"Maybe Senjak wants the example made."
"Possibly, She is that hard. But her influence doesn't explain Croaker's having spent seven thousand lives trying to get Blade."
What? This was news. "Blade deserted him."
"I deserted him. And I was Company. Blade was only an adventurer, not a brother. He hasn't come after me that way. With Blade he's fighting a personal war."
The falling out with Blade and Blade's subsequent flight and defection baffled a lot of people, especially his buddies Cordy and Willow. And my name can go to the top of the list. Whispers were that Croaker stumbled onto something real going on between Lady and Blade. Whatever, it was certain that he was as obsessive about Blade as he was about Narayan Singh.
Lady did not interfere in Croaker's vendetta. Neither did she help.
"That troubles you?"
"Croaker confuses me. In some ways he has become dangerously unpredictable. At the same time he becomes more and more the high priest of the Black Company legend, admitting no other gods before his precious Annals."
That was not true. Croaker grew less interested all the time. But allow Mogaba his hyperbole. He wanted to sell something.
Mogaba continued, "I fear he may become so skewed he'll attack in a way so novel we won't recognize it until it's too late."
"As long as he comes. Only disaster awaits him."
"He'll come. But is the overall outcome so certain?" I got the feeling both men nurtured major doubts, but each mostly about the other.
"You circle back upon my constraints. Desist. You fear him?"
"I dread him. More than I dread Lady. Lady is straightforward in her enmity. She comes right at you with everything she has. Croaker is determined to flim-flam you into looking somewhere else while he sticks a knife in your back. He will come at you with everything he has, too, but how will he use it? He is not a man of honor."
Mogaba didn't really mean that Croaker was dishonorable but that he was not a gentleman in the sense that meant so much to Mogaba—who could not be considered a cavalier himself anymore.
Mogaba continued, "He is no longer sane. I do not believe he is sure what he is doing himself. These days he has to face much for which there is no precedent in his Annals."
Wrong again, chappie. After four hundred years there is a precedent for everything in the Annals somewhere. The trick is knowing how to look.
"He has limits, General."
"Of course. Those Taglians are factious and divisive."
"And that could be his undoing. Politically he will have no option but to try his luck at Charandaprash soon. Where we will crush him."
"And if I do? We should consider the possibilities of life unplagued by this disease called the Black Company."
"Oh?"
"Winning one battle will not be enough. If even one of them survives and maintains possession of the Lance of Passion new armies will rise against us. Lady proved that."
"Then you will have the pleasure of crushing them again." Mogaba wanted to argue but elected not to bark into the wind.
"Once Overlook is complete you can hare off on any adventure you like, with my approval and with my total support."
"Adventure?"
"I understand you better than you suppose. You were Gea-Xle's greatest warrior but you could not prove that to yourself. In the Black Company you were overshadowed by your captain and Senjak. It was necessary for you to have command in order to demonstrate your scope and genius. When you did have an opportunity all your efforts were sabotaged and suborned. You came to me because the Black Company would not allow you the opportunity you need."
Mogaba nodded. He did not seem pleased with himself, though. And that surprised me. I had thought him too self-centered to entertain moral doubts.
"Go. Conquer the world, General. I'll enjoy helping you. But you have to crush the Black Company first. You have to stop the Taglians. Because you will have nothing if I fall. Will the Strangler be much help, really?"
"He could be. He talks big about his goddess getting involved but I won't count on that. I've never seen the gods actually take a hand in mortal affairs."
Odd. Mogaba's god was Narayan's goddess, more or less. Had Mogaba lost his faith? Maybe Dejagore had scarred him deeply, too.
"Use them up. Leave none over to turn on us later." In my imagination the Shadowmaster was always this huge stinking devil incarnate, a colorful lunatic the magnitude of the worst Taken back in the north. But the real Longshadow was just a mean-spirited old man blessed with too much power.
He told Mogaba, "If this becomes the Year of the Skulls I want it to be our year. Not theirs."
"Understood. What do you think of the child?"
Longshadow grunted uncomfortably.
"Spooky, right? A thousand years old. Her mother in miniature, only worse. More intense, with a deeper darkness inside."
He could be right. The kid definitely looked weird and evil from my ghost's eye view.
The Shadowmaster mused, "We may have to hurry her into the embrace of her goddess."
Mogaba shrugged. He turned to go. "Anyone else you want to see alone?"
"Howler. Wait!"
"What?"
"Where is the Lance of Passion?"
"Wherever Croaker is, I imagine. Or the Standardbearer. That's still that serpent Murgen, I believe."
I love you too, Mogaba.
"We must take possession. Might that not be a task for the Deceivers? Even destroying the Black Company may not be enough in the long run. And one other thing for the Deceivers. Have them find out why Senjak wants all that bamboo."
"Bamboo?"
Was there an echo?
"She has been stripping the Taglian territories for months. Wherever her soldiers go they loot bamboo."
"That is curious. I will find out." I followed Mogaba for a moment. Once he was clear of the parapet he muttered, "Bamboo. I have to humor a lunatic."
I tried to travel south of Overlook. Smoke went only a short way before he balked. Well.
I would find out sooner than I wanted, I supposed. After we settled Longshadow and Overlook the plain was next on the list of obstacles blocking our path to Khatovar.
52
I returned to the chamber with Smoke and our stinky pet Strangler. I was hungry and thirsty but also so excited I shook. I had not uncovered much of resounding import, but, gods! The potential!
I drank from the pitcher, cleared my throat, lifted the corner of the cloth covering the prisoner. "You in there? Want a drink? Want to tell me?" He was asleep. "Be that way."
So what now? Help had not arrived. I gnawed on one of Mother Gota's stones. That eased my hunger. That was all I wanted at the moment.
What now? Keep going out until somebody came to reclaim me? See Lady? Look for Goblin? Hunt for Blade? How about finding out where Soulcatcher was hiding? She had to be out there somewhere, though we had not stubbed our toes on her lately. No place was free of crows if a member of the Company was around.
Soulcatcher is patient. That is her scariest trait.
It was kid-in-the-candy-shop time.
I decided to look for Soulcatcher. She was the oldest mystery going right now.
Smoke jumped right out, but then he stalled. His soul, or ka, or whatever, became more agitated as I grew more insistent. "All right! She always was more trouble than I want to deal with, anyway. Let's find her goofy sister."
Lady did not intimidate Smoke at all.
I found her in the citadel at Dejagore, in the conference chamber with four men, leaning over a map. The frontier markings on the map lay far south of Dejagore. Earlier boundaries were noted and identified by date.
She needed a new map. Her old one was too busy. She had won too many skirmishes.