Someone had pointed out that the troops of the City Battalions were mainly Vehdna and Shadar. Both religions assure swift access to rivers of wine and acres of eager virgins for the man who falls in battle. Though originally that only meant warriors who perished in the name of God.
I wondered what the Vehdna paradise was like for Sleepy.
We had not yet been able to identify her body. The corpses in that passage had been burned that badly.
“Why don’t we go around these guys?” I wondered. And the answer was, they would not let us. They had an interlocking defense nicely laid out. The only way past was through. Or over.
Over we could do.
Over we did go, twenty insanely courageous Children of the Dead at a time, with a Tobo so tired he was cross-eyed doing the lifting.
The Unknown Shadows supported their pal from every possible direction, sometimes so blatantly that I could see them clearly from where I hovered, doing nothing whatsoever that was useful to the cause.
I had a wife in the camp outside the city. It had been a while since I had gone to see how she was doing. That might be considered doing something useful.
So I did leave my brethren to go visit my wife. While a fight was going on. A fight that would, no doubt, be completely unique amongst all the fights ever fought, so that somebody really should be right there to record every nuance of its unique ebb and flow.
Lady remained unchanged. She lurked halfway between life and death. She kept talking to herself in her sleep. What I saw did not inspire me with hope. What I heard only confused me. Mostly it was incoherent. Such individual words as were recognizable did not fall together at all sensibly.
A few minutes of that reminded me why I always resisted visiting till I had forgotten the despair a visit inspired.
122
Taglios:
Unknown Shadows
Only two unmarried second-cousins of Ghopal chose to leave the city with the Great General and the commander of the Greys. Because they had families the rest all chose to take their chances with the invaders.
Mogaba understood. In the coming confusion scores of his allies would be finding new looks, new races to be, while the conquerers scoured the city for enemies. Many would somehow fail ever to have heard of the Greys, let alone have contributed to that organization’s criminal oppressions.
“Here,” Mogaba said, leading the way out onto an ancient, rickety dock. “This one will do.” He indicated an eighteen-foot boat that, from its aroma, had been bringing in fish since sometime early in the last century.
Mogaba invited himself aboard. Ghopal and the others followed warily. Shadar and large bodies of water had a relationship somewhat like that between cats and bathtubs. Mogaba said, “Untie those ropes. You really do know how to row, don’t you?” Ghopal had made the claim.
Singh grunted. “But not competitively.”
To Mogaba’s astonishment they stole the boat without a challenge. He was amazed that a vessel so large had been untenanted. There should have been at least one family aboard. But tonight the entire waterfront was silent and unpopulated, as though the riverside nights were too terrible to endure.
Mogaba’s internal struggle waxed and waned. He reminded himself that it was fast becoming too late to change his mind, to give in to his prideful, arrogant side. That weakness had brought about these terrible end days. How different his life and the world would have been had he been able to control his interior demons during the siege of Dejagore.
He would hardly be a hated and lonely old man whose memories were all of serving faithfully and well a parade of despicable masters.
The white crow found them while they were trying to work out the mechanics of raising the boat’s lateen sail. There was a good breeze blowing, capable of carrying them up the river far more swiftly than could their incompetent rowing.
The bird settled in the rigging. “What are you doing? I did not give you permission to flee. Why are you running away? No battle has been lost.”
The Shadar gawked. Mogaba thumped himself on the chest. “No. A great war has been won. Here. At last. Now I go somewhere where I will do no more harm anymore forever.”
Ghopal looked from him to the crow and back, gradually gaining understanding of both. He grew increasingly agitated and afraid as he did so.
The bird was capable of a range of voices, though it was only a haunted crow. “Turn this vessel shoreward. Now. I will tolerate no disobedience.”
“You hold no terror for me anymore, old whore,” Mogaba replied. “You hold no power over me. I won’t be your toy or cats-paw tonight or ever again.”
“You have no idea how much you will regret this. I won’t be imprisoned forever. You will be the first chore on my list when I return. Ghopal Singh. Turn this disgusting tub around... awk!”
Ghopal had whacked the bird with the flat of his oar. Flailing, losing feathers, shrieking, it flung from the rigging into the fetid, muddy river. The retiring commander of the Greys observed, “That bird has an amazingly fowl vocabulary.” He grinned. Then he began digging through the bag he had carried aboard. He really needed a sip of wine. His kinsmen scowled. “Glower all you want, you magpies! I’m my own man now!”
The tenor of the bird’s incessant natter changed suddenly, becoming pure corvine terror. It flapped in panic as the surface of the river lifted it up.
The rising water tilted the boat precariously. Ghopal lost his grasp on his bottle. One of his cousins took a wild swing with his oar, swatting a gallon of water out of the thing taking form. His effort had no enduring effect.
“Holy shit!” Ghopal said from flat on his back. “What the hell is that?” He was staring over Mogaba’s shoulder.
A thing loomed against the light of fires burning in the city. A thing resembling a huge duck capable of a grin filled with wicked, glistening teeth. And the thing was not alone.
“Oh, man,” one of Ghopal’s cousins sighed. “They’re all around us. What are they?”
Mogaba sighed himself. He did not say that the monsters were not the sort of things people saw and lived to describe.
123
Taglios:
Crow Talk
Aridatha Singh had just gotten back to sleep when fiery pain pierced the back of his right hand. He leapt up and flung his arm out. He thought his lamp had somehow spilled burning oil and feared his cot would be on fire. But the lamp was not burning.
Not fire. Something had bitten him, then. Or maybe clawed him. And he had thrown it across the room, where it was struggling feebly and making incoherent chicken noises. Those people were attacking him directly now? He shouted for the sentries.
Once light filled the room he discovered that his visitor was an albino crow. One of the men threw a blanket over the bird and wrapped it up. Another examined Aridatha’s hand. “That’s one ragged looking critter, General. You might want to see a physician. It might be diseased.”
“Send for soap and hot water... It doesn’t look like the skin is broken much... What is that?”
The blanket with the bird inside had begun talking.
“It’s talking,” the soldier said, so utterly amazed that he could do nothing but state the obvious.
