For an instant I smelled something that was not the stink of vomit or unwashed bodies or dead men or pools of liquid shit, too.
“Ah,” Sindhu whispered. “It’s happening now.” I looked where he pointed.
The happening something was going on inside the big tent belonging to the Shadowmaster. Lights of strange color flickered and flared. “Maybe he’s getting something special ready for somebody.” Maybe he had Lady spotted.
Sindhu snorted. He seemed to thrive in these conditions.
The something went on a long time but attracted no attention. I became suspicious. I had Goblin’s ward against sleep spells set on me. Oh...? I dragged myself to the compound fence. When nobody smashed me back with the butt of a spear I was sure. The camp was under an enchantment.
Sindhu’s water gave me strength quickly and started my brain perking. It occurred to me that if no one was inclined to stop me this might be the perfect time to take leave of the Shadowmaster’s hospitality. I started worming my way between the fence rails.
My stomach rumbled in protest. I ignored it. Sindhu grabbed my arm. His grip was iron. He said, “Wait.”
I waited. What the hell? That was one of my favorite arms. I didn’t want to deprive myself of its company.
The moon began to rise, a big old squashed orange egg in the east. Sindhu continued to restrain me and continued to stare at the big tent.
A shriek drifted down from high above. “Holy shit,” I muttered. “Not him.”
Sindhu cursed, too. He was so startled that he let me go. He glared upward.
“That’s the Howler,” I told him. “Really bad news. Shadowspinner could take advanced cruelty lessons from him.”
The side of Spinner’s tent opened. Out rushed a bunch of people carrying what proved to be human body parts. I recognized some of them. The people, that is. Who could mistake Willow Swan with his wild yellow mane? Or Lady, who carried a severed head by its mangy hair? And Blade was only a step behind her, his ebony skin shiny in the moonlight. I did not recognize any of the others.
The sleep spell on the camp, laid rather poorly, unravelled. Southerners jumped up to ask what was happening. Metal clanged and jingled as weapons and mail were located.
One of Lady’s companions, a huge Shadar, started bellowing something about bowing down to the true Daughter of Night.
Sindhu chuckled. Nothing bothered him, it seemed. He could take anything.
He was not holding on to me but I no longer had the strength or inclination to go anywhere.
60
They pulled it off, Lady and her damnfool gang. Audacity pays. They slipped into the camp, murdered Shadowspinner, and when they got caught they convinced the southerners that it was all fated and they should not go doing anything because of that. I could not be much of a witness to their mass conversion. My bowels overruled my desire to observe. I spent most of my time making a worse mess of myself.
At some point our former guards decided to bring us to Lady’s attention in an effort to curry favor.
Blade recognized us as they brought us out of the pen.
Blade looks like he might have been born Nar. Like them he is tall, black and muscular, without an ounce of fat on him. He says little but has a strong presence. His background is shadowy. He ran with Willow Swan and Cordy Mather, who saved him from crocodiles several thousand miles north of Taglios. What everyone knew for sure, what Blade made no effort to hide, was that he hated priests, singly, collectively, and without any prejudice whatsoever where belief system was concerned. Once I thought he was an atheist who hated the whole idea of gods and religion, but after further exposure I decided it was only the retailers of religion he detested. That suggested sharp incidents in his past.
No matter now. Blade took Sindhu and I away from our guards. “Standardbearer, you stink.”
“Call out the ladies in waiting. Let them give me a bath.” I could not remember my last bath. In Dejagore we did not waste water on trivialities.
Of course, now we could bathe all we wanted although the water would be unclean.
Blade obtained fresh clothing by the expedient of robbing some southern officers, had us clean up and visit the inadequate field physicians Croaker had tried to train for the Taglian forces.
They knew less about stopping the drizzling shits than I did.
It was daylight when Lady saw me. She already knew the prisoners were deserters from the city. She was blunt. “Why did you run out, Murgen?”
“I didn’t. We decided somebody had to come find you. I lost the election... Uh.” She was in a bleak mood, apparently pretty sick herself. Never mind the humor, Murgen. “One-Eye and Goblin figured I was the only trustworthy guy who had any chance of getting through. They couldn’t leave. I didn’t make it, though.”
“Why did you feel the need to send someone?”
“Mogaba elected himself god. With the water around us, keeping the southerners back, he doesn’t need to get along with anybody who doesn’t agree.”
Sindhu said, “The black men believe they serve the goddess, mistress. But their heresies are grotesque. They have become worse than unbelievers.”
I pricked up my ears. Maybe I would learn something about Sindhu’s bunch. I had bones to pick with them. I had not yet found any evidence to suggest that it was not them who kidnapped me and took a crack at murdering Mogaba.
Still, I could not imagine why they would bother.
Sindhu and Lady talked. Her questions sounded vaguely doctrinal. Sindhu’s replies made no sense.
Once Lady interrupted the interview to be sick. A skinny little gink named Narayan, who kept hanging around, seemed inordinately pleased. I noted that Sindhu showed him considerable deference.
I was not happy. The little I knew of their cult assured me that I did not want them influencing my captains.
The interview ended. Blade’s cronies took me away. I got to hang out with Swan and Mather, meaning I had somebody to speak a reasonable language with for a while, but soon I felt like a forgotten man.
“What are we doing?” I asked Swan.
“I don’t know. Cordy and I just tag along behind Her Lordship pretending not to be watching her for the Prabrindrah Drah and Radisha.”
“Pretending?”
“Ain’t much good being a spy if everybody knows it, is there? Anyway, Cordy gets to do all the worrying. He’s the one playing pattycake with the Woman.”
“You mean that ain’t just a vicious rumor? He’s really plooking the Radisha?”
“Hard to believe, ain’t it? She’s got a face like... Hey! Cordy! Where’s them cards? We got us a pigeon here thinks he can play tonk.”
“Thinks? Swan, you’re gonna think I invented the game if you get into it with me.”
Mather was a nondescript character of average height with ginger hair who stood out only because he was white in a land where nobody but harem girls, kept out of the sun from birth, had fair skin. He asked, “Willow’s mouth running away with him again?”
“Maybe. I’ve made a career of playing tonk. Hell, they boot you out of the Black Company if you don’t make journeyman player.”
Mather shrugged. “Then you’ll twist Willow’s head back around straight for him. Here. Deal. I’ll see if the mighty general Blade wants to sit in.”
Swan grumbled, “That would take him out of sight of Lady.” Sounded like some sour grapes there. Mather showed him a smirk that confirmed my guess.
“What is it about her?” I asked. “Every damned guy that walks on his hind legs gets near her for five minutes, he starts floating around with his tongue hanging down, banging into things. But I’ve been around her for years. I can see she’s got the right stuff in the right places put together about as good as you could want but I don’t think I could get excited even if she didn’t used to be the Lady and she wasn’t married to the Old Man.” Not that that was literally true. They had not even bothered to jump over a sword.