Bleak Seasons (30 page)

“What’s going on?”

Sahra shrugged. To Tan said “Dada” again and headed out of the tent.

Things were happening outside. I grabbed my clothes, climbed in, stuck my head
outside. “Holy shit! Where the freak did you guys come from?” Thai Dei and Uncle
Doj were seated outside. Their swords lay across their laps. Sheathed,

thankfully. Gangs of Taglians were coming by to check them out. I guessed they
had not been there long nor had they asked permission to enter camp and assume
their posts.

Swan and Mather appeared.

Uncle Doj told me, “Only one group made it out again last night. The black men
attacked. Many men were injured. Numerous rafts were damaged. But their soldiers
did not want to fight and many asked to join Bonharj.”

“Who the hell are these guys?” Swan demanded. “How did they get here?”

“The rest of the family. I expect they sneaked. They’re good at that. Obviously,

your perimeter ain’t what it should be.”

Blade shouted something from the distance. “Crap,” Swan grumbled. “Now what?” He
jogged away.

Mather considered Thai Dei and Uncle Doj briefly, shrugged, followed Swan. Uncle
Doj said something to Sahra. She nodded. I guess he wanted to know if she was
all right.

To Tan climbed around on his father.

Doj told me, “You did well, and more than you were obliged, Standardbearer. Our
people are safely away and these men know nothing about them.”

“Yeah? Good. What about mine?”

“They would not come out. The wizards want to pursue their vendetta with Mogaba.

They might come tonight.”

They did not come that night. Nor did they come the next though they sent a lot
of Taglians and Jaicuri out in place of the Company.

Two mornings later Mather finally let me in on what the excitement had been
about when Blade interrupted our discussion over Uncle Doj and Thai Dei. He told
me, “Croaker will be here in an hour or two, Murgen. You might put in a good
word.”

“What?”

It was not an hour and it was not just the Old Man. Croaker was travelling with
the Prahbrindrah Drah himself. He looked like he had seen a lot of hard road. I
moved toward him in fits and starts, unsure where we stood after all this time.

He jumped down, said, “It is me. I’m real.”

“But I saw you die.”

“No. You saw me get hit. I was still breathing when you cut out.”

“Yeah? The shape you was in, there wasn’t no way . . . ”

“Shouldn’t have been, either. It’s a long story. We can chew on it over a few
beers sometime.” He waved. A soldier trotted up. Croaker grabbed his spear,

which was almost long enough to be a pike, shoved it at me. “Here. You left this
when you ran off to play Widowmaker.”

I did not believe it. Not at first. It was the lance for the standard.

“You really need to hug it?”

“It’s really it! I was almost sure it was lost.” Despite what I had told Mogaba.

“You got no idea how guilty I felt. Although I did think I saw it that one time
. . . It’s really you?” I looked at him closely. Having seen what illusions
One-Eye and Goblin could conjure I was not quite ready to accept the evidence of
my own eyes.

“It’s me. Really. Alive and in a mood to kick some ass. But that’s not what I’ve
got on my mind right now. Where’s Lady?”

Poor boy. Blade gave him the bad news. His paramour had left more than a week
ago, headed north. They missed each other on the road.

Swan and Mather were impressed by the presence of the Prince, their supposed
boss. Why was he out running around, anyway? I noticed Croaker had a hard stare
for Sindhu, who had stayed behind when Lady left.

The Old Man snapped, “Quit making love to that damned thing, Murgen. I need to
catch up. I’m way out of touch. Will somebody take this damned butt-cruncher?”

A soldier grabbed his mount’s reins.

“Let’s get out of the sun.”

“I want to hear your story,” I said. “While it’s fresh.”

“Going to put it into the Annals? You been keeping them up?”

“I tried. Only I had to leave them in the city.” I did not like that, either.

One-Eye could promise the moon about taking care of them but would he deliver?

“I’ll look forward to reading the Book of Murgen. If it’s any good you’ve got
the job for life.”

