The Conqueror's Shadow (30 page)

Losalis, despite his bulk, was the most soft-spoken of the three commanders. Oh, he laughed and joked with his men often enough. But Seilloah noticed that he never spoke on matters of any import without taking a moment for contemplation, and she never once heard him brag of his prowess. Either he didn't care if anyone knew of his accomplishments, or he assumed they already did.

“Have a seat,” she offered them all, gesturing at the chairs surrounding the table.

Teagan shook his head. “I prefer to stay on me feet, if it's all the same to you. Makes our talkin' look more official to the boys, see.”

Seilloah raised an eyebrow. “The rest of you?”

Ellowaine frowned. “I'm quite all right here, thank you.”

“I'll stand,” Losalis said, his voice deep but quiet. “Not meaning any discourtesy, you understand.” He waved his shield in the direction of one of the chairs. “A man my size simply grows tired of pulling splinters from his rear end.”

Davro chuckled softly from behind Seilloah, thumping a fist lightly on the barrel. “Don't I know it!”

Seilloah nodded once. “Very well. What is it this time?”

“Well,” Teagan said, “you see, m'lady, there's a few unpleasant thoughts goin' round the boys right about now. Unfortunate rumors, and so forth. You know how soldiers can be.”

Seilloah forced her smile to grow wider. “A soldier once said to me, ‘Gossip's the only thing what can move through a barracks faster'n a cheap whore.'” Internally, she shuddered. The man who'd said that had been slime of the worst sort, and he hadn't tasted very good.

Teagan guffawed, and Losalis allowed himself a brief smile, but Ellowaine merely crossed her arms.

“Aye,” the chestnut-bearded soldier said, wiping tears from his eyes
with the back of a filthy hand, “that's the right of it.” He allowed himself another chuckle. “The problem, m'lady, is the nature of these rumors.”

“Some of the men,” Ellowaine interrupted, “are starting to wonder about the money. Revenge is all well and good, but it doesn't fill the purse or the belly.”

Seilloah nodded, praying silently that these people never learned the truth about the slights they planned to avenge. “As I've said, our commander ought to be arriving anytime now. Once he's here, the money can be dealt with.”

“Dealt with?” Ellowaine parroted, her eyes ablaze. “We were promised gold! In advance!”

Teagan nodded sadly. “You see how it is. And I fear most o' the boys share Ellowaine's feelings on the matter. You've been promisin' us that this commander o' yours ought to arrive ‘shortly' for well nigh a week. We're gettin' tired o' hearin', m'lady. We'd like to move on ahead to the seein' and the spendin'.”

“There's been some talk,” the large one-handed warrior interjected, “of leaving. Not all the men, or even most of them, but a few here and there. That sort of feeling spreads. Not to mention that we've eaten this town almost barren. We'll have to start purchasing outside supplies soon.”

“He'll be here,” Seilloah said simply.

“Aye, he'll be,” Teagan said, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “But whether we'll be here when he arrives is the real question.”

“There is another matter,” Losalis interrupted quickly, heading off the brewing argument.

The witch glared at the thick beard across the table for a moment longer, and then turned her attention to the larger man. “Very well, Losalis. What might that be?”

“Well, my lady, it seems a few of the men have, well, disappeared.”

Ellowaine snorted contemptuously. “Can't even keep track of your own boys, Losalis?”

Seilloah, however, leaned forward, suddenly intent. “Disappeared?”

“Yes, ma'am. Not many, but enough that a few of us have noticed.”

“Us? Then it's not just your company.”

He shook his head sharply. “Not at all. Two from my company, that I know of at least.”

“How many?” Ellowaine asked, her tone softer.

“Near as we can tell, about twenty over the last three days.”

Davro stood, looming darkly over Seilloah's left shoulder. “And we're sure they haven't just passed out drunk in a corner somewhere?” he asked them.

“We're sure,” Teagan insisted. His expression grew thoughtful, absently scratching at his thick beard. “I've found a few o' my own boys missin' as well—one o' them my own lieutenant, third in command. I know better'n to put a drunkard in charge o' me people. I can assure you, if he's missin', you can look to find some cause other than a few drops o' the bitter.”

The ogre appeared ready to comment further, but Seilloah stood so abruptly her chair toppled to the ground behind her with a resounding thump. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” she told the three mercenaries. “I assure you, we'll look into it.”

All three looked startled at the abrupt dismissal, and Ellowaine and Teagan both appeared to be on the verge of saying something impolite. Losalis, however, had seen the witch's eyes flicker toward the door and briefly grow wide as eggs. He nodded once and left the table. His two companions, bereft of his support and wondering what he knew that they didn't, tossed a pair of nasty looks at Seilloah before following their dark-skinned friend.

Davro blinked twice. “Seilloah, what—”

“Look!” she hissed, pointing briefly at the man working his way toward them through the packed and bustling crowd.

The ogre looked, his brow furrowed. It was a tall human, dressed in traveling leathers. His hair was long and grey, his face mostly hidden by an unkempt beard …

His jaw dropped as he finally saw past the impediment of the man's facial hair. Sadly, he shook his head. “As if the man wasn't ugly enough before now.”

“Davro, hush.” She waited pensively as the man approached, until he'd neared the table. “Cor—”

A gesture silenced her in midword. “Not here,” he grumbled, his voice not entirely recovered from the arctic temperatures. “Private room.”

She nodded once, debated whether to brave the crowd herself, and then said to Davro, “Tell the innkeeper we need one of his rooms.”

“Why don't you tell him? The man's scared of me.”

“Rabid dogs are scared of you, Davro. Go tell him.”

