She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company (9 page)

I felt it begin before any growl of drum or snarl of trumpet. I ran for the
wagon, leaping rocks and fires in the mist.

I had Smoke take me up where Mogaba watched from his high tower, sensed
uncertainty immediately. He knew Croaker. He knew that half what the Old Man did
would be done to mess with his mind. But which half?

The knowing itself would cause a hesitation at every point of decision.

I loathed Mogaba the traitor but admired Mogaba the man. He was tall, handsome,

intelligent. Just like me. But he was the perfect warrior, too.

He had no company but couriers and the two big wazoos. And they were doing a
great imitation of two guys sleeping. Their strategy was to wait for Lady to
make a move so one could grab her while the other one blindsided her.

Mogaba’s platform provided a less than perfect view though probably the best
attainable. A portion of his left flank was masked by a jumble of boulders while
to his right a steep knee of stone concealed his flank there along with a
portion of the Taglian left wing.

I took Smoke up amongst the crows for a vulture’s eye view. The smoke was
thinning out. People were stumbling uphill, unable to make an orderly advance
over the rocky ground.

Now I understood why the troops had been issued calthrops.

Calthrops are like large kids’ jacks, only the tips are sharp and sometimes
poisoned. The calthrop is a handy tool if you have to run for it, particularly
if the guys after you are going to be on horseback. You scatter calthrops where
horses have to follow narrow paths and you have yourself a guaranteed head start
or even grounds for a nasty ambush.

Aha! I spied the missing complimentary in-law.

Uncle Doj was dressed up in his best outfit, his holy fencing duds, like he
maybe did not want us going to a whole lot of trouble when we laid him out.

Hell. I would have to check with Thai Dei on Nyueng Bao funeral customs. A lot
of Nyueng Bao had died around me but I never took part in what went on later.

I still resented being left out when they took care of To Tan and Sahra without
me.

Uncle Doj strutted uphill till he was just fifty feet from the first line of
Shadowlanders. He stopped and bellowed a challenge to Narayan Singh.

Guess who did not come out to fight? Nobody even answered. Nobody even bothered
to relay the message to the Deceiver camp.

Uncle Doj began issuing a series of formal insults, belittling the Deceivers and
all their allies. Trouble was, they were formal insults from a stylized school
of challenge and response. He did not know how to make his presentation in a
manner accessible to people who did not speak Nyueng Bao.

Poor Uncle. Forty years of intense preparation brought him to the ultimate
moment and all those guys over there saw was a crazy old man.

Doj began to get it.

He began to get angry for real. He started yelling his challenges in Taglian. A
few Shadowlanders understood him. His message soon reached the Deceivers. It was
not well received.

I found the show as amusing as anything could be out there.

None of this was part of the Captain’s plan.

Uncle kept hollering.

Over in the Deceiver camp the miniature messiah of the Stranglers told his
cronies, “We will not respond. We will wait. Darkness is our time. And darkness
always comes.” After a pause he asked, “Who is that man?”

A wide, creepy looking guy told him, “He was in Dejagore. One of the Nyueng Bao
pilgrims.” The man speaking was named Sindhu. He had come into Dejagore during
the siege to spy for Lady and for the Deceivers. He was a real villain. I had
been sure he was dead.

The Sahras die but the Sindhus and Narayan Singhs go on. Which is why I cannot
be a religious man. Unless the Gunni are right and there is a wheel of life and
eventually everybody gets what they deserve.

Sindhu continued, “He was a priest of some kind and their Speaker. A member of
his family eventually wed the standardbearer of the Black Company.”

“It becomes clear. The Goddess is scribbling one of her subtle death plays.” He
glanced at the Daughter of Night. The kid sat so still it was spooky. Spookier
than usual. No four-year-old could do that.

Narayan Singh seemed vaguely troubled. His goddess enjoyed the occasional death
joke at the expense of her most devout followers. He did not want to become one
of her pranks.

“Darkness is our time,” he said again. “Darkness always comes.”

Darkness always comes. Sounded like Kina’s motto. I took another look at Lady
and Croaker’s brat. She bothered me bad. She was spookier every time I looked.

If it had not been so hard to care out there I could have cried for Lady and the
Old Man.

Actually, I almost could. Maybe I was becoming capable of feeling while I
worked.

I drifted away, found that Mogaba was taking stronger exception to Uncle’s
antics than was Singh. But he remembered Uncle Doj from the bad old days. “I
want that man silenced,” he said. “The soldiers are watching him instead of
their enemies.”

