She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company (32 page)

There are disadvantages to traveling wet. You get a lot of chafing, for example.

By the time I caught up with Blade I had blisters on my feet and a raw spot
inside my right thigh that burned awfully. And I still had to go back the other
way.

Thai Dei was no happier than I was. None of the guys tagging along were
cheerful. They had to take turns carrying One-Eye. The runt’s most ambitious
effort yet had been to roll onto his side to puke over the edge of his litter.

I had had a notion about sneaking on up to peek into Soulcatcher’s ravine. It
was a notion that died stillborn about the time we left the road for the forest.

A few hundred yards of slip sliding around in the mud and pine needles and, in
the shady places, snow, on steepening hillsides, quickly convinced me that this
was no day to demonstrate individual initiative.

One thing I could be sure of. Soulcatcher would be around later.

I flopped down beside Blade. “Have a good trip down?” I asked Mather. “Sorry we
couldn’t reserve better weather for you.”

Blade chuckled. So did Willow Swan, who observed, “This is about as good as it
gets, Cordy. We did save the best for you.”

“I knew you were my pals.”

I asked, “Where’s our boy Howler?” None of this country looked the same as it
had during the night, from the air.

Swan pointed uphill, southward, toward where some tall evergreens held on to a
thick clot of shadow. “Buried in some snow up there.”

The guys with me dropped One-Eye’s litter. The little wizard moaned but did not
yet have enough ambition to curse or threaten anyone.

I asked, “What did you guys do to convince Lady she could let you run around
loose?”

Blade chuckled. “She convinced him. By pointing out that anybody who doesn’t
stay close and friendly won’t have any protection from the shadows.”

I grunted. “It’s a realization that’s going around as people begin to examine
their consciences.” It was the kind of question that has led many men to select
options for which they may be excoriated later, by people with full bellies
sitting in front of cozy fires. “Anybody got any grease? Even anything that will
pass for grease?”

My old pal Thai Dei was lugging a glob of lard. In case we had to do some
cooking. Nyueng Bao never ceased to amaze. Though their religion had to be an
offshoot of the Gunni, somehow they did eat meat and, unlike the Vehdna, that
did include pork. The swamp did not allow them to become too picky. Thai Dei
must have lugged that lard for years, using it over and over . . . No matter.

Lard was exactly what I needed.

I dropped my trousers, treated the insides of my thighs to a generous spread.

“This’ll keep me going for a while.”

One-Eye began thrashing on his litter, fighting his blanket and complaining
about being wet. His problem was trivial. It was not raining anymore.

He threw up over the side again, hacking and gagging, then settled down to
sleep.

“That looks pretty raw already,” Swan told me.

“Kiss it better,” Mather suggested.

“Some reunion. Our old pal Cordy got above himself since he’s been hobnobbing
with the Woman—”

I said, “Let’s go do our wizard mining.”

Blade said, “I really don’t want to do this.”

“No shit. Me neither. Tell you what. Why don’t we let Swan and Mather get him?

We’ll stay right here so somebody can get word back to camp in case anything
goes wrong.”

Mather said, “This guy is definitely starting to sound like an officer. You get
a couple field promotions during the campaign?”

“I’m a god.” I let Thai Dei help me up. He had not sprawled on the ground. His
muscles were still loose. He started heading the direction Swan had indicated
earlier.

Blade asked, “What about your pet?” He chucked a pinecone at One-Eye. One-Eye
barely twitched.

“He’s got liabilities enough.” Let sleeping sorcerers lie.

One-Eye sat up. He slurred, “I heard that, Kid.” Then he collapsed again.

I said, “I think I’ll leave him here and take the other one back on the
stretcher.” An idea which proved popular immediately. Not even One-Eye came out
against it. He was busy snoring again.

There was no evidence that Howler had moved an inch since his fall. There was
just the hole where he had gone into the snow and at its bottom, about eight
feet deep, a bundle of dark rags. A light dust of loose snow had blown in on top
of him.

“Hey! Lookit here!” a soldier called from maybe thirty feet away, up the slope
past Howler.

“What you got?” I asked. I was not walking ten feet if I did not have to.

“Looks like a dead wolf.”

I worked my way up there. “Sumbitch, guys! He found a dead wolf.” I knelt.

“Looks like it got caught by a shadow.” Evidence on the slope suggested that it
had been sneaking toward Howler when bad luck got in its way. Then it had tried
to run. It had not been alone, of course, but the tracks indicated a very small
pack.

“I didn’t know they had wolves down here,” somebody said.

“Now you do.” The death of the wolf did not seem critical.

Except to tell us that a shadow had been around here last night and might still
be hiding somewhere nearby. “Be careful if you’re anywhere that’s dark.”

I went back down to check Howler. He had not moved. Of course.

“He alive?” Swan asked.

Blade suggested, “Get a long stick and poke him.”

I said, “Let’s dig him out.”

“That smart?”

“He won’t do anything till we get him out of the hole.” I would not have in his
position. Always let some other fool do the work if he insists.

The snow was old snow. Its surface had melted and refrozen numerous times. It
was hard and heavy. Luckily, Howler was not really eight feet under. He had
passed through eight feet of snow but that snow lay on a steep hillside and was
only about four feet thick going in at the most direct angle.

I had a notion. “Don’t scatter that stuff too far. We might want to use some.”

“There ain’t exactly a shortage,” Swan grumbled.

Thai Dei, I noted, never offered to help. He stood back with his hand on his
sword, alert, one eye cocked toward One-Eye. Perhaps his impulses were evil.

His vigilance proved unnecessary. As the more daring men brushed snow off Howler
one of them announced, “He’s froze solid.”

A huge sigh of relief ripped through the crowd.

“Excellent!” I observed. “Here’s what we’ll do, then.”

An hour later we had the little wizard tied to a carrying pole, packed inside a
layer of snow six inches thick. “Just to keep him from spoiling on the way,” I
told the guys, some of whom had had to give up ragged bits of clothing to help
keep the snow around Howler. They all whined and groaned and groused and wanted
to know why we could not just pack him in with the other one.

They were going to break One-Eye’s heart. They did not love him anymore.

“Use this salve,” Croaker told me. “And try to keep it as clean and dry as you
can.”

“I was walking bowlegged before we got back.” I scowled at One-Eye, who was
seated on the floor near Croaker’s fire, not saying a word. He looked like he
wished we would let him fall asleep for a year, so the pain would go away. He
was still in such bad shape that he did not have energy enough to complain.

Mother Gota was more resilient. Her youth, I suppose. She and Uncle Doj had been
working on the family dugout when Thai Dei and I returned from our adventure.

Nobody, including Uncle Doj, had anything to say. I ignored his long absence. I
had no time for Nyueng Bao mystery games. I left them stirring the mud in an
effort to get a shelter up before night fell again.

Lady had Howler on the door table, examining him. She concluded, “He should
recover.”

I asked, “You get issued nine lives when you get Taken? That little shit is
starting to look stubborner than the Limper was.” We killed that asshole half a
dozen times. We thought. And he just kept coming back.

Lady said, “No. But anybody who has the drive to become a wizard of his level is
the sort who wastes no opportunity to further prepare for any imaginable
possibility.”

I asked the Old Man, “What’s it look like out there?” There had been dramatic
changes in the few hours I was away. Besides the passage of the rain. Most of
the survivors had been collected either in the vicinity of the headquarters
group or directly below the Shadowgate. A lot of manhours had gone into locating
every surviving piece of workable bamboo. Lady’s reloading factory was hard at
work, too, but the effort there was little more than symbolic of the
leadership’s commitment to continue the struggle.

“Looks better than I thought it would. Lady got Longshadow stabilized. That
should mean we’re back to the slow leakage we had before he got hurt. If he
mends all right we’ll have him shut it down in a couple of days.”

“We going to be able to control him?”

“Oh yeah. You’ve seen statues of dead generals that had more freedom of action
than she’s left him.”

Lady looked up from her work. She wore the tiniest of smiles but it betrayed the
confident amusement of an old, old evil. She is the darkness. Smoke was for sure
right about that.

I said, “Wouldn’t we be better off if we moved into Overlook?”

“Maybe. And we might do that. Once we get straightened out and know where
everybody is. And figure out where, for right now, their loyalties lie.”

“Speaking of which. Uncle Doj is back. He’s out there helping my mother-in-law
and acting like he was never gone.”

“I heard.”

“I’m wondering how he managed to survive. Especially last night.”

Lady looked at me like I had sparked a surprise thought. She said, “Watch
Howler. Call me if he moves. I’ll be right outside.” She hurried out the
doorway.

I looked at Croaker. He shrugged. “I don’t ask anymore.”

“She looks pretty ragged.”

“Don’t we all? But maybe we’ll get to rest up now. If we get the Shadowgate
under control there won’t be anybody to aggravate us for a long time. If ever.”

Mogaba was out there. But he had no patron anymore. That meant that nobody could
cover his ass magically. He would have to back off. And the Prahbrindrah Drah
might not live long enough to become a problem. He had to evade both shadows and
Goblin to reach friendly territory. And even so-called-friendly territory would
not be very friendly if he could not pull together a band big enough to look out
for itself. Peasants are notoriously cruel to fleeing soldiers when they catch
them at a disadvantage. Possibly that is because soldiers are so cruel to
peasants when the advantage lies in their hands, though many from the
hyperrefined warrior classes have insisted it springs from the beastly nature of
the peasantry.

“Can you get over to the Shadowgate?”

“Me? Now?”

“You. Now. Before dark. Carrying the standard. To test my theory about what it
is. And to help cover the troops there if I’m right.”

“I can try. But I’m in pretty lousy shape.”

“You could ride.”

That was asking for another set of galled spots entirely but he was right.

With a slightly nasty smile he observed, “You could have your understudy do it
for you if you had one.”

So he knew Sleepy was missing. I needed to check on the kid first chance I got.

Lady pushed back inside. She was not a big woman but she had a big presence. I
was always surprised when I saw her after a separation because I always
remembered her about a foot taller. She told me, “Your friend Doj isn’t just a
priest from some obscure cult. He’s a sorcerer. Very minor. Less than One-Eye in
ability. But he’s carrying something—an amulet, an artifact, what exactly I
couldn’t determine—that protects him from shadows.”

Croaker looked at me like I ought to have known all about that years ago. “I
don’t know, boss. This’s the first I’ve heard about it.” Though I had always
suspected that Uncle Doj might be able to do something besides crochet with a
sword. In fact, his skills with a blade always did seem almost magically
augmented. How could a guy pull off something like that attack on the Deceivers
at Charandaprash without getting swamped by sheer weight of numbers?

I do not know why but I told Lady, “My wife isn’t dead. The Deceivers never
touched her when they raided our apartment. Thai Dei and Doj and some cousins
took her away, then told me she was dead. They also convinced her that I was
dead while they were taking her back to the swamp. They’ve got her stashed in a
temple there now, where she won’t embarrass them by being pregnant. Doj and Gota
don’t want us two together. They only ever put up with it at all because Gota’s
parents insisted.” Sarie, her family and the Nyueng Bao were not something I had
discussed with Lady before. I never talked with her much about anything except
stuff that needed to go into the Annals or the stuff that she had written there
that needed clarification.

She checked Howler again while she listened to my chatter. She suggested, “Tell
me all about this. I’ve always had a feeling that there was something going on.”

Yeah? Right. Her and everybody else smart enough not to eat dirt.

Croaker went to the doorway and stuck his head out. He popped back inside. “Hey.

Why didn’t you say it’d stopped raining? Maybe I can get these assholes to move
a little faster now.” Out he went. I felt for him. He looked even more worn out
than I felt.

I said, “I did tell him.”

“He doesn’t always listen. Talk to me about the Nyueng Bao.”

I talked. Lady listened. She asked sharp questions. I returned the favor at
times, when we touched on anything I thought I wanted to know.

She said, “I want to know about your dreams, too.”

“They’re different than yours. I think.”

“I know. How they’re different might mean a lot.”

We talked a long time. But not long enough for me to get out of trekking over to
the Shadowgate with the goddamn standard.