely worst.”

“The Radisha is ahead of you. I talked to her yesterday. She’d just grabbed off
half the post riders for that. Right now the river is running higher than
expected. That may not mean anything. We’ll have plenty of weather yet.”

“Every day we get is another hundred men I can take into each legion.”

“Where are you at now?”

“Thirty-three hundred each. I’ll stop at four thousand. Be time to move out
then, anyway.”

“Think five days is enough to get down there? That’s twenty miles a day for guys
who aren’t used to it.”

“They’ll be used to it. They do ten a day with field pack now.”

“I’ll get out to look them over this week. Promise. I’ve got the political end
pretty well whipped. Hagop. You guys going to be ready?”

“It’s coming together, Croaker. They’ve started to realize we mean it when we
say we’re trying to show them how to stay alive.”

“It’s getting close enough that they have to think about it as more than a game.

Big Bucket. How about you guys?”

“Get us fifty more wagons and we can roll tomorrow, Captain.”

“You look at the sketches of that town?”

“Yes sir.”

“How long to set it up?”

“Depends on materials. For the palisade. And manpower. Lot of trenching. The
rest, no problem.”

“You’ll have the manpower. Sindawe’s bunch. They’ll go down with you and move on
later, as our reserve. I’ll tell you, though, the resource situation is bleak.

You’ll end up depending on the trench more than the palisade. Cletus. What about
artillery?”

Cletus and his brothers grinned. They looked proud of themselves. “We got it.

Six mobile engines for each legion, already built. We’re working the crews on
them now.”

“Great. I want you to go down with the quartermasters and engineers and get a
look at that town. Put some of the engines in there. Big Bucket, you guys better
head out as soon as you can. The roads are going to be miserable. If you really
need more wagons mooch them from the citizens. Be quicker than me trying to
gouge them out of the Radisha. So. Can’t anybody come up with anything I can
fuss myself about? You know I’m not happy unless I’m worrying.”

They looked at me blankly. Finally, Murgen blurted out, “We’re going to meet
their ten thousand with our eight? Isn’t that worry enough? Sir?”

“Ten thousand?”

“That’s the rumor. That the Shadowmasters increased the invasion force.”

I glanced at Lady. She shrugged. I said, “We have unreliable intelligence to
that effect. But we’ll be more than eight thousand with the cavalry. With
Sindawe we’ll actually outnumber them. We’ll have the field position. And I have
a trick or two up my sleeve.”

“That charcoal?” Mogaba asked.

“Among other things.”

“You won’t tell us?”

“Nope. Word has a way of getting around. If nobody but me knows I can’t blame
anybody but me if the other side finds out.”

Mogaba smiled. He understood me too well. I just wanted to keep it for myself.

We commanders are that way, sometimes.

My predecessors never told anybody anything till it was time to jump.

Afterward, I asked Lady, “What do you think?”

“I think they’re going to know they were in a fight. I still have grave doubts
about winning, but maybe you’re a better captain than you want to admit. You put
every man where he can do the most good.”

“Or least harm.” Wheezer and Hagop’s nephew still had not shown me they were
good for anything.

Seven days till deadline. The quartermasters and engineers and Sindawe’s reserve
legion were two days gone. Incoming post riders reported their progress as
disappointing. The roads were hopeless. But they were getting help from people
along the way. In places the troops and locals backpacked the freight while the
teams dragged the empty wagons through the mud.

We were going to get some grace. We were still getting drizzle when that should
have ended a week ago. Reports had the fords way too high to cross. The watchers
guessed we had at least five extra days.

I told Mogaba, who needed time more than anyone else. He grumbled that his main
accomplishment to date was that he had taught his troops to march in straight
lines.

I thought that was the critical lesson. If they could maintain order on the
battlefield . . .

I was not comfortable with the gift of time. As each day perished in turn, and I
had more reports of the trouble the advance party was having, I grew ever more
antsy.

Two days before our originally planned departure I summoned Mogaba. “Have you
relaxed any because of the extra time?”

“No.”

“Not easing up at all?”

“No. If we leave five days later, they’ll be five days more prepared.”

“Good.” I leaned back in my chair.

