“Uhm?”
“I trust my Old Division. A lot of those men want to join the Company. Most of them would fight the Prince if I gave the order.”
Lately a lot of Taglians wanted to join the Company. I think most of the applications were genuine. Guys who take the oath always stick. They never take the oath lightly.
The oath is always administered in secret. Recent recruits have been asked to keep their new allegiances to themselves. No one outside the Company had any idea how strong we really were. Some people inside were getting the mushroom treatment, too, if their name was something like Lady. The Old Man was turning paranoia into a fine art. “I understand that. What I’m wondering is, how come Lady is getting the hurt, too?” If something did not end up on the Prince’s back usually it went to her.
Croaker’s shrug told me he was not quite sure himself. “I guess I don’t want her in any position where she has to deal with too much temptation.”
“And the New Division?”
“I wouldn’t ask them to face off with the Prince. They probably won’t ever be ready to take our side in a civil scrimmage.” He looked me in the eye. This campaign had elevated him to a new level of hardness. This was like trading looks with Kina. I did not look away.
Croaker explained, “I’ll deliver on my promises.” He meant that our employers would not deliver. The Radisha, especially, was determined to screw us. The Prince had been out here long enough to become one of the gang. We never did get a chance to work our magic on his sister.
I said, “I spend a lot of time wishing I’d stayed a farm boy.”
“You still having trouble with the nightmares?”
“Every night. But it’s not like it’s a direct attack. I always work my way through and use the opportunity to scout around. Sure as hell ain’t pleasant, though, I’ll tell you that.” Kina, or somebody or something who wanted me to think she was Kina, was in my dreams all the time. My own conviction was that it was Kina, not Catcher. She was still trying to promise me Sahra back.
I wished she would do something about the odor.
“She trying to work Lady, too?”
“Probably.” Almost certainly. “Or maybe Lady is working her.”
“Uhm.” He was not listening. He was concentrating on Overlook now. Fireballs had begun zipping around over there.
Several fireballs flashed in the ruins of Kiaulune, too. The people Mogaba had in there were stubborn. The man really could find good soldiers and could motivate them. The Prahbrindrah Drah had begun razing parts of the ruined city, building by building, salvaging burnables where he could.
It was still cold. At the moment there were eight inches of snow on the ground, atop a couple of inches of hard-packed sleet. This was spring? How many more storms would we have to endure before the weather gave up delivering unpleasant surprises? Longshadow’s surviving crystal turrets sure looked comfy. I wondered why he had not bothered us much lately.
I checked the smoke rising from Kiaulune. I hoped the Prince would save a few nice places where us special folks could hole up in comfort after he rooted out the last partisans.
I was tired of living like a badger.
“What’s going on in there?” Croaker asked, indicating Overlook.
“Nothing’s changed. I don’t understand Longshadow. Not even a little. It’s like he’s determined to destroy himself. He’s in some kind of emotional slough where he just can’t exercise any initiative. You’ve been there, I expect. I have, I know. You know what needs doing but you just can’t move. It doesn’t seem like it’s worth the effort. It’s the same sort of paralysis that came over Smoke those last few weeks before he got knocked into his coma.”
Croaker looked thoughtful. “How about you? You feeling like you’re getting enough rest? With these dreams?”
“It isn’t bothering me yet.” I lied. Though I did not need sleep. I needed an emotional respite. I needed a few weeks alone somewhere with my wife.
“Where are your in-laws?” The eternal question. Uncle Doj was still missing.
“Good question. And before you ask, I still don’t have a clue what they’re up to. If they’re up to anything.”
“I worry about so many Nyueng Bao being so close to us.”
“Bad can’t happen, Captain. Not ever. They’re with us as a debt of honor.”
“As you always tell me, you had to be there.”
“That’d sure help you understand.”
He glared at the great white fortress, “You think we could let refugees get through?”
“Huh?”
“Put another burden on Longshadow. More mouths to feed.”
“He wouldn’t let them in.” I was still amazed that Longshadow had provided himself with such a small garrison. There were never more than a thousand people inside Overlook, including servants and families and those refugees who had gotten in before the destruction of the scaffolding. There was no mundane way the fortress could have been defended against multiple attacks.
But Longshadow had not planned to deal with the mundane. He had expected to be safe behind countless adamantine spells for as long as he liked.
“I don’t think it’ll be much longer, Murgen. Not much longer at all.”
Fireballs flew around over there. A rising breeze lifted some of those box kites the quartermasters had dragged all the way from Taglios. In this sort of wind they could lift twenty-five pounds to the top of the wall.
That was not what Croaker had brought them along for, he said. But he did not expound.
“I admire your confidence, boss. Yeah. Next year in Khatovar.”
“Next year in Khatovar” had become the sarcastic slogan of the Old Crew these past few years. Most would just as soon have faded away and gone back north. The constant stress of being in service to Taglios suited nobody but Lady. Despite her bouts with exhaustion she seemed to thrive emotionally where raging paranoia was the only sane way of facing reality.
Croaker was not amused. His goals for the Company were not acceptable butts for humor.
His sense of humor had been assassinated by this campaign. Or, at least, it had gone as comatose as Smoke.
“Thai Dei. How about we go for a walk?” When the Old Man got in a mood it never hurt to be somewhere else.
49
One-Eye is supposed to be my backup as Annalist, at least till Sleepy gets back and learns the ropes. Those few times I have handed him the job, or Croaker did when he was doing the Annals, he proved conclusively that we need Sleepy desperately. The old fart cannot live beyond the moment most of the time. Not that I blame him at his age.
So I was surprised when he bothered to tell me, well after the fact, that he had witnessed something interesting while he was out scouting with Smoke. No, he never wrote anything down and he could not recall all the details now but better late than never, right?
Maybe. Old Smoke was not anchored in time.
He and I drifted back to a moment not many hours after Narayan had visited Howler on the wall and their little chat got interrupted by Lady’s gang of insensitive brutes.
Singh and the Daughter of Night had reached safety in her quarters. The child did not talk much. Narayan was obviously extremely uncomfortable in her presence now, though she was a tiny thing even for her age. She ignored him, settled at a small worktable and turned up the wick on a small oil lantern. The stunner, for me, was seeing her set about the same sort of work that I did almost every day.
