Soldiers Live (29 page)

Dejagore:

The Occupation
My original intention had been to make a huge show of our invasion. I do like a
big ration of drama. Lightning. Thunder. Fireworks. But I waited until we had
the gate open to let it start.

Early on there were alarms from the south wall as a tide of darkness and
whispers passed by. But no sentry saw a single horsemen. They spied only vague
shapes that stirred secret fears of things far darker and crueler than any
conquering soldier.

The city was restless and troubled but remained unaware of our presence. It did
sense approaching change.

The thunder and lightning came after Blade’s men started coming through the
gate, six hundred men in Hsien’s strange armor, under strict orders not to
betray their humanity until the city was captured. Most Dejagorans were Gunni.

The Gunni believed in demons who could take human shape to make war on men. And
most of the people of the outlying Taglian Territories had by now heard that the
Company was allied with ghosts and devils.

Each soldier had a bamboo wand carrying a banner affixed to his back. The color
of the banner declared the man’s unit affiliation while characters painted on
the banner stated that unit’s martial slogan. Widowmaker and Lifetaker rode at
the head of the invading column. She carried a burning sword. Widowmaker carried
One-Eye’s spear, which was crawling with maggots of light. His shoulders bore a
salt-and-pepper set of oversized ravens.

And, even so, much of the city slept on.

Ugly worms of fire crawled over our hideous armor.

Bannermen marched ahead flailing big flags supposed to be our personal ensigns.

Witnesses brought out by the flash and boom and the rattle of horseshoes
remembered old stories and ran away weeping.

Yet most of the city slept on.

Doj, Murgen, Thai Dei and Swan remained at the gate, holding the hostages we had
taken there. Aridatha stayed out of sight at his brother’s place. Howler, Tobo
and Shukrat circled high above. Howler’s glass bowl continued to contain his
shrieks. We hoped he would remain a secret for a while.

The real fireworks began when we reached the citadel, where the Protector’s
still-sleepy governor deluded himself into thinking he could refuse to surrender
and make it stick.

Fireballs flew. The citadel gate exploded. Holes appeared in its walls. People
inside began to scream.

Every dark place in the streets had something moving inside it. Hundreds of
somethings, many of them vaguely familiar in those instants when anything could
be clearly discerned.

Those flooded in through the broken gate of the citadel. They weaseled through
the holes in its walls.

Lifetaker and Widowmaker followed moments later.

The terrified inhabitants of the tower put up no fight at all. Our sole injury
was a broken arm suffered by a dimwit who tripped over his own big feet and
rolled down a stair.

Lady and I stood atop the citadel. The city below still was not fully aware that
it had been conquered. I said, “It hurt a lot less getting here tonight than it
did last time.”

“That was the night we made Booboo.”

“Which was a real booboo.”

“Not funny.”

“That was the night One-Eye made the enemy that stalked us for twenty years,

too.”

“We’ll make new enemies this time. I have to go if I want to have any hope of
getting Aridatha into Taglios unnoticed.”

“I don’t think you can, tonight. Not without flying so damned fast the wind rips
the skin off your face.”

“I’ll see if Tobo can’t help.”

It was difficult to kiss her good-bye. We still wore all the costume armor.

The Taglian Territories:

The Middle Army
The Protector’s reconnaissance troops had warned her that something unusual was
taking shape. The warning confirmed her suspicions. Her nonhuman spies had been
having almost no success keeping track of the enemy. Which meant the enemy was
taking pains to be less visible.

Soulcatcher raised the state of alert and stepped up training. She redoubled her
own personal preparations.

When word of the disaster at Dejagore reached her—one lone rider managing to get
through with the news—she had known for fourteen hours already that the Company
main force had left its westward track and had begun hustling up a line that
would slice between her Middle Army and the newly orphaned force outside
Dejagore.

That would evaporate within days, she presumed. Many of those soldiers came out
of the city itself—a disproportionate percentage of them officers—while the rest
would now hear the call of the harvest much more loudly.

