Shadow Games

Chapter Thirty-eight: INVADERS OF THE SHADOWLANDS

Tired is not quite so important when you have just beaten the odds. You've got energy to celebrate.

I did not want a celebration. Enemy soldiers were still trying to get away. I wanted my men to get on with what we had to do while they still thought they were supermen. I had my staff together before the chaos started sorting itself out.

"Otto. Hagop. Come morning you head east along the river and break up the force guarding the prisoners building this levee system. Big Bucket, Candles, you guys get this side of the ford cleaned up. Look through these wagons and see what we've got. Mogaba, get the battlefield cleaned up. Collect weapons. One-Eye, get our casualties moved back to Vejagedhya. I'll help when I get time. Don't let those Taglian butchers do anything stupid." We had a dozen volunteer physicians along. Their ideas of medicine were pretty primitive.

"Lady. What do we know about this Dejagore?" Dejagore was the nearest big city south of the Main, two hundred miles down the road. "Besides the fact that it's a walled city?"

"A Shadowmaster makes his headquarters there."

"Which one?"

"Moonshadow, I think. No. Stormshadow."

"That's it?"

"If you'd take prisoners you might find out something from them."

I raised an eyebrow. She prodding me about excesses? "Keep that in mind, Otto. Bring those prisoners when you catch up."

"All fifty thousand?"

"As many as don't run away. I'm hoping some will be mad enough to help us out. The rest we can use for labor."

Mogaba asked, "You're going to invade the Shadowlands?"

He knew I was. He wanted a formal declaration. "Yes. They supposedly only have fifty thousand men under arms. We just creamed a third. I don't think they can get another mob as big together in time if we go at them as hard as we can, as fast as we can."

"Audacity," he said.

"Yeah. Keep hitting them and don't give them a chance to get their feet under them again."

Lady chided, "They're sorcerers, Croaker. What happens when they come out themselves?"

"Then Shifter will have to kick in. Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagons. We've worked on sorcerers before."

Nobody argued. Maybe they should have. But we all felt that fate had handed us an opportunity and we would be idiots to waste it. I figured too that since we had not expected to survive the first contest, we were out nothing by pressing onward.

"I wonder how beloved these Shadowmasters are to their subjects. Can we expect local support?"

No comment. We would find out the hard way.

Talk went on and on. Eventually I left it to help with the medical work, patching and sewing while issuing orders through a procession of messengers. I got me two hours sleep that night.

The cavalry was heading out east and Mogaba's legion had begun its southward advance when Lady joined me. "Shifter has been scouting. He says you can detect an almost visible change as news of the battle spreads. The mass of people are excited. Those who collaborate with the Shadowmasters are confused and frightened. They'll probably panic and run when they hear we're coming."

"Good. Even great." In ten days we would find out for sure how much impact Ghoja had had. I meant to advance on Dejagore at twenty miles a day. The roads south of the Main were dry. How lovely that must have been for them.

Jahamaraj Jah had gotten his survivors into position in time and set a series of clever ambushes. His mob scrubbed two thousand fugitives from Ghoja.

He was not pleased with my invasion plans. He was even less pleased when I drafted his followers and distributed them as replacements for men we had lost. But he did not argue much.

We encountered no resistance. In territories formerly belonging to Taglios we received warm welcomes in villages still occupied by their original inhabitants. The natives were cooler farther south but not inimical. They thought we were too good to be true.

We encountered our first enemy patrols six days south of Ghoja. They avoided contact. I told everybody to look professional and mean.

Otto and Hagop caught up, dragging along thirty thousand people from the levee project. I looked them over. They had not been treated well. There were some very angry, bitter men among them. Hagop said they were all willing to help defeat the Shadowmasters.

"Damn me," I said. "A year and a half ago there were seven of us. Now we're a horde. Pick out the ones in the best shape. Arm them with captured weapons. Add them to the legions so every fourth man in Mogaba's and Ochiba's is a new one. That would mean trained men left over, so move them over to Sindawe. Give him one in four, too. Should bring him up to strength. Anybody else we arm we can use as auxiliaries, and garrisons for some of these smaller cities."

The countryside was not heavily populated between the river and here, but nearer Dejagore that would change. "The rest can tag along. We'll use them somehow."

But how would I feed them? We'd used up our own supplies and had started on those captured at Ghoja.

Dejagore looked less promising now. Some of the rescued prisoners hailed from that city. They said the walls were forty feet high. The resident Shadowmaster was a demon for keeping them up.