When he drew no response from the Deceivers, Uncle Doj began insulting the
Shadowlanders and their masters. A javelin streaked his way. In a motion too
swift to follow he drew Ash Wand and brushed the missile aside. “Cowards!” he
called. “Renegades! Are any of you Nar men enough to come out?” He exposed his
back contemptuously, headed for friendly lines before a missile storm could
devour him. A masterful move, it did not look like a withdrawal at all.

All hell broke loose. Horns shrieked. Drums grumbled. A stumbling, shambling,

inept, mean-spirited and poorly armed rabble headed uphill wailing, sixty
thousand hungry and hard up camp followers attacking the servants of shadow. Our
soldiers drove them at swordspoint.

I was stunned. I was awed. The Captain had his hard moments but I never figured
him for hard enough to let camp followers accumulate and tag along so he could
use them as a human avalanche. But on reflection, yes, for weeks he had been
warning the soldiers not to let anyone they cared for join the march. Those who
discussed it at all thought it meant that the Old Man did not expect to be
successful.

Those people were going to get slaughtered. But they would hurt some
Shadowlanders and grind the rest down, which would work to our advantage.

The soldiers were merciless. They whipped the camp followers into a terrified
frenzy. When they hit Mogaba’s center and right they actually penetrated the
Shadowlander front rank.

Blade’s division remained untouched.

While everyone was concentrating on our attack, Croaker’s special forces left
Lady’s shadow and hastened into the wastes flanking the pass. Mogaba had
sentries concealed in amongst those rocks, of course. Fighting broke out
immediately.

Our elephants moved forward behind the troops pushing the camp followers. The
Shadowlanders were too busy to bother them. The elephants used huge mallets to
drive big iron spikes into the earth.

Came a shrill of brassy Shadowlander trumpets. For no reason I could discern
Blade’s division suddenly moved out, left oblique, downhill, at an angle that
would take it around our right flank. I marvelled at how well his men maintained
formation crossing that rough ground.

Now I got to witness one of Longshadow’s epic rages. “You have gone too far this
time!” he thundered at Mogaba, once he controlled himself enough to manage a
coherent sentence. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, making moves like
that without consulting me? At least explain your thinking!” While he yelled he
stamped around the rough platform, shaking, clawing at his mask till I thought
he might show the world the face he kept hidden except when he was alone.

“I have no idea what he’s doing.” Mogaba ignored the Shadowmaster’s rage. He
leaned on the platform rail, stared at Blade’s division and looked as confused
as ever I had seen. “Be quiet.”

Howler punctuated the racket with a series of shrieks.

Longshadow became incoherent again.

Taglian trumpets blared. Shadar cavalrymen galloped out of the gap between the
Old Man’s two divisions and rushed into that between Blade’s division and the
rest of the Shadowlander army. Their movement was a lot less impressive than
Blade’s. They did not even pretend to maintain formation once they were moving.

Blade ignored them. He continued his march.

Mogaba became as excited as ever I have seen him. He did not have a clue what
Blade was up to.

Longshadow and Howler nearly came to blows.

What the hell was going on?

Sudden drums announced the advance of Croaker’s lead division. It headed
straight into the space vacated by Blade’s force. The cavalry drifted onward,

screening the division’s outside flank. Then the reserve division faced right
and began to follow Blade. And I gawked.

Events were unfolding as though carefully choreographed yet nobody knew what was
going on. Confusion was universal. In some more remote areas, like Lady’s
command post, people had no idea at all.

The Captain might have had some idea but he seemed to be running in three
directions at once, trying to obtain control, keep control, keep in touch. He
was unable to keep a grasp on the bigger picture.

I could give him no help. By the time I could return to flesh, get myself
moving, find him at the front a mile from One-Eye’s wagon, the whole situation
would have changed radically.

On our left and in our center our soldiers continued to drive the camp followers
ahead of them. That was turning into a horror show of proportions sure to be
recalled for generations.

Croaker’s lead division engaged the Shadowlanders directly, attempting to secure
the position Blade had abandoned. Mogaba’s reserves rushed in. They fought very
well. They pushed Croaker back. Barely. I got the feeling the Old Man was not
ready to make a total effort to gain the position.

One company of Shadar, towering over their enemies, did get within bowshot of
the Strangler camp. For several minutes a handful of archers laid down a
desultory barrage that did no apparent damage.

At the same time Howler managed to get through to Longshadow. “We do not have
the luxury of spending time squabbling among ourselves! The woman could strike
any moment. If you’re not paying attention . . . ”

Several strong sallies in the same vein led the Shadowmaster to understand that
indulging in a fit left him vulnerable to sorcerous attack. And his sidekick
could not protect him all the time. He was having a rash of his own screaming
fits.