What the hell had happened down there? The messenger had brought very few
details, just word that the city had awakened to find itself occupied. The
invaders had been swift and thorough. They seemed to have had outstanding
intelligence. Heavy sorcery might have been involved.

“The next fight won’t be so one-sided,” she promised her officers. “Next fight
they’ll have to deal with me. Me like they haven’t seen me in a long, long
time.” She was angry and awake and no longer handicapped by any shred of
boredom. She was feeling more alive and filled with hatred and bitterness than
she had for a generation.

Within hours her new mood had electrified those around her.

Officers who failed to become equally electrified quickly suffered permanent
replacement.

Dejagore:

The Orphaned Army
After losing their base at Dejagore the generals of the fading, confused army
nearby ineptly tried to invest the city in a way that would not result in
economic disaster. Then, six days after the fall, news came that the enemy main
force was rushing straight toward them.

There had been skirmishes with the cavalry occupying Dejagore. Those had not
gone well for the locals. And now ten times as many well-disciplined,

perfectly-armed, trained killers were about to fall on them.

A third of the army went home under cover of darkness the night after the news
arrived. Those who stayed endured almost continuous psychological torments by
things they could never see.

The murderous army from the south never materialized. That was never necessary.

The Dejagoran soldiers in the Taglian force all deserted. The cavalrymen
occupying Dejagore scattered the army’s steadfast core without outside help.

Taglios:

The Palace
Mogaba’s level of discomfort—he would not think the word “fear”—had risen
substantially since Aridatha’s return. The stakes kept rising. The risks kept
expanding. Lady had been seen by Palace servants. So far those believed they had
seen the Protector, whose comings and goings were secretive and unpredictable.

But someday Soulcatcher might overhear some mention and know she could not have
been two places at once. Nor would she believe the manifestation to have been
one of the haunts now regularly seen in the maze of passageways for which the
Palace was famed.

Mogaba told Ghopal and Aridatha, “I’m tempted to drop everything and run.”

Ghopal asked, “Yeah? Where would you go?” It might not be as personal but his
doom was every bit as certain as Mogaba’s was if the Black Company reconquered
Taglios and restored the ruling family. Life would turn cruel for any Shadar who
had belonged to the Greys.

“Exactly.” Mogaba ran his palm over the top of his head. Keeping it shaved
required less and less work. “So I remind myself what honor demands.”

Aridatha said little. He had not talked much since his return. Mogaba
understood. Singh had seen things he did not want to believe were true. He had
learned things about the stakes that left him paralyzed with indecision. There
appeared to be no road leading toward the light. Wherever he turned he beheld
another face of the darkness.

It was important to Aridatha that he do what he perceived to be the right thing.

Singh’s visit with his brother had fueled him with a determination to offset
some of the evil his father had done.

Aridatha was Gunni by faith but his character was much more suited to the Vehdna
religion. He thought this was the life where wrongs had to be made right.

Mogaba said, “The news from the south is uniformly disastrous. The Black Company
is meeting very little resistance. They have superior sorcery, superior
weaponry, superior troops, equipment and leadership. Not to mention intelligence
so good we’re wasting our time trying to keep anything secret. So it seems our
fates actually depend on how fast those people can get here. The Protector won’t
stop them. They’ll pluck the strings of her ego, tickle her pride, and just when
she thinks she’s ready to make her kill they’ll hit her in the back of the head
with a sledgehammer she’ll never see coming. You have to be more than just
powerful to deal with those people. You have to be more than clever and
treacherous. You need to be psychic.”

Ghopal asked, “Then why don’t we ride down there and take charge?” He smirked.

“Not funny. Two reasons. First, she doesn’t want me to. She still thinks we can
get them into a pocket between us. I don’t know how. And, more importantly, if I
got anywhere near her there’d be no way I could hide my thoughts and no
opportunity to put them into effect before she could protect herself. You two,

you might be a little luckier.”

Ghopal observed, “The city is remarkably calm in spite of the news.”

