I was back in mankind’s natural state, on the ground, when I wakened again. A pointy hunk of chert was trying to gouge a hole through my back. Somebody said something in one of the dialects of Hsien, then repeated himself in bad Taglian. Arkana materialized overhead, face somber. “You going to live, Pop?”
“All the aches and pain I’ve got, it’s a sure thing. What happened?”
“You did something stupid.”
“What else is new?” a second voice demanded. Sleepy’s face materialized opposite Arkana. “How soon you going to get off your back, part-time? I need some help. This disaster show you guys engineered is about to put us out of business.”
“Be right with you, Boss. Soon as I get my leg bones unbraided and my feet hooked back onto my ankles.”
The effort of trying to get up, because I wanted to find my wife, pushed me over into the darkness again.
Rain in my face wakened me the next time. My physical pains had turned to dull aches. They had gotten something into me. Cataloging, I decided I had a lot of bruises but nothing was broken or permanently damaged.
Just when I started to make an effort to get up I floated upward. After a momentary panic I realized that I was on a litter, being moved in out of the rain. Being lifted onto the litter was what had interrupted my sleep, not those first few misty raindrops.
I got a better grip this time. I remained rational when Sleepy turned up. “How’s my wife?” I asked, with only a small squeak in my voice.
“She’s still alive. But her situation isn’t good. Though it’s better than it would’ve been if she hadn’t been wearing the Voroshk outfit. I’d guess she might recover. If we can get Tobo to stay focused long enough to help.”
I heard the unspecified offer of a job assignment in there somewhere. “What’s the kid’s problem?”
“His father got killed. Where were you?”
I grunted. “I was afraid of that.” Maybe I had tried to shut it out. It was going to hurt.
Sleepy seemed to think we did not have time for pain.
I had begun to trust her instincts.
“You had it right, Croaker. Soldiers live. Only three people got out of that scrape unhurt. Tobo, Arkana and a very lucky soldier named Tam Do Linh. Howler, the First Father, Nashun the Researcher, Murgen and all the other soldiers, didn’t. The rest of you are hurt. Tobo feels guilty. He thinks he should’ve done more. He thinks he should’ve realized it was a trap.”
“I understand. What about Shukrat?”
“Bruises and abrasions and emotional distress. The Voroshk clothing took good care of her. It knew her so well it adapted faster than Lady’s could. As I understand it.”
“Murgen could’ve worn Voroshk protection.” But he had refused. Damn him.
There had not been much fight in him since Sahra’s disappearance.
“I want you to straighten Tobo out. We need him back. We need the Unknown Shadows. If I was in Mogaba’s boots I’d have another attack force headed our way already.”
“I don’t think so.”
“The man doesn’t wait around, Croaker. His gospel is, seize the initiative.”
I could only make an ass of myself arguing with a woman who had fought the Great General more years than I had known him. Who had lived in Taglios for as many years as I had, much more recently. Evidently I was just another cranky old man raising a fuss for the attention. Except when she needed something. “Then we’d better arrange for it to get really dangerous for him personally if anything happens to any of us.”
I felt stupid before I finished saying that. For Mogaba there was little chance life would ever be more dangerous than it was already.
I had forgotten an early lesson. Try to reason like the enemy. Study him until you can think just like him. Until you can become him.
Sleepy told me, “You need to find yourself an apprentice, too. If you’re going to keep getting involved in lethal stuff.” At your age was implied—until the Captain actually said, “You’re too long in the tooth to be out there right where it’s happening. It’s time you eased up and started passing your secrets along.”
Sleepy went away, leaving me wondering. Who was I supposed to tap? I was inclined to pick her buttboy, Mihlos Sedona, except that the kid had one huge shortcoming. He was totally illiterate. And I did not have any inclination to put in all the hours needed to alter that condition.
Then the man I maybe should have been thinking of turned up on his own, voluntarily.
“Suvrin? What the hell’s gotten into you? You’re going to leave us most any day now.”
“So perhaps I’ve had an epiphany. Maybe I need to learn the Annals because I’ve decided to face my destiny.”
“Is that the fragrance of bullshit wafting on the breeze?” Being an old cynic I thought it was more likely that he thought this would somehow get him laid. But I did not suggest anything. I just accepted him, then groaned upon discovering that Sleepy’s wonderfully educated young man neither wrote nor read a single word of Taglian, which has been the language of these Annals for the last twenty-five years.
Lady’s book was the last written in another language. And Murgen had translated and updated that, along with a couple of my own that had not really needed any polish.
“Think you can learn to read and write Taglian?” I asked. “You might never need to do either...”
“Unless I want to read the Annals. The holy scriptures of the Black Company.”
“Yeah. If I go, you’ll be on your own unless Sleepy makes time or Lady recovers.” I had had time enough now to put together an act of indifference. But I was not convincing anybody.
Suvrin stared, waiting for the punchline.
There was none, really, except that he ought to make an effort to see that I stayed healthy long enough for him to develop the needed skills.
Two days after Suvrin became my understudy Sleepy stage-managed a ceremony that formalized his appointment as Lieutenant of the Black Company and her heir-apparent.
We were outside that big, nameless hilltop stronghold which broods over the Rock Road approach to Taglios. A large plain had been leveled and prepared as a place where troops could camp or could practice the close-order skills necessary for success in battle. Or as a place where forces defending the city could engage an advancing enemy.
No one bothered us there, other than small Vehdna cavalry bands made up of youths who wanted to show off their courage. But I advised both Sleepy and Suvrin against leaving the stronghold unvanquished behind us.
Sleepy was no more interested in advice than ever before but these days she did pretend to listen. Her own approach to conquest had been a disaster mitigated only by the fact that a few of us had survived.
108
Taglios:
Someone at the Door
Upon reflection, after we beat back a relief sortie by troops from Taglios, the commander of the fortress offered to surrender on terms. He wanted paroles for himself and damned near everyone who ever bore arms in the three nearest counties. Which was not all that unreasonable, I thought, considering we were going to turn all this over to the Prahbrindrah Drah as soon as the deal closed and the Prince could get his ass up here from Ghoja.
Even after all her years in the real world Sleepy retained some Vehdna notions about right and wrong that had nothing to do with the practicalities of the moment.
“Even if this Lal Mindrat is the worst human monster since the Shadowmasters themselves, you have to
