Soldiers Live (24 page)

The Taglian Territories:

The Middle Ground
Soulcatcher, in full leather and fuller ire, stalked the perimeter of the
encampment midway between Ghoja and Dejagore. A dozen frightened officers
followed, each silently appealing for mercy to his choice of god or gods. The
Protector in a rage was a disaster no one wanted to experience. Her excesses
made no more sense than do those of a tornado.

“They haven’t moved. For six days now they’ve hardly taken a step. After
hurtling northward like the storm itself, so fast we were killing ourselves
trying to pull something together fast enough to stop them. What’re they doing?

What changed suddenly?” As always when she was under stress Soulcatcher was a
babble of conflicting voices. That added to the uneasiness of the men tagging
after her. None had had any experience with her before her arrival in camp. The
actuality was more unnerving than the stories predicted. She seemed every bit as
cruel and capricious as any god. Several graves beyond the perimeter attested to
the violence of her temper.

These sycophants would never find out but those who died had been chosen only
after extended supernatural espionage. Not one had been a devoted servant of the
Protectorate. Each had said so aloud. Additionally, none had been particularly
competent leaders and that had been clear to their soldiers and compatriots.

They had attained their positions through nepotism or cronyism, not ability.

Soulcatcher was culling her officer corps. She was disappointed that necessity
prevented her from doing more. That corps was terrible. But she would take no
responsibility for that. Of course.

How poor would it have been without the efforts of the Great General? Probably
an awful, corrupt joke without a punchline. Without Mogaba’s dedicated nurturing
there would have been little to assemble here.

How to keep it here? The desertion rate was supportable now but showing signs of
rising. Was that the enemy strategy? Wait until the Taglian armies melted
because of the demands of the approaching harvest? Would they charge north again
then? It sounded like a Black Company sort of thing to do. Indications were,

they had the wealth to maintain a force in the field a long time.

Mogaba’s messages indicated his own suspicions concerning a similar strategy. He
was tailoring his own approach toward getting his enemy to take the long way
around, into a trap.

Soulcatcher did not believe there would be any chance to trap the Black Company.

Their intelligence resources were much too wonderful. While her own continued to
fade. All species of crows were becoming endangered. Mice, bats, rats, owls,

those sorts of creatures had no range. There seemed to be no modern sources of
quality crystal or worthy mercury with which to create a scrying glass or bowl.

The shadows she still controlled were few and feeble and frightened and she
refused to risk them in enemy territory, often because each time she did a few
more would not come back. And for now she was cut off from her only source of
replacements.

She glanced skyward, saw vultures circling to the north, over woods which ran
from right to left for as far as she could see. The growth followed a shallow
stream. Her sister had won a small victory over the Shadowmasters there, ages
ago, soon after the Black Company had suffered the disaster that led to the
siege of Dejagore.

“I’m going to walk up there and see what those vultures find so interesting.”

No one gave in to the urge to protest.

Maybe the vultures would dine on her.

“None of you need to come with me.”

Relief was obvious.

The Nether Taglian Territories:

Lady Made Grumpy Noises
Lady was in a towering rage. I could not recall ever having seen her so close to
losing control. “How the hell could they let that happen? Somebody was supposed
to stay in that little shit’s pocket every second!”

No one bothered to respond. She did not want answers. Not really. She wanted
somebody to hurt.

Tobo was quietly busy talking to things that were there only when you looked
away. Big things, little things, human-looking things and things that had
escaped from madmen’s nightmares. Goblin was going to be found. Goblin was going
to be tracked and harassed and hurt if at all possible, all the live-long day.

Insofar as this fragment of the Company was concerned Goblin was going to be the
main mission from this day forward. He was to be hunted down and exorcised—or
exterminated—before he could engineer any more disasters on Kina’s behalf.

Though long out of practice and definitely out of the habit, Lady hurled a
deadly spell at an inoffensive scrub pine. The tree began to wilt almost
immediately.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded. “I thought you couldn’t . . . ”

“Be quiet. Let me think.” So astonished was Lady that she forgot to be angry
about Goblin.

