“I’m starting to smell it, Croaker,” Lady said. She had grown grim as she listened.
“I am, too. Go on, Swan.”
“Well, before they got to us ... Before they went to work on Taglios they had some kind of falling out down there. Started feuding. The refugees talk about the whole big show. Intrigues, betrayals, subversions, assassinations, alliances shifting all over. Whenever it looked like one of them was starting to get ahead the others would gang up. Was like that for fifteen, eighteen years. So Taglios wasn’t threatened.”
“But now they are?”
“Now they’re all looking this way. They made a move last year but it didn’t work out for them.” He looked smug. “What they got here in this berg is all the guts anybody could ask-and not a bat in broad daylight’s notion what the hell to do with them. Me and Cordy and Blade, we kind of got drafted last year. But I wasn’t never much of a soldier and neither was they. As generals we’re like tits on a boar hog.”
“So this isn’t about bodyguarding and dirty-tricking for your Prince at all. Is it? He wants to drag us into his fight. Did he think he could get us on the cheap or something? Didn’t you make a report about our trip down here?”
“He’s the kind of guy who’s got to check things for himself. Maybe he figured to see if you rated yourself cheap. I told him all the stories I ever heard about you guys. He still wanted to see for himself. He’s a pretty good old boy. First prince I ever seen that tries to do what a prince is supposed to do.”
“Rarer than frog hair, then. I’m sure. But you said it, Swan. We’re on a mission from the gods. We don’t have time to mess in local disputes. Maybe when we’re on our way back.” Swan laughed. “What’s so funny?” “You really don’t got no choice.” “No?” I tried to read him. I couldn’t. Lady shrugged when I looked at her, “Well? Why not?”
“To get where you want to go you got to head right through the Shadowlands. Seven, eight hundred miles of them. I don’t think even you guys can make it. Neither does he.”
“You said they were four hundred miles away.” “Four hundred miles to Pityus, Cap. Where it started. They got everything from the border south now. Seven, eight hundred to Shadowcatch. And like I said, they started on us last year. Took everything south of the Main.”
I knew the Main to be a broad river south of Taglios, a natural frontier and barrier.
Swan continued, “Their troops are only eighty miles from Taglios some places. And we know they’re planning a push as soon as the rivers go down. And we don’t figure they’re gonna be polite. All four Shadowmasters said they would get mean if the Prahbrindrah had anything to do with you guys.”
I looked at Lady. “Damned awful lot of folks know more about what I’m doing and where I’m going than I do.”
She ignored me. She asked, “Why didn’t he run us off, Swan? Why did he send you to meet us?”
“Oh, he never sent us. He didn’t know about that part till we got back. He just figures if the Shadowmasters are scared of you guys then he ought to be friends with you.”
It wasn’t me who frightened them, but why give that away? Swan and his buddies and boss didn’t need to know who Lady had been. “He’s got guts.”
“They all got guts. Out the yang-yang. Pity is, they don’t know what to do with them. And I can’t show them. Like he says, the Shadowmasters would come sooner or later anyway, so why appease them? Why let them pick their time?”
“What’s in this for Willow Swan? You come on pretty strong for a guy just passing through.”
“Cordy ain’t here to hear me, so I’ll tell it straight. I’m not on the run no more. I’ve found my place. I don’t want to lose it. Good enough?”
Maybe. “I couldn’t give him an answer here, now. You know that if you know anything about the Black Company at all. I don’t think there’s much chance. It isn’t what we want to do. But I’ll give the situation a fair look. Tell him I want a week and the cooperation of his people.” I planned to spend another eleven days resting and refitting. I was out nothing making that promise. Nothing but some of my share of the rest.
“That’s it?” Swan asked.
“What else is there? You expect me to jump in just because you’re a sweet guy? Swan, I’m headed for Khatovar. I’ll do what I have to do to get there. You made your pitch. Now’s the time to back off and let the customer think.”
He babbled to his prince. The more the evening went on, the more I was tempted to issue a flat rejection. Croaker was getting old and cranky and not thrilled with the idea of learning yet another language.
The Prahbrindrah Drah nodded to Swan. He agreed with me. They rose. I did likewise, and gave the Prince a shallow bow. He and Swan walked away, pausing here and there to speak to other midnight diners. No telling what he said. Maybe what they wanted to hear. The faces I could see were smiling.
I got myself comfortable, leaned back to watch One-Eye at play. He had a swarm of bugs zipping around his victim’s head. I asked Lady, “What do you think?”
“It’s not my place to think.”
“Where would you be inclined to stand?”
“I’m a soldier of the Black Company. As you’re inclined to remind me.”
“So was Raven. So long as it suited his convenience. Don’t play games with me. Talk to me straight. Do you know these Shadowmasters? Are they Taken you sent down here to start building you a new empire?”
“No! I salvaged Shifter and sent him south, just in case, when the fury of the war and Stormbringer’s enmity were enough to explain his disappearance. That’s all.”
“But Howler...”
“Had his own escape planned. Knows of my condition and nurtures ambitions of his own. Obviously. But the Shadowmasters... I know nothing. Nothing. You should’ve asked more about them.”
“I will. If they’re not Taken they sound close enough as makes no difference. So I want to know. Where do you stand?”
“I’m a soldier of the Black Company. They’ve already declared themselves my enemies.”
“That’s not a definitive answer.”
“It’s the best you’re going to get.”
“I figured. What about Shifter and his sidekick?” I hadn’t seen them since Thresh, but had the feeling they were just around the corner. “If it’s as bad as it looks we’ll need all the resources we can muster.”
“Shifter will do what I tell him.”
Not the most reassuring answer, but I did not press. Again, it was the best I was going to get.
“Eat your dinner and stop pestering me, Croaker.”
I looked down at food now so old it was no longer palatable.
Smirking, Frogface ambled off to help his master soften the will of an assassin.
One-Eye overdid it. He has that way when he has an audience. He gets too exuberant. Our prisoner expired from sheer terror. We gained nothing from him but notoriety.
As though we needed that.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Willow, bats, and things
It was late. Willow yawned as he tumbled into his chair. Blade, Cordy, and the Woman looked at him expectantly. Like the Prahbrindrah couldn’t talk for himself. “We talked.”
“And?” the Radisha demanded.
“You maybe expected him to jump up and down and yell,’Oh, goodie!’”
“What did he say?”
“He said he’d check it out. Which is about the best you could expect.”
“I should have gone myself.”
The Prahbrindrah said, “Sister, the man wouldn’t have listened at all had not someone just tried to kill him.”
She was astonished.