Tidings of the fall of Dejagore were making the rounds but hardly anyone seemed
to feel that the Protector was in any peril herself. There had been no
disorders. Graffiti was becoming more common, though. Mostly the same old
taunts, though rajadharma was becoming more common. Then there was a new one:

You shall lie in the ashes ten thousand years eating only wind. And one not seen
for years had reappeared: Thi Kim is coming.

No one knew quite what that meant. Maybe not even its framers. Some people
thought “Thi Kim” might be a Nyueng Bao phrase. In which case the name could
mean something like Walking Murder.

If it was not Nyueng Bao it made even less sense. Or no sense at all.

Aridatha asked, “If we do nothing to support her and she gets beaten, how do we
defend ourselves?”

Mogaba said, “I’m going to tell you right now, you don’t have a problem unless
the Protector wins. The Company and the royals have no quarrel with you. You’ve
done a good job running the City Battalions. If you just sit on your hands
you’ll probably end up inheriting my job.”

Aridatha shrugged. “You must have talked about these things when she was here.”

“Oh, yes. She said nobody would chase me very hard if I had sense enough to take
off before they occupied the city.”

Ghopal asked, “They’re that confident? That they can discount your help? What
about me?”

“She’s that confident. Which is probably too confident. She didn’t say anything
about you. She didn’t know who you were. She suggested that if you think you
have reasons to fear the return of the royals you should join me in looting as
much treasure as you can before you run away.”

“Shadar don’t abandon their oaths of service.”

Aridatha, with little to fear from defeat, suggested, “Let’s just do our jobs.

Like we’ve always done. And see what opportunities Fortune places in our hands.”

Sarcastically, Ghopal responded, “Of course. The Black Company and the Protector
could end up destroying each other. Like a couple of rams getting their horns
locked.”

A consideration which left all three men thoughtful, with Mogaba in particular
reflecting on how fate might write the joke that would end with that unexpected
punchline.

The Taglian Territories:

Midway Between
Oh, we looked good, ten thousand strong, all lined up as if for a parade. Every
man wore his armor. Every man had his personal banner whipping in the breeze.

Every battalion wore its own color of armor. Every weapon was perfectly honed
and polished. Every horse was groomed and caparisoned as though for review.

Every standard was in place and gloriously new. We were a general’s wet dream,

pretty and dangerous, too.

The gang opposite us, though they outnumbered us three to one, looked like they
would be no challenge. Men over there were still trying to find their assigned
places in ranks.

Good as it all looked I had my doubts about the wisdom of offering battle,

however confident our guys were and however much confidence the men opposite us
lacked. But Sleepy wanted to crush them fast and harry Soulcatcher back to
Taglios where, because she would be hard-pressed, she might not be wary enough
to elude ambush by Mogaba and his henchmen.

She was assuming too much would go our way. When things are going good is when
you really have to watch your back.

But I was not the Captain. I could only advise, then do my part in the show once
a decision had been made.

Tobo was more confident than Sleepy was. He believed the enemy only needed a
nudge to crack. One vicious shock and they would collapse. He guaranteed it.

Trumpets sounded the ready. Drums began to talk, counting the cadence for the
advance. A thousand men would remain in reserve. Well behind them were the
recruits we had acquired. Those surrounded the Radisha and her brother,

nominally forming the royal lifeguard. They would be used only in desperation.

The trumpets sounded the advance. The ranks stepped out, lines dressed, cadence
perfect, weapons exactly on line. Positioned in front of the wings, Lifetaker
and Widowmaker lit off in blinding flashes and began to advance themselves. But
they halted before they entered missile range.

From that closer vantage I could see that Soulcatcher had formed her troops up
in three successive forces with a hundred yards of separation each between them.

The frontline unit was the most numerous but looked like the lowest quality. The
second formation appeared much more solid.

That was a device I understood, having used a variant myself. But you have to be
confident that your real fighters will not catch the panic of the scrubs when
they run away.

There were things going on behind Soulcatcher’s third line but they were too far
away to be made out clearly.

Then the advancing soldiers made seeing much more difficult. Then the next stage
of enchantments surrounded me, concealing me from enemy eyes, making it
impossible for me to see anything either.