Glen Cook: Shadow Games

Croaker should not have attacked. He should have waited as long as it took, made them come to him, not been so concerned about the Shadowmasters. If he had allowed the new army from the south to come forward and get in the way of the men from the encampment, he could have then hurled his elephants in without risk to his right. But it was too late to weep about might-have-beens. It was time to try rooting out a miracle.

One Shadowmaster was out and the other was crippled. If only she had a tenth, even a hundredth, of the power she had lost. If only she’d had time to nurture and channel the little bit that had begun coming back to her.

If only. If only. All life was if only.

Where was that damned imp of One-Eye’s? It could turn this around. There was nobody on the other side to keep it from going through those men like a scythe, at least for long enough.

But Frogface was nowhere to be seen. One-Eye and Goblin were working as a team, doing their little bit to stem the tide. Frogface was not with them. They seemed too busy to be curious about that.

The imp’s absence was too important to be accident or oversight. Why? at this critical juncture?

No time. No time to brood about it and slither down through all the shadows and try to find the meaning of the imp’s presences and absences, which had been bothering her so long. Only time to realize, with certainty, that the creature had been planted upon One-Eye and wasn’t his to command at all.

By whom?

Not the Shadowmasters. The Shadowmasters would have used the imp directly. Not Shifter. He’d had no need. Not the Howler. He would have gotten his revenge.

What else was loose in the world?

A crow flapped past. It cawed in a way that made her think it was laughing.

Croaker and his crows. He had been muttering about crows for a year. And then they had started turning up around him any time anything big happened.

She glanced at the mound where Croaker and Murgen had set the standard. Croaker had a pair of crows perched on his shoulders. A flock circled above him. He made a dramatic figure there in his Widowmaker disguise, with the doombirds wheeling around him, waving his fiery sword, trying to rally his crumbling legions.

While the mind pursued one clatch of enemies the body dealt with another. She wielded her weapons with a dancer’s grace and the deadliness of a demigoddess. At first there had been an exhilaration, realizing she was approaching a state she had not achieved in ages, except by the path of its tantric cousin, last night. And then she went over into the perfect calm, the mystic separation of Self and flesh that actually melded into a greater, more illuminated and deadly whole.

There was no fear in that state, nor any other emotion. It was like being in the deepest meditation, where the Self wandered a field of glimmering insights, yet the flesh performed its deadly tasks with a precision and perfection that left the dead mounded about her and her terrible mount.

The enemy wrestled with one another to stay away from her. Her allies fought to get into the safety of the vacuum surrounding her. Though the right wing had begun to collapse, one stubborn rock formed.

The Self reflected on memories of illuminations won during the night from a pair of bodies, sweating, straining together, on her absolute amazement during and after. Her life had been one of absolute self-control. Yet time and again the flesh had gone beyond any hope of control. At her age.

And she looked at Croaker again, now harried by his enemies.

And the shadow crept into the killing perfection and showed her why she had denied herself for so long.

She thought of loss.

And loss mattered.

Mattering intruded upon the Self, distracting it. It wanted to take control of the flesh, to force things to transpire according to its desires.

She started forcing her way toward Croaker, the knot of men around her moving with her. But the enemy could sense that she was no longer the terrible thing she had been, that she was now vulnerable. They pressed in. One by one, her companions fell.

Then she saw the arrow strike Croaker and drop him at the foot of the standard. She shrieked and spurred her mount over friend and foe alike.

Her pain, and her rage, only carried her into a mass of enemies who attacked from every direction. She cut some, but others dragged her off her rearing steed and harried the beast away. She fought with skill and desperation against poorly trained opponents, but the inept-ness of her enemies was not enough. She heaped bodies, but they drove her down to her knees...

A wave of chaos swept over that fight within the battle, men fleeing, men pursuing, and when it passed all that could be seen of her was one arm protruding from a pile of corpses.

Lying mostly on my back, clinging to the haft of the lance with my left hand, the standard flapping and the Shadowmaster flopping overhead. I don’t think the arrow hit anything vital. But the sonofabitch went through my breastplate and me, too. I think there are a couple inches sticking out in back.

What the hell happened to the spells protecting me?

I never been hit this bad before.

Coupla crows up with the Shadowmaster. Amusing themselves, trying to get his eyes. Four or five prowling around down here, not bothering me. Act like they’re standing guard.

Bunch showed up a while ago, when some enemy troops came after the standard. Piled all over them till they went away.

Ah, that damned arrow hurts! Can I get a hand around there and break the shaft? Pull the sucker back out after the head is gone?

Better not. The shaft might be keeping the bleeding from getting too bad inside. Seen that happen.

What’s going on? Can’t move enough to look around. Hurts too much. All I can see from here is the plain, covered with bodies. Elephants, horses, some men in white, a lot more not. I think we took a lot of them with us. I think if the formations had just held up we’d have kicked their asses.

Can’t hear. Total silence. Me? What was that? Silence of stone? Where did I hear that?

Tired. So damned tired. Want to lay down and sleep. Can’t. The arrow. Probably be too weak soon, though. Thirsty. But not thirsty like with a belly wound, thank the gods. Never wanted to die with a gut wound. Ha. Never wanted to die.

Keep thinking about sepsis. What if the bowman put garlic or feces on his arrowheads? Blood poisoning. Gangrene. Smell like you’re six days dead when you’re still breathing. Can’t amputate my chest.

Shame and guilt. Brought the Company to this. Didn’t want to be the last Captain. Guess none of them did. Shouldn’t have fought today. Sure shouldn’t have charged. Thought the illusions and elephants would be enough, though. Came close, too.

Know what I should have done, now. Stayed up in the hills where they couldn’t see me and let them come to me. Could have sneaked around and used the old Company trickery on them there. Show the standard in one direction and attack from another. But I had to come down here after them.

Feel like a fool lying here in my underwear and a breastplate. Wonder if it did any damn good for Murgen to put that Widowmaker suit on and go try to turn the tide? Mogaba will have his cajones for abandoning the standard.

But I’m here. Still holding the sucker up.

Maybe somebody will come before I pass out. Getting so even somebody from the other side would look good. Damned arrow. Finish it off. Get it over.

Something moving... Just my damned horse. Having lunch. Turning grass into horse hockey. Just another day in the life for him. Go fetch me a bucket of beer, you bastard. You’re supposed to be so damned intelligent, why can’t you get a dying man a last beer?