Glen Cook - Shadow Games

I stepped to the window, shaded my eyes. I thought I could detect a black dot floating among the soldiers. “We don’t have anybody on our side now. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty with Shifter.”

“You did the right thing. He’d fulfilled his agenda. He might even have joined the others against us. He had no grudge against them.”

“Did you know who they were?”

“I never suspected. Honest. Not till a day or two ago. Then it seemed too unlikely to mention.”

“Let’s get at it.”

She kissed me, and it was a kiss with oomph behind it. We’d come a long way... She put her helmet on and turned into the grim dark thing called Lifetaker. I did my magic trick and turned into Widowmaker. The scurrying rats who people Stormgard-I guessed we should change the name back when the dust settled-stared at us in fear and awe as we strode through the streets.

Mogaba met us. He’d brought our horses. We mounted up. I asked, “How bad does it look?”

“Can’t tell yet. With two battles under our belts and two victories I’d say we’re the more tempered force. But there’ll be a lot of them and I don’t think you have any more tricks up your sleeves.”

“You’re right about that. This is the last thing I expected. If this Shadowmaster uses his power...”

“Don’t mention it to the men. They’ve been warned we might encounter unusual circumstances. They’ve been told to ignore them and get on with their jobs. You want to use the elephants again?”

“Everything. Every damned thing we’ve got. This one could be the whole war. Win it, we’ve got them off Taglios’s back and we’ve opened the road all the way south. They won’t have an army left to field.”

He grunted. The same went for us.

We got out onto the field. In moments I had messengers flying everywhere, most of them trying to dig my armed laborers out of the city. We were going to need every sword.

Mogaba had sent the cavalry off to scout and harass already. Good man, Mogaba.

The crows seemed to be having a great time watching the show take shape.

The Shadowmaster out there was in no hurry. He got his men out of the hills and into formation despite my cavalry, then had his horsemen chase mine off. Otto and Hagop might have whipped them, but I’d sent instructions not to try. They just came back, leading the enemy, pelting him with arrows from their saddle bows. I wanted them to rest their animals before the main event. We did not have enough remounts to carry a proper cavalry campaign.

I detailed a few men to assemble the former prisoners as they showed and send them off to get in the way of anybody who sallied from the camp. With weapons captured yesterday and during the night more than half were now armed. They were not trained and were not skilled, but they were determined.

I sent word for Cletus and his brothers to move the artillery over where he could give us support and could bombard the encampment gate.

I looked across at the new army. “Mogaba. Any ideas?” At a guess there were fifteen thousand of them. They looked at least as competent as those we’d met at the Ghoja ford. Limited, but not amateurs.

“No.”

“Don’t look like they’re in a hurry to get at it.”

“Would you be?”

“Not if I had a Shadowmaster. And had hopes we’d come to them. Anybody else got any ideas?”

Goblin shook his head. One-Eye said, “The Shadow-masters are the key. You take them out or you don’t got a chance.”

“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs. Messenger. Come here.” I had one idea. I sent him to draft one of the Nar and have him head into town, round up a thousand armed prisoners, and go to the city’s west gate. When the fighting started he was to hit the camp from behind.

It was something.

Lady said, “One-Eye is right.” I think it pained her to have to say that. “And the one to concentrate on is the healthy one. This is a time for illusion.” She outlined an idea.

Ten minutes later I ordered the cavalry forward, to nip at the enemy and try to draw their cavalry out, to see what the Shadowmaster would or would not do himself.

I really wished I could count on the prisoners to hold off the men in that camp.

In the half hour it took the Shadowmaster to lose patience with being harassed, One-Eye and Goblin put together the grand illusion of their careers.

They began by re-creating the ghost of the Company they had used in that forest up north, where we captured the bandits, I think both for sentimental reasons and because it was easier to do something they had done before. They brought them out in front of the army, behind me and Lady and the standard. Then I ordered the elephants brought forward and spread them on a broad front, each supported by ten of our best and most bloodthirsty soldiers. It looked like we had a horde of the beasts because their numbers had been tripled by illusion. I assumed the Shadowmaster would see through the illusions. But so what? His men would not, and it was them I wanted to panic. By the time they knew the truth it would be too late.

Cross your fingers, Croaker.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Ready,” Lady said.

The cavalry withdrew, and just in time. The Shadow-master had begun to express his ire. I gripped Lady’s hand a moment. We leaned together and whispered those three words that everybody gets embarrassed saying in public. Silly old fart me, I felt weird saying them to an audience of one. Elegies for youth lost, when I could say them to anyone and mean it with all my heart and soul for an hour.

“All right, Murgen. Let’s do it.” Lady and I raised pur flaming swords. The legions began to chant, “Taglios! Taglios!” And my phantom brigade began its advance.

Showmanship. All those elephants would have scared the crap out of me if I’d been over on the other side.

Where the hell did I ever get the idea a general was supposed to lead from the front? Fewer than a thousand of us going to whip up on fifteen thousand of them?...

Arrows came to greet us. They did no harm to the illusions. They slid off the real elephants. They bounced off Murgen, Goblin, One-Eye, Lady, and me because we were sheltered by protective spells. Hopefully, our opponents would be unsettled by our invulnerability.

I signalled for an increase in speed. The enemy front began to shudder in anticipation of the impact of all those elephants. Formations started to dissolve.

About time for the Shadowmaster to do something.

I slowed down. The elephants rumbled past, trumpeting, gaining speed, and in a moment all swerving to rush straight at the Shadowmaster.

A hell of an investment just to take out one guy.

He realized the object of the assault while the elephants were still a hundred yards from him. They were going to converge and trample right over him.

He cut loose with every spell he had ready. For ten seconds it seemed like the skies were collapsing and the earth being racked. Elephants and parts of elephants flew around like children’s toys.

The whole enemy front was in disarray now. I heard the signals ordering the cavalry forward again, ordering the infantry to advance.

The surviving elephants rolled over the spot where the Shadowmaster floated.

A trunk seized him and tossed him thirty feet into the air, flailing and tumbling. He fell between massive grey flanks, screamed, flew upward again, possibly under his own power. A flock of arrows darted at him as the soldiers following the elephants used him for target practice. Some got through to him. He kept spinning off spells like a fireworks show, but they seemed purely reflex.

I laughed and closed in. We had the bastard and all his children. My record as a general was going to stay unblemished.

Murgen was there when the Shadowmaster flipped into the sky for the third time. He skewered the sonofabitch with his lance when he came down.