She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company (11 page)

I did not have to make the trip the hard way. Not long after I found the river
my whole universe began to rock. After its third unnatural shaking I began to
feel pain. Twice more and I went into darkness, passed through, and came up to
awareness inside One-Eye’s wagon. The little shit was holding me up by the shirt
and slapping me while he growled something about waking my ass up.

I was sitting up beside Smoke when I opened my eyes. I was soaked with sweat. I
was shaking.

One-Eye demanded, “What the hell is the matter with you?”

“I’m not sure. Soulcatcher, I think. It was sort of like when I used to fall
through time to Dejagore. Only I kind of squirted like a sugarmelon seed, right
off to somewhere in the delta. I knew what was happening but I couldn’t control
it. In a way it was like walking with the ghost. But I couldn’t see very far . .

. ” I realized I was babbling, in Taglian yet. I managed to bite down on it.

“We’ll talk about it later. I’ve got work to do.”

I opened my mouth to protest.

“You want to talk, go see Croaker. Or do whatever else you want. But get out of
the way. I’m not kidding about the work.”

Angry, I clambered out of the wagon. It was daytime out there, just as it had
been in the swamp. There was a lot of smoke. There was plenty of noise from the
front, where the situation seemed to be static. There was not much chance the
Old Man would take time out to hear about my misadventure. It did not affect
what was happening right now.

I went over to the campfire. It had gone out. In fact, it had gone cold.

Where were Thai Dei and his mother? Where was Uncle Doj?

Not here.

I found water and drank, wondering how long it would be before the water supply
became as critical as the food. I napped. Eventually One-Eye completed his
business. He came out and sat beside me. “Now tell me about it.”

I told him.

“You might have learned something important this time, Kid.”

“Like what?”

“I’ll let you know after I talk to Croaker.”

I was an afrit buzzing behind Mogaba’s shoulder. He and his captains were
rattled.

Longshadow exhorted them to stop embarrassing his warrior empire.

“Somebody pour mud in that idiot’s mouth,” one of Mogaba’s few loyal Nar
growled. “What a cretin.”

I agreed.

A cretin with a hearing impairment, apparently. He did not respond to the most
direct provocation I had yet heard from any of those who served him.

Mogaba pretended to hear nothing himself. He watched the cliffs. Vicious,

incessant fighting continued there. Our troops worked the attack in shifts.

Mogaba’s men were unable to do so themselves. He had almost no reserves. There
was little hope in his eyes as he sent his commanders back to their units. But
he was a soldier’s soldier. He would fight until he fell.

Just like he had tried to do at Dejagore.

He had us by the short hairs if his troops went to eating each other in order to
outlast us.

Our siege towers crept forward like tall, slow ships. Our elephants and
surviving camp followers pulled them using cables passed through blocks attached
to the steel spikes the elephants had planted earlier. When the towers finally
stopped soldiers brought mantlets up to fill the gaps between. Protected by the
mantlets engineers began erecting a wooden wall.

Missiles left the towers in swarms.

Mogaba had no engine powerful enough to penetrate the coverings on the towers.

He had to do something.

The Shadowmaster forbid his doing the one thing that would have helped.

Longshadow was worse than any spoiled child, stubborn as a rock. Things were
going to be done his way and that was that. Mogaba was not going to take one
step forward.

Mogaba was very near his limit but not yet ready to defy Longshadow. He was
aware that Lady was over on our side just waiting for a chance to make his life
miserable. That would happen seconds after the Shadowmaster took his toys and
went home.

If he could not attack, Mogaba decided, he would pull back, leaving his forward
works manned by minimal forces. They were to withdraw in such a way that we
should not notice them moving out of harm’s way.

But I was watching.

Mogaba told Howler, “You’d better keep your carpet ready. I’m doing this with
both hands tied. I won’t last long.”

Longshadow turned. If looks could kill.

Howler’s stance turned ugly, too. He did not want to be labeled a coward in
front of witnesses.

A sudden uproar exploded on the far side of the pass. I darted over to the
Deceiver camp. And there was Uncle Doj with Ash Wand, butchering Stranglers
wholesale. Nasty old Mother Gota covered his back, moving about as slickly as he
did.

Not bad for an old gal who practiced only when she could not duck out of it.

How had they gotten over there?

Then the real shit splashed down.

The Prahbrindrah Drah finally launched the attack the Old Man had dropped into
his lap.

A dozen war elephants spearheaded the Prince’s assault.

Shadowlander troops rushed to man their forward works. Arrows fell in sheets.

Mogaba showed us. He jelled his defense. He murdered our elephants. His men
showed their superior discipline. They sent the Prince staggering back with
losses as appalling as those I had anticipated before we saw any of the
Captain’s trickeries.

