The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company (Chronicles of the Black Company) (25 page)

“You grow too daring, Smoke.”

“Perhaps I do. Though as I recall my mandate from your brother is to remind you occasionally—”

“Enough.”

“They are what they pretend to be, you know. Wholly ignorant of their past.”

“I’m aware of that. It makes no difference. They could become what they were if we let them. Sooner bend the knee to the Shadowmasters than endure that again.”

Smoke shrugged. “As you will. Maybe.” He smiled slyly. “And as the Shadowmasters will, perhaps.”

“You know something?”

“I am constrained by my need to remain unnoticed. But I’ve been able to catch glimpses of our northern friends. They have fallen afoul of more of our little friends from the river. Ferocious things are happening down near the Main.”

“Sorcery?”

“High magnitude. Recalling that which manifested during their passage through the pirate swamps. I no longer dare intrude.”

“Damn! Damn-damn-damn! Are they all right? Have we lost them?”

“I no longer dare intrude. Time will tell.”

The Radisha kicked another pile of books. Smoke’s bland expression cracked, became one of intense irritation. She apologized. “It’s frustration.”

“We’re all frustrated. Perhaps
you
would be less so if you adjusted your ambitions.”

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps if you followed the course your brother has charted and aimed to climb but one mountain at a time—”

“Bah! Am I, a woman, the only rooster around here?”

“You, a woman, will not be required to pay the price of failure. That will come out of your brother’s purse.”

“Damn you, Smoke! Why are you always right?”

“That is my commission. Go to your brother. Talk. Recalculate. Concentrate on the enemy of the moment. The Shadowmasters must be turned now. The priests will be here forever. Unless you want shut of them badly enough to let the Shadowmasters win, of course.”

“If I could frame just one High Priest for treason … All right. I know. The Shadowmasters have shown they know what to do with clerics. Nobody would believe it. I’m going. If you dare, find out what’s happening down there. If we’ve lost them we’ll have to move quickly. That damned Swan had to go after them, didn’t he?”

“You sent him.”

“Why does everybody do what I tell them? Some of the things I say are stupid.… Get that grin off your face.”

Smoke failed. “Kick over another stack of books.”

The Radisha huffed out of the room.

Smoke sighed. Then he returned to his reading. The book’s author lingered lovingly over impalements and flayings and tortures visited on a generation unlucky enough to have lived when the Free Companies of Khatovar marched out of that strange corner of the world that spawned them.

The books in that room had been confiscated so they would not fall into the hands of the Black Company. Smoke did not believe their being there would keep secrets forever. But maybe long enough for him to find a way to prevent the sort of bloodshed that had occurred in olden times. Maybe.

The best hope, though, lay in the probability that the Company had mutated with time. That it was not wearing a mask. That it had indeed forgotten its grim origins and its search for its past was more a reflex than the determined return that other Companies, come back earlier, had made.

In the back of Smoke’s mind, always, was the temptation to take his own advice, to bring the Company’s captain in and turn him loose on the books, if only to see how he responded to the truth.

30

Taglios Aroused

We approached Taglios with the dawn, days late, all of us at the brink of collapse, Swan and his buddies maybe worse off than the rest. Their mundane mounts were wiped out. I asked Swan, “You figure the Prahbrindrah will be overly pissed because I didn’t keep my appointment?”

Swan still had a little pepper left. “What the hell can he do? Put a bug down your shirt? He’ll swallow it and smile. You worry about the Woman. She’s the one who’ll give you trouble. If anybody does. She don’t always think right.”

“Priests,” Blade said.

“Yeah. Watch out for the priests. They sprung this whole thing on them the day you guys landed. They couldn’t do anything but go along. But they been thinking about it, you can bet your butt, and when they find them an angle they’re going to start messing.”

“What’s Blade’s thing with priests?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. But I been down here long enough to start thinking he’s maybe right. The world might be better off if we drowned some of them.”

One thing that made the military situation wonderfully impossible was the absence of fortifications. Taglios itself sprawled everywhere, without a thought to defense.

A people with centuries of pacifism behind them. An enemy with experienced armies and high-power sorcerers to support them. And me with maybe a month to figure out how to help the former whip the latter.

