Glen Cook - Shadow Games

That the feud had gotten out of hand was obvious from blocks away. Fires illuminated the night. Taglians were coming out to see what was happening.

The wizards had squared off in the street outside Swan’s place. That had been gutted. Fires flickered up and down the street, none major, just patches gnawing the faces of buildings, evidence of the errant aim of a couple of drunken sorcerers.

Those troublesome little shits were having difficulty standing, let alone shooting straight. So maybe the gods do watch out for fools and drunks. Had they been sober they would have murdered each other.

Unconscious bodies lay scattered around. Swan and Mather and Blade and several guys from the Company were among them. They had tried to break it up and gotten creamed for their trouble.

One-Eye and Goblin were escalating. One-Eye had a pained-looking Frogface sicced on Goblin. Goblin had something that looked like a black snake of smoke growing out of his belt pouch. It was trying to get past Frogface. When the things grappled a shower of light washed the street, revealing Taglians crouched, watching from relative safety.

I halted before they noticed me. “Lady. What’s that thing Goblin’s got?”

“Can’t tell from here. Something he shouldn’t. A match for Frogface, which I would have thought was out of One-Eye’s class.” She sounded vaguely troubled.

There were times I’d had that notion myself. It did not seem reasonable that you could walk into a shop and buy a Frogface off the shelf. But it hadn’t bothered One-Eye, and he was the expert.

Frogface and the snake came to grips midway between their masters. They started grunting and straining and screaming and thumping around. I wondered aloud, “Is that what Goblin brought back from the country?”

“What?”

“From the first time I saw him after his set-to with the brown guys directing the shadows he had this smugness about him. Like he finally had him some way to whip the world.”

Lady thought. “If he picked it up from the Shadow-masters’ men it could be a plant. Shifter could tell us for sure.”

“He ain’t here. Let’s make the assumption.”

The last fire burned itself out. Goblin and One-Eye were totally preoccupied. One-Eye stumbled over his own bootlace. For a moment it looked like Goblin would get the upper hand. Frogface barely turned the snake’s strike.

“Enough. We can’t do without them, much as I’d like to bury them both and have done with their crap.” I spurred my horse. Goblin was nearest me. He barely started to turn. I leaned down and thumped his head. I did not see the result. I was on One-Eye already. I whacked him up side the head, too.

I turned for a second charge but Lady, Mogaba, and Murgen had them wrapped up. The battle between Frogface and the snake died out. But they did not. They eyed one another across ten feet of pavement.

I swung down. “Frogface. Can you talk? Or are you as crazy as your boss?”

“He’s crazy, Cap, not me. But I got an indenture. I got to do what he says.”

“Yeah? Tell me this. What’s that thing growing out of Goblin’s pouch?”

“A kind of imp. In another form. Where’d he come up with it, Cap?”

“I wonder myself. Murgen, check these other guys out. See if we’ve got any real casualties. Mogaba, drag that little shit over here. I’m going to knock some heads together.”

We plunked them down side by side with Lady and Mogaba holding them sitting from behind. They began to come around. Murgen came to tell me none of the unconscious men were injured.

That was something.

One-Eye and Goblin looked up at me. I paced back and forth, smacking the baton into my hand. My dictator’s stalk. I whirled on them. “Next time this happens I’m going to tie you two into a sack, face-to-face, and drop you in the river. I don’t have the patience for it. Tomorrow, while your hangovers are still killing you, you’re going to get up and come down here and make good fhe damage. The expense will come out of your pockets. Do you understand?”

Goblin looked a little sheepish. He managed a feeble nod. One-Eye did not respond.

“One-Eye? You want another whack up side the head?”

He nodded. Sullenly.

“Good. Now. Goblin. That thing you brought back from the country. Chances are it belongs to the Shadow-masters. A plant. Before you go to bed I want it stuffed in a bottle or something and buried. Deep.”

His eyes bugged. “Croaker ...”

“You heard me.”

An angry, almost roaring hiss filled the street. The snake thing came up off the paving and struck at me.

Frogface flung in from the side, deflecting it.

In a sudden, drunken, bug-eyed panic Goblin and One-Eye both tried to get it under control. I backed off. It was a wild three minutes before Goblin got it squished into his pouch. He stumbled into Swan’s place. A minute later he came out carrying a closed wine jar. He looked at me funny. “I’ll bury it, Croaker.” He sounded embarrassed.

One-Eye was getting himself together, too. He took a deep breath. “I’ll give him a hand.”

“Right. Try not to talk too much. Don’t get started again.”

He had the grace to look embarrassed, top. He gave Frogface a thoughtful look. I noted that he did not take the imp along to do the heavy work.

“What now?” Mogaba asked.

“Pains me all to hell, but now we count on their consciences to keep them in line. For a while. If I didn’t need them so much I’d make it a night they’d remember the rest of their lives. I don’t need this shit. What’re you grinning about?”

Lady did not stop. “It’s smaller scale, but this is what it was like trying to keep a rein on the Ten Who Were Taken.”

“Yeah? Maybe so. Murgen, you were out here boozing anyway, you finish picking up the pieces. I’m going to get some sleep.”

It was worse than I thought it would be. The mud seemed bottomless. The first day out of Taglios, after a cheering parade, we made twelve miles. I did not feel desperate. But the road was better nearer the city. After that it got worse. Eleven miles the next day, nine each of the three days following. We made that good a time only because we had the elephants along.

The day I wanted to reach the Ghoja ford I was still thirty miles away.

Then Shifter came, wearing his wolf shape, prancing in out of the wilds.

The rains had ended but the sky remained overcast, so the ground did not dry. The sun was no ally.

Shifter came with a smaller companion. It looked as though his understudy had caught on to shifting.

He spent an hour with Lady before we moved out. Then he galloped away again.

Lady did not look cheerful.

“Bad news?”

“The worst. They’ve put one over on us, maybe.”

I did not betray the sudden tightness in my innards. “What?”

“Recall the map of the Main. Between Numa and Ghoja there’s that low area that floods.”

I pictured it. For twelve miles the river ran through an area flanked by plains that flooded whenever the river rose more than a few feet. At its highest stage it could be fourteen miles wide there, with most of the flooding on the southern side. That plain became a huge reservoir, and was the reason the Numa ford became crossable before the Ghoja. But the last I’d heard it was mostly drained.

“I know it. What about it?”

“Ever since they took the south bank the Shadow-masters have been building a levee, from the downriver end, right along the normal bank. It’s something that’s been talked about for ages. The Prahbrindrah wanted to do it, to claim the plain for farming. But he couldn’t afford the labor. The Shadowmasters don’t have that problem. They have fifty thousand prisoners on it, Taglians who didn’t get across the river last year and enemies from their old territories. No one’s paid any attention because the project is one of those things that anyone who could would do.” “But?”