Shadow of a Dark Queen (28 page)

“Nicholas received a warning from the Oracle. She begins her mating with the eldest of her attendants, and the new Oracle will be conceived this summer.”

Calis was silent a moment, then said, “I know as much about the Lifestone as any living, Miranda, save those who saw it at Sethanon. I'm not certain I
appreciate the significance of what you tell me, though.”

Miranda laughed, and Erik thought it a sound without humor. “It seems that as we embark on this dangerous course, the Oracle of Aal begins a mating, birth, and death cycle that will take the better part of five years. In other words, just as we seek to end the danger to the Lifestone, the Oracle is going to mate, give birth to her successor, and die. We will be without the oracle's visions for the next twenty-five years, until the daughter reaches maturity.”

Calis said, “I know little of the Ancients of Aal, save the legends about them. I take it this mating is a surprise to you?”

Miranda mumbled something Erik couldn't hear, then said, “. . . the limit of seeing one's own future, I suppose. A rebirth that limits the Oracle's abilities for a twenty-five-year period once every thousand years is little more than an inconvenience, from that perspective, but it's certainly ill timed from ours.”

“Is Nicholas thinking of canceling our plans?”

Miranda said, “I don't know. I can't read him as I could his father. He's so much like him in some ways, yet so different in others. I've only met him twice before, and I have no doubt he would have little trust for me were it not for you and James vouching for me.”

“You've convinced us of your sincerity and commitment to stop the enemy, even if you're damn unbending in revealing much about yourself.” He paused a moment. “What's the upshot of all of this?” asked Calis.

“It means we need to move even sooner than we thought. It means you should dismantle this camp
starting today and have your ships ready to depart next week.”

Calis was silent. Then he said, “I have six men who are not trained, and we're barely half the number we had planned on. I cannot depend on hired mercenaries. Too many good men died last time because I made that mistake. I need—” He stopped himself. “You know all the arguments. Bobby and I made them to Arutha three years ago. If we must go with only thirty-six men, I will take the next nine days to evaluate the last six. I'll hang them myself before I'll let them become a weak link in the chain we're forming, but I'll at least give them that little bit of time to prove themselves.”

Miranda's voice rose. “I have been through a great deal to select these men, Calis. I think I know each one well. I think you have only two who might break, Goodwin and de Savona. The others will do as we need.”

“Might break,” he repeated. “That's the problem. You think. If I knew they would break, I'd execute them tonight. If I knew they would stand fast, I would leave tomorrow. But if we judge wrong, and if one of them breaks at the wrong time . . .”

“Nothing is certain.”

There was a dry chuckle and Calis said, “Working with an oracle has given us something of a false illusion of certainty, I'm afraid. If we return to the certainty that nothing is clear before it happens, we might survive this venture.”

“I'm leaving. If you insist on lingering the next nine days, so be it, but Nicholas is adamant we should move as soon as possible. We've captured two agents and they know we're up to something.”

“Dead?”

“Now they are. Gamina read both men before they died and found out little we didn't already know, but it's clear the snakes are closing in on this facility. You've done well covering your tracks for the last year, but now they know something unusual is happening outside of Krondor. The next bunch of spies they send won't be sniffing around the palace, they'll be out here in the woods looking for this encampment. Once they discover it was here—”

“We've taken every precaution.”

“Someone who loaded a wagon of beef will say something in an inn. Someone at the palace will let a list of prisoners be seen while he's out of an office. It will take time, but within a year, not only will the snakes know you're in their way again, they'll have the name of every man with you.”

Calis was silent, then said something Erik couldn't make out. Suddenly there was a sound of a door opening and closing, and Erik motioned for Roo to follow him in a hurry. They returned the way they went and made it back to their tent. Moving back to their bunks, Erik was silent for a moment as he caught his breath; then he woke Biggo. “Quiet. Wake the others.”

When Luis, Sho Pi, and Billy were awake, Erik said, “Some time before you were caught, did you run into a woman named Miranda?”

