The Many Deaths of the Black Company (Chronicle of the Black Company) (96 page)

“That’s all he said, ma’am.”

“Bring him inside. It’s possible I can still get a little something out of him. Be careful where you track your mud.” She stepped aside, even held the flap for the soldiers. Reluctantly, a few found courage enough to bring the body forward. Soulcatcher’s soldiers shared a common opinion that it was not good to catch the Protector’s eye. These stepped carefully, leaving as little mud and moisture as possible.

In a merry young voice Soulcatcher observed, “You must all have mothers.”

*   *   *

Soulcatcher had the corpse partially stripped, disassembling its apparel thread by thread, when there was another disturbance outside the tent entrance. Irked, she responded, hoping this would be the news she had been awaiting so long: that Goblin had been captured at last.

As she was about to open up she caught motion from the corner of her eye. She spun. For an instant she thought she glimpsed a tiny man, maybe eight inches tall, ducking down behind the corpse.

The racket outside remained insistent.

It was not the news she wanted. The soldiers there—they always came in groups—pushed one of their number forward. “A courier just came in, ma’am. The enemy is on the move again. Westward.”

Mogaba had called it right, then. “When did this start?”

“The courier will be with you in a minute, ma’am. With dispatches. He had some physical needs he couldn’t put off before he could see you. But the command staff insisted you get the main news immediately.”

In a casual tone, Soulcatcher observed, “The drizzle seems to be letting up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Get that courier here as fast as possible.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

*   *   *

The reports from the south did indeed have the rested Black Company forces moving westward but not on the track previously anticipated. Part of their journey would have to be made without the benefits of roads, over rough terrain.

Soulcatcher said, “They must be striking for Balichore by the shortest route. Why? Can anyone tell me what’s special about Balichore?” Soulcatcher controlled a sprawling empire she knew only a little about.

After an extended silence someone tentatively suggested, “That’s the farthest upriver heavy barge traffic travels. Cargos have to be portaged and loaded on smaller boats or onto wagons.”

Someone else recalled, “There’s some kind of problem with rocks in the river. A whatchamacallit. Cataract. The Liberator once ordered a canal built around it but the project was abandoned.…”

A couple of pokes in the ribs were necessary before the speaker recalled who was responsible for the neglect of public works in recent times.

Soulcatcher did not respond, however. She concentrated on the transport idea.

A large portion of the Company had barged up the Naghir River after fleeing Taglios five years ago. Could this new Captain be in a rut? Or was she thinking she could catch Taglios by surprise, from the river side, where there were no walls and no defensive works and the peoples of those poorer quarters tended toward nostalgic recollections of the Prahbrindrah Drah, the Radisha and even the Liberator.

Soulcatcher asked, “Does anyone happen to know how long it takes to get a barge down the Naghir, through the delta channels, and upriver to Taglios?” She knew barges manned by veteran crews traveled day and night, unlike soldiers afoot or on horseback.

Another disturbance at the entrance arose before anyone produced a reliable answer.

The drizzle had ended, she discovered. Yet the men demanding attention were covered with mud. And they had brought her a present.

“For me? And it’s not even my birthday.”

Goblin was a present who looked way the worse for use. He was bound and gagged. His head and hands were wrapped in rags as well. His captors had been determined to take no chances.

Soulcatcher gloated. “He stumbled into one of my traps, didn’t he?”

“Yes he did, ma’am.”

There were hundreds of those out there, taking many forms. Soulcatcher had begun to put them out as soon as it had become evident that the new, improved Goblin could evade the best efforts of her soldiers. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?” If he was dead her concern that he might have allowed himself to be caught would slide down her list of worries.

“Your instructions were perfectly clear, ma’am.”

Soulcatcher memorized that man’s face. He was mocking her behind a mask of rectitude. She preferred open defiance. That she could crush without mystifying anyone. “Take the mask and gag off. Set him up over here.” The Daughter of Night, Soulcatcher noted, was interested enough to forget to hide her interest.

She could not know the little wizard’s significance, could she?

