Croaker had been fond of showmanship. He’d said you should adjust the minds of observers to think what you wanted them to think. That was never my style, but in the past I’d had brute force to waste. Here, let everyone think I believed I’d soon have men enough for four battalions and the battalions would expand.
Tired as they were, the men were content to work and grumble. I saw no shirking. No one deserted.
People came out of the fortress and other camps to watch. The men Narayan sent to gather firewood and timber and stone ignored their undisciplined cousins. Skulls looking down moved the curious to keep their distance. Sindhu babysat Swan, Mather, and Smoke. Blade took his appointment seriously. The men in his battalion accepted him. He was one of the heroes of the desperate hours before the coming of the Company. It was almost too sweet.
But nothing crept up. I watched the watchers. The camp was three-quarters complete, including a ditch and embankment and the rudiments of a palisade faced with locust thorns and wild rose canes. Jahamaraj Jah rode out of his camp, watched for fifteen minutes. He didn’t look pleased by our industry.
I summoned Narayan. “You see Jah?” He was hard to miss. He was as gaudy as a prince. He’d carried all that with him on campaign? “Yes, Mistress.”
“I’ll be on the other side of camp for a while. If some of your men-especially Shadar-suffered a lapse of discipline and called him coward and deserter I doubt their punishments would be onerous.” He grinned, started to dart away. “Hold it.” “Mistress?”
“You seen to have friends everywhere. I wouldn’t be averse to knowing what’s going on around here if you found contacts. Maybe Ghopal and Hakim and a few others could desert when you weren’t looking. Or otherwise get out and poke around.”
“Consider it done.”
“I do. I trust you that far. I know you’ll do what needs to be done.”
His grin faded. He caught the warning edge.
From Narayan I went to Swan. “How are you doing?”
“Dying of boredom. Are we prisoners?”
“No. Guests with limited mobility. Now free to go. Or stay. I could use your cachet.”
Smoke shook his head vigorously, as though he feared Swan would desert the Radisha. I told him, “You’re awfully anxious to hang onto a Black Company spy.”
He looked at me and went through some internal change, as though he’d decided to abandon ineffectual tactics. It wasn’t a dramatic shift, though. The role he’d been in couldn’t have been that far from the real Smoke.
He never said a word.
Swan grinned and winked. “I’m gone. But I got a feeling I’ll be back.”
The racket started up in Narayan’s sector as I watched Swan go. I wondered how Jah was taking it.
Swan was back within the hour. “She wants to see you.”
“Why am I not surprised? Ram, get Narayan and Blade. Sindhu, too.”
I took Narayan and Blade with me. Sindhu I left in charge, hinting that I’d be pleased if the camp was finished when I got back.
I paused at the gate of the Ghoja fortress, glanced back. It was an hour short of noon. We had been here six hours. Already my camp was the most complete, best protected, most military.
Professionalism and preparedness are relative, I suppose.
Chapter Sixteen
Croaker hobbled to the temple door, looked out. Soulcatcher was nowhere around. He hadn’t seen her for days. He wondered if he’d been abandoned. He doubted it. She’d just waited till he was able to care for himself, then had hurried off on some arcane business.
He thought of making a run for it. He knew the surrounding country. There was a village he could reach in a few hours, even at the pace he could make. But that escape would be no escape.
Soulcatcher was away but the crows had stayed to watch. They would stay with him. They would lead her to him. She had the horses. Those beasts could run forever without tiring. She could spot him a week’s lead and catch him.
Still...
This place was like an island outside the world. It was dark and depressing.
He started walking, going nowhere, moving for the sake of movement. The crows nagged at him. He ignored them, ignored the ache thumping in his chest. He strolled through the woods, to the countryside beyond, emerging near the half-dead tree.
He recalled it now. Before Dejagore and Ghoja he had come south to scout the terrain, had spied Soulcatcher watching, had chased her into these woods. He’d stood by that tree trying to decide what to do next-and an arrow had hit it, nearly taking off his nose. It had carried a message, telling him it wasn’t time for him to catch whomever he was chasing.
Then the Shadowmasters’ men had come after him and he’d been too busy running to give the place any more thought.
He walked up to the tree. Crows burdened its branches. He fingered the hole where the arrow had hit. She’d been watching over him then, hadn’t she? Not interfering but there just in case, maybe laying on a nudge or two to make sure he was around for her revenge.
A long, lazy hill lay before. He decided to ignore the crows. He kept walking.
The pain in his chest became insistent. He wasn’t ready for so much exercise. He couldn’t have gone far even without the crows keeping track.
As he paused to rest he wondered how much Soulcatcher had intruded on his affairs. Could she have had some hand in the outcome at Dejagore?
Destroying Stormbringer, who had worn the alias Stormshadow, had been easier than he’d expected. And getting Shapeshifter had been a breeze, too- though there’d been a little treachery to that, since Shifter had been helping Lady. Which reminded him. That girl. Shifter’s apprentice. She’d gotten away. She could be thinking of evening scores. Did Soulcatcher know about her? Better mention her next chance he got.
His heartbeat had fallen off toward normal. The pain had waned. He resumed walking. He reached the ridgeline and stood leaning against a gnarly grey piece of exposed rock, panting while crows circled and nattered. “Oh, shut up! I’m not going anywhere.”
Another outcrop nearby vaguely suggested a chair. He shuffled over and sat, surveyed his kingdom.
All Taglios could have been his if he’d won at Dejagore, had that been his ambition.
A flight of three crows arrowed in from the north, coming like racing pigeons, swirled into the flock, cawed some. The whole mob scattered. Odd.
He leaned back, thought about the battle’s aftermath. Mogaba was alive and holding the city against besieging Shadowmasters, according to Soulcatcher. Maybe a third of the army had managed to get inside the walls. Fine. A stubborn defense would keep them away from Taglios. But he didn’t care that much about Taglios. Nice people, but anybody who was anybody was thoroughly treacherous.
He was concerned about the few friends he’d left down south. Had any survived? Had they salvaged the Annals, those precious histories that were the time link cementing the Company? What had become of Murgen and the standard and his Widowmaker armor? Legend said the standard had been with the Company since the day it had marched from Khatovar.
What were those damned crows up to? Moments ago there had been a thousand of them. Now he couldn’t see a dozen. Those all glided at high altitude, drifting back and forth over something up the valley.
Had Khatovar become a hopeless dream? Had the last page of the Annals been written just four hundred miles from home?
Sudden memory from the first hours of their journey away from Dejagore. Just an image, of a man floating, writhing upon a lance. Moonshadow? Yes. And Moonshadow had been skewered upon that lance during the fighting. Skewered on the lance that supported the standard. It wasn’t lost! That heirloom more important than the Annals
