Mogaba stands six feet five. Any fat on him has to be between his ears because there isn’t an ounce anywhere else. All bone and muscle, he moves like a cat, his slightest twitch pure liquid grace. He works hard to stay hard but not to become overly muscled. He is very dark but a deep mahogany more than an ebony. He glows with conviction, an unshakable inner strength.
He has a ready wit but never smiles. When he does show humor it is entirely surface, for effect, an illusion spun for his audience. He doesn’t feel it and probably doesn’t understand it. He is as focused as any human being who ever lived. And that focus is the creation and maintenance of Mogaba, greatest warrior who ever lived.
He is almost as good as he wants to be. He might be as good as he thinks he is. I never saw anyone who could match his individual skills.
The other Nar are almost as good, almost as arrogantly self-confident.
Mogaba’s self-opinion is his big weakness but I don’t think anyone could get him to believe that. He and his reputation stand squarely at the center of his every consideration.
Sadly, self-indulgence and self-admiration aren’t always traits that will inspire soldiers to win battles.
There is no love lost between Mogaba and the rest of us. His rigidity split the Company into Old Crew and Nar factions. Mogaba envisions the Black Company as an ages old holy crusade. Us Old Crew guys see it as a big unhappy family trying to survive in a world that really is out to get us.
The debate would be much more bitter were Shadowspinner not around to snap up the mantle of bigger common enemy.
Many of Mogaba’s own people are less than thrilled with the way his mind is working these days.
Something Croaker harped about, from the moment he first set quill to paper, is what might be called matters of form. It is not good form to bicker with your superiors, however wrong they may be and however one-sided their determination of their superiority is. I try to maintain good form.
Croaker quickly elevated Mogaba to third in the Company, after himself and Lady, because of his exceptional talents. But that did not automatically entitle Mogaba to assume command if Croaker and Lady were gone. New Captains are supposed to be elected. In a situation like the one here in Dejagore the custom is to poll the soldiers to see if they think an immediate election is necessary. If they think the old Captain has become mad, senile, dead, incompetent, or otherwise in need of permanent replacement then a election will be held.
I cannot recall any instance in the Annals when the senior candidate was rejected by the soldiers, but if an election were held today a precedent might be set. In a secret ballot even many of the Nar might declare no confidence in Mogaba.
There will be no vote while we are besieged. I will oppose any effort to hold one. Mogaba may be mad and I may not be able to go along with him in areas he considers religious, but only he has the will to control thousands of skittish Taglian legionnaires while keeping the Jaicuri in line. If he should fall his assistant Sindawe would step up, then Ochiba, and only then, maybe, if I can’t hide fast enough, me.
Soldiers and civilians both fear Mogaba more than they respect him after all this time besieged. And that troubles me. The Annals demonstrate over and over that fear is the most fertile soil for treachery.
11
Mogaba holds staff conferences in the citadel. There is a war room there, once the toy of the sorceress StOrmshadow. Mogaba considers meeting there a great concession to the distances us underlings must hike. He does not like leaving his own part of the action. For that reason I could count on this being short.
He was polite enough, though it was a strained courtesy obvious to all. He said, “I received your message. It was not entirely clear.”
“I garbled it intentionally. I didn’t want the messenger telling everybody on his way to see you.”
“It is not good news, then, I assume.” He spoke the Jewel Cities dialect the Company picked up when it was in service to the Syndic of Beryl. Most of us used it only when we did not want the natives to understand what we were saying. Mogaba used it because he did not yet have enough Taglian to get by without interpreters. Even his Jewel Cities dialect was badly accented.
“Definitely not good news,” I said. Mogaba’s friend Sindawe translated for the Taglian officers present. I continued, “Goblin and One-Eye tell me Shadowspinner is completely healthy again and means tonight to be his big comeback show. So tonight won’t be just another raid, it will be a big punchout for the whole works.”
A dozen pairs of eyes stared, praying I was making the sort of bad joke Goblin and One-Eye would find hilarious. Mogaba’s own eyes were icy. He wanted to make me recant by sheer weight of his gaze.
Mogaba has no use for One-Eye or Goblin. They are one of the big sources of contention between him and the Old Crew. He is sure that real wizards, however puny, have no place among real warriors, who are supposed to rely on their strength, their wit, their will, and even maybe their superior steel if they have it.
Goblin and One-Eye, besides being wizards, besides being sloppy and undisciplined and rowdy, worst of all fail to agree that Mogaba is the best thing that could have happened to the Black Company.
Mogaba hates Shadowspinner in part because he knows the Shadowmaster will never meet him in a trial by combat that can be sung about down through the ages.
Mogaba wants his place in the Annals. He lusts after a major place in the Annals. And he is going to get that, but not the way he wants.
“Do you have a suggestion about how to deal with this threat?” Mogaba showed no emotion, though Shadowspinner getting well meant the date of our executions had been advanced.
I considered suggesting prayer but it was obvious Mogaba was not in the mood. “Afraid not.”
“There is nothing in your books?”
He meant the Annals. Croaker tried hard to get him to study them. Croaker was big on looking for, and deferring to, precedent mainly because he lacked much confidence in his mastery of strategy and leadership. On the other hand, Mogaba lacked no confidence whatsoever. He always had an excuse not to study Company history. Only recently had it occurred to me that he might not read or write. Those are skills considered unmanly in some places. Maybe that was true among the Nar of Gea-Xle, despite the fact that keeping the Annals was a holy duty of our Black Company forebrethren.
The Nar say very little about their beliefs. The rest of us are aware that they consider us heretics, though.
“Very little. The time-honored tactic is to attract the wizard’s attention to a secondary target where he will do less damage than he wants. You hold his attention there till he gets tired or until you sneak up and cut his throat. Sneakups aren’t practical here. This time Spinner will protect himself better. He might not even come out of his camp if we don’t make him.”
Mogaba nodded, unsurprised. “Sindawe?”
Sindawe is Mogaba’s oldest and closest friend. They go back to early childhood. Sindawe is now Mogaba’s second in command and leader of the Taglian First Eegion, which is the best of the Taglian formations. And the oldest. Croaker put Mogaba in charge of training when first we arrived in Laglios and the First is the juggernaut Mogaba built.
Sindawe can pass as Mogaba’s brother. Sometimes he acts like Mogaba’s conscience. Mogaba values his good opinion possibly more than he should.
Sindawe said, “We could try to outrun them... Whoa, Ga! I’m joking.”
Mogaba didn’t get it. Or if he did he failed to see the humor.
I offered, “Use artillery to distract him, wherever he is. And if we do catch him in range we can hope we get lucky.”
We did that during the big battle that ended with us trapped. And it worked. We even got lucky, some, which was why we were alive to be in deep shit now. But we did not come near eliminating Shadowspinner.
“We will include motion in everything,” Mogaba decided. “Our artillerymen will shoot and run. Wherever the Shadowmaster attacks directly we will fade away instantly. We will cover with enfilading fire till his attention is drawn elsewhere. We will not look him in the eye.”
Mogaba looked me in the eye. He wanted help from Goblin and One-Eye but his pride would not let him ask.
