Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South (20 page)

provided by the state. I gathered everyone but the half-dozen men on guard duty.

While most of the guys ate supper—cooked and served by people provided by the
Prahbrindrah—the folks at my long table got their heads together. The rest had
orders to keep the Taglians hopping. I doubted they could understand us, but you
don’t take chances.

I sat at the head of the table, Lady to my left and Mogaba to my right, he with
his two leading men next to him. Goblin and One-Eye were beyond Lady on her
side, tonight with Goblin in the seat nearer the head. I had to make them trade
off each meal. Beyond them were Murgen and Hagop and Otto, with Murgen at the
foot of the table, in his capacity as apprentice Annalist. I made like I was
telling a story as we ate. The paterfamilias entertaining his children.

“I’m taking the imperial horses out tonight. Lady, Goblin, Hagop, Otto, you’ll
come. One of the roi. One of your lieutenants, Mogaba, and one of your men. Men
who can ride.”

One-Eye drew a breath to complain. So did Murgen. But Mogaba slid in ahead of
both. “A sneak?”

“I want to scout to the south. These people could be selling us a pig in a
poke.”

I didn’t think they were, but why take a man’s word when you can see for
yourself? Especially when he’s trying to use you?

“One-Eye, you stay here because I want you working your pet. Day and night.

Murgen, write down whatever he tells you. Mogaba, cover for us. If they’ve been
telling it straight we won’t be gone long.”

“You told the Prahbrindrah you’d give him an answer in a week. You have four
days left.”

“We’ll be back in time. We’ll go after next watch change, after Goblin and
One-Eye knock out anybody who might see us.”

Mogaba nodded. I glanced at Lady. She didn’t contribute much anymore. If I
wanted to be the boss, I was going to be the boss and she would keep her opinion
to herself.

Mogaba said, “Several of my men have approached me on a matter of some delicacy.

I think we need a policy.”

This was something unexpected. “A policy? About what?”

“To what extent the men can use violence to defend themselves. Several have been
attacked. They want to know how much restraint they have to show, for political
reasons. Or if they have permission to make examples.”

“Gah! When did this start?”

“I received the first report this afternoon.”

“All today, then?”

“Yes sir.”

“Let’s see the men involved.”

He brought them to the table. They were Nar. There were five of them. It did not
seem likely that such things would happen to the Nar alone. I sent Murgen
around. He returned. “Three incidents. They took care of it themselves. Said
they didn’t figure it was something worth reporting.”

Discipline. Something to be said for it.

It took half a minute to decide the attackers were not, apparently, Taglians.

“Wrinkly little brown guys? We saw those on the river. I asked Swan. He said he
didn’t know where they came from. But they gave him the collywobbles. If they’re
not Taglians, don’t take no shit. Ace them unless you can take a couple
prisoners. One-Eye. If you could snag a couple and give them the works . . . ”

We did all this amidst the comings and goings of our Taglian servitors. At that
point several came to collect empty plates, forestalling One-Eye from
poormouthing about how he was so grossly overworked. He did not squawk fast
enough when they cleared away, either.

Murgen got the first word in. “I got a problem, Croaker.” Mogaba winced.

Flexible man, Mogaba, but he could not get used to me letting anybody call me
anything but Captain.

“What’s that?”

“Bats.”

Goblin snickered.

“Can it, runt. Bats? What about bats?”

“Guys keep finding dead bats around.”

I noted, from the corner of my eye, that Lady had grown more attentive. “I don’t
follow you.”

“The men have been finding dead bats every morning since we got here. Bats all
torn up, not just dropped over dead. And they’re only around where we are. Not
all over town.”

I looked at One-Eye. He looked at me. He said, “I know. I know. One more job for
good old One-Eye. How’s this outfit ever going to get along without me when I
go?”

I don’t know if the others bought it or not.

There were things One-Eye and I hadn’t shared with everyone.

“Any other problems?”

Nobody had a problem, but Murgen had a question. “All right if we work on Swan a
little? I checked out that place he owns. It’s the kind of place some of our
guys would hang out. We might find out something interesting there.”

