Howler delivered a horrible scream edged with mockery. Singh practically dove through the hatchway. His contempt for the Shadowmaster was obvious to everyone but Longshadow himself though it was likely Longshadow would not have cared. To the Shadowmaster the Strangler was little more than a useful termite. In his mind none of us were much more than pesky insects.
The child left last. She considered Longshadow coldly. Her eyes seemed as old and wicked as time itself. She was a scary little thing for sure.
I wondered what the Old Man thought when he saw her.
Or if he even dared look.
Longshadow said, “They don’t think I know what I’m doing.”
“My soldiers are wasted where they are,” Mogaba replied.
“They’re losing what edge they had.”
“You may be right. But to attack in any direction you will have to leave what protection I am able to afford you. Without my lost comrades I cannot reach nearly as far as once I did. Will you risk their sorcery without mine to support you?” Mogaba grunted. He glared at the glittering plain. “You believe I am a coward for fearing that, General?” “I stipulate the danger. I grant the value of your protection. But there is much that I could do anyway. Blade has been allowed to act on a limited scale and has accomplished great things. For certain he has demonstrated repeatedly how these Taglians will collapse if you attack their weaknesses.” “You trust Blade?”
“More than most. Like me, he has nowhere else to run. But I trust no one completely. Our allies least of all. Neither Howler nor the Deceiver joined us out of love for our cause.”
“Indeed.” Apparently amused, Longshadow seemed to relax. “I must explain, General.” Mogaba’s surprise told me that this was an extraordinary eventuality. “I do not stay bottled up here because of the plain. I can leave Overlook for short periods. I will if I must. The Shadowgate wards are fresh and strong and reliable and entirely under my control. But if I do venture out I will have to so do by stealth.” Mogaba grunted again.
“The reason I stay here is that there are some less obvious players in this game.”
Mogaba frowned. Sounded like a crock to me, too.
“Howler springs from that clan once known as The Ten Who Were Taken.”
“I know.”
“Stormshadow matriculated from that slave school as well. Another graduate was Senjak’s sister. They called her Soulcatcher.”
“I believe we’ve met.”
“Yes. She embarrassed you at Stormgard.” Actually, that was Lady that time. Wasn’t it?
Mogaba nodded. I was surprised. Time seemed to have given him the ability to manage his temper.
“Some years ago circumstances deceived Howler and I. We took Soulcatcher prisoner under the impression that we had captured her sister. She was masquerading as Senjak at the time so the mistake was more her fault than ours. She escaped during some confusion that arose later. Although we did not treat her severely she bears us a unreasonable ill will. She has done us mischief before now and awaits the opportunity to do us major harm.”
“You think if you left Overlook she might invite herself inside and forget to leave the door unlocked?” “Exactly.”
Ha! Imagine hijacking that incredible fortress.
Mogaba sighed. “So whether I like it or not it will have to be decided on the Plain of Charandaprash.”
“Yes. Will you win?”
“Yes.” Mogaba never did lack confidence. “As long as Croaker remains the man I knew, scarred by that streak of softness.”
“If?”
“He hides behind a hundred masks. His soft streak may be another of those.”
“So this man concerns you despite your desire to discount him.”
“We continue to play to his strengths, not to attack his weaknesses. We allow him time to think, to plan, to maneuver, so he does not need to be subtle. His forces advance everywhere. Along the frontier the people are more afraid of the Black Company than of you. For pure viciousness there is nothing to match his war against Singh’s kind. The Croaker I remember would have taken prisoners. He would have pardoned Stranglers willing to abandon their religion.”
Right, I thought sarcastically. Then I reconsidered. Mogaba might be correct. Croaker had been forgiving, once upon a time.
“Maybe Senjak wants the example made.”
“Possibly, She is that hard. But her influence doesn’t explain Croaker’s having spent seven thousand lives trying to get Blade.”
What? This was news. “Blade deserted him.”
“I deserted him. And I was Company. Blade was only an adventurer, not a brother. He hasn’t come after me that way. With Blade he’s fighting a personal war.”
The falling out with Blade and Blade’s subsequent flight and defection baffled a lot of people, especially his buddies Cordy and Willow. And my name can go to the top of the list. Whispers were that Croaker stumbled onto something real going on between Lady and Blade. Whatever, it was certain that he was as obsessive about Blade as he was about Narayan Singh.
Lady did not interfere in Croaker’s vendetta. Neither did she help.
“That troubles you?”
“Croaker confuses me. In some ways he has become dangerously unpredictable. At the same time he becomes more and more the high priest of the Black Company legend, admitting no other gods before his precious Annals.”
That was not true. Croaker grew less interested all the time But allow Mogaba his hyperbole. He wanted to sell something.
Mogaba continued, “I fear he may become so skewed he’ll attack in a way so novel we won’t recognize it until it’s too late.”
“As long as he comes. Only disaster awaits him.”
“He’ll come. But is the overall outcome so certain?” I got the feeling both men nurtured major doubts, but each mostly about the other.
“You circle back upon my constraints. Desist. You fear him?”
“I dread him. More than I dread Lady. Lady is straightforward in her enmity. She comes right at you with everything she has. Croaker is determined to flim-flam you into looking somewhere else while he sticks a knife in your back. He will come at you with everything he has, too, but how will he use it? He is not a man of honor.”
Mogaba didn’t really mean that Croaker was dishonorable but that he was not a gentleman in the sense that meant so much to Mogaba-who could not be considered a cavalier himself anymore.
Mogaba continued, “He is no longer sane. I do not believe he is sure what he is doing himself. These days he has to face much for which there is no precedent in his Annals.”
Wrong again, chappie. After four hundred years there is a precedent for everything in the Annals somewhere. The trick is knowing how to look.
“He has limits, General.”
“Of course. Those Taglians are factious and divisive.”
“And that could be his undoing. Politically he will have no option but to try his luck at Charandaprash soon. Where we will crush him.”
“And if I do? We should consider the possibilities of life unplagued by this disease called the Black Company.”
“Oh?”
“Winning one battle will not be enough. If even one of them survives and maintains possession of the Lance of Passion new armies will rise against us. Lady proved that.”
“Then you will have the pleasure of crushing them again.” Mogaba wanted to argue but elected not to bark into the wind.
“Once Overlook is complete you can hare off on any adventure you like, with my approval and with my total support.” “Adventure?”
“I understand you better than you suppose. You were Gea-Xle’s greatest warrior but you could not prove that
