Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South (32 page)

That would mean trained men left over, so move them over to Sindawe. Give him
one in four, too. Should bring him up to strength. Anybody else we arm we can
use as auxiliaries, and garrisons for some of these smaller cities.”

The countryside was not heavily populated between the river and here, but nearer
Dejagore that would change. “The rest can tag along. We’ll use them somehow.”

But how would I feed them? We’d used up our own supplies and had started on
those captured at Ghoja.

Dejagore looked less promising now. Some of the rescued prisoners hailed from
that city. They said the walls were forty feet high. The resident Shadowmaster
was a demon for keeping them up.

“What will be will be,” I thought.

The bloom was off the rose. We’d all had time to think. Still, morale was better
than it had been moving toward Ghoja.

There were skirmishes the next few days but nothing serious. Mostly Otto and
Hagop’s boys overhauling enemy troops not hurrying fast enough to get away. The
cavalry had begun to behave professionally at last.

I allowed foraging under strict rules, looting only where people had fled. It
worked, mostly. Trouble came only where I expected it, from One-Eye, whose motto
is that anything not nailed down is his and anything he can pry loose isn’t
nailed down.

We knocked over some towns and small cities with no trouble. The last few I left
to the freed prisoners, cynically letting them vent their wrath while saving my
better troops.

The nearer Dejagore we got—official name Stormgard, according to the
Shadowmasters—the more tamed the country became. We made the last day’s march
through rolling hills that had been terraced and strewn with irrigation canals.

So it was startling to come out of the hills and see the city itself.

Stormgard was surrounded by a plain as flat as a tabletop extending a mile in
all directions, with the exception of several small mounds maybe ten feet tall.

The plain looked like a manicured lawn. “I don’t like the looks of that,” I told
Mogaba. “Too contrived. Lady. Remind you of anything?”

She gave me a blank look.

“The approach to the Tower.”

“I see that. But here there’s room for maneuver.”

“We got some daylight left. Let’s get down there and get set up.”

Mogaba asked, “How will you fortify the camp?” We had seen little timber lately.

“Turn the wagons on their sides.”

Nothing moved on the plain. Only haze over the city indicated life there. “I
want a closer look at that. Lady, when we get down there dig out the costumes.”

My horde flooded onto the plain. Still no sign anyone in Stormgard was
interested. I sent for Murgen and the standard. The way people thought about the
Company here in the south, maybe Stormgard would surrender without a fight.

Lady looked terrible in her Lifetaker rig. I supposed I looked as grim. They
were effective outfits. They would have scared me had I seen them coming at me.

Mogaba, Ochiba, and Sindawe invited themselves along. They had dolled up in
stuff they’d worn in Gea-Xle. They looked pretty fierce themselves. Mogaba told
me, “I want to see those walls, too.”

“Sure.”

Then here came Goblin and One-Eye. In an instant I saw that Goblin had had the
idea and One-Eye had decided to go lest Goblin somehow get ahead on points. “No
clowning, you guys. Understand?”

Goblin grinned his big frog grin. “Sure, Croaker. Sure. You know me.”

“That’s the trouble. I know you both.”

Goblin faked bruised feelings.

“You guys make these costumes look good. Hear?”

“You’ll strike terror to the roots of their souls,” One-Eye promised. “They’ll
flee from the walls screaming.”

“Sure they will. Everybody ready?”

They were. “Around it from the right,” I told Murgen. “At the canter. As close
as you dare.”

He rode out. Lady and I followed twenty yards behind. As I got started two
monster crows plopped down on my shoulders. A flock came out of the hills and
raced ahead, circling the city.

We got close enough to see the scramble on the walls. And impressive walls they
were, at least forty feet high. What nobody had bothered to mention was that the
city was built upon a mound that raised it another forty feet above the plain.

This was going to be a bitch.

A few arrows wobbled out and fell short.

Finesse. Cunning. Trickery. Only a dip would go up against those walls, Croaker.

I had had liberated prisoners work up maps. I had a good idea of the city’s
layout.