“You’re troubled.”

“That mud. I had Frogface go scout. Sindawe is still twenty miles from
Vejagedhya. What’ll it be like for the mob we’ll take down?”

He nodded. “You’re thinking of leaving early?”

“I’m seriously considering leaving when we originally planned. Just to make
sure. If we’re there early we can get rested and maybe a little more trained
under field conditions.”

He nodded again. Then took me by surprise. “You play hunches sometimes, don’t
you?”

I lifted an eyebrow.

“I’ve watched you since Gea-Xle. I’m beginning to understand how your mind
works, I think. And sometimes I think you don’t understand yourself well enough.

You’ve been troubled all week. That is a sign you have a hunch trying to come
through.” He left his chair. “I’ll proceed on the assumption that you’ll leave
early.”

He left. I thought about him knowing how my mind works. Should I feel flattered
or threatened?

I went to a window, opened it, looked at the night sky. I saw stars between
racing clouds. Maybe the cycle of daily drizzle was over. Or maybe it was just
another pause.

I went back to work. My current project, taken catch-as-catch-can, was one I was
working on with Frogface. We were trying to figure out what had become of the
books missing from all the libraries around town. I had an idea that a certain
anonymous official had them squirreled away in the Prahbrindrah’s palace. The
question was, how to get to them? Invoke my powers as dictator?

“Ignore the river.”

“Say what?” I looked around. “What the hell?”

“Ignore the river.”

A crow stood on the windowsill. Another settled beside it. It delivered the same
message.

Crows are smart. But only for bird brains. I asked what they were talking about.

They told me to ignore the river. I could put them on the rack and they would
not tell me more. “All right. I got it. Ignore the river. Shoo.”

Crows. All the time with the damned crows. They were trying to tell me
something, sure. What? They had warned me before. Were they saying I should pay
no attention to the river stages?

That was my inclination anyway, because of the mud.

I went to the door and yelled, “One-Eye! Goblin! I need you.”

They mustered in looking surly, standing well away from one another. Not a good
sign. They were feuding again. Or working up to it. It had been so long since
they had eased the pressure that it might be a major blowup.

“Tonight’s the night, guys. Take out the rest of the Shadowmasters’ agents.”

“I thought we had some extra time,” One-Eye carped.

“We might have. And we might not. I want it done now. Take care of it.”

Under his breath Goblin muttered, “Yessir your dictatorship, sir.” I gave him a
dirty look. He moved out. I went to the window and stared out at that clearing
sky.

“I had a feeling things were going too good.”

The Shadowmasters met in a haste that left them exhausted. The meet had been set
days earlier but as they travelled a cry had gone out saying it was too late for
lazy, comfortable movements.

They were in the place of the pool and uncertain dimensions and shadows. The
woman bobbed restlessly. Her companion was agitated. The one who spoke seldom
spoke first. “What is the panic?”

“Our resources in Taglios have been exterminated. All but the newest. As
suddenly as that.” She snapped her fingers.

Her companion said, “They are about to march.”

The woman: “They knew who our resources were. Which means everything we learned
through them is suspect.”

Her companion: “We have to move sooner than we planned. We cannot give them a
minute more than we must.”

The quiet one asked, “Have we been found out?”

The woman: “No. We have the one resource close to the heart, still undetected if
mostly ineffective. It hasn’t reported a hint of a suspicion.”

“We should join the troops. We should leave nothing to the hazard of battle.”

“We’ve argued this out already. No. We will not risk ourselves. There is no
cause to think they will have any chance against our veterans. I have added five
thousand men to the invasion force. That is enough.”

“There was another thing. The thing you called us here to present.”

“Yes. Our comrade of Shadowcatch and Overlook is not as southward obsessed as he
would have us think. He infiltrated some of his people into Taglian territory
the past year. They attacked the leaders of the Black Company. And failed
abysmally. Their efforts served only one purpose—beyond betraying his thinking.

They gave me a chance to insinuate our one surviving resource into the enemy
fold.”

“Then when next we meet him we can mock him in turn.”

“Perhaps. If it seems appropriate. One piece of news comes out of his effort.