The four looked at one another, and it was Sho Pi who spoke first. “Dark of hair and with intense green eyes?” Erik nodded. “She spoke to me outside of Shamata, while I was on the road to Krondor. There was something about her that I noticed at once. She has power.”

“What did she tell you?”

Sho Pi shrugged. “We talked of things of little importance. I found her very beautiful and was flattered at the attention, but her interests seemed more abstract than carnal. And I was curious why I sensed she was so much more than she seemed.”

“Was there anything she said that got you tossed into jail?”

Sho Pi said, “Nothing I can remember.”

The others talked about their encounters, Billy and Luis saying she had used a different name, but it was clear that all six men had encountered the woman at some point, less than a month prior to being arrested.

Biggo said, “That girl gets around, if she was talking to you”—he pointed at Sho Pi—“at Shamata the week before running into Erik and Roo near Darkmoor.”

“How does she know us?” asked Luis.

Erik said, “It has something to do with an oracle who reads the future. We're important in some way, but only if we survive the next nine days. I don't know why we were saved from the gallows, and I don't know what we might be to these people if we continue to live, but I have no doubt of this: if Calis thinks we're dangerous to his plans, he'll hang us all before he breaks camp in nine days. If he thinks we're trustworthy, he'll keep us alive. It's that simple.”

Billy said, “It means we've got to work hard.”

“We've been breaking our backs!” complained Luis.

“I mean work hard at being what they want.”

Sho Pi said, “Billy is right; he and I must stem our temper.” He rose and returned to his own bunk,
where he sat back, resting on his elbows. “Biggo must begin to show he can think for himself.”

“What of me?” said Luis, obviously fearful of not being judged trustworthy in nine days' time.

“You must put aside your pride. You must stop acting as if every order is an insult, and every task beneath you. Your arrogance will get you hung.”

“I am not arrogant!” demanded Luis, obviously ready to take offense.

Erik saw a fight coming and, thinking quickly to stem it, he said, “There's more!”

“What?” said Biggo.

“If one of us fails, we all fail.”

“What!” said Billy.

“If one of us is judged unworthy, they're going to hang all six of us.”

Roo looked at Erik a moment, then nodded. “We're a team. We live or die as one.”

Luis glanced around the tent and saw all eyes upon him. “I . . . will work on humility. When that little
cabrone
tells me to shovel dung, I will cheerfully say,
Sí, me comandante.
How high?”

Biggo grinned. “If there's a stiffer-necked bunch around than you bloody Rodezians, it's them Tsurani up in LaMut, but not by much.” Looking at Sho Pi, he said, “I've gotten by for years playing dumb so that folks won't expect much of me. I guess it's a habit now. I'll try to look a little brighter.”

Sho Pi said, “And you, Rupert. You must stop trying to be so clever. It will get you killed. You are not as clever as you think, nor are others as stupid.”

Erik said, “What of me?”

Sho Pi said, “I do not know, Erik von Darkmoor. There is nothing you do that is obviously wrong. Yet
 . . . there is something. I do not know. A hesitancy, perhaps. You need to be more decisive.”

Further discussion was halted by the arrival of Corporal Foster, and the men leaped up to stand before their beds. The corporal looked around, for obviously something had been occurring just before he arrived, but nothing was obvious, so after a moment he shouted, “All right. Outside and fall in, you worms! We don't have all morning!”

Foster stood over Billy, screaming insults at him. The prisoner looked as if he was about to leap to his feet and attack the corporal. A man in black stood not ten feet away puffing heavily from the exertion of the recently ended combat. They had been dueling, with Billy getting the upper hand, when suddenly Foster had tripped Goodwin. Then, before he could react, the corporal was standing over him as if it were Billy's fault.

Then Foster said, “And your mother was a whore!”

As he turned away, Billy leaped to his feet. Before he could charge Foster, Erik hit him with a tackle, driving his shoulder into Billy's waist. They went to the ground and rolled, Erik using his strength and weight to keep Billy under him.