Mogaba launched a vicious counterattack he claimed was just a heavy pursuit. The
wooden walls between our siege towers held until Longshadow recognized what
Mogaba was doing and ordered him to pull back.

Immediately, as though he knew what was happening even without any reports,

Croaker launched an attack on his flank. Only minutes later Lady attacked on the
left.

Fighting on the heights grew even more savage. I lost track of my feisty
in-laws. Narayan Singh and the Daughter of Night fled the Deceiver encampment
and went into hiding beneath Mogaba’s watchtower.

There were no surprises from our side. Our divisions took turns attacking.

Mogaba’s men repelled them but had to come out into the missile storm to do it.

Workmen edged the towers forward again, inch by inch. Longshadow persisted in
his irrational behavior. He began to look not only a lackwit but actively
suicidal. He kept poor Mogaba operating with his hands tied and his ankles in
chains, yet dumped buckets of blame on him because it looked like he was going
to fail.

And the heights were aflame.

That facet of the fighting was almost over.

I told Croaker, “I found out why Longshadow refuses to turn Mogaba loose when
even he’s got to see that that’s best. He’s scared Mogaba might do a Blade of
his own.”

“The Shadowmaster is a blind fool,” Blade said. “He doesn’t know how to look at
people.”

I said, “What?”

“Mogaba has to destroy Croaker. He can’t do anything else and live with the
image of himself he’s created for himself.”

Croaker made a rude noise.

Blade continued, “Mogaba has his own troubles keeping in touch with reality
anymore. This confrontation has become what his life is all about. There’s no
future if there’s no victory.”

Croaker was not flattered. “I feel pretty much the same way.” He told me,

“Longshadow is right about one thing. The whole world is out to get his ass.

What’s morale like over there?”

I winced. Was I supposed to tell him in front of people who knew nothing about
Smoke?

“Lower than a snake’s butt,” One-Eye said. I glowered at him.

“They likely to break?”

“Only if Mogaba runs. They may not like him a whole lot but they believe in
him.”

I stared at Lady. Her eyes were closed. She might be grabbing the chance to nap.

Seldom on stage doing anything obvious, she was working harder than anybody
else. She had to be completely alert every second.

I wondered if Longshadow and Howler had any notion how exhausted she must be, if
they would try to turn things around by taking advantage of that. I shivered.

The Captain nodded to himself. “We go at three in the morning. Meantime,

everybody rest.” His general’s mask faded whenever he looked at Lady. In those
moments his feelings, were pretty obvious.

I drifted off into a reverie, recalling the nightmares Lady had described in her
book, all so obsessed with death and destruction, much like the ones I kept
having. I was sure she was suffering those again. She was fighting sleep most of
the time, trying to avoid them. I visualized Kina as Lady had described her,

black and tall, naked, glistening, with four arms and eight teats, vampire fangs
and nifty jewelry made from babies’ skulls and severed penises. Not exactly a
girl just like good old mom. I wondered if Lady had been dreaming any of the
times I had glimpsed something that might have been Kina.

I started. For an instant I thought I had caught a whiff of Kina’s perfume,

which was the stench of rotting corpses.

There would be plenty of that here soon enough. Only the cold kept it from being
really bad already.

I squeaked. Thai Dei was shaking me. Where had he come from? He looked troubled.

Croaker was staring at me, too. So were the others. I had drifted right off into
a nightmare, never realizing I was gone. The Captain asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Bad dream.”

Lady was just leaving with Swan and Blade. She stopped, looked back at me. Her
nostrils moved restlessly, as though she could smell that stench, too. She eyed
me hard.

“Excuse me?” I had missed another question while Lady and I exchanged looks.

“Your in-laws, Murgen. Where are your in-laws?”

“I don’t know. This morning they turned up over there in the Deceiver camp and
went berserk.” I spoke softly because I was not sure there was any language I
could get past Lady and her tagalongs. “Uncle Doj sliced up about fifty
Deceivers while Mother Gota covered his back. It was a sight. You don’t want to
get that old woman mad.” I shifted to Nyueng Bao. “Thai Dei. Where are Doj and
your mother?”

He shrugged. That could mean he did not know or that he was not going to say.

“Thai Dei doesn’t know, either.” But where had Thai Dei been lately? He had not
been underfoot for nearly a day.

Referring to what I had said about Uncle Doj and Mother Gota, Croaker said,

“I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate. Old people can’t—”

“I’m not exaggerating. Blood and shit were everywhere. That old boy’s sword
moved so fast you could hardly see it. All those assholes wanted to do was get
out of his way. Singh grabbed the girl and ran for it. He’s hiding out under
Mogaba’s tower right now. Even the Daughter of Night was a little rattled by the
way things were going.”

“What about your in-laws?”