Impossible. When those rivers went down so troops could cross the massacre would be on.

Swan asked, “You make up your mind what you’re going to do?”

“Yeah. The Prahbrindrah isn’t going to like it, either.”

That surprised him. I did not explain. Let them worry. I took my bunch in to the barracks and sent Swan off to announce our return. As we dismounted, with half the Company hanging around waiting to hear something, Murgen said, “I guess Goblin’s made up his mind.”

Something had been preying on the little wizard. He had been broody and curt all the way home. Now he was grinning. He gave special attention to his saddlebags.

Mogaba joined me. “We’ve made major progress while you were gone, Captain. I’ll report when you feel up to it.” His question remained unspoken.

I saw no need to leave it hanging. “We can’t sneak through. They’ve got us. It’s fight or turn back.”

“Then there is no option, is there?”

“I guess there never was. But I had to see for myself.”

He nodded his understanding.

Before business I tended wounds. Lady was coming back fast. Her bruises, though, did nothing to make her more attractive. I felt odd examining her. She had had little to say since our night in the rain. She was doing a lot of thinking again.

Mogaba had a lot to tell me about discussions with Taglios’s religious leaders and his ideas for putting together the pretense of an army. I could find nothing in his suggestions I disapproved. He said, “There’s one other thing. A priest named Jahamaraj Jah, number two man in the Shadar cult. He has a daughter he thinks is dying. It looks like a chance to make a friend.”

“Or get somebody thoroughly pissed.” Never underestimate the power of human ingratitude.

“One-Eye saw her.”

I looked at the little witch doctor. He said, “Looked like her appendix to me, Croaker. Not that far gone yet, either. But these clowns around here don’t have the foggiest. They’re trying to exorcise demons.”

“I haven’t opened anybody up in years. How long before it bursts?”

“Another day at least, unless she’s unlucky. I did what I could for the pain.”

“I’ll check it on the way back from the Palace. Make me a map.… No. You’d better tag along. You might be useful.” Mogaba and I were getting dressed for a court appearance now. Lady was supposed to be doing the same.

Swan, not at all improved in appearance, showed up to take us to the Prince. I did not feel like doing anything but take a nap. I sure did not feel up to the games of politicians. But I went.

The people of Trogo Taglios had heard that the moment of decision had come. They were in the streets to watch us. They remained eerily silent.

I saw dread in all those watching eyes, but hope, too. They were aware of the risks, and maybe even of the odds against them. A pity they did not realize that a battlefield is not a wrestling ring.

Once a child cried. I shivered, hoping it was not an omen. As we neared the Trogo an old man stepped out of the crowd and pressed something into my hand. He bowed himself away.

It was a Company badge from olden times. An officer’s badge, perhaps booty from some forgotten battle. I fixed it near the badge I wore already, the fire-breathing death’s-head of Soulcatcher, which we had retained though we no longer served the Taken or the empire.

Lady and I had outfitted ourselves in our finest, meaning I wore my legate’s duds and she her imperial rig. We impressed the mob. Beside us Mogaba looked drab. One-Eye looked like a derelict scraped off the bottom of the worst dive in the worst slum. That damned hat. He was as happy as a snail.

“Showmanship,” Lady had told me. An old maxim of my own, albeit directed somewhat differently. “In politics and battle our big weapon will have to be showmanship.”

She was coming to life. I think those brown guys pissed her off.

She was right. Showmanship and craft, even more than traditionally, would have to be our tools. If we were to meet and beat the veteran armies commanded by the Shadowmasters we would have to gain our triumphs inside the imaginations of enemy soldiers. It takes ages to create a force with the self-confidence to go slug it out despite the odds.

*   *   *

Despite our being late the Prahbrindrah Drah was a gracious host. He treated us to a dinner the likes of which I have no hope of seeing again. Afterward, he laid on the entertainment. Dancing girls, sword swallowers, illusionists, musicians whose work my ear found too alien to appreciate. He was in no hurry to get to an answer of which he was confident. During the afternoon Swan introduced me to several score of Taglios’s leading men, including Jahamaraj Jah. I told Jah I would look at his daughter as soon as I could. The gratitude in the man’s face was embarrassing.