No. Impossible. The girl was just doing what she did whenever anything happened inside the tent. She paid attention because she might learn something useful.

Soulcatcher waited until she judged that Goblin was sufficiently recovered. She told him, “Your former brothers really don’t like turncoats, do they?”

Goblin stared at her with eyes colder, deeper and more remote than those of the Daughter of Night. He did not reply.

She stepped closer. Her mask was just a foot from his face. She purred, “They came to me for help settling your account.”

Goblin twitched but remained silent. He did try to look around.

He smiled when he glimpsed the Daughter of Night.

Soulcatcher said, “They told me all about it, little man. They told me what you are now. They expect me to just kill you because of what you did to my foot. They really just want you dead.” She rubbed her gloved hands together. “But I think I’m going to be a lot cruder.” She giggled.

“All their days are numbered,” Goblin said in a whisper. The voice borrowing the taunt only vaguely resembled that of the man who had gone down into the earth to challenge the Dark Mother.

“Some more closely than others.” Soulcatcher’s voice was old and emotionless. Her right hand lashed out, sliced across Goblin’s face. Blades a half inch long on the ends of her fingers destroyed his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He shrieked, at first as much in surprise as in pain.

The Protector turned on the men who had brought the prisoner in. “Bring me another cage like the one the brat is in.” The cage did in fact exist already. Such had been her certainty that she would capture Goblin.

The blacksmith had orders to create three more, suitable for housing her sister, her sister’s husband, and that treacherous Willow Swan.

Later, in Taglios, she meant to work with a glassblower to bottle them all so they could be displayed outside the entrance to her palace. They would be kept alive and fed until they drowned in their own ordure.

Such was the fate that the Dominator often bestowed upon his most important enemies, in his time.

60

Gharhawnes: Tobo and the Voroshk

The Howler certainly kept busy. He completed his first functional four-passenger flying carpet two days after the soldiers marched westward. Gharhawnes seemed deserted, though there were enough of us around to bloody a bunch of noses the morning the former tenant took a notion to steal his home back.

Sleepy had a dozen carpets on order, from single-rider scouts to a monster she hoped would carry twenty soldiers. I do not know who she expected to fly them. Only Howler and Tobo—and, possibly, the Voroshk—had the power to manage the things.

I insisted that we have a couple of modest-sized carpets first. Those should not take too long to make and would be the size most useful to us right away. And since I was in charge of the left-behinds and the Dejagore strike I got what I wanted. Well, I got the one carpet.

Tobo had the flying post thing figured out, too. Both Shukrat and Arkana seemed eager to get along now. One or the other would allow Tobo to borrow her post when he wanted to run out to visit Sleepy, which he did by night so he would not be seen from the ground. I never felt comfortable when he did that. We had too many potentially unpleasant and unfriendly people back here in the manor. Including a lot of hostages from the leading families of the region.

Both Magadan and Gromovol were increasingly determined not to be won over, each for his own reasons. I told Magadan, “I’d be tempted to send you two home just so I don’t have to worry about what’s going on behind my back.” I was not worried, really. Tobo’s supernatural friends saw everything.

Magadan told me, “I don’t want to go home. Home no longer exists. I want to be free.”

“Sure. You Voroshk showed what you can do when you’re free. I’ve spent my life killing people like you. That’s people who believe it’s their destiny to make slaves out of people like me. I’m in a war with another one of them right now. I’m not about to cut you loose and let you start making peoples’ lives miserable, too.”

None of which was absolutely true but it did sound good. And Magadan bought it. Some. The part that really was true. That I would kill him before I turned him loose on the world.

That was the moment when he decided he might want to go home after all. From then on he brought that possibility up each time we crossed paths. The hidden folk said he was sincere. He was trying to get the other kids to go along with swapping what knowledge they had for an escort back across the place of glittering stone.

Lady did not believe it. She thought we should put him and Gromovol down because of the trouble they could cause.

My sweetie has a very direct approach to problem-solving.

Sometimes I do find what little conscience I retain a damnable handicap.

