"I am constrained by my need to remain unnoticed, But I've been able to catch glimpses of our northern friends. They have fallen afoul of more of our little friends from the river. Ferocious things are happening down near the Main."
"Sorcery?"
"High magnitude. Recalling that which manifested during their passage through the pirate swamps. I no longer dare intrude."
"Damn! Damn-damn-damn! Are they all right? Have we lost them?"
"I no longer dare intrude. Time will tell."
The Radisha kicked another pile of books. Smoke's bland expression cracked, became one of intense irritation. She apologized. "It's frustration."
"We're all frustrated. Perhaps you would be less so if you adjusted your ambitions."
"What do you mean?"
"Perhaps if you followed the course your brother has charted and aimed to climb but one mountain at a time—"
"Bah! Am I, a woman, the only rooster around here?"
"You, a woman, will not be required to pay the price of failure. That will come out of your brother's purse."
"Damn you, Smoke! Why are you always right?"
"That is my commission. Go to your brother. Talk. Recalculate. Concentrate on the enemy of the moment. The Shadowmasters must be turned now. The priests will be here forever. Unless you want shut of them badly enough to let the Shadowmasters win, of course."
"If I could frame just one High Priest for treason... All right. I know. The Shadowmasters have shown they know what to do with clerics. Nobody would believe it. I'm going. If you dare, find out what's happening down there. If we've lost them we'll have to move quickly. That damned Swan had to go after them, didn't he?"
"You sent him."
"Why does everybody do what I tell them? Some of the things I say are stupid... Get that grin off your face."
Smoke failed. "Kick over another stack of books."
The Radisha huffed out of the room.
Smoke sighed. Then he returned to his reading. The book's author lingered lovingly over impalements and flayings and tortures visited on a generation unlucky enough to have lived when the Free Companies of Khatovar marched out of that strange corner of the world that spawned them.
The books in that room had been confiscated so they would not fall into the hands of the Black Company. Smoke did not believe their being there would keep secrets forever. But maybe long enough for him to find a way to prevent the sort of bloodshed that had occurred in olden times. Maybe.
The best hope, though, lay in the probability that the Company had mutated with time. That it was not wearing a mask. That it had indeed forgotten its grim origins and its search for its past was more a reflex than the determined return that other Companies, come back earlier, had made.
In the back of Smoke's mind, always, was the temptation to take his own advice, to bring the Company's captain in and turn him loose on the books, if only to see how he responded to the truth.
Chapter Thirty: TAGLIOS AROUSED
We approached Taglios with the dawn, days late, all of us at the brink of collapse, Swan and his buddies maybe worse off than the rest. Their mundane mounts were wiped out. I asked Swan, "You figure the Prahbrindrah will be overly pissed because I didn't keep my appointment?"
Swan still had a little pepper left. "What the hell can he do? Put a bug down your shirt? He'll swallow it and smile. You worry about the Woman. She's the one who'll give you trouble. If anybody does. She don't always think right."
"Priests," Blade said.
"Yeah. Watch out for the priests. They sprung this whole thing on them the day you guys landed. They couldn't do anything but go along. But they been thinking about it, you can bet your butt, and when they find them an angle they're going to start messing."
"What's Blade's thing with priests?"
"I don't know. I don't want to know. But I been down here long enough to start thinking he's maybe right. The world might be better off if we drowned some of them."
One thing that made the military situation wonderfully impossible was the absence of fortifications. Taglios itself sprawled everywhere, without a thought to defense.
A people with centuries of pacifism behind them. An enemy with experienced armies and high-power sorcerers to support them. And me with maybe a month to figure out how to help the former whip the latter.
Impossible. When those rivers went down so troops could cross the massacre would be on.
Swan asked, "You make up your mind what you're going to do?"
"Yeah. The Prahbrindrah isn't going to like it, either."
That surprised him. I did not explain. Let them worry. I took my bunch in to the barracks and sent Swan off to announce our return. As we dismounted, with half the Company hanging around waiting to hear something, Murgen said, "I guess Goblin's made up his mind."
Something had been preying on the little wizard. He had been broody and curt all the way home. Now he was grinning. He gave special attention to his saddlebags.
Mogaba joined me. "We've made major progress while you were gone, Captain. I'll report when you feel up to it." His question remained unspoken.
I saw no need to leave it hanging. "We can't sneak through. They've got us. It's fight or turn back."
"Then there is no option, is there?"
"I guess there never was. But I had to see for myself."
He nodded his understanding.
Before business I tended wounds. Lady was coming back fast. Her bruises, though, did nothing to make her more attractive. I felt odd examining her. She had had little to say since our night in the rain. She was doing a lot of thinking again.
Mogaba had a lot to tell me about discussions with Taglios's religious leaders and his ideas for putting together the pretense of an army. I could find nothing in his suggestions I disapproved. He said, "There's one other thing. A priest named Jahamaraj Jah, number two man in the Shadar cult. He has a daughter he thinks is dying. It looks like a chance to make a friend."
"Or get somebody thoroughly pissed." Never underestimate the power of human ingratitude.
"One-Eye saw her."
I looked at the little witch doctor. He said, "Looked like her appendix to me, Croaker. Not that far gone yet, either. But these clowns around here don't have the foggiest. They're trying to exorcise demons."
"I haven't opened anybody up in years. How long before it bursts?"
"Another day at least, unless she's unlucky. I did what I could for the pain."
"I'll check it on the way back from the Palace. Make me a map... No. You'd better tag along. You might be useful." Mogaba and I were getting dressed for a court appearance now. Lady was supposed to be doing the same.
Swan, not at all improved in appearance, showed up to take us to the Prince. I did not feel like doing anything but take a nap. I sure did not feel up to the games of politicians. But I went.
The people of Trogo Taglios had heard that the moment of decision had come. They were in the streets to watch us. They remained eerily silent.
I saw dread in all those watching eyes, but hope, too. They were aware of the risks, and maybe even of the odds against them. A pity they did not realize that a battlefield is not a wrestling ring.
Once a child cried. I shivered, hoping it was not an omen. As we neared the Trogo an old man stepped out of the crowd and pressed something into my hand. He bowed himself away.
It was a Company badge from olden times. An officer's badge, perhaps booty from some forgotten battle. I fixed it near the badge I wore already, the fire-breathing death's-head of Soulcatcher, which we had retained though we no longer served the Taken or the empire.
Lady and I had outfitted ourselves in our finest, meaning I wore my legate's duds and she her imperial rig. We impressed the mob. Beside us Mogaba looked drab. One-Eye looked like a derelict scraped off the bottom of the worst dive in the worst slum. That damned hat. He was as happy as a snail.