"You're getting done what I want you to get done. Now be quiet. Before I gag you."
I became impatient myself before Tobo finally appeared. He was subject to the constraints of normal travel. We had no flying carpets anymore, though there was hope that the Howler might create some once he was reawakened. (Nobody had yet tried.) And now there was the possibility we might gain the secrets of the Voroshk flying posts.
Tobo came in astride the superhorse that had attached itself to Sleepy. Bred originally to serve the Lady of the Tower up north, a number had come south with the Company. This was the last known survivor.
"How long do those things live, hon?" I asked Lady as Tobo approached.
"Maybe forty years. At the extreme. This one is pushing the limit."
"Looks pretty spry." Despite having run forty miles the animal looked almost fresh.
"I did good work in those days."
"And you miss them now?"
"Yes." She would not lie to me. She did not love me any less for missing being what once she had been, either. Near as I can tell, she never regrets anything she does, good or evil. I wish I could be that way.
Tobo dismounted right outside the shadowgate. I passed him through. He got straight to business, though he smiled and waved to his father and uncle and Doj. "You have five prisoners? All major wizards?"
"I don't know about that. They could be complete no-talents, far as I can tell. But they did go flying around on fenceposts wearing a kind of super-fabric that Goblin says can be manipulated by thoughts. This comes across as a ‘You'd better be careful, Croaker' kind of sign."
"We can communicate with them?"
"We have two brothers whose father studied and managed Bowalk while she was in Khatovar. The father could force Bowalk to resume human shape for an hour or two sometimes, but he couldn't keep her there. He thought the problem was a deadman-loop Shapeshifter built into the shape-changing spells. Shifter didn't trust her. The loop activated when One-Eye killed him.
"Anyway, this Voroshk's kids picked up some of Bowalk's native tongue from being around her, which has been for all of their lives. When the Voroshk blew up the shadowgate one of them got the bright idea that he could talk us into taking them to safety somewhere else. He rounded up some friends who were just as scared and came to us. He assumed we all spoke the same language as the forvalaka. He had some strange notion that we would recognize the innate superiority of the Voroshk and take his bunch in as honored guests. He couldn't imagine it being any other way because that's the only way it could be in Khatovar. He's vain, stupid and arrogant. They all seem to be. The other brother more so. He won't even talk."
Tobo smiled a little unpleasantly, perhaps recalling similar attitudes amongst Hsien's warlords. "I expect they've all suffered one disappointment after another."
"Absodamnlutely. Life has become an unimaginable hell for these kids. I have to remind them over and over that they're still alive."
"Let's go meet them, shall we?" The kid looked like he was excited by the challenge.
As we approached the refugees I warned Tobo, "They're all gorgeous but I really don't think they have a brain between them. At least they show every sign of being slow learners."
We stopped several yards from Khatovar's forlorn children. They huddled together beside the road as Black Company men and mules began to move out through the shadowgate. Only one of the girls had ambition enough to look up. The little one. The one we had taken prisoner.
She stared at Tobo for half a minute. Then she murmured something to her companions. They looked up, too. Only the ringleader and his brother betrayed their native arrogance. And it had not been that long or arduous a journey.
They seemed to sense something in Tobo that was not apparent to me. It awakened hope. Several babbled questions in their own language.
"When they stop yammering tell them who I am. Don't feel like you have to be entirely honest, either."
"A little exaggeration couldn't hurt?"
"Hardly ever."
The interview lasted longer than I anticipated. Tobo was remarkably patient for his age. He worked hard to make the Voroshk understand that they were no longer in the land of their fathers, that here it did not matter who they were or who their parents had been. In our world they were going to have to sing for their supper.
We broke for a snack. The Voroshk and their guards were the only people left on the plain side of the shadowgate. I told Tobo, "I admire your patience."
"Me, too. Already I want to kick some of them. And it's not really all patience, anyway. I'm trying to learn more about them by reading what they don't say and what they do let slip. You're right. They don't seem very bright. Though I'm guessing that's as much because of the way they were educated as it is any natural stupidity. They have no idea whatsoever of their own past. None! Never heard of the Free Companies. Never heard of the Lance of Passion. Didn't know that some really great wizards from Khatovar erected the standing stones that are all over the plain, at great peril to themselves from shadows. Didn't even recognize the name Khatovar, though they do know Khadi as some vague, old-time demon that nobody cares about anymore."
"How do you know that? About the memorial stones."
"Baladitya got it from Shivetya. You did notice that the runes on the flying logs are almost identical to the ones on the standing stones?"
"I didn't notice that, no. Mostly I've kept busy watching Goblin. The little shit speaks a bit of the language. He's been sneaking around talking to them."
Tobo chewed and nodded and looked thoughtful. "You ask him about it?"
"Hardly. I don't trust that guy, Tobo. One-Eye told me not to just before he passed."
"Nobody is going to trust Goblin for a long time, Croaker. And he knows that as well as anybody else does. He'll be the carefulest Goblin you ever saw. You won't even recognize him."
"We're talking about Goblin here. He can't help himself."
"He got into most of what he got into because One-Eye dragged him along. Think about it, Croaker. If he's somehow turned into Kina's tool, his assignment will be a long-term one. ‘Bring on the Year of the Skulls' kind of stuff. He won't get himself killed trying something trivial."
I grunted. That made perfect sense on a rational level but I remained unconvinced. Goblin was Goblin. I had known him for a long time. The things he did did not always make sense, even to him. I asked, "What'll we do with the Voroshk?"
"I'm going to educate them."
Damn! I did not like the way he said that.
He replaced my guards with his own cronies, Taglians led by a senior sergeant called Riverwalker. All these guards were fluent in the language of Hsien and possessed a working knowledge of Nyueng Bao, which was a close cousin of the language spoken in the Land of Unknown Shadows.
Tobo instructed the guards, then the prisoners. Through me. Explaining the facts of life. "These men will be your teachers. They will teach you languages and the skills you will need to get along in this world. They will expose you to our religions and laws and the ways we have for getting along with one another."
The boy doing the translating started to protest.
Riverwalker smacked him in the back of the head hard enough to knock him down.
Tobo continued, "You have to understand that you're guests. You bought passage out of Khatovar with your knowledge. Your lives will be as comfortable as we can make them so long as you cooperate. But we are at war with ancient and powerful enemies. We won't be inclined toward patience with anyone who doesn't cooperate. Our patience will be especially short with people we consider dangerous. Do you understand?"