ten days seemed much longer for some of us because the File of Nine, defying the express wishes of the Elders of Khang Phi and the lords of the Court of All Seasons, issued a bull declaring the Black Company to be the enemy of the Children of the Dead. It encouraged all warlords to gather their forces and march against us.
That trouble was slow developing. The warlords who were our neighbors knew too much about us to try anything. Those who were farther away were willing to wait until someone else moved first. Most never bothered to call in their troops. And, characteristic of Hsien’s politics, the stream of volunteers, of money and materials helping us become an ever greater threat to the Children of the Dead, never slackened.
Tobo finished work on the Hsien-end shadowgate fourteen days after our return from Khang Phi. Despite the war clouds, Sleepy was in no hurry. Sahra assured her that it would be months before anyone got started our way —if they ever did at all. She claimed the warlords could not possibly agree that quickly and move that fast. No need to hurry. Haste causes mistakes. Mistakes come back to haunt you every time.
“You do a good job, you’re guaranteed gonna have to pay for it,” I told Suvrin. The young Shadowlander had just been informed of his latest honor: He was going to cross the glittering plain to scout and to repair our home shadowgate. Right after Tobo trained him. Tobo would not go himself because he did not want to be separated from his pets. Filled with low cunning, I asked, “How are your writing skills?”
He stared at me for several seconds, eyes big and brown and round in a big round, brown face. “No. I don’t think so. I like it in the Company. But I don’t plan to spend my life here. This is a learning experience. This is training. But I won’t become a lord of mercenaries.”
He surprised me, in several ways. I never heard anyone describe their Company time quite that way, though many do join up fully intending to desert just as soon as they are safely away from the trouble that had them on the run. Nor had I noticed, ever, anyone grasp so quickly what it could mean, in the long run, to be approached about becoming the apprentice Annalist.
A stint as Annalist could be a step toward becoming Captain someday.
I was teasing, mostly, but Sleepy did think a lot of Suvrin. The suggestion might not be a joke to her.
“Have fun on the other side. And be careful. You can’t be careful enough where Soulcatcher is involved.” I went on and on. His patient blank expression and glazed eyes told me he had heard it all before. I stopped. “And you’ll hear it all a hundred times more before you go. The Old Woman’ll probably write it all down in a scroll you’ll have to take along and read before breakfast every morning.”
Suvrin put on a feeble, insincere smile. “The Old Woman?”
“Thought I’d try it out. I have a feeling it isn’t going to work.”
“I think you can count on that.”
I didn’t expect to cross paths with Suvrin again this side of the plain. I was wrong. Only minutes after we parted it occurred to me that it might be useful if I sat in on the shadowgate training.
It occurred to me that I ought to ask the Captain’s permission. I was able to resist the temptation.
Lady decided it might be good if she extended her own education, too.
18
The Land of Unknown Shadows:
Due South
Campfires burned on the far slopes, opposite Outpost. Those pesky rock apes had emigrated. The flocks of crows were expanding. Choosers of the slain, I heard them called somewhere. The File of Nine had pulled a half-ass army together far faster than our bemused foreign minister had believed possible.
“At last,” I said to Murgen, as he and I shared a newly discovered jar of skullbuster. “To One-Eye.” The stuff just kept turning up. We were doing our best to make sure it did not fall into the hands of the soldiers. In their hands strong drink was likely to cause indiscipline. “Your old lady talked like it’d be next year before they tried anything. If they ever got anything going at all.”
The advent of unfriendly forces had been no surprise, of course. Not with Tobo handling intelligence.
“To One-Eye. She has been known to err, Captain.” He was starting to slur already. The boy could not hold his liquor. “Upon rare occasions.”
“Rare occasions.”
Murgen hoisted his cup in a salute. “To One-Eye.” Then he shook his head. “I do love that woman, Captain.”
“Uhm.” Oh-oh. I hoped we did not get maudlin here. But I understood his problem. She got old. We spent fifteen years in stasis, not aging a minute. A little payoff from the gods for doing us so dirty the rest of the time, maybe. But Sahra, who meant more to Murgen than life itself, who was the mother of his son, had not been one of the Captured.
Which had been lucky for us. Because she had dedicated herself to freeing Murgen. And eventually she succeeded. And freed me and my wife and most of the Captured as well. But Sahra had grown and had changed and had aged more than those fifteen years. And their son had grown up. And even now, four years after our resurrection, Murgen still had not adjusted completely.
“You can get by,” I told him. “Bless One-Eye. Put it all out of your mind. Exist in the now. Don’t worry about the then. That’s what I do.” In terms of experience my wife had been ancient centuries before I was born. “You did get to be the ghost that rode around with her and shared her life, even if you couldn’t touch her.” I live with ten thousand ghosts from my wife’s past, few of whom ever got discussed. She just did not want to talk about her olden days.
Murgen grunted, mumbled something about One-Eye. He was having trouble understanding me even though I was articulating with especial precision. He asked, “You never were much of a drinker, were you, Captain?”
“No. But I’ve always been a good soldier. I’ve always done what’s got to be done.”
“I gotcha.”
We were outside, of course, watching shooting stars and the constellations of fires that marked the enemy encampment. There seemed to be an awful lot of those fires. More than the reported numbers deserved. Some genius of a warlord was playing games.
“They’re not going to come,” Murgen said. “They’re just going to sit there. It’s all for the benefit of the Nine. It’s showmanship.”
I blessed One-Eye and took another drink, wondered if Murgen was repeating his wife’s assumption or his son’s. I cocked my head in favor of my left eye. My night vision is questionable even when I am sober.
Murgen said, “I don’t think you can imagine the level of fear over there right now. The boy does something to terrorize them every night. He hasn’t hurt a louse on one of their heads yet but they’re not stupid. They get the message.”
You got the Black Hounds strolling through your camp, eating out of your cookpots, or maybe pissing in them, and you have dozens of lesser night things pulling up tent pegs and starting fires and stealing your boots and treasures, you have troubles that will effect morale for sure. The soldiers will not believe the stories you tell to soothe them, however clever you think you are.
“The thing is, if the leadership decides there’ll be war, they’ll come.” I knew. I have been with the Company forever. I have seen men fight under incredibly bad conditions. And, admittedly, I have seen men lose heart when conditions seemed ideal. “To One-Eye. He was a big part of the glue that held us together.”
“One-Eye. You know the Fourth Battalion’s going up tonight?”
“Up?”
“To the plain. They’re probably moving out right now.”
“Suvrin can’t possibly have the shadowgate ready to go yet.”
Murgen shrugged. “I’m just saying what I heard. Sahra telling Tobo. She got it from Sleepy.”
Once again the Annalist had not been included in the planning and decision-making. The Annalist was irked. In a former life he had gained a lot of experience planning campaigns and managing large groups of fractious people. The Annalist can contribute still.
In a moment of clarity I understood why I was being left out. Because of the thing that killed One-Eye. Its