Otherwise, I paid no attention to those men. I had no intention of dealing with or through them.

The time came. We were invited out of the crowd into a private chamber. Because I had brought two of my lieutenants the Prahbrindrah did the same. One was that codger Smoke, whom the Prince introduced by title. That translated out as Lord of the Guardians of Public Safety. And that turned out to mean he was boss of the city fire brigade.

Only One-Eye failed to keep a straight face.

The Prahbrindrah’s other lieutenant was his enigmatic sister. Put them together and it was obvious she was older and probably tougher than he. Even dressed up she looked like she had been ridden hard and put away wet.

When the Prahbrindrah asked about my companions I introduced Mogaba as my commander of infantry and Lady as my chief of staff. The idea of a woman soldier amazed him. I wondered how much more amazed he would be if he knew her history.

She concealed surprise at the designation. As much for her benefit as the Prahbrindrah’s, I said, “There’s nobody in the Company more qualified. With the possible exception of the Captain, each post is filled on merit.”

Swan was doing the translating. He skirted the edge of the Prahbrindrah’s reply, which, I think, actually suggested limited agreement. His sister seemed to be his brain trust.

“To the point,” I told Swan. “Time is too tight if we’re going to stop an invasion.”

Swan smiled. “Then you’re going to accept the commission?”

You never doubted it for a second, you jackal. “Don’t get your hopes too high, man. I’m going to make a counteroffer. Its terms won’t be negotiable.”

Swan’s smile vanished. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ve looked at the land. I’ve talked with my people. Despite the lay, most of them want to go on. We know what we have to do to get to Khatovar. Meaning we’ll consider doing the job your prince wants done. But we won’t try it except on our terms. Tell him that, then I’ll give him the sad news.”

Swan translated. The Prahbrindrah did not look happy. His sister looked like she wanted a fight. Swan faced me. “Let’s have it.”

“If I’m supposed to run an army that I’ll have to build from scratch, I want to have the power to do it. I want to be the boss. No interference from anybody. No political crap. No cult feuding. Even the will of the Prince will have to yield for the duration. I don’t know if there’s a Taglian word for what I want. I can’t think of a Rosean word, either. In the Jewel Cities the man in the job I want is called ‘dictator.’ They elect him for a year at a time. Tell him that.”

Was the Prahbrindrah happy? Sure he was. About as happy as any prince in that fix. He started lawyering, trying to bury me in ifs, ands, and buts. I smiled a lot.

“I said I wouldn’t negotiate, Swan. I meant it. The only chance I see is for us to do what needs doing when it’s got to be done, not six weeks later, after the ruffled feathers have been smoothed, the special interests have had their say, and the graft has been got out.”

Mogaba had on the biggest smile I’d ever seen from him. He was having fun listening. Maybe he’d always wanted to talk that way to his bosses in Gea-Xle.

I said, “The way I hear it, in about five weeks the rivers will be down enough that the Shadowmasters can put their troops across the Main. They won’t have internal problems slowing them down. They’ll have every advantage but the Black Company on their side. So if the Prahbrindrah wants even a prayer of winning, he has to give me the tools I need. If he doesn’t, I walk. I find some other way. I won’t commit suicide.”

Swan translated. We sat around looking tough and professional and stubborn. Lady and Mogaba did fine. I thought I might blow it by being nervous, but I did not. The Prahbrindrah never tried to call my bluff. He argued, but never so hard I might lose my temper and stomp out. I never gave an inch. I honestly believed that the only chance, and that a ghost of a hope, lay in an absolute military dictatorship. And I had a little inside word, thanks to Frogface.

“Hey, Swan. Are these people in even bigger trouble than they’ve admitted?”

“What?” He cast a nervous glance at the imp.

“Your boss isn’t trying to talk me out of anything. He’s lawyering. Politicking. Wasting time. I get the feeling that down deep he’s scared to death. He agrees with me. Only he don’t want to
have
to make the choice between evils. Because then he has to live with his choice.”

“Yeah. Maybe. The Shadowmasters are going to be coming mean after what we did last summer. Going to make an example of us, maybe.”