“And what’s that over there?” From our perch most of the activity was hidden behind the curve of the wall but it looked like a big engineering party had begun to gather north of the city as well. “You see any prisoners or slaves out there ...? Huh?
What’s that?”
That was the sparkle of sunlight off metal in the hills. The sparkle repeated itself. People were moving out there, not carefully enough.
Shadowspinner’s men had no need to sneak. I told Goblin, “Pass the word. Full alert come sundown.”
Uncle Doj considered the hills. “You have good eyes, Bone Warrior.”
“Know something, Stubby? I’d a whole lot rather be called Murgen.”
The squat man smiled thinly. “As you wish, Murgen. I have come on behalf of the Speaker. He says tell you hard times are coming. He says prepare your hearts and minds.”
“Hard times?”
One-Eye laughed. “The party is over, Kid. Now we got to pay for loafing around and getting fat while the hour is slithered all over us.”
“Keep it in mind next time you’re tempted to do some profiteering.”
“Huh?”
“You can’t eat money, One-Eye.”
“Killjoy.”
“That’s me all over. Tell Wheezer to hike over to the citadel and tell Sindawe the southerners are up to something.” Sindawe might be all right. I could talk to him without having to conquer an urge to squeeze his throat. And this would cover me on keeping Mogaba informed.
What would happen if the Shadowmaster just up and walked away, leaving us to sort ourselves out?
Sounded like the smart thing for him to do.
45
Wheezer barely made it to the top. Then he spent five minutes hacking and wheezing before he could talk. That old man had no business soldiering at his age. He ought to be off living off his grandchildren. But like the rest of us he had nothing outside the Company. He would die under the deathshead standard. Under what passed for a standard today.
It was sad. Pathetic, even.
Wheezer was an anomaly. Usually the mercenary life is brutal and short, pain and fear and misery only occasionally interrupted by a fleeting moment of pleasure. What keeps you sane is the unfailing comradeship of your brethren. In this company.
In lesser bands... But they are not the Black Company.
Croaker and I both put a lot of effort into sustaining that brotherhood. In fact, it looked like time to resurrect Croaker’s habit of readings from the Annals so the men would remember that they were part of something more enduring than most kingdoms.
I told Wheezer, “You better take a couple hours off.”
He shook his head. He would go on the best he could until he could go on no more. “The Nar lieutenant. Sindawe. Sends greetings. He said we better look out tonight.”
“He mention why?”
“He sort of hinted... that Mogaba might try ... some big stunt after... dark.”
Mogaba was always trying some big stunt. Shadowspinner ought to let him set himself up. One raid too many, at the wrong time, and Mogaba would find out personally why Spinner was called a Shadowmaster.
Wheezer said something in his native tongue. Only One-Eye understood him. Sounded like a question. One-Eye muttered a few clicky syllables in reply. I figured the old man wanted to know if it was all right to talk in front of the Nyueng Bao. One-Eye gave him the go ahead.
Wheezer said, “Sindawe said tell you guys the rumors about a big battle are probably true.”
“We owe Sindawe, guys,” I said. “That sounds to me like him telling us he won’t back Mogaba a hundred percent anymore.”
Thai Dei and Uncle Doj sucked up our conversation like Nyueng Bao sponges.
Tension built for hours. With no real evidence we began to feel this night would be critical. Mostly the guys worried about new Hastinesses from Mogaba. We didn’t expect trouble from the Shadowmaster any time soon.
I kept an eye on the hills.
One-Eye snapped, “There it is!” He shared my anticipations. Pinkish light flared. Lightning crackled around a bizarre rider.
“She’s back,” somebody said. “Where’s the other one?”
I did not see a Widowmaker right away.
Panic swept the plain. The apparition had taken the scattered Shadowlander camps unawares. Sergeants shrieked orders. Messengers galloped around. Soldiers stumbled into one another.
“There he is!” Bucket yelled. “There who is?”
“Widowmaker.” He pointed. “The Old Man.” The Widowmaker figure shimmered back in the hills, larger than life.
Goblin grabbed my arm. I don’t know where he came from. “Look over there.” He indicated the Shadowlander main camp. We could not see the camp itself but a pale, gangrenous glow rose from its approximate location. The light intensified steadily.
“Spinner wants to play,” I observed.
“Yeah. He’s sending a big one.”
“A big what? Do we need to get our heads down?”
“Wait and see.”
I waited. And I saw. A nasty ball of green fire streaked toward the hills. It hit near where Lifetaker first showed herself. Earth flew. Stone burned. All to no avail. Lifetaker was long gone.
“He missed.”
“What an eye!”
“Lifetaker didn’t play fair. She didn’t stand still.”
“He made a stupid choice of tools,” One-Eye sneered. “You can’t expect somebody to just hang around and wait for you.”
“Maybe that was his best go. He hasn’t been healthy.”
I sidled away. In a few minutes Goblin and One-Eye would start bickering.
The confusion on the plain worsened. The southerners were more rattled than seemed reasonable. What I could get from their chatter suggested that they had been caught just starting something big of their own and their disarray left them virtually unable to defend themselves. In hushed tones, too, I heard Kina mentioned.
Lifetaker, who resembled that goddess of corruption, vanished. Maybe she lost interest. She did not reappear. Shadowspinner pasted the hills with any sorcery he could slap together. Other than starting a few brush fires he had no obvious impact.
The fox was in the henyard. Southerners scooted all over, their panic feeding on the panic of others. When one got close my guys took turns sniping. Goblin said, “They keep cussing about their feet getting wet.” I heard that, too. It made no sense.
“Holy shit!”
I don’t know who said it but I could not have agreed more.
Scores of brilliant white fireballs erupted straight up above the Shadowlander main camp. They obliterated the darkness completely. They seemed a tool of more use to a Shadowmaster’s enemies than to the villain himself.
A huge uproar followed.
Uncle Doj vanished. One moment he was beside me, the next a shadow running through the street below, then gone.
One-Eye told me, “This time I’m sure it’s Lady.”
His tone alerted me. “But what?”
“But the other one ain’t the Captain.”
Widowmaker had been visible for less than one minute. “Tell me it ain’t so,” I muttered.
“What?”
“That we got two sets. Each one only half the real thing.”
A crow nearby cackled.
I asked, “What kind of sorcery would do that? Split them in two?”
“I wish I could tell you something you want to hear, Kid. But I’ve got a very bad feeling there’s stuff going on we don’t even want to know about.”
46
One-Eye was a prophet. Although I did want to know. And thanks to the Nyueng Bao I heard a story.
The light across town faded. The attendant racket subsided. Part of that drifted toward the hills. The rest fell back toward Mogaba’s part of town.
The crackle of small sorceries rippled across the plain. The whole expanse glistened silver. “That was a strange one. One-Eye, what say we build a watchtower on top of one of the enfilading towers? That way we could get high enough to see what Mogaba and Spinner are doing.”