Dreams of Steel

Chapter Twenty-Three

The breeze had shifted. It came from the northeast now, carrying smoke from across the river. I asked Narayan, "Could we confiscate their wood?" There had been suicides all morning.

"Unwise, Mistress. Interfering might start a rebellion. Your grip isn't that tight."

And likely would never be, unpleasant as I found that truth. "Just wishful thinking. Tinkering with customs isn't my mission."

Nor his. I had not pressed Narayan about that. I could guess, though. It was implicit in his beliefs. He wanted to bring on the Year of the Skulls. He wanted Kina free. He wanted to become immortal, a Deceiver saint.

"It's all far away, Mistress. What do we do today?"

"We're approaching that point where assembling an army begins snowballing."

"Snowballing?"

I'd used Forsberger for "snowballing," not thinking. I did not know the Taglian for snow. It did not snow here. Narayan had never seen snow. "It starts growing of its own momentum. In another week, ten days, I'd guess, we'll begin getting more recruits than we can handle."

"Even with the Radisha against us?" He was convinced the woman was an enemy.

"That could work for us if we appeal to resentment of the powers that be."

Narayan understood. Such resentments brought recruits to the Deceivers. "There's less of that than you hope. This isn't your land. My people are very fatalistic."

They were. But they had their handles. There would not be two thousand men under my standard now otherwise. "They'll respond to the right spark. True?"

"We all will, Mistress."

"Absolutely. I've provided that spark for you and your friends, haven't I? But how about a spark to fire the masses ? One that will make them forget their fear of the Black Company and their objections to a woman commander?" I understood why the Company was feared now. For his sake maybe it was best Croaker had gone before he figured it out. It would have broken his heart.

Narayan had no suggestions.

I said, "We need an electrifying rumor to hand your brotherhood, to whisper everywhere."

"Word should have reached all the jamadars now, Mistress."

"Wonderful, Narayan. So every band captain has heard that your Strangler messiah is come. Assume they all believe because the news came from you, famous and honored master Strangler." My tone was getting sarcastic. "How many men will that bring to a standard that needs thousands? I'd rather have your friends stay where they are, as our hands and knives in hiding. Are there other legends I can exploit? Are there other fears?"

"The Shadowmasters are scary enough, at least in the country, where they remember last year."

True. We were getting volunteers from across the river already, men who'd had no chance to enlist before we marched on Dejagore. The men we had taken down had come from the city or were slaves we had liberated after overrunning Ghoja. The country folk, intimate with the terror of the Shadowmasters, should prove a rich source of manpower. And would be hardier than city folk. But I might have to gather my harvest quickly.

Around here power emanated from the palace and the temples of Trogo Taglios. A few frightened men there could issue bulls and dictates forbidding the faithful from joining me.

"Do you have friends in the city?"

"Not many. None that I know personally. Sindhu may know some."

"Ram came from the city."

"Yes. And a few others. What're you thinking?"

"It might be wise to get established there now, before the Radisha, and especially that whimpering runt Smoke, can swing opinion against us." I said we and us always but meant I and me. Narayan was not fooled much.

"We can't leave Ghoja. Thousands more men will come here. We have to collect them."

I smiled. "Suppose we split what we have? You take half, stay here, do the gathering, and I take half to the city?"

He reacted the way I expected. Almost panicky. He didn't want me out of his sight.

"Or I could leave Blade. Blade is a man of respect, with a strong reputation down here."

"Excellent idea, Mistress."

I wondered who was manipulating whom. "Do you suppose Sindhu is a man of enough respect to leave with him?"

"More than enough, Mistress."

"Good. Blade will have to know something about him. Something about your brotherhood."

"Mistress?"

"If you're going to use a tool you should know its capabilities. Only a priest demands we take things on faith."

"Priests and functionaries," Narayan corrected. "You're right. Blade will take nothing on faith."

He was the last man alive who would. That might come between us someday.