Stubborn bastard. “They’ve disappeared, all right? I haven’t looked for them.

Maybe the soldiers got them.” I doubted that, though.

The old man nodded. He glanced at Thai Dei. “I’ll get the angle on them yet. Get
some sleep. Be long hours tomorrow.”

Seemed to me like I ought to be plenty well rested.

Thai Dei looked like he really wished he understood a few more languages.

I was right. The heights were the key to the pass. But no genius was needed to
figure that out, was it?

Renewed fighting began with a shower of firebombs. For the first time our entire
front discharged bamboo poles uphill. Lady foamed at the mouth, cursing the
waste.

Once again the Prahbrindrah Drah had been awarded the honor of the first charge.

It was hard to believe that Mogaba’s soldiers had not been obliterated by the
preparatory barrage but the Prince ran into fierce, stubborn resistance. The
Shadowlanders fought ferociously now because they saw no other options. Their
training took over, the way it is supposed to do in deadly situations. The
Prince pushed hard but got nowhere.

Mogaba had managed to create a small reserve mostly out of imagination. He
shuttled them here and there, applying mind, spirit and will to his own
salvation. But he was accursed. And his curse was his lunatic employer.

Longshadow was nothing if not flexible when his own ass was in a sling. Till now
the whole point of existence had been to hold the pass against the Black
Company. The world would end if we crossed the Dandha Presh. But when the
fireballs started zipping around his ears, sizzling black pockmarks out of the
tower, he developed a new idea. He told Howler, “Get your carpet ready. General.

Summon the Deceiver Singh, the child, and your five most valuable officers.” Of
a sudden he seemed entirely calm, totally rational, completely in control,

apparently the sort of supreme ruler any man would prefer.

Howler stared at him half a minute before he nodded. The little wizard wore a
mask of his own but that did not hide his contempt.

“Withdrawal at this point would be premature,” Mogaba said. I was about ready to
concede that the man was a saint. A devil saint, but a saint nonetheless. His
patience seemed almost infinite. Longshadow was worse than a spoiled child. I
wondered how he had become so powerful. “The situation can be retrieved if
you’ll just let me do it.”

“You will do as I tell you, General.”

“I suppose. Just as I have for four years. Which has brought us to this. The
finest army of this age is being brought to despair by men who have only to
design strategies that exploit the egotism, fears and fantasies of one wizard
whose knowledge of things material does not extend to which end of a spear you
grasp. I find that they are, by the by, astonishingly well informed about your
character flaws.”

Mogaba brushed Howler with a jaundiced glance. Paranoia and suspicion were not
exclusive to our side. Neither were private agendas.

Longshadow sputtered in outrage.

Mogaba did not let up. “I will not summon my captains. I will not abandon my
positions or desert my troops simply because your courage has deserted you. If
you wish to go, go. Let us fight. We may die in fires sent up by the Senjak
woman but at least no man of mine will be cut down from behind.”

Longshadow sputtered. He was about to go berserk.

“Find some backbone, man. Find the guts to let the professionals do their jobs.

Make your soldiers want to fight for you.” Mogaba turned his back on the
Shadowmaster. “Messenger.” He sent word to the heights above that he was not
pleased with the way things were going there.

A tall Shadar with an exceptional arm was lobbing firebombs fearfully close to
Mogaba’s tower. He had Narayan and the Daughter of Night very nervous down
below.

For a while I thought Mogaba was going to carry his point and get away with his
rebellion. He scattered messengers everywhere, steadying his troops. And
Longshadow actually calmed down after a few minutes instead of flying into an
inarticulate rage. He was reflective for quite some time. I feared that Mogaba
had gotten through and convinced him of the truth that there was no better
ground to meet us, no better men to fight us, no better commander to crush us. I
feared his well honed instinct for self-preservation had kicked in.

Then some darkness gradually enveloped the Shadowmaster. I could have sworn that
it did not come from within him.

Longshadow squealed like a wounded hog. He stomped and shrieked in a tongue no
one understood and fell to his knees. He shuddered all over, having some sort of
seizure. This was not like his usual fits of rage. He moaned and wept and talked
in a way that made me wonder if even he understood what he was saying. Everyone
on the tower gaped. Howler looked around like he expected incoming trouble of
the cruelest kind. I took a swift look at Lady but found her doing nothing. She
was just more alert than usual, sensing something but not knowing what it might
be.

Whimpering, Longshadow climbed to his feet. He faced Mogaba. He began to stomp
and shriek while he did something with his skinny, gloved fingers.

Mogaba suddenly dropped like he had gotten crowned by an axe handle.

Longshadow raged at the waiting messengers. He sent one to summon Singh and the
child, others after his preferred officers. Those couriers went without any
enthusiasm, which you would expect of guys who had just heard they were going to
be allowed to stay behind and die so their nutcase boss could make his getaway.

