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Lady's true name had been named during the final showdown with her husband. She survived but, according to the mystical rules, was now an ordinary mortal. With looks to kill for. What made her interesting to people in her former trade was that she was a living storehouse of wicked lore. She had not lost any of her knowledge, only the ability to employ it.

I was surprised that she had not been a bigger target than she had so far.

Her name had no power over her anymore. Being powerless herself, apparently, she could not take advantage of those true names she knew. Otherwise she would have dealt with the Howler and her sister a long time ago. And she would not give those names away even to One-Eye and Goblin. She would die first.

It takes a strange sort to become a wizard or sorceress.

She had her own agenda still, that was certain. One-Eye or Goblin were not much but some things were like dropping a rock down a well.

From conversations overheard I knew Longshadow would part with three or four thumbs to get hold of what Lady knew.

Funny. Whenever he sent Howler to capture her the scheme machine never quite clicked. You would almost think Howler did not want his senior partner to become any more senior.

Someday I will have to get Lady to explain the whole true names thing in a way that even a dummy like me can understand. Maybe I can get her to explain the whole business of sorcery so that those of us who study these Annals will have at least a vague idea of what is going on.

Knowing will not keep us from crapping our small clothes when we run into sorcery but, still, it would be nice to have a notion what is behind all the deadly lights.

The Shadowlander soldiers were all in place. They gnawed field rations sleepily, hard at work at what soldiers do most. While we all waited I hung around those who spoke languages I could understand. The philosophers among them examined the intellects and characters of generals who put their troops into formation and made them stand ready when nothing was going to happen. Nothing. The damned Tals were too damned tired to do anything. They had spent the whole damned night on the move.

"Tal" was a sort of pun. Though short for "Taglian" it also meant "turd" in the Sangel dialects common south of the Dandha Presh.

I felt like I had soldiered with those guys. They spoke my language.

Mogaba had built himself a giant observation tower a safe distance behind the lines. It was wooden. I thought he was going to find it uncomfortable pretty soon. Longshadow and Howler had joined him up there. The atmosphere was not festive but it was far from grim. Nobody was worried about us.

Longshadow threatened to become cheerful. This battle was the culmination of all his planning. When it was over nothing could stop him from making himself master of the world. Except maybe a few allies who did not quite share his ambitions.

I was hurt. A guy likes to be taken seriously. Mogaba had these people, from top to bottom, believing they were invincible.

In the soldiering business you are often what you think you are.

Confidence generates victory.

Howler did not scream once while I watched. Longshadow did not throw one tantrum.

Much as they fussed about Lady you would think they would be more tense.

22

The rising sun began burning off the mist except around our camp. The wind was a feeble breeze coming from Lady's flank. Fires smoldered there, keeping the camp obscured. The Shadowlanders could see only the camp followers who had been strong armed into feeding the fires and four wooden towers now rising above the smoke and mist. They were your basic siege towers, being assembled from precut parts brought up from barges on the Naghir River only with a lot of effort and plenty of good old fashioned cussing.

I did not understand. What was the point out here? We were not going to be clambering over any castle walls.

Knowing Croaker, the project was under way just to get Mogaba wondering why.

I dove Smoke into the smoke. The activity inside was not what I expected. The soldiers were asleep. Those who were up and about were mostly camp followers. They fed the fires, assembled the towers, smoothed the ground in paths leading toward Mogaba's lines, cursed the moment Croaker was born. They had not followed the army so they could do its work.

The soldiers who drove them to their tasks were not kind. The Old Man was clever enough to have had the work crews assembled according to religion, then managed by soldiers who did not cherish their beliefs.

Some details of Croaker's plan had begun trickling down through the ranks but there was no way anyone could put the pieces together into a whole. He would not let the whole picture get out where a genius could puzzle it out from its fragments.

Now the challenge was to keep the only man who knew what it was alive until... Ah, me, Murgen. Where is your Black Company confidence?

It never existed except as show.

Ha. Here was Willow Swan, tall, blond and beautiful, trying harder than I to understand. An intuition might win him points with Lady. But he was grumbling in confusion to his companions.

I found Lady not far away. She was not worried about what was going on. She was focused on business. She had taken station atop a knoll that raised her above the smoke. She stared up the pass, ready if the other side tried something.

I took Smoke back to One-Eye's wagon. Time for breakfast.

"About goddamned time, Kid!" One-Eye complained. "You've got to start taking shorter trips. You're gonna end up getting lost out there."

Everybody kept telling me that. It did not seem to be happening, though, so my share of those fears were fading away. I asked, "Anything interesting happening?"

"There's a war on. Come on. Get out of the way. I need the old fart so I can do my part. Go get some exercise. Eat something. Make him some soup so you can feed him when I'm done."

"You feed him when you're done, bat-breath. You're the man with the job."

"You got a real attitude problem, Kid."

"We about to try something?"

"No. We hiked five hundred goddamn miles in the middle of goddamn winter because they say the brush down here is so goddamn great for cookouts."

"Everybody acts like they're drugged."

"Could be on account of they're drugged. I don't know. Just my opinion. I could be wrong. Get out of my way. I got work to do."

The smoke was awful. And it got worse nearer the front of the army. Scant yards made a huge difference. After my first foray in that direction I decided curiosity could wait. I hung around the wagon. I ate and ate and ate. I used up most of One-Eye's water. Served him right, the way he abused me.

I thought about Sahra. I knew I would be thinking of her a lot now. Danger has a way of making you dwell on the things most important to you.

The proximity of Narayan Singh haunted me, too. The living saint of the Deceivers was less than a mile away, tending his own cookfire while the Daughter of Night looked on dreamily, well bundled against the morning chill and damp.

I started. Damn! That little reverie was almost real.

I got restless waiting to get back to Smoke. I wanted to see if Singh was making breakfast. I needed to get away from all these thoughts about Sarie.

When would the scars form around the pain? When would it stop hurting so much that I had to run away?

I stared into the fire and tried to banish the thoughts. That was like picking at a scab. The harder I tried to think about something else the more I focused on Sarie. Eventually the fire filled my entire horizon and I seemed to see my wife on the other side, rumpled and beautiful and somewhat pallid as she went about the mundane business of cooking rice. It was like I was looking back through time to a moment I had lived before.