Glen Cook - She Is The Darkness

So what was worth reporting here? That Lady had to get some rest?

Maybe. Exhaustion could impair her judgment at a critical moment.

I started to back away, drifting up and over Lake Tanji, which was pretty damned impressive even from Smoke’s point of view.

I shivered in the cold wind...

There was no wind out there with Smoke. There was no warm, no cold, no hunger, no pain. There was just being and sight.

And fear.

For there in the gathering darkness above the lake’s southern shore was a dark ghost of a form with many arms and teats and wicked black lips drawn back to reveal a vampire’s grin.

You can panic out there. I did.

“You all right?” One-Eye asked as I came to the front of the wagon. It was dark out. He had turned his team loose to forage nearby, had a fire burning, and was now back on his driver’s seat polishing a spear that looked as though it had been carved from ebony, inlaid with silver highlighting a hundred grotesque figures. “You were thrashing around and yelling back there.”

“Thanks for coming to see what was wrong.”

“The old woman said you do that all the time. Didn’t seem worth worrying about.”

“Probably wasn’t. I just rolled over on your still parts.” Not true but I had a feeling he would have some around somewhere. Even during the worst of the siege of Dejagore he and Goblin had managed to produce something they pretended was beer.

He bought it long enough to give himself away. If this damned wagon stayed in one place very long something better used as food or horse fodder would turn into something else stinky but liquid and alcoholic.

“What’s the spear for?” I asked. “Haven’t seen it out for a while.” He had created it for the specific purpose of killing Shadowmasters.

“Talked to some of our brothers who’ve been with Lady’s division. Came by while you were snoring. Big Bucket and Red Rudy. Said they’ve seen a big black cat a couple three times lately. Figured I ought to be set with my best.”

He did not sound concerned but he was. That spear was a masterpiece of his art.

The cat was probably a shapeshifter named Lisa Daele Bowalk who could not shed her animal form because One-Eye had killed her teacher before she learned how. She had tried to get him before. He was confident that she would try again.

“Catch her if you can,” I told him. “I got a notion we could use her if we let Lady work on her for a while.”

“Right. That’ll be the main thing on my mind.”

“I’m going to see the Old Man.”

“Tell him I want to go home. It’s too damned cold out here for an old man like me.”

I chuckled, the way I was supposed to. I got down to the ground despite my stiffness and headed the general direction I presumed Croaker would be, based on the size of the fires.

Good thing One-Eye and I made a habit of using old languages. Thai Dei stepped out of the shadows before I had walked twenty feet. He said nothing but he was there guarding my back, wanted or not.

The journey continued. Wagons broke down. Animals came up lame. Men injured themselves. Elephants complained about the weather. So did I. It snowed a couple of times, not blankets of big soft wet flakes but the wind-whipped pellet kind that stings your skin and never amounts to anything but a few traces when it is done.

On the plus side, Mogaba’s cavalry never really got in our way. They were no problem as long as our foragers and scouts did not range too far ahead. I guess Mogaba was more interested in knowing where we were than in wasting soldiers trying to stop us before we came to his strong point.

Then one afternoon nobody received the routine order to halt and camp. The soldiers stumbled forward doggedly, cursing the bite of the wind while reminding one another that generals are seldom of sound mind and unbesmirched ancestry. They would not be generals if they were.

I went looking for the Captain.

There he was, his big crows on his shoulders. More circled him, bickering. He was smiling, the one happy fool in the army. The generals’ general. “Hey, boss. We going to keep humping it all night?”

“We’re less than ten miles from Charanky whatsit. I think it would be nice to be camped there when Mogaba gets up in the morning.”

He lived in his own reality, no doubt about that. Had to be a general. He actually believed he could play with Mogaba’s mind.

He had not seen Mogaba at Dejagore. Not enough.

I said, “We’ll be so beat he can come over and dance on our heads.”

“But he won’t. Longshadow has a ball and chain tied to his tail.”

“So he kicks ass and lies to his boss later.”

“That what you’d do?”

“Uh...” I might.

“Longshadow will be here watching him. Go get some sleep. When the sun comes up I want you perched on Mogaba’s shoulder.” Uncle Doj was only steps away, taking everything in. We were speaking Forsberger but I wondered if that was enough of a security measure.

Those crows were never far away.

What I got from the exchange was that Croaker did have a plan. Sometimes it was hard to believe that.

“I’m not tired right now.” I was hungry and thirsty, though. Any extended period spent with Smoke leaves me that way. I took advantage of the staff officers’ mess.

Messengers began to come and go. Croaker grumbled, “Guess it’s time to start telling people what they need to do.”

“There’s an original concept. After all these years.”

“Do we really need another smartass Annalist, Murgen? Get some rest.”

He began gathering senior officers for a meeting. I was not invited.

I went back to One-Eye’s wagon, where I ate some more, drank a lot of water and then went ghostwalking again.

Me and the fire chief eavesdropped on Croaker and his commanders but I should not have wasted the time. I learned very little. Croaker did all the talking, referring to a detailed map showing everyone where he wanted each unit to light in front of Mogaba. The only real surprise was that he wanted the Prahbrindrah Drah’s division stationed in the center while his own two divisions positioned themselves on the right flank excepting one specially trained combat team he wanted on the extreme left, outside Lady’s left flank.

Interesting. Our right wing just happened to face and lap the Shadowlander division Blade had been given to command. Croaker really wanted Blade.

Narrow-eyed, Lady asked, “Why did you decide to arrange the army this way? We’ve talked about this for three years...”

Croaker told her, “Because this is where I want you all.” Lady had trouble keeping her temper. In a long life she had not had to do that much.

Croaker smelled the smoke. “When I don’t explain to you nobody else finds out what I’m planning, either.” He offered some tidbit to one of his crows.

That helped. A little. But the Prahbrindrah Drah and most of the rest had no idea of the significance of Croaker’s crows.

I left Smoke, drank again, snacked, made sure the sleeper got some soup. He did not need nearly as much sustenance as I did. Maybe he was sucking on me out there, like some kind of psychic spider.

I slept. I had bad dreams that I recalled only in shards when I awakened. The Radisha was there. Soulcatcher was there. I suppose the old men in the caverns were there, too, though none of that stuck. Somewhere a bleak fortress.

I gave up trying to remember, went out with Smoke to try to see our approach as the enemy would.

Fireballs scattered colored pearls across the night. Torches speckled distant slopes with islands and snakes of light. The Shadowlander commanders watched without remark except when Blade suggested that the Captain was making his force appear more formidable by burning lots of torches.