She Is The Darkness

15

I was having a bizarre dream about Cordy Mather and the Radisha when somebody poked me. I groaned, cracked an eyelid. I knew I did not have to stand a watch. I had helped with the cooking. I cursed, pulled my blankets over my head and tried to get back to the Palace, where Mather was arguing with the Radisha about her plans to shaft the Black Company after the Shadowmaster fell. It almost felt like I was actually there rather than dreaming.

"Wake up." Uncle Doj prodded me again.

I tried to cling to the dream. There was more to it. Something nebulous but dangerous about the Radisha. Something that had Mather upset in a major way.

I thought I might be working out something important ins my sleep.

"Wake up, Bone Warrior."

That did it. I hated it when Nyueng Bao called me that, never explaining what they meant. I grunted, "What?"

"Trouble is coming."

Thai Dei stepped out of the darkness. He spoke! "One-Eye told me to warn you."

"What're you doing up here?" His arm had not yet healed completely.

I glanced at the Captain. He was awake. He had a bird perched on one shoulder, beak moving at his ear. He eyed Thai Dei and Uncle Doj but said nothing. He clambered to his feet wearily, collected a couple of bamboo poles and trudged around to where he could see the lake. I followed him. Uncle Doj tagged along behind me. It amazed me that a man so short and wide could move so quietly and gracefully.

I saw nothing new out there in the darkness. Occasional flecks of light continued to streak the tapestry of the night. "Like fireflies." There were a million stars. The guys who expected snow were going to be disappointed.

"Hush," Croaker said. He was listening to something. The damned bird on his shoulder?

Where was the other one?

A crimson ball zipped away from one wagon just like scores before it. But when this one neared the island it dipped violently and swerved to the right, scattering the rippling water with ten thousand rubies. At water level the ball became a splash of blood that faded immediately.