Four gates. Four paved roads approached from the points of the compass rose,

like spokes of a wheel. Nasty barbicans and towers protected the gates. More
towers along the wall for laying enfilading fire along its face. Not pleasant.

It was very quiet up on those walls. They had one eye on us and one on the horde
still pouring out of the hills, wondering where the hell we all came from.

We got us a little surprise south of Stormgard.

There was a military camp there. A big one set maybe four hundred yards from the
city wall. “Oh, shit,” I said, and yelled at Murgen.

He misunderstood. On purpose, probably, though I’ll never prove it. He kicked
his mount into a gallop and headed for the gap between.

Arrows rose from the wall and camp. Miraculously, they fell without doing any
harm. I glanced back as we entered the throat of the gap.

That little shit Goblin was standing on his saddle. He was bent over with his
pants down, telling the world what he thought of the Shadowmasters and their
boys.

Naturally, those folks took exception. As they say in the chansons, the sky
darkened with arrows.

I was certain fate would take its cut now. But we had moved far and fast enough.

The arrowstorm fell behind us. Goblin howled mockingly.

That irritated somebody bigger.

A bolt of lightning from nowhere struck ahead, ripping a steaming hole in the
turf. Murgen leapt it. So did I, with my stomach creeping toward my throat. I
was sure the next shot would fry somebody in his boots.

Goblin went right on mooning Stormgard. Horsemen began pouring out of the camp.

They were no problem. We could outrun them. I tried to concentrate on the wall.

Just in case I got out of this alive.

A second bolt seared the backs of my eyeballs. But it too went astray—though I
think it shifted course just before it hit.

When my sight cleared I spied a giant wolf racing in from our right, covering
ground in strides that beggared those of our black stallions. My old pal
Shifter. Right on time.

Another two bolts missed. The gardner was going to be pissed about all the
divots knocked out of his lawn. We completed our circuit and headed for camp.

Our pursuers gave up.

As we dismounted Mogaba said, “We’ve drawn fire. Now we know what we’re up
against.”

“One of the Shadowmasters is in there.”

“There may be another in that camp,” Lady said. “I felt something . . . ”

“Where’d Shifter get to?” He had disappeared again. Everybody shrugged. “I hoped
he’d sit in on a brain-storming session. Goblin, that was a dumb stunt.”

“It sure was. Made me feel forty years younger.”

“Wish I’d thought of it,” One-Eye grumbled.

“Well, they know we’re here and they know we’re bad, but I don’t see them making
a run for it. Guess we’ll have to figure out how to kick their butts.”

Mogaba said, “Evidently they mean to fight outside the walls. Otherwise that
encampment would not be there.”

“Yeah.” Things skipped through my mind. Stunts, tricks, strategies. As though
I’d been born to come up with them by the hundred. “We’ll leave them alone
tonight. We’ll form up and offer battle in the morning but let them come to us.

Where are those city maps? I got a notion.”

We talked for hours while the chaos of a camp still settling raged around us.

After dark I sent men out to rig a few tricks and plant stakes on which the
legions could form and guide their advance. I said, “We shouldn’t bother
ourselves too much. I don’t think they’ll fight us unless we get in close to the
walls. Get some sleep. We’ll see what happens in the morning.”

Many pairs of eyes looked at me all at once, then, in cadence, shifted to Lady.

A swarm of smiles came and went. Then everyone went away behind their smiles,

leaving us alone.

Big Bucket and those guys don’t fool around. They had gone into the hills and
diverted one of the irrigation canals to bring water to the camp. I figured it
in my head. To give every man in the mob one cup we needed about 2 gallons. With
the animals run it to 3. But man and beast need more than a cup to get by. I
don’t know what the flow was on the canal but not a lot of water was getting
wasted.

Not much manpower was going to waste, either. The boys from Opal had dug some
holding ponds. One they set aside for bathing. Being the boss wazoo I crowded
the line.