Swan said something about Lady planning to write a book of her own when she got
time. Croaker flung a stone at a crow. It was the first of those birds I had
spotted since the albino in the night. Maybe he brought it with him. I sketched
some of what had been happening in Dejagore.

“Guess it hasn’t been fun for anybody. Seems Mogaba is the main problem. Better
get right after him. How many people are still over there?”

“My guess is him and the Nar have a thousand to fifteen hundred men. I don’t
know how many people I have. Some come out every night but since I got elected
prisoner here I can’t keep track. Goblin and One-Eye and most of the Company are
still over there.” I hoped Uncle Doj and Thai Dei were using this distraction to
get To Tan and Sahra and themselves on the road.

“Why would they stay?”

“They don’t want to leave. They say they want to wait till Lady gets all her
powers back. They say something is out here waiting for them.”

“Powers back?”

“It’s happening,” Blade said.

“Hunh. So what are they afraid of, Murgen?”

“Shapeshifter’s apprentice. That bitch from Juniper. She almost got One-Eye once
already once . . . ” How come I believed the little rat now but had not when he
had told me?

I had a momentary vision of One-Eye puffing through the night with fanged death
closing in. It was as solid as actual memory.

“I remember her. She was a real piece of work. Marron Shed should have taken
care of her when he had the chance.”

“Evidently she wants to get even with us for doing Shifter. She may be locked
into the forvalaka shape, too. Which would really piss anybody off, I guess. But
if you was to ask my personal opinion I think she’s only an excuse. They want to
stay where they are because otherwise they might have to leave something
behind.”

“Like what?”

I shrugged. “They’re Goblin and One-Eye. They’ve had months to pilfer and
profiteer.”

“Tell me about Mogaba.”

Now we got down to the grim stuff.

Before the discussion ended even nasty Sindhu condemned the Nar.

“I’ll put an end to that. You want to take a message to Mogaba?”

I looked over my shoulder. He could not be asking the guy behind me. There was
nobody there. “You shitting me? Not unless it’s an order. And maybe not then.

Mogaba wants my head. Not to mention my heart and liver for breakfast. Crazy as
he is right now he might go after me with you standing right behind me.”

“I’ll get somebody else.”

“Good idea.”

“I’ll go,” Swan volunteered. Then him and Mather got into an argument about
that. Evidently Swan had something to prove to himself and Cordy did not believe
he needed to bother.

My status in camp changed sharply. Suddenly I never was a prisoner, never had
been unfree to do whatever served the common good.

Only problem was, my tent was cold. All I had left of Sahra and the Nyueng Bao
was the jade amulet Sahra had taken from Hong Tray before we had carried the
children out of the killing place.

“You done yet?” Croaker demanded, finding me seated in front of my tent, working
on the standard.

I showed him what I was doing. “Good enough?”

“Perfect. You ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever get.” I touched the jade amulet.

“She pretty special?”

“Very special.”

“I want to hear all about her people.”

“Someday.”

We walked through the hills and down to the shore. A sizable boat was out on the
lake already. Blade’s soldiers had transported it overland after having failed
to work it along the canal from the nearest river to the lake. Croaker and I
took up position on a prominent hummock. I displayed the standard. They would be
able to see that from the city even if they did not recognize me and the Old
Man.

Mogaba wanted to know where the standard was? He could see for himself, now.

While the boat crossed over and returned Croaker and I speculated as to what
made both Mogaba and Lady want to be in charge so badly.

“Looks like Swan is getting results. Can you see what’s going on?”

“Looks like somebody black getting into the boat.”

That somebody turned out to be Sindawe. I told the Old Man, “This guy was always
as right with us as having Mogaba for a boss would allow. Ochiba and Isi and
some of the others weren’t too bad, either. But they wouldn’t disobey orders.”

Sindawe stepped ashore. Croaker saluted him. He responded uncertainly, looked to
me for a clue. I shrugged. He was on his own. I had no idea where this was
headed.

Sindawe made sure he was face to face with the real Captain. Once he was
satisfied, he suggested, “Let us step out of sight and talk.”