Only the man sent for Narayan Singh actually did his job. The rest decided to
get a head start hiking south. They saw no reason to accept betrayal.

Our guys on the heights managed to get a few firebombs into the structure of the
observation tower. A sniper plinked away with a bamboo pole. His marksmanship
left plenty to be desired. But those little balls of fire would not fly as
predictably as an arrow.

Longshadow had Mogaba carried onto Howler’s carpet. Howler said nothing though I
thought it was obvious he agreed with Mogaba that the day was not yet lost.

Hell, it seemed to me they were a lot more afraid of Lady than they needed to
be. I thought one big sorcerous shitstorm would take care of her. But maybe she
had them fooled. Maybe Howler remembered the old days too well to go
head-to-head with her now.

No matter. They were not willing to employ their strengths.

The carpet Howler had brought to Charandaprash was far larger than the one that
he had had damaged earlier. It could haul a dozen people and all their gear.

Longshadow stopped raging. He seemed baffled by his own behavior, once actually
whispering, “What have I done now?” He knew that he had screwed up but he was
the kind of guy who, after he shoots his mouth off, cannot back down or admit
any failing. The world is full of those people. All of us would be better off if
their fathers would strangle them as soon as they showed signs of being that
way. This particular fool was willing to sacrifice an army rather than admit his
error.

A dozen men were on the platform when Singh and the child arrived. Mostly they
were messengers not yet sent out. A few were officers. As Narayan and the
Daughter of Night boarded the carpet even the dumbest soldiers realized that the
big boys were running. After Longshadow stepped aboard and started to rave
again, those about to be left decided not to stay. They joined the rush as
Howler lifted the carpet. The carpet shuddered, sank to one side, banged off the
edge of the platform, started sliding sideways toward the cliff.

Instantly firebombs came down. Soldiers dodged. The carpet wobbled worse. Men
fell off. A firebomb scored. As the flames spread Howler gained better control.

The carpet headed south, staggering like a drunken comet.

The men on the heights opened up with their bamboo gizmos. Howler dodged madly
through the shitstorm. He did not dodge everything. Longshadow’s desperate
sorceries barely kept them from being eaten alive.

What was wrong with Lady? This was her chance. The villains were preoccupied
with saving their own butts. If she brought them down now the thing would be
done. And Narayan Singh and the kid would be ours for the collection.

Came a sound like ten thousand competing whispers, like a million, like a
hundred million, swelling into the rush of a cyclone. It passed me, invisible,

and chased up the pass. A horror-struck silence occupied its wake. It must have
been a hundred times as terrifying outside the ghostworld. Soldiers from both
sides put down their arms to watch.

Howler loosed a wail of despair heard above all the other racket. That woke up
the gawkers on the cliffs who really had nothing better to do than blow
fireballs at flying wizards. The fireworks show resumed, redoubled.

Howler headed for the ground. His companions’ help was inadequate. He could not
fly and fight at the same time. The carpet hit hard. Soldiers were thrown all
over the slopes, Mogaba among them. Most just ran for it. Mogaba, when he
recovered consciousness, began stumbling back toward his troops, oblivious to
the shitstorm around him. He must have had divine dispensation because no harm
found him.

Despite the flatness of the ghostworld I felt a surge of elation. We had them!

This battle was won. This war was moments from being over! Lady’s whispering
witchery would gnaw away at Howler and the Shadowmaster while the guys on the
cliffs inundated them with fireballs.

The expanse and depth of the Captain’s ambush, crafted over years, all
predicated upon the Shadowmaster’s character, was only now emerging from the
shadows. It overwhelmed me, not just because it had worked but because every
contingency had been foreseen. Only he and his gods knew what else he had been
ready for. There were tons of materiel down there still unused.

It was over. The road was open. I started back to One-Eye’s wagon. We would have
to move fast to make sure the Company stayed in a position to take advantage.

First thing might be to get all our Company brothers together.

How long before I learn not to rack my eggs up as guaranteed fryers?

The Old Man was not trying to provoke the response he got. Neither was Lady,

though she might have feared it. I do not believe Croaker had any idea anything
of the sort was possible.

I was almost to the wagon when the ghost realm filled with a stench like
somebody just kicked open all the tombs that ever were. I had not encountered
much in the way of smells there before and all those had been nothing compared
to this.

Fear hit me. Panic was a scant half step behind. I got out of there fast, before
the fear made it impossible for me to recall how to escape.

Back up the canyon the Daughter of Night stood atop a boulder, oblivious to the
fireballs streaking past, her little arms uplifted to greet oncoming darkness,

summoning, her lips taut in an evil smile.

Something was coming. Something that I had glimpsed before.