“Lack of training. Lack of the knowledge we got out of Khang Phi. You have to know a little about these things to redo them.”
Lady asked, “Can they break through the gateway into Hsien?” The knowledge was there.
“I don’t know. They got the forvalaka through. Maybe they could shove their own people through on a slow, one-at-a-time basis. They never tried before. But they’ve never been desperate before. And time isn’t on their side.”
“What about Shivetya? What’s his take on this?”
“I’ll find out. I’ll send a messenger in just a minute.”
One of the soldiers from Hsien—Panda Man, I think—asked, “What about the men with Longshadow? If he hasn’t left the plain. One is my cousin.”
Tobo drew a long, deep breath. “My work is never done.”
Lady said, “If you’re going to do something you’d better do it fast. They have a key. It’s at risk.”
“Damn! You’re right. Captain, I’m going to borrow your ravens. Lady, lean out the gate and yell for Big Ears and Cat Sith. They’ll hear you. Tell them I want them. It’s an emergency.”
“One damned thing after another,” I grumbled. “It never lets up.”
“But you’re alive,” Swan said.
“Don’t you be jumping around on the other side of your own argument.” We amused ourselves with some good-natured bickering while Tobo sent supernatural messengers off to Shivetya, the guards at the Hsien shadowgate, Longshadow’s keepers, and our folks up north.
Along the way Murgen asked his son, “What’s to keep those jokers up there from just flying off the plain? I remember times when crows came and went.” And he used to do so himself, all the time.
“They could do that because they come from our world. Crows from any other world we wouldn’t have seen at all. Even if they were there. Yes. The Voroshk can fly out any time they want. But when they do they’ll end up in Khatovar. Every time. If they want to get off the plain into another world they’ll have to come onto it through their shadowgate and leave it through another shadowgate. Shivetya restructured it that way.”
It can be confusing. I guess that happens where realities overlap, with a deathless demigod in the middle who feels compelled to make it hard for the human species to realize its darkest potential.
45
Nijha:
The Stronghold Falls
There were fewer than fifty soldiers to hold Nijha’s walls, most of them injured already and all of them thoroughly terrified after having endured a night overrun by the Unknown Shadows.
The defenders were accorded the honors of war and allowed to march out without their weapons, taking their families and what possessions they could carry. They were admonished to clear the road whenever the Black Company passed.
If the Nijha stronghold had surrendered any faster Sleepy would have worried that she was walking into a trap. As it was, she did send Doj in first to make sure Soulcatcher had left her no special little gifts.
She had not.
“Put Narayan somewhere where he can’t embarrass me,” Sleepy ordered after the stronghold had been declared secure. “I’ll decide what to do with him in a day or two.” She would have preferred handing him over to Lady and Croaker right away. “Battalion, regiment, and brigade commanders and all senior staff are to assemble in the local headquarters building in one hour.”
Sahra asked, “You think there’ll be room? I really thought this place would be bigger.”
“So did I. Even though we knew it was a glorified remount station. Gosh, I wish Tobo was here instead of down there.”
“So do I.” Sahra hated having her whole family so far away. She had become accustomed to having a real family again during our years in Hsien. “I’ve been thinking. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to keep Tobo and Murgen from going to the same dangerous places?”
“Like the shadowgate?”
“Like that. Or anywhere else where one bad blow could take them both away.”
Sleepy understood Sahra’s agony. Sahra had lost two children and one husband to malignant fortune already. The husband did not trouble her much. His removal had improved her life. But rare is the mother who will not ache forever over the loss of her little ones.
All part of the wondrous cruel experience of the siege of Jaicur, or Dejagore, that has twisted so many members of the Company and burdened them with vulnerabilities and obsessions that will shape their minds and souls for as long as they survive.
“That’s a good idea,” Sleepy said. “Although you can count on getting resistance from the men. Can you imagine Runmust and Iqbal being willing to go anywhere where they’re not elbow to elbow with each other?”
Sahra sighed. She shook her head slowly. “If the Gunni are right about the Wheel of Life then I must have been something more wicked than a Shadowmaster in a previous life. This one never stops punishing me.”
“Let me tell you, it’s harder being Vehdna. You don’t have other lives to blame it on. You just go crazy trying to figure out why God is so angry with you in this one.”
Sahra nodded. The moment had passed. She was in control again. “You’d think I would’ve made my peace with this life by now, wouldn’t you?”
Sleepy thought that she had, about as well as she could, but did not say so. She did not want to push Sahra back onto the path of self-examination. That could get tiresome fast.
“We have a major staff meeting. I want your help. I want you to think in broader terms. I’m rethinking my strategy. The distances are turning out to be too great for a headlong rush. We’re getting weaker fast while our enemies are getting stronger. I want your thoughts on different approaches.”
“I’ll be all right. I have to have these spells once in a while just to get by.”
46
Nijha:
The Darkness Always Comes
Darkness came to Nijha. With it came an almost supernatural silence. Within the crude walls the senior commanders were clustered with Sleepy and Sahra. Outside, the soldiers were cooking, repairing harnesses and equipment, or, mainly, just sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. A night’s rest was never enough to recover fully from a hard day’s march. Weariness accumulated, and more so when a force covered a lot of miles in a hurry.
For the first time since his liberation Goblin found himself unsupervised, overlooked, forgotten. He did not trust his observations for a while. These were sneaky people. Possibly they were testing him.
Eventually it became evident that he really was running free, unmonitored. This was early in the game and way remote but no better opportunity was ever likely to arise.
Narayan stirred warily, though his despair was such that he could generate little concern about his own continued well-being. Already he had been separated farther, if not longer, from the Daughter of Night than ever before since her birth. If he lost her there would be no reason to go on. It would be time to go home to Kina. There would be nothing more he could do. And there was little chance he would get any opportunity ever again, anyway. He was alive now only because these people were saving him as a plaything for the girl’s birth parents. Again.
His days and hours were numbered and once again his faith was being tested sorely.
He heard a faint, breathy sound that seemed vaguely familiar. And it should be, he thought. His heart began
