The Return of the Black Company (53 page)

“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.”

28

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 my 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.

29

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.

30

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.