Suddenly soldiers were hauling them apart and Foster was shouting, “Here, now! What's this about?”

Erik, blood running from his nose from one of Billy's elbows, said, “Keeping him from doing something stupid, Corporal.”

Foster regarded Erik a moment, then said, “Right.” Turning to Billy, he said, “Going to jump me
from behind, you swine? Well, how'd you like to try it from in front?” He backed away, pulling his own sword. “Let him go.”

The soldiers obeyed and Billy stood with his own weapon ready. Then Biggo stepped between him and the corporal. “Wouldn't be smart for Billy, would it, Corporal, what with those lads on the wall unlimbering their bows, and all, would it?”

Billy glanced up and saw that a pair of longbowmen had strung their weapons and nocked arrows, and were watching closely.

“Stand away, Biggo, you overblown pile of cow dung!” commanded Foster. “I'm going to cut a few pieces off this dogmeat.”

Luis came over to stand next to Biggo, with Sho Pi a step behind. Roo joined them, and Erik shook off the two soldiers who held him and joined the other five.

“What's this—mutiny?” shouted Foster.

“No,” answered Sho Pi. “Just trying to keep the situation from becoming dangerous.”

“I'll have that man hung!” shouted Foster as Robert de Loungville approached to see what was occurring.

Biggo said, “Then I think you should hang us all.”

Robert de Loungville said, “What's this, then? Volunteering to go back to the gibbet?”

Biggo turned and with an affable smile said, “Sergeant, if one of us is to be hung for thinking we'd like to murder the good corporal, then you'd better hang us all, because we all think it at least a dozen times a day. And I'd rather you get it over with now than make us work for another week at this soldier drilling; I'm kind of tired of it. With all respect, Sergeant.”

De Loungville raised his eyebrows in surprise. “This man speaking for you all?”

They looked from one to another. Then Erik said, “I think that's the way it is, sir.”

Suddenly de Loungville was standing nose to nose with Biggo, having to rise up on his toes to accomplish the feat. “You're not being told to think! What makes you imagine we care what you think? If you're thinking, that means you have
too much time on your hands.
I can fix that.”

Turning to the two guards who had held Erik a moment before, he said, “We need the stables swept. Get these murderous dogs down there and have them pick up everything they find! And I don't want them dirtying perfectly good brooms and pitchforks! They can pick everything up by hand! Now move them out!”

The two soldiers motioned for the prisoners to fall in and quick-marched them out of sight. As they vanished, Foster looked at de Loungville and said, “I think it's starting to work, Bobby.”

De Loungville scratched his chin as he pondered. “I don't know. We'll see. But it had better. We're going south shorthanded and I'd hate to have to hang this lot the day before we sail.”

Foster said, “If Billy Goodwin didn't cut my throat for calling his mother a whore—she was, but he's touchy about it—then I think he's learning. And the way they stuck up for him.”

De Loungville nodded. “Maybe you're right. Or maybe they're being clever. We'll have to see, won't we?”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and headed back to the command building.

T
he alarm
sounded.

Drums beat as the camp turned out. It had been three days since Erik had overheard the discussion in Calis's office, and the six prisoners had been training hard, focusing their attentions on doing whatever was necessary to remain alive. Foster became even more of a tyrant, abusing the men at every turn, and de Loungville studied them closely, looking for any sign they might fail to meet his demands.

Now a new day began with an unexpected twist. The prisoners moved out of their tent a good half hour earlier than usual and saw that the other men who lived in the compound were all hurrying to the command building. As they followed, they were intercepted by a guard, a soldier named Perry of Witcomb, who said, “Fall in behind me, and stay together. No talking!”

The six fell into their usual order, with Biggo at the lead and Sho Pi at the rear, Billy, Luis, Roo, and Erik in between. They reached the building as the door opened and Calis and de Loungville emerged.

De Loungville held his hand up for silence and said, “Listen up!”