The Old Man made a small gesture that told me I should let them talk in complete
privacy. They walked around behind the hummock and sat on a rock. They talked
for a long time, voices never rising. Sindawe finally rose and walked back to
the boat like a man borne down by an incredibly heavy burden.

“What’s the story?” I asked Croaker. “He looks like he suddenly added twenty
years on top of the wear and tear of the siege.”

“Years of the heart, Murgen. Feeling morally compelled to betray somebody who
has been your best friend since childhood will do that to you.”

“What?”

He would say nothing more. “We’re going over there. I’m going to meet Mogaba
nose to nose.”

I thought of a pile of arguments against. I did not bother. He would not listen.

“Not me.” I shuddered. My spine was shivering to that chill they say happens
when somebody walks over your grave.

Croaker looked at me hard. I drove the butt of the standard into the earth,

vigorously, meaning, “Here I stand.” He grunted, turned and went down to the
boat. The creature Sindhu snaked out of nowhere and joined the party. I wondered
how much of Sindawe’s and Croaker’s conversation he had overheard. Not a word,

probably. The Old Man would have used the Jewel Cities dialect.

Once the boat was well out onto the water I sat down beside the standard, clung
to the pole and tried to figure out what made it impossible for me to go back
over there.

I had suffered no big seizures for a while. I was not on guard anymore. This one
began insidiously, like just losing focus and drifting into a lazy daydream. I
stared at Dejagore but no longer really saw it, thought of the women who had
entered my life and the ancient one who had left it. Already I missed Sahra and
so-serious To Tan.

A white crow landed on the crossbar of the standard, cawed down at me. I paid no
attention.

I stood at the edge of a shimmering wheatfield. A twisted, broken black stump
rose thirty yards from me, in the field’s center. Bickering crows surrounded it.

The fairy towers of Overlook gleamed in the distance, days’ walk away. I
recognized them for what they were without understanding how I could know.

Suddenly the crows rose up and wheeled around, flew that direction in an
uncrowlike flock. One white crow stayed behind, circling.

The stump shimmered darkly. A glamor faded away.

A woman stood there. She looked very much like Lady but was even more beautiful.

She seemed to look right through me. Or at and into me. She smiled wickedly,

playfully, seductively, perhaps insanely. In a moment the albino bird settled
onto her shoulder.

“You are impossible.”

Her smile shattered into shards of laughter.

Unless I was completely, inescapably mad there was only one person this could
be. And she died long before I ever joined the Company.

Soulcatcher.

Croaker was there when she went down.

Soulcatcher.

That would explain a lot. That would illuminate a hundred mysteries. But how
could that be?

A huge black beast that looked something like an ebony tiger padded past me,

from behind, went and settled on its haunches near the woman. There was nothing
servile in its manner.

I was frightened. If Soulcatcher was alive and in this end of the world and
inclined to meddle she could become the greatest terror around. She was more
powerful than Longshadow, Howler or Lady. But, unless she had changed since the
old days, she preferred to use her talents in small ways, for spite or her own
amusement.

She winked at me. Then she spun around and just seemed to disappear, leaving
more laughter rippling in the air behind her. Her laughter became the mirth of
the white crow.

The forvalaka became bored with the show, went off into the distance. And I
faded.

A crow cawed overhead. A hand shook my shoulder, not gently. “Are you all right,

sir? Is there a problem?”

“What?” I was seated on a stone step, clinging to the edge of a massive wooden
door. An albino crow paced back and forth on the door’s top edge. The man who
held my shoulder tried to shoo the bird with his free hand and some pithy
curses. He was huge and hairy.

It was the middle of the night. What light there was came from a lantern the man
had set upon the cobblestones. It set eyes glowing across the street, at a low
level. For an instant I thought I saw something huge and catlike slipping past.

The man was one of the Shadar patrolmen the Liberator had employed to roam the
streets after dark, maintaining order and keeping a watch for outsiders of
dubious provenance.

Laughter came from the darkness across the way. The patrolman was not doing a
good job. I was supposed to be one of the good guys here. She was one of the
dubious strangers.

I was in Taglios!

I smelled smoke. The lantern?