Still shaking, unable to articulate clearly, Longshadow concentrated his
attention on Lady.

Lady was just standing there, waiting.

Mogaba tried to get Longshadow’s attention. The Shadowmaster remained focused on
Lady. Mogaba persisted. He got Longshadow to turn around only after it looked
like the crisis had passed. The terror applied by our troops no longer was
sufficient to keep the camp followers moving uphill. The Captain’s division had
withdrawn to its jump-off position. Blade’s force had halted two miles west of
the battlefield. It was surrounded by our cavalry and the reserve division. The
Shadowlanders in the unit were as baffled as everyone else. But they were good
soldiers. They carried out their orders.

Mogaba told Longshadow, “We have been deceived, not in any way we anticipated.

With one clever stroke Croaker has decimated us. It is now unlikely that I can
hold this ground if you won’t modify your general orders.”

Longshadow grunted an angry interrogative.

Mogaba told him, “Our best hope now is to attack while the Taglians are
disorganized and scattered, before our own soldiers realize how suddenly
desperate our situation has become.”

Longshadow did not see it that way. “Once again you forget that your mission is
to carry out my wishes, not to question them. Why must you be so negative?” He
stared at Blade’s force, only part of which was visible from where he stood.

Clearly he was troubled by negative thoughts of his own. “You repelled their
attack easily.”

Mogaba restrained his anger with difficulty. I wished someone, anyone, had an
idea of Longshadow’s antecedents. Sometimes the man was as naive as he was
powerful.

Mogaba threw an arm up as though indicating Blade. “We were taken in. An entire
legion has just been lost because you were so eager to enlist another ranking
defector.”

Dumb old me, I did not understand what he was saying. I had not made the
intuitive leap.

Longshadow did not yet understand that there was a leap to be made. He saw only
a triumph in the opening bout of the contest. “How many have we killed? See! The
dead fell in windrows. They lie there in veritable hills. Count them in their
thousands. These crows will feast for an age to come.”

But the man inside was troubled. He continued to stare toward Blade’s force.

Mogaba barked, “Maybe one out of a hundred of those dead was a soldier. Those
were all camp followers, the thieves and whores and hungry mouths that become
parasitic on any army that permits it. They were useless tagalong scum. Croaker
used them to keep us occupied while he stole a quarter of our strength and all
of our hope. His veterans now outnumber ours significantly. And most of them are
fresh.” He indicated the heights to his right, where Croaker’s special forces
continued to gain ground. “They’ll soon take the high ground. They came prepared
to take it.”

“And you aren’t prepared to defend it?”

“I anticipated Croaker’s effort. Only a fool would ignore those heights. But I
didn’t anticipate the firebombs he’s using.”

Those were the finest product of One-Eye’s weapons shops back in Taglios,

transported here at great cost in treasure and labor, which now looked
worthwhile. It was hard to hold your ground in the face of those bombs.

The Captain and his staff were headed for Blade’s division. Something was up. I
streaked that way.

Blade came outside the wall of his soldiers, faced the Captain across a hundred
yards of rocky ground. Our men were posted outside bowshot, relaxed but alert,

awaiting developments. They were only slightly less baffled than the traitor’s
soldiers, who were drawn up as if for review now, not for combat.

Blade and Croaker met midway between. They exchanged a few words. Silly me, I
expected the Old Man to settle the feud he had been prosecuting so vigorously
for so long. Instead, he threw his arms around Blade and started laughing.

It had been a long time for the Captain. His laughter had a definite mad edge.

They started jumping up and down, holding on to one another.

Then Blade spun away. He bellowed at his soldiers, “Stack your weapons and
surrender. Or you’ll be exterminated.”

I was so dense that only now, as Blade’s soldiers began obeying orders, as they
had been taught, did I recognize the swindle.

Blade’s defection had been staged. Croaker’s years-long mad pursuit of him had
been cosmetic except where he had used Blade to rid himself of obnoxious
religious fanatics.

Nothing like having your enemies do your dirty work for you.

More, Blade had worked hard to make the Shadowmaster unpopular with his
subjects. Whole territories had surrendered without even token resistance.

And now Blade had delivered a quarter of the Shadowmaster’s finest troops.

Nowhere in the Annals was there a con to match this con. And this one Croaker
created for himself. He would laugh up his sleeve for a long time, knowing
Mogaba could not have imagined him capable of such an unprecedented move. Mogaba
did not think Croaker capable of taking a deep breath without consulting the
Annals.