"Are any of your brotherhood cynical enough to be hiding inside other priesthoods?"

"Mistress?" He sounded hurt.

"I have few sources of information. If we had friends within the priesthoods ..."

"I don't know about Taglios, Mistress. It seems unlikely."

I did miss the old days, when I'd had the unbridled use of my powers, when I could summon a hundred demons to spy for me, when I could recall the memories of a mouse that had been in the wall of a room where my enemies had congregated.

I'd told Narayan that I'd built an empire from beginnings as humble as ours. That was true, but I'd had more weapons. This time I often felt disarmed.

The weapons were coming back, but far too slowly.

"Send Blade to me."

I took Blade for a walk up the river, east of the fortress. He was content to wait on me. He spoke only once, cryptically, as we approached a bankside tree where a fishing pole leaned. "Looks like Swan never got back."

I had him explain. It didn't mean much. I looked at the fortress. Swan and Mather were in there, nominal commanders of all Taglian forces below the river. I wondered how seriously they took that. They hadn't been out much. I wondered if Blade was in touch. He'd hardly had time. He'd been working hours longer than mine, teaching himself as he taught his men. I wondered why he made the effort. I sensed a deep reservoir of irrational hatred inside him.

I suspected he was a man who wanted to change the world.

Such men are easy to manipulate, easier than the Swans, who mostly just want to be left alone.

"I'm thinking of promoting you," I told him.

He responded sardonically. "To what? Unless you're promoting yourself, too."

"Of course. You become legate of the Ghoja legion. I become general of the army."

"You're going north."

He didn't waste words and didn't need many to extract a lot of information. "I should be in Taglios now. To guard my interests."

"It's a bad spot. In the crocodile's jaws."

"I don't follow."

"You need to be here to gather soldiers, to gain power. You need to be there to control the priests who can keep recruits away."

"Yes."

"You need trustworthy lieutenants. But you're alone."

"Am I?"

"Maybe not. Maybe I misinterpret the interest of Narayan and Sindhu."

"Probably not. Their goals aren't mine. What do you know about them?"

"Nothing. They aren't what they pretend."

I thought about that, decided he meant they weren't what they pretended to be to the world. "Have you heard of the Deceivers, Blade? Sometimes called the Stranglers?"

"Death cult. Legendary, probably. The Radisha mentioned them and their goddess. The wizard is terrified of them. The soldiers say they are extinct. That isn't true, is it?"

"No. A few still exist. For their own reasons they're backing me. I won't bore you with their dogma. It's repulsive and I'm not sure it was related to me truthfully."

He grunted. I wondered what went on inside his head. He hid himself well.

I'd met others like him. I will be stunned the day I meet someone entirely new.

"Go north without fear. I'll manage Ghoja."

I believed him.

I turned back. We walked toward camp. I tried to ignore the stench from across the river. "What do you want, Blade? Why are you doing this?"

He shrugged, an uncharacteristic action. "There are many evils in the world. I guess I've chosen one for my personal crusade."

"Why such a hatred for priests?"

He didn't shrug. He didn't give me a straight answer, either. "If each man picks an evil and attacks it relentlessly, how long can evil persist?"

That was an easy one. Forever. More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way. Few villains think they are villains. But I left him his illusion. If he had one. I doubted he did. No more than a sword's blade does.

At first I'd thought him moved as Swan so obviously was when he looked at me. But he hadn't so much as hinted that he considered me anything but a fellow soldier.

He confused me.

He asked, "Will you talk to Willow and Cordy? Or shall I?"

"What do you think?"

"Depends. What you want to discuss? How? You wiggle some, you can lead Swan anywhere."

"Not interested."

"I'll talk to them, then. You go ahead. Do what you have to do."

Sunrise next morning I was on the road north with two incompetent and incomplete battalions, Narayan and Ram, and all the trophies I had claimed from the Shadowmasters' horsemen.