"What will be will be," I thought.

The bloom was off the rose. We'd all had time to think. Still, morale was better than it had been moving toward Ghoja.

There were skirmishes the next few days but nothing serious. Mostly Otto and Hagop's boys overhauling enemy troops not hurrying fast enough to get away. The cavalry had begun to behave professionally at last.

I allowed foraging under strict rules, looting only where people had fled. It worked, mostly. Trouble came only where I expected it, from One-Eye, whose motto is that anything not nailed down is his and anything he can pry loose isn't nailed down.

We knocked over some towns and small cities with no trouble. The last few I left to the freed prisoners, cynically letting them vent their wrath while saving my better troops.

The nearer Dejagore we got—official name Stormgard, according to the Shadowmasters—the more tamed the country became. We made the last day's march through rolling hills that had been terraced and strewn with irrigation canals. So it was startling to come out of the hills and see the city itself.

Stormgard was surrounded by a plain as flat as a tabletop extending a mile in all directions, with the exception of several small mounds maybe ten feet tall. The plain looked like a manicured lawn. "I don't like the looks of that," I told Mogaba. "Too contrived. Lady. Remind you of anything?"

She gave me a blank look.

"The approach to the Tower."

"I see that. But here there's room for maneuver."

"We got some daylight left. Let's get down there and get set up."

Mogaba asked, "How will you fortify the camp?" We had seen little timber lately.

"Turn the wagons on their sides."

Nothing moved on the plain. Only haze over the city indicated life there. "I want a closer look at that. Lady, when we get down there dig out the costumes."

My horde flooded onto the plain. Still no sign anyone in Stormgard was interested. I sent for Murgen and the standard. The way people thought about the Company here in the south, maybe Stormgard would surrender without a fight.

Lady looked terrible in her Lifetaker rig. I supposed I looked as grim. They were effective outfits. They would have scared me had I seen them coming at me.

Mogaba, Ochiba, and Sindawe invited themselves along. They had dolled up in stuff they'd worn in Gea-Xle. They looked pretty fierce themselves. Mogaba told me, "I want to see those walls, too."

"Sure."

Then here came Goblin and One-Eye. In an instant I saw that Goblin had had the idea and One-Eye had decided to go lest Goblin somehow get ahead on points. "No clowning, you guys. Understand?"

Goblin grinned his big frog grin. "Sure, Croaker. Sure. You know me."

"That's the trouble. I know you both."

Goblin faked bruised feelings.

"You guys make these costumes look good. Hear?"

"You'll strike terror to the roots of their souls," One-Eye promised. "They'll flee from the walls screaming."

"Sure they will. Everybody ready?"

They were. "Around it from the right," I told Murgen. "At the canter. As close as you dare."

He rode out. Lady and I followed twenty yards behind. As I got started two monster crows plopped down on my shoulders. A flock came out of the hills and raced ahead, circling the city.

We got close enough to see the scramble on the walls. And impressive walls they were, at least forty feet high. What nobody had bothered to mention was that the city was built upon a mound that raised it another forty feet above the plain.

This was going to be a bitch.

A few arrows wobbled out and fell short.

Finesse. Cunning. Trickery. Only a dip would go up against those walls, Croaker.

I had had liberated prisoners work up maps. I had a good idea of the city's layout.

Four gates. Four paved roads approached from the points of the compass rose, like spokes of a wheel. Nasty barbicans and towers protected the gates. More towers along the wall for laying enfilading fire along its face. Not pleasant.

It was very quiet up on those walls. They had one eye on us and one on the horde still pouring out of the hills, wondering where the hell we all came from.

We got us a little surprise south of Stormgard.

There was a military camp there. A big one set maybe four hundred yards from the city wall. "Oh, shit," I said, and yelled at Murgen.

He misunderstood. On purpose, probably, though I'll never prove it. He kicked his mount into a gallop and headed for the gap between.

Arrows rose from the wall and camp. Miraculously, they fell without doing any harm. I glanced back as we entered the throat of the gap.

That little shit Goblin was standing on his saddle. He was bent over with his pants down, telling the world what he thought of the Shadowmasters and their boys.

Naturally, those folks took exception. As they say in the chansons, the sky darkened with arrows.

I was certain fate would take its cut now. But we had moved far and fast enough. The arrowstorm fell behind us. Goblin howled mockingly.

That irritated somebody bigger.

