The geezers gobbled their willingness to surrender.
We had run into their kind before. They never were big on personal heroics.
A soldier called Wishbone said, “These Shadowlanders are getting good at this ’I surrender’ stuff.” He sneered. “Everybody down there must be practicing their handy Taglian phrases.”
“Except Longshadow,” I reminded. I told Thai Dei, “Thanks.”
He shrugged, a gesture foreign to the Nyueng Bao. The world did touch him occasionally. “Sahra would expect it.”
And that was very Nyueng Bao. He would blame his actions on his sister’s expectations rather than on any notion of duty or obligation or even friendship.
“What are we supposed to do with these guys?” Wishbone asked. “We got any use for them?”
“Save a couple. The oldest and one other. Goblin. You never said how many got away.”
“Three. That counts Singh but not the kid. But we’re going to get one of them three back on account of he’s hiding in the bushes right over there.”
“Collect him. I’ll give him to the Old Man.”
Sarky One-Eye cracked, “Give them a little authority, they turn into field marshals. I remember this kid when he was so green he still had sheep shit between his toes. He didn’t know what shoes were for.” But the humor wasn’t in his eye. Every move I made he watched like a hawk. Like a crow, in fact, although we had no crows hanging around tonight. Whatever experiment Goblin and One-Eye had going in that area was a complete success during this outing.
Goblin suggested, “Ease up, Murgen. We’ll get the job done. How about some of you lazy asses toss a couple logs on the fire?” He began to circle the hidden Deceiver in the direction opposite that taken by One-Eye.
They were right. I get too serious under stress. I was a thousand years old already. Surviving Dejagore had not been easy. But all the rest of these guys had come through that, too. They had seen Mogaba’s slaughters of innocents. They had suffered the pestilences and plagues. They had seen the cannibalism and human sacrifices, the treacheries and betrayals and all the rest. And they had come away without letting the nightmares rule them.
I have to get a handle on it. I have to get some emotional distance and perspective. But there is something going on inside me that is beyond my control or understanding. Sometimes I feel like there are several of me in there, all mixed up, sometimes sitting behind the real me watching, watching. There may be no chance for me to recover complete sanity and stability.
Goblin came strutting back. He and One-Eye accompanied a man who was not much more than skin and bones. Few Deceivers are in good shape these days. They have no friends anywhere. They are hunted like vermin. Huge bounties ride on their shoulders.
Goblin flashed his toadlike grin. “We’ve got us a red-hand man here, Murgen. A genuine black rumel guy with the red palm. What do you think of that?”
The thought lightened my heart. The prisoner was truly a top Strangler. The red hand meant that he had been there when Narayan Singh tricked Lady into thinking she was being inducted into the Strangler cult when in fact the Deceivers were really consecrating her unborn child as daughter of their goddess Kina.
But Lady had employed a trick of her own, marking every Strangler there with the red hand that could not be denied later. Nothing they tried would take the color away, short of amputation. And a one-handed Strangler could not manage the rumel, the strangling scarf, that was the tool of the Deceivers’ holy trade.
“The Old Man will be pleased.” A red-hand man would know what was going on inside his cult.
I crowded closer to the fire. Thai Dei, done helping dispose of redundant shadowweavers, eased in beside me. How much had Dejagore changed him? I could not imagine him ever being anything but dour, taciturn, remorseless and pitiless, even as a toddler.
Goblin, I noted, was doing that thing he did lately where he watched me from the corner of his eye while pretending to do something else. What were he and One-Eye looking for?
The runt held his hands out. “Fire feels good.”
15
Paranoia has become our way of life. We have become the new Nyueng Bao. We trust no one. We let no one outside the Black Company know what we are doing until we are sure what the response will be. In particular we prefer keeping the Prahbrindrah Drah and his sister, the Radisha Drah, our employers, way back there in the deep dark shadows.
They are not to be trusted at all, ever, except to serve their own closest interests.
I smuggled my prisoners into the city and hid them in a warehouse near the river, a Company friendly Shadar fish place possessed of a very distinctive air. My men scattered to their families or someplace where they could drink beer. I was satisfied. With one quick, nasty stab we had decimated the surviving Deceiver leadership. We almost got that fiend Narayan Singh. I got within spitting distance of Croaker’s baby. In all honesty I could report that she seemed all right.
Thai Dei knocked the prisoners to their knees, wrinkled his nose.
“You’re right,” I agreed. “But this place don’t stink half as bad as your swamp does.” Taglios claims the river delta but the Nyueng Bao disagree.
Thai Dei grunted. He could take a joke as well as the next guy.
He does not look like much. He is a foot shorter than I am. I outweigh him by eighty pounds. And I am far prettier. He has crudely cropped black hair that sticks out in unkempt spikes. Skinny, lantern-jawed, taciturn and surly, Thai Dei is entirely unappetizing. But he does his job.
A Shadar fishmonger brought the Captain to us. Croaker was getting old. We were going to have to call him Boss or Chief or something. You cannot call the Captain the Old Man once he’s really old, can you?
He was dressed like a Shadar cavalryman, all turban, beard and plain grey clothing. He eyed Thai Dei coolly. He did not have a Nyueng Bao bodyguard himself. He loathed the idea despite his having to disguise himself whenever he wanted to walk the streets alone. Bodyguards are not traditional. Croaker is stubborn about Company traditions.
Hell, the Shadowmaster’s officers all employ bodyguards. Some have several. They could not survive without them.
Thai Dei reflected Croaker’s gaze impassively, unimpressed by the presence of the great dictator. He might say, “He is one man. I am one man. We begin even.”
Croaker examined my prizes. “Tell it.”
I told it. “But I missed Narayan. I was this close. That bastard has a guardian angel. There’s no way he should have slipped Goblin’s sleep spell. We chased him for two days but even Goblin and One-Eye couldn’t hang onto his track forever.”
“He had help. Maybe from his guardian demon. Maybe from his new buddy the Shadowmaster, too.”
“How come they went back to the grove? How did you know they would be there?”
I thought he would say a big black bird told him.
They are less numerous these days but the crows still follow him everywhere. He talks to them. Sometimes they talk to him, too. So he says.
“They had to come someday, Murgen. They are slaves to their religion.”
But why this particular Festival of Lights? How did you know?
I did not press. You don’t press Croaker. He has grown cranky and secretive in his old age. In his own Annals he did not always tell the whole truth about personal things, his age especially.
He kicked the shadowweaver. “One of Longshadow’s pet spook doctors. You’d think he wouldn’t have enough left to waste them anymore.”
“I don’t reckon he expected us to jump them.”
Croaker tried to smile. He produced a nasty, sarcastic sneer instead. “He’s got lots of surprises coming.” He kicked the Deceiver. “Let’s don’t hide them. Let’s take them to the Palace. What’s the matter?”
Ice had blasted my back, like I was out on the wind of the Grove of Doom again. I didn’t know why but I had a grim sense of foreboding.