Howler, though, did successfully work his way out of the top ten on my shit list. Tobo’s appeal to Shivetya had resulted in word from the golem saying he did have the ability to intervene in Howler’s screaming and shrinking problems. Shivetya did not have much of a reputation as a liar so even Howler took him at his word. After which the smelly little wizard became extremely cooperative.

Though we still had no cause to trust his long run intentions. Nor he any call to trust ours, either.

*   *   *

Lady cornered Tobo. “We have a dangerous situation, here. And like a pet cobra it’s going to bite us someday. We have to do something.”

The boy sounded puzzled. “What’re you talking about? Something about what?”

“Those Voroshk. They aren’t as strong or as bright as we first thought but there are four of them and only one of you.”

“But they’re not going to.…”

“Pardon me for being an old cynic,” I said. “Magadan keeps telling me, in so many words, that he wants to be anywhere that isn’t here with us. And there’s at least the implication that he’ll do whatever it takes if we don’t help him go home. And Gromovol is going to be trouble eventually because his personality requires it. If you go out to visit Sleepy or just on a flying date the rest of us are stuck here with no better hope than the Howler.”

“And speaking of flying,” Lady said, “don’t you
ever
go out with both of those girls again. Hush! You’re only familiar with the women you’ve grown up around. I’m telling you right now that Arkana is exactly like Magadan. But she has one more weapon than he does and she means to use it to cloud your mind.”

“But…”

“Shukrat I’m not sure about. There’s a chance Shukrat is exactly what she seems.”

I agreed. The kid was likable. And according to Tobo the hidden folk agreed. They offered no reason not to trust her.

Tobo was not used to arguing with anybody but his mother, even when he thought he was right. He did not want to think ill of Arkana but would not fight us.

Lady demanded, “So how do we make sure of them? You have to think of something before we move against Dejagore. We’ll be scattered, distracted and extremely vulnerable then. And because you spend time with the girls, out amongst the rest of us, all four will know what’s going on. They can plan accordingly.”

Again Tobo did not get a word in before I said, “I would be.”

Lady reminded him, “You’ve never been a prisoner.”

“Now there’s a joke. I was born a prisoner. A prisoner of a prophecy by an old woman who died years before I was born. A prisoner of the expectations of all you people. Gods, I wish Hong Tray was wrong and I could’ve been a normal kid.”

“There aren’t any normal kids, Tobo,” I told him. “Just kids who fake it better than the rest of us do.”

“And that name. Tobo. That was my baby name. Why does everybody still call me that? Why didn’t we ever have a ceremony to give me a grown-up name?”

Nyueng Bao do that. And Tobo was years past the appropriate birthday.

Lady told him, “You’ll have to take that up with Uncle Doj. Meantime, the other thing needs addressing right now. Blade is moving already. In three more days Sleepy will curl back to the northeast and it’ll be too late to stop anything. I want to be sure that we won’t get stabbed in the back just when things get exciting.”

*   *   *

An hour after we nagged him Tobo asked Shukrat to go flying. He borrowed Arkana’s log. Arkana was not pleased. When an hour later she told me Magadan had said he did not mind if she used his post to join Shukrat and Tobo I told her, “But I mind. If you need to talk to Tobo do it when he gets back.”

Arkana was the brightest of the Voroshk. She recognized that things were tightening up.

When Tobo did return he stayed just long enough to round up Magadan. He took Magadan flying. It was the first time Magadan had been aloft since he had entered our keeping. He did not appear excited, which I would have expected.

They returned within a half hour. Magadan’s hand-me-downs, appropriated from Gharhawnes’ former occupants, were ragged. He looked like he had been in a fight and the other guy had kicked his butt. A good long way.

Tobo gave instructions for Magadan to be isolated, then found Arkana and took her for a fly.

The ice queen, I noted, had replaced her confiscated robes with native garb that served her to considerable visual advantage.

“Down, boy!” Lady said.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t run into her before I met you, isn’t it?”

That earned me a not entirely playful swat.