I was quiet. I gave her all the thinking room a girl could want.

Was there a silver lining inside our latest black cloud?

My at-the-moment not very lucky wife called, “Tobo. Next message you send north,

ask if the little shit got away with one of the gate keys. Or anything else
unusual.”

Tobo made little gestures to the air, then replied, “I checked on that already.

He got away with nothing more than two horses and one saddle. Not even a
sausage. He’s probably eating bugs. The only unusual thing mentioned is that
nobody noticed him. An eventuation almost certainly artificial in origin.”

“Because?”

“Because he’s being damned hard to notice right now. The Black Hounds shouldn’t
be having trouble finding and following him. But they are. He’s as elusive as a
ghost. Each time they do make contact it’s because he’s been following the road,

without deviating, and they can just wait for him to show up.”

“Following the road where?”

“North. Toward the junction with the Rock Road. Though because he isn’t talking
his plans are unclear.”

Tobo still had a sense of humor about what was going on.

I asked Lady, “How did you manage to murder that tree?”

She mused, “A good question. Without a good answer. I never felt any sharpened
Kina presence.”

“You think it might have to do with Goblin? We know Kina must’ve put a piece of
herself into him or he wouldn’t even be alive.”

“I would’ve sensed something before. I think. Tobo. Did you feel anything weird
about Goblin?”

“Of course.” The boy was curt. He was trying to work. Old folks kept
interrupting. “He wasn’t Uncle Goblin anymore. But he wasn’t any more powerful
than he was before, either.”

I said, “Maybe it was something that didn’t come out until he got the chance to
kill Narayan.”

Debate on the why increasingly focused on the fact that crippled old Narayan had
been in no shape to run or do anything on behalf of his Goddess and, if left in
our hands, would have been compelled to reveal whatever he knew eventually. And
while most of us would view his murder as a betrayal by his Goddess, what we
knew of Deceiver doctrine suggested that he might actually see it as a reward.

Having been strangled for the Goddess, Narayan would go directly to Deceiver
paradise where, no doubt, his rewards would be commensurate with his service.

I tend toward the cynical view where religion is concerned.

After a silence so extended I decided she was not listening, my beloved
responded, “You might just be smarter than you look. She’d expect us to be
suspicious enough to watch every breath Goblin took. So she’d want him to seem
as normal as possible until he got a solid chance to get away.” She began to
pace. “Poor Goblin. That would’ve been mostly him, maybe even really trying to
help his old friends as much as he could. And he’ll still be partly Goblin, but
a prisoner inside his own body.” The hollowness of her voice indicated that she
might have been through that herself, once upon a time.

“Which tells us nothing of his purpose. Or of Kina’s.”

“She’s in prison. She wants out. That doesn’t take any special figuring.”

“But there’ll be a grand plan. Old Goblin didn’t get his soul eaten up just so
he could be flung across the pond of the world like a skipping stone. He’s going
to go somewhere and he’s going to do something and if he gets away with it all
the rest of us are going to end up really sorry.”

Lady grunted. She was still mostly angry.

I said, “He headed north. What’s up there that would interest Kina?”

Tobo interrupted his sweet talk with his pets. “Booboo.” He sounded as unhappy
as I felt. “He’s going to take Narayan’s place watching over the Daughter of
Night.”

“Yeah. Only there’ll be a big chunk of Goddess in him so he’ll be a lot more
dangerous than Narayan ever was.”

Lady glared around her with an expression that made me think she did not have
much trouble seeing Tobo’s friends. “Do you think my sister can be made to hear
one of those?”

You could have heard a stack of pans drop. Even the animals quieted down.

I asked, “You have something in mind?”

“Yes. We send her a message. Tell her what’s going on with Goblin. It’s as much
in her interest to stop him as it is in ours.”

“And she has a personal interest,” Tobo reminded us.

I understood immediately but Lady needed it explained. “Goblin is the reason
Soulcatcher has a bad leg.”

“Oh. Of course. I remember now.”

She ought. She was there, spying on everything through the eyes of a white crow,

during the kidnapping of the Radisha. That same night Goblin managed to trick
Soulcatcher into springing a booby trap. The result had been serious and
irreversible damage to her right heel.

Tobo said, “She gets around pretty well now. She wears a special boot and brace
and is supported by several specialized spells. She only limps when she’s really
tired.”

“Ah. She’ll definitely want to chat with Goblin, then. She’s always been a sore
loser.”

“Just a thought,” I offered. “What happens if Soulcatcher turns Goblin into her
own version of the Taken? And maybe Booboo, too? Word is, there were times when
she showed a few powers of her own.”

“Make a slave out of a Goddess?” Lady was incredulous. I raised an eyebrow. She
protested, “What I did wasn’t the same thing at all. What I did was pure
parasitism. I wormed in so she couldn’t get me out without hurting herself.”

“And now you’re getting a little of that back?”

“But it doesn’t feel the same. Tobo. Can you send a message to my sister or
not?”

“I can try. In fact, I can do it. Easily. The real question would be whether or
not she’d listen.”

“She’ll listen or I’ll kick her butt.”

It took all of us a moment to realize she was joking. She did so so rarely.

Tobo began concentrating on the task of getting an extended message to
Soulcatcher.

Again I cautioned, “There’s a risk in this.”

Lady just made one of her grumpy noises. She was turning into a cranky old
witch.

The Taglian Territories:

A Haunted Wood
Soulcatcher glanced back before entering the wood. “So where are they all?” And
in a firm male voice she demanded, “What happened to all the suck-ups?”

Another voice, “Somebody should’ve wanted to kiss up.”

A puzzled voice asked, “They always do, don’t they?”

“Are we losing it here?”

“I don’t like it.”

“This isn’t fun anymore.” Petulant, spoiled child voice.

“Most of the time we’re just going through the motions. There aren’t any
challenges here.”

“Even when there are it’s almost impossible to get impassioned enough to care.”

Most of those voices were businesslike but jaded.

“It’s hard to keep going on fuel like hunger for revenge alone.”

“It’s hard to be alone, period.”

That remark brought on an extended silence. Soulcatcher did not have a voice for
expressing the emotional costs of being who she was. Not out loud. Ferocious
mad-killer sorcerers do not whine because nobody likes them.

The growth along the creek had a sharp boundary. In another time the land must
have been groomed by human occupation. Soulcatcher listened. The wood, which was
a little more than a mile wide, seemed remarkably silent. There should have been
a racket from work parties harvesting firewood and timber for use around the
camp. But there was nothing. And she did not recall authorizing a holiday.

Something had frightened the soldiers away.

Yet she sensed no danger.

After a moment, though, she did detect a supernatural presence.

She glanced upward. Those vultures continued to circle. They were lower now.

They seemed to be wheeling above the presence she sensed.

Warily, she probed farther and deeper. She had remarkably well-honed senses when
she cared to concentrate.

This presence was like nothing in her experience. Something like a powerful
shadow, yet with a strong implication of working intelligence. Not a demon or
some such otherworldly entity, though. Something that felt like it was a part of
nature but still having about it a hint of not belonging to this world. But how?

Not of this world but not otherworldly? . . . Something very powerful but not
driven by malice. At the moment. Something timeless, accustomed to patience,

mildly impatient right now, again a smart-shadow thing like those stalkers down
south had been.

Soulcatcher extended her senses to their maximum. This thing was waiting for
her. For her alone. It had repulsed everything but those vultures. She had to be
careful. Despite her ennui she did not want to trigger a fatal ambush.

There was nothing.

She stepped forward.

She did so while assembling a quiver of sudden and deadly spells. She squinted
behind her mask, looking for this thing that wanted to see her.

It grew stronger but less focused as she moved toward it. For a moment it seemed
that it was all around her—even while being in one place somewhere ahead of her.

When she did arrive where her senses told her it ought to be, she saw nothing.

That place was a small clearing just off the Rock Road, across the shallow
stream. She saw several Vehdna grave markers and a few Gunni memorial posts with
time-gnawed prayer wheels on top. This must be where her sister fought the
Shadowlander cavalry during her flight from Dejagore. In a time so long ago that
she still had believed Narayan Singh to be her friend and champion.

Sunlight tumbled through the leaves overhead. It dappled the clearing.

Soulcatcher settled on a rotten log that protruded from what might once must
have been an earthwork. “I’m here. I’m waiting.”

Something large moved at the edge of her vision. She got the impression of a
black feline. But when she turned she saw nothing.

“So that’s the way it’s going to be, eh?”

“Thus it must be. Ever.” The response seemed to come from nowhere in particular
and it was not clear whether she heard it with her ears or inside her head.

“What do you want from me?” Soulcatcher used a deep masculine voice heavy with
menace.

The presence was amused, not intimidated. “I bring a message from your old
friend Croaker.”

Croaker was no friend. In fact, she was distinctly piqued with that man. He had
not been entirely cooperative when she had tried to seduce him and now he had
refused to stay buried after she had tried to kill him. Still, he was the reason
she had a head on her shoulders these days. And that tiny edge would be why this
communication was arriving in his name.

“Go ahead.”

The whatever-it-was did as she bid. As she listened she poked around in an
effort to fathom its true nature. While searching for some handle she could
grasp to make it over into an agent of her own.

It sensed what she was doing. It was amused. Not troubled. Not frightened. Not
inclined to react. Just amused.

Soulcatcher reviewed the story carefully once the spook had finished relating
it. It sounded plausible. If incomplete. But why expect those people to be
entirely forthcoming in such a situation?

Try as she might she could discover no obvious trap. They sounded worried down
there. This news could explain their sudden shift of strategy.

Goblin possessed by Kina. Narayan Singh dead. The Daughter of Night running
loose . . . Not running loose at all! In the hands of her troops, on the Rock
Road somewhere south of Dejagore, very probably looking for an opportunity to
get loose.

Goblin might arrange that.

She bounced up off the rotten log, ennui gone. “Tell Croaker he can consider
communications opened. I’ll take steps to deal with the situation. Go! Go!”

A flicker. Like a shadow passing through and deserting at the same time. It left
a deeply felt chill and one more uncertain glimpse of an impossibly large,

catlike form moving away at an impossible pace.

From the nearby Rock Road came the rattle and clop of a large party headed
south. Camels seemed to be involved. That meant civilians. There were no camels
in her armies. She hated camels. They were filthy animals with nasty tempers
even on their best days.

She leapt across the creek and hurried to the edge of the woods, emerging not a
hundred feet from where a caravan was doing the same. Civilian it was, but most
of the wagons and camels and mules would discharge their cargo in her camp.

The caravaners spied her. They were startled. And frightened.

Her blood was moving again. She always enjoyed the impact she made when she
appeared unexpectedly.

As she turned and raised her gaze to the circling vultures she thought she
glimpsed a familiar face among the merchants and teamsters. Aridatha Singh?

Here? How? Why? But when she looked more closely she saw no Aridatha. Maybe it
was just someone who looked like Singh. Maybe it was her reawakened zest
reminding her that it had been a long time since she had enjoyed a man. Aridatha
Singh had a definite masculine allure. Few women failed to notice that, though
he seemed entirely unaware of the effect he had.

Time enough to think about that after she alerted Dejagore and got troops of
cavalry out to round up her niece, that willful, difficult child.

There must be some way to gain control of her and add her talents to the arsenal
of the Protectorate. Possibly she might even take Goblin—despite the fact of his
possession.

Goblin never had been much of a wizard.

How sweet revenge was when it arrived after a long delay.

Then let that bitch Ardath and all her dogs come on! A lot of ancient debts
would get paid off.

As she approached the encampment ditch she glanced back to consider the vultures
again.

The carrion birds had broken their circle. Only a few remained in sight,

cruising the sky in search of something rank and tasty again.

Soulcatcher found a voice she had not used since she was young. With it she
began to sing a song of springtime and young love, in a language recalled from
the springtime of life, when love still lived in the world.

The sentries were extremely frightened.