The racket outside increased again. “Thai Dei!” I leapt over the bodies, flung a foot that glanced off Thai Dei’s behind. “If you don’t get your ass up and get organized we’re not going to help anybody.” I spotted a couple more kids cowering in the back. One of them had lighted the lamps. Other than Sahra and her mother no adults appeared to have survived. “Sahra!” I snapped. “Get up!” I slapped her. “Round up those kids back there.” They were too terrified to trust me even if they knew me.
I was still an outsider.
A little yelling was all Thai Dei and his sister needed. Their universe suddenly regained structure and direction, though they could not see its sense. They just needed somebody to get them started.
We found only one more living child and no more surviving adults.
“Thai Dei. Can you keep these kids together if we make a run for the alley?” The Taglians would cease to be a problem if we made it that far. In there one man could hold off a horde till help arrived.
He shook his head. “They are too frightened and too badly hurt.”
I was afraid of that. “Then we’ll carry them. Can you settle your mother down? She’ll need to help. Sahra. Take the baby. I’ll carry the girl. On my back. I want my hands free. Tell her to hang on tight but to keep her hands out of my face. If she don’t think she can do that let me know now. We’ll tie her wrists together.”
Sahra nodded. She was past her hysteria. She knelt beside Hong Tray, held the old woman for a moment, then removed her jade bracelet. With a deep sigh and evident reluctance, she slipped the bracelet onto her own left wrist. Then she turned to Ky Gota and began trying to calm her.
Thai Dei talked to the children, translating my my instructions. I realized that Sahra never spoke at all, not even in a whisper.
The girl I was going to carry was about six years old. And she did not want to go.
“Tie her on, then, damn it!” I snapped. I had begun to shake. I did not know how much longer I would retain full control. “We’re running out of time.”
Only the baby was unhurt. A boy of about four looked like he would not make it. He for sure would not if I did not get him to One-Eye in a hurry.
Water splashed and a man shrieked right outside. A body slammed against the door, which creaked and gave a little. Sahra swatted the girl to calm her, fitted her onto my back. I asked, “How about your mother?”
Never mind. The Troll was with us now. She had a two-year-old of indeterminate sex riding her left hip and the business end of a broken spear clutched in her right hand. She was ready for Taglians.
Getting ready actually took less time than it requires to tell it.
Sahra carried the baby. Thai Dei tied the wounded boy onto his back, kept his sword in hand. He and I went to the door. I peeked through cracks between the mutilated timbers. A Taglian soldier lurched past outside. I asked, “You first? Or me? One to lead, one as rearguard.”
“Me. From this day forward.”
What?
“Back!” I snapped. But he glimpsed the hurtling shape at the same time. He slid to the right as I moved to the left of the doorway. We were out of the way when the door blew inward. We jumped at the intruder, recognized him barely in time.
“Uncle Doj?”
He was a lucky man. The weight of the children we carried had slowed us just enough to allow us time to see who had blown in.
“Go,” I told Thai Dei. We did not need to hold a conference.
Thai Dei encountered a pair of Taglians immediately. I jumped out and drove one away. Ky Gota wobbled out behind us. She stuck the tip of her spearhead into the throat of the nearest Taglian. Then she settled the child more comfortably on her hip, turned on the other soldier.
A white crow swooped past, laughing like a troop of monkeys.
The surviving Taglian was not a foolish young man. He headed for the nearest gang of his countrymen.
“Go! Go!” I barked at Thai Dei. “Gota. Sahra. Follow Thai Dei. Uncle! Where are you? We’re gonna leave your ass here.”
Uncle Doj stepped outside as the Taglian pointed us out to his comrades. “Take the child away, Standardbearer. Ash Wand will be your shield.”
He put on an amazing display though I glimpsed only a few furious moments. That funny little wide man took on the whole mob of Taglians and killed six of them in about as many seconds. The rest took off.
Then we splashed into the alley. We reached safety moments later. In minutes One-Eye was working on the wounded children, albeit not cheerfully. And I was deploying some of the Old Crew, with Goblin, for a limited counterattack.
72
That night was the final watershed. There was never any pretense of friendship with Mogaba again. I had no doubts myself that he would have come after us if the “mistaken” attack on the Nyueng Bao had been a success.
Fighting continued until the water got too deep.
Despite insistence by One-Eye and others that protecting the Nyueng Bao was not our mission I did salvage a third of the pilgrims, about six hundred people. The cost of the attack to Mogaba was bitter. The following morning most of the remaining Taglians found themselves in positions where they had to commit for or against Mogaba.
The Taglians who had been with us from the beginning stuck with us. So did those who had deserted to join us. More came over from Mogaba’s side now but not a tenth as many as I expected. Tell the truth, I was disappointed. But Mogaba could make a hell of a speech to the troops when he wanted.
“It’s that old time curse again,” Goblin told me. “Even now they’re more afraid of yesterday than they are of now.”
And the water kept rising.
I took the Nyueng Bao down into our warrens. Uncle Doj was amazed. “We never suspected.”
“Good. Then neither do our enemies, whose brilliance is eclipsed by yours.” I brought the Old Crew inside, too. We packed people in as comfortably as we could. The warrens were quite spacious for sixty men. Adding six hundred Nyueng Bao did cramp things some.
We had to learn to recognize one another, too. My men had been trained to strike instantly at any unfamiliar face encountered underground.
I went back outside after darkness fell. Thai Dei and Uncle Doj dogged me. I assembled the Taglian officers who had attached themselves to the Old Crew. I told them, “I believe that we have done all we can here. I believe it is time to begin evacuating everyone who wants to get out of this hellhole.” I did not know why but was convinced that not much work would be required to evade or outwit the Shadowlander pickets ashore. “I will send one of my wizards to cover you.”
They did not buy it. One captain wondered aloud if I intended to drive them into slavery so I could make it easier to feed my own men.
I had not thought this through, had not considered possible difficulties. I had forgotten that many of these men had attached themselves to us only because they believed that that was their best shot at staying alive. “Never mind. If you guys want to stay and die with us we’ll be happy to have you. I was just trying to release you from your soldier’s oaths so you would have some chance.”
After dark, too, we let the Nyueng Bao men go back home to look for salvage and survivors and stores. They did not find much. Mogaba’s soldiers had been thorough in their own search and the water had risen to cover everything.
Mogaba’s men, using makeshift boats and rafts, began attacking Jaicuri occupied buildings one by one, harvesting stores forced out of hiding by the rising water.
Mogaba had drowned his own supplies.