Still soggy, I made sure Mogaba had done all the things I didn’t really have to
check. Sentries out. Barricade manned. Night orders posted. One-Eye working
Frogface on scouting missions instead of loafing. What have you.

I was stalling.

This was The Night.

I ran out of busybodying so finally went to my tent. I got out my map of
Stormgard, studied it again, then got to work transcribing these Annals. They
have grown more spare than I like but that has been the price of keeping up.

Maybe Murgen will get me to let go . . . I did three pages and some lines and
began to relax, thinking she would not come after all, but then she came in.

She had bathed, too. Her hair was damp. A ghost of lavender or lilac or
something hung around her. She was a little pale and a little shaky and not
quite able to meet my eye, at a loss what to do or say now that she was here.

She buttoned the tent flap.

I closed this book. It went into a brass-bound chest. I closed my ink and
cleaned my pen. I could think of nothing to say, either.

The whole shy routine was dumb. We had been playing around like this, and
getting older, for over a year. Hell. We were grown-up people. I was old enough
to be a grandfather. Might even be one, for all I knew. And she was old enough
to be everybody’s grandmother.

Somebody had to take the bull by the horns. We couldn’t go on forever both of us
waiting for the other one to make a move.

So why didn’t she do something?

You the guy, Croaker.

Yeah.

I killed the candles, went and took her hand. It was not that dark in there.

Plenty of firelight leaked through the fabric of the tent.

She shivered like a captive mouse at first, but it did not take her long to
reach a point of no turning back. And for goddamned once nothing happened to
interrupt.

The old general amazed himself. The woman amazed him even more.

Sometime in the wee hours the exhausted boss general promised, “Tomorrow night
again. Within the walls of Stormgard. Maybe in Stormshadow’s own bed.”

She wanted to know the basis for his confidence. As time labored on she just got
more awake and lively. But the old man fell asleep on her.

Even I grumbled about the time of day I got everybody up. We all ate hurriedly,

my valiant commanders in a clique so they could pester me about my plans. A crow
perched on the tent pole at the front of my tent, one eye cocked my way, or
maybe Lady’s. The bastard was leering, I thought. Really! Weren’t we getting
enough of that from the others?

I felt great. Lady, though, seemed to be having trouble moving with her usual
fluid grace. And everybody knew what that meant, the smirking freaks.

“I don’t understand you, Captain,” Mogaba protested. “Why won’t you lay it all
out?”

“What only I know inside my head only I can betray. Just assemble up on the
stakes I had put out and offer battle. If they accept, we’ll see how it goes. If
they don’t kick our butts, we’ll worry about the next step.”

Mogaba’s lips tightened into a prune. He did not like me much right then.

Thought I didn’t trust him. He glanced over to where Cletus and his bunch were
trying to assemble shovels and baskets and bags in numbers enough for an army.

They had a thousand men out scouring the hill farms for tools and more baskets
and buckets and had men sewing bags cut from the canvas coverings from the
wagons.

They knew only that I had told them to get ready for some major, massive
earthmoving.

Another thousand men were out trying to forage timber. You need a lot of timber
to invest a city.

“Patience, my friend. Patience. All will be clear in due time.” I chuckled.

One-Eye muttered, “He learned his trade from our old Captain. Don’t tell nobody
nothing till you find some gink trying to shove a spear up your butt.”

They could not get to me this morning. He and Goblin could have had them a fuss
as bad as back in Taglios and I’d have just grinned. I used a wad of bread to
finish soaking up the grease on my plate. “All right, let’s get dressed and go
kick some ass.”

Two things to be observed about being the only guy in forty thousand to get some
the night before. Thirty-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine guys are so
envious they hate your guts. But you’re in such a positive mood it becomes
infectious.

And you can always tell them their share is behind those walls over there.

Scouts reported while I was getting into my Widowmaker rig. They said the enemy
was coming out of the camp and the city both. And there were a lot of the
bastards. At least ten thousand in the camp, and maybe every man from the city
who could be armed.

That bunch would not be thrilled to be headed into a fight. And they weren’t
likely to be experienced.