The ogre frowned sullenly and then bulled his way across the tavern, shoving people and furniture out of his path with equal facility. Though there was a substantial amount of muttering and griping behind his back—from the people, primarily, not the furniture, though one particular table seemed surly about the whole experience—no one had the brass to say anything to his face.

No rooms were available, of course, as they all currently hosted at least four soldiers each, but the terrified innkeeper was only too happy to provide them one of his storerooms for “as long as Your Lordships require its use.” He even begged off when Davro offered a smattering of coins for his trouble, insisting that he was only too pleased to serve, enjoy the room, and you really ought to be certain that it meets your needs so won't you please go way over there and inspect it
right now
.

“I see the fellow wasn't in the mood to chat,” Corvis said sardonically when the ogre returned.

“He seems a bit nervous around me for some reason,” Davro told him.

“Really? But you're such a puppy.”

Davro scowled at him. “You know, I enjoyed our conversation yesterday a lot more than I do this one.”

“I wasn't here yest … oh. Funny.”

It wasn't much of a room. A damp, musty chamber filled with old barrels and crates, it appeared to suffer from a profound quantity of neglect. It did, at least, possess a few rickety chairs and a writing desk, granting Corvis and Seilloah someplace to sit. Davro gingerly poked and prodded at the crates and barrels until he found one that
probably
wouldn't buckle under his weight.

“So,” Corvis began, “I see you've managed pretty well, given that
you lacked the first notion how to go about finding mercenaries. How'd you do it?”

“No,” Seilloah said with a resolute shake of her head. “You first, Corvis.” She glanced meaningfully at the dull red pendant about his neck. “I see you found your tame demon all right.”

/
What?
That's
truly
insulting!/

“Well, aren't you?” Corvis asked him; Seilloah, who could hear only half of the conversation, raised an eyebrow questioningly.

/I should think not! Tame demon, indeed! I'm imprisoned. That's not the same thing as being housebroken and taught to roll over and play dead. You tell her to apologize!/

“Do you mean you're
not
housebroken?”

/Corvis …/

“What's he saying?” Seilloah asked.

“Just how absolutely thrilled he is to bask in your radiant beauty after so many years, Seilloah.”

/Oooh, but you're pushing it./

Corvis leaned back, ignoring the protesting creaks beneath him, and emotionlessly gave them a succinct—and somewhat abbreviated—account of his experiences in the Terrakas Mountains.

/But Corvis,/
Khanda told him in a false whine,
/you're leaving out the best part./

“Shut up, Khanda.”

/Every story is better with children, Corvis. Everybody
loves
children./

“Shut
up
, Khanda!”

/You're so squeamish./

“Anyway,” Corvis concluded, “I'm—
we're
—here now. And that means it's your turn, Seilloah. How'd you manage all this?” He gestured in the direction of the door. “There's got to be several thousand men out there.”

She smiled benignly, then, as did Davro, and Corvis grew nervous. “I'm not going to like this, am I?” he asked.

“It's your fault, sweetie,” she told him. “When you ask the impossible, you have to assume some unorthodoxy in your results.”

“What did you do?” It was almost a whimper.

“Well, it wasn't
too
difficult to find some of the larger companies and mercenary Guilds, after all. They have to make their presence known, if they want any business. Once we found them, Davro got a few of his tribesmen—tribes-ogres, I suppose—and we killed a few of them.”

“You
what?”

“It got their attention. We didn't leave any witnesses, and we planted a few ranting and rambling messages about this being the penalty for not joining up with the Serpent when he offered them the chance. Got them pretty riled up.”

Corvis groaned.

“Once they'd stirred for a while, Davro and I approached them and told them we represented someone planning to move against Audriss. They were practically climbing over each other to sign up.”

“For free?” Corvis asked incredulously.

“Of course not. You'll owe them a substantial amount of money.”

Corvis sighed. “Well, I suppose Audriss has to have a pretty hefty treasury behind him. I'll just pay them from his own stores if we win.”

Seilloah coughed delicately. “There's an advance involved. And they want to see
all
the money beforehand.”

“An advance?” Corvis asked plaintively. “How much did you promise them?”

“The numbers were a little vague on that score. Enough to whet their appetite for the rest of it, certainly.”

“And where the hell am I going to get the gold, Seilloah?”

“Why don't you just make it appear?” Davro asked from the corner. “You've got your magic thingamabob now.”

/I am
not
a thingamabob./

“Save it.” Corvis glared at the ogre. “Davro, why do you think I was looting the cities we passed through on my last campaign? For fun?”

“Well, it
was
fun …”

“I was funding my army, you numbskull! I do
not
have the power to pull gold out of the air, and I can't transform enough of anything else into gold to be worthwhile.”

“In that case,” Seilloah said blandly, “it appears that you've got a problem.”

Corvis cursed vilely for several minutes. Davro's eye grew wide with shock, and Seilloah blanched.

“Wow,” the witch said when Corvis finally wound to a halt. “Can you even
do
that with a chicken?”

“Here's what we're going to do,” the warlord said abruptly, glancing up from the floor he'd stared at while pacing and ranting. “Khanda and I
can
turn enough of this junk into gold to make up a
portion
of an advance; I'll pay the remaining advance from my own pocket.”

“And the rest?” she asked him. “What do you plan to show them?”

He told her. Seilloah and Davro added a few improvements, and Seilloah strenuously suggested, among other things, that Corvis sit down for a quick discussion with a razor.

“I don't know,” Corvis said slowly. “I'm starting to like the beard.”

“That skull helmet's going to look pretty goofy if it coughs up a hair-ball every time you open your mouth.”

“Okay, you may have a point. Give me about half an hour to clean up and change, and we'll begin.”