Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South (25 page)

If there was no choice but to fight, and to lead a nation, I was going to make
demands. I was not going to let the Taglians put me in a position where they
could second-guess and override my every decision. I had watched my predecessors
get half crazy dealing with that. If the Taglians hooked me, I was going to hook
them right back.

We might call it something prettier, but by damn I was going to be a military
dictator.

Me. Croaker. The itinerant military physician and amateur historian. Able to
indulge in all the abuses I’d damned in princes for so long. It was a sobering
notion.

If we bought it, and took the commission, and I got what I would demand, I might
have Wheezer follow me around and remind me that I’m mortal. He wasn’t good for
much else.

The rain let up as we were riding into town.

Now I knew the gods loved me.

Smoke was perched on a tall stool, bent over a huge old book. The room was
filled with books. It looked like a wave of books had swept in and left tidal
pools behind. Not only were there shelves dripping books, there were books
stacked hip-high on the floor, books on tables and chairs, even books piled on
the sill of the room’s one small, high window. Smoke read by the light of a
single candle. The room was sealed so tight the smoke had begun to irritate his
nose and eyes.

From time to time he grunted, made a note on a piece of paper to his left. He
was left-handed.

In all the Palace that room was the best protected from spying eyes. Smoke had
woven webs and walls of spells to secure it. No one was supposed to know about
it. It did not show on any plan of the Palace.

Smoke felt something touch the outermost of the protective spells, something as
light as a mosquito’s weight as it lands. Before he could swing his attention to
it it was gone and he was not sure he had not imagined it. Since the incident of
the crows and bats he had been almost paranoid.

Intuition told him he had reason. There were forces at work that were way beyond
him. His best weapon was the fact that no one knew he existed.

He hoped.

He was a very frightened man these days. Terror lurked in every shadow.

He jumped and squeaked when the door opened.

“Smoke?”

“You startled me, Radisha.”

“Where are they, Smoke? There’s been no word from Swan. Have they gotten away?”

“Leaving most of their people behind? Radisha, be patient.”

“I have no patience left. Even my brother is becoming unsettled. We have only
weeks left before the rivers fall.”

“I’m aware of that, madam. Concentrate on what you can do, not what you wish you
could do. Every force possible is being bent upon them. But we cannot compel
them to help.”

The Radisha kicked over a pile of books. “I’ve never felt so powerless. I don’t
like the feeling.”

Smoke shrugged. “Welcome to the world where the rest of us live.”

In a high corner of the room a point no bigger than a pinprick oozed something
like a black smoke. The smoke slowly filled out the shape of a small crow. “What
are the rest of them doing?”

“Making preparations for war. In case.”

“I wonder. That black officer. Mogaba. Could he be the real captain?”

“No. Why?”

“He’s doing the things I want them to do. He’s acting like they’re going to
serve us.”

“It makes sense, Radisha. If their captain comes back convinced they can’t sneak
away, they’ll be that much farther ahead.”

“Has he made preparations to run back north?”

“Of course.”

The Radisha looked vexed.

Smoke smiled. “Have you considered being forthright with them?”

She gave him a look to chill the bones.

“I thought not. Not the way of princes. Too simple. Too direct. Too logical. Too
honest.”

“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.

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.