“At least you’d keep him nervous. Good idea. Have some of the Nar hang out
there, too. To work on that Blade character.”

“He’s a spooky one,” Otto said.

“The most dangerous too, I’d bet. One of those guys like Raven. Kill you without
batting an eye and not even remember it five minutes later.”

Mogaba said, “You must tell me more of this Raven. Each time I hear of him he
sounds more intriguing.”

Lady paused with fork half lifted to mouth. “It’s all in the Annals,

Lieutenant.” The gentlest of admonitions. For all his devotion to things
Company, Mogaba had yet to make a serious attempt to explore those Annals set
down after the Company had departed Gea-Xle.

“Of course,” he replied, voice perfectly even, but eyes hard as steel. There was
a distinct coolness between them. I had sensed it before, mildly. Negative
chemistry. Neither had any reason to dislike the other. Or maybe they did. I
spent more time with Mogaba these days than I did with Lady.

“That’s that, then,” I said. “Out of here after the next watch change. Be
ready.”

Mostly nods as they pushed back from the table, but Goblin stayed put, scowling,

for several seconds before he rose.

He suspected that he was being drafted mainly to keep him out of mischief while
I was gone.

He was sixty percent right.

Try sneaking someplace on a plowhorse sometime. You’ll get half the idea of the
trouble we had sliding out of town unnoticed on those monsters Lady had given
us. We wore poor Goblin down to the nubs, covering up. By the time we cleared
town I was thinking maybe we would have done as well to have taken the coach.

Getting out unnoticed was a relative notion, anyway. There were crows on watch.

Seemed one of those damned birds was perched on every tree and roof we passed.

Though we hurried through it, and it could not be seen well in the dark, the
countryside immediately south of Taglios seemed rich and intensively cultivated.

It had to be to support an urban area so large—though there appeared to be
garden areas inside the city, especially in the well-to-do neighborhoods.

Surprisingly, Taglians did not eat much meat though it was food that could be
walked to market.

Two of the three great religious families banned the eating of flesh.

Along with everything else, our great steeds could see in the dark. It did not
bother them to canter when I could not see my hand in front of my face. Dawn
caught us forty miles south of Taglios, thoroughly saddlesore.

Opened-mouth peasants watched us flash by.

Swan had told me about the Shadowmasters’ invasion of the previous summer. Twice
we crossed the path of that struggle, coming upon gutted villages. In each the
villagers had rebuilt, but not on the same site.

We paused near the second. A hetman came to look us over while we ate. We had no
words in common. When he saw he wasn’t going to get anywhere he just grinned,

shook my hand, and walked away.

Goblin said, “He knew who we are. And figures us the same as the people in the
city.”

“For dopes?”

“Nobody thinks we’re stupid, Croaker,” Lady said. “And maybe that’s the problem.

Maybe we aren’t as smart as they think we are.”

“Say what?” I threw a stone at a crow. I missed. She gave me a funny look.

“I think you’re right when you say there’s a conspiracy of silence. But maybe
they aren’t hiding as much as you think. Maybe they just think we know more than
we know.”

Sindawe, Mogaba’s lieutenant and third, offered, “I feel this to be the heart of
it, Captain. I have spent much time on the streets. I have seen this in the eyes
of all who look upon me. They think I am much more than what I am.”

“Hey. They don’t just look at me. I go out they start hailing me everything but
emperor. It’s embarrassing.”

“But they won’t talk,” Goblin said, starting to pack up. “They’ll bow and grin
and kiss your backside and give you anything but their virgin daughters, but
they won’t say squat if you go after a concrete answer.”

“Truth is a deadly weapon,” Lady said.

“Which is why priests and princes dread it,” I said. “If we’re more than we
seem, what do they think we are?”

Lady said, “What the Company was when it came through heading north.”

Sindawe agreed. “The answer would be in the missing Annals.”

“Of course. And they’re missing.” If I had had my own along I would have paused
to review what I had learned at the Temple of Traveller’s Repose. Those first
few books had been lost down here somewhere.

None of the names on my maps rang any bells. None of what I remembered contained
any echoes. Cho’n Delor had been the end of history, so to speak. The beginning
of unknown country, though there was much in the Annals from before the Pastel
Wars.

Could they have changed all the names?

“Oh, my aching ass,” Goblin complained as he clambered into the saddle. A sight
to behold, a runt like him getting up the side of one of those horses. Every
time Otto had a crack about getting him a ladder. “Croaker, I got an idea.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

He ignored that. “How about we retire? We’re not young enough for this crap
anymore.”

Hagop said, “Those guys we ran into on the road down from Oar probably had the
right idea. Only they were small-time. We ought to find a town and take over. Or
sign on with somebody permanent like.”

“That’s been tried fifty times. Never lasts. Only place it worked was Gea-Xle.

And there the guys got itchy feet after a while.”

“Bet that wasn’t the same guys who rode in.”

“We’re all old and tired, Hagop.”

“Speak for yourself, Granddad,” Lady said.

I threw a rock and mounted up. That was an invitation to banter. I did not take
it up. I felt old and tired that way, too. She shrugged, mounted up herself. I
rode out wondering where we were at, she and I. Probably nowhere. Maybe the
spark had been neglected too long. Maybe propinquity was counterproductive.

As we moved farther south we noted a phenomenon. Post riders in numbers like we
had seen nowhere else. In every village we were recognized. It was the same old
salute and cheer that started in Taglios. Where they had them the young men came
out with weapons.

I’m not much for morality. But I felt morally reprehensible when I saw them, as
if I were somehow responsible for transmuting a pacific people into fire-eyed
militarists.

Otto was of the opinion the weapons had been taken from last year’s invaders.

Maybe. Some. But most looked so old and rusted and brittle I would wish them
only on my enemies.

The commission looked more improbable by the hour. Nowhere did we encounter
evidence that Taglians were anything but a pleasant, friendly, industrious
people blessed with a land where survival was not a day-to-day struggle. But
even these country folk seemed to devote most of their leisure time, whence
culture springs, to their bewildering battalions of gods.

“One signal victory,” I told Lady when we were about eighty miles south of the
city, “and these people will be psyched up to take any hardships the
Shadowmasters can dish out.”

“And if we take the commission and lose the first battle it won’t matter anyway.

We won’t be around to have to suffer the consequences.”

“That’s my girl. Always thinking positive.”

“Are you really going to take the commission?”

“Not if I can help it. That’s why we’re out here. But I’ve got a bad feeling
that what I want won’t have much to do with what I’ll have to do.”

Goblin snorted and grumbled something about being dragged around on the claws of
fate. He was right. And my only notion for breaking loose was to find a way to
keep heading south, Shadowmasters be damned.

We did not press hard, and paused for lunch before our breakfasts were really
settled. Our bodies were not up to the continuous abuse of a sustained ride.

Getting old.

Otto and Hagop wanted to lay on a fire and fix a real meal. I told them go
ahead. Sore and tired, I settled down nearby, head pillowed on a rock, and
stared at clouds trudging across alien skies that by day looked no different
than those whence I had come.

Things were happening too fast and too strange to wring any sense out of them. I
was plagued by a dread that I was the wrong man in the wrong place and wrong
time for the Company. I did not feel competent to handle the situation Taglios
threatened. Could I presume to lead a nation to war? I did not think so. Even if
every Taglian man, woman, and child proclaimed me savior.

I tried comforting myself with the thought that I was not the first Captain with
doubts, and far from the first to get embroiled in a local situation armed only
with a glimmer of the true problems and stakes. Maybe I was luckier than some. I
had Lady, for whom the waters of intrigue were home. If I could tap her talent.

I had Mogaba, who, despite those cultural and language barriers that still
existed between us, had begun to look like the best pure soldier I’d ever known.

I had Goblin and One-Eye and Frogface and—maybe—Shifter. And I had four hundred
years of Company shenanigans in my trick bag. But none of that appeased my
conscience or stilled my doubts.