A bolt of lightning from nowhere struck ahead, ripping a steaming hole in the turf. Murgen leapt it. So did I, with my stomach creeping toward my throat. I was sure the next shot would fry somebody in his boots.

Goblin went right on mooning Stormgard. Horsemen began pouring out of the camp. They were no problem. We could outrun them. I tried to concentrate on the wall. Just in case I got out of this alive.

A second bolt seared the backs of my eyeballs. But it too went astray—though I think it shifted course just before it hit.

When my sight cleared I spied a giant wolf racing in from our right, covering ground in strides that beggared those of our black stallions. My old pal Shifter. Right on time.

Another two bolts missed. The gardner was going to be pissed about all the divots knocked out of his lawn. We completed our circuit and headed for camp. Our pursuers gave up.

As we dismounted Mogaba said, "We've drawn fire. Now we know what we're up against."

"One of the Shadowmasters is in there."

"There may be another in that camp," Lady said. "I felt something... "

"Where'd Shifter get to?" He had disappeared again. Everybody shrugged. "I hoped he'd sit in on a brain-storming session. Goblin, that was a dumb stunt."

"It sure was. Made me feel forty years younger."

"Wish I'd thought of it," One-Eye grumbled.

"Well, they know we're here and they know we're bad, but I don't see them making a run for it. Guess we'll have to figure out how to kick their butts."

Mogaba said, "Evidently they mean to fight outside the walls. Otherwise that encampment would not be there."

"Yeah." Things skipped through my mind. Stunts, tricks, strategies. As though I'd been born to come up with them by the hundred. "We'll leave them alone tonight. We'll form up and offer battle in the morning but let them come to us. Where are those city maps? I got a notion."

We talked for hours while the chaos of a camp still settling raged around us. After dark I sent men out to rig a few tricks and plant stakes on which the legions could form and guide their advance. I said, "We shouldn't bother ourselves too much. I don't think they'll fight us unless we get in close to the walls. Get some sleep. We'll see what happens in the morning."

Many pairs of eyes looked at me all at once, then, in cadence, shifted to Lady. A swarm of smiles came and went. Then everyone went away behind their smiles, leaving us alone.

Big Bucket and those guys don't fool around. They had gone into the hills and diverted one of the irrigation canals to bring water to the camp. I figured it in my head. To give every man in the mob one cup we needed about 2 gallons. With the animals run it to 3. But man and beast need more than a cup to get by. I don't know what the flow was on the canal but not a lot of water was getting wasted.

Not much manpower was going to waste, either. The boys from Opal had dug some holding ponds. One they set aside for bathing. Being the boss wazoo I crowded the line.

Still soggy, I made sure Mogaba had done all the things I didn't really have to check. Sentries out. Barricade manned. Night orders posted. One-Eye working Frogface on scouting missions instead of loafing. What have you.

I was stalling.

This was The Night.

I ran out of busybodying so finally went to my tent. I got out my map of Stormgard, studied it again, then got to work transcribing these Annals. They have grown more spare than I like but that has been the price of keeping up. Maybe Murgen will get me to let go... I did three pages and some lines and began to relax, thinking she would not come after all, but then she came in.

She had bathed, too. Her hair was damp. A ghost of lavender or lilac or something hung around her. She was a little pale and a little shaky and not quite able to meet my eye, at a loss what to do or say now that she was here. She buttoned the tent flap.

I closed this book. It went into a brass-bound chest. I closed my ink and cleaned my pen. I could think of nothing to say, either.

The whole shy routine was dumb. We had been playing around like this, and getting older, for over a year. Hell. We were grown-up people. I was old enough to be a grandfather. Might even be one, for all I knew. And she was old enough to be everybody's grandmother.

Somebody had to take the bull by the horns. We couldn't go on forever both of us waiting for the other one to make a move.

So why didn't she do something?

You the guy, Croaker.

Yeah.

I killed the candles, went and took her hand. It was not that dark in there. Plenty of firelight leaked through the fabric of the tent.

She shivered like a captive mouse at first, but it did not take her long to reach a point of no turning back. And for goddamned once nothing happened to interrupt.

The old general amazed himself. The woman amazed him even more.

Sometime in the wee hours the exhausted boss general promised, "Tomorrow night again. Within the walls of Stormgard. Maybe in Stormshadow's own bed."

She wanted to know the basis for his confidence. As time labored on she just got more awake and lively. But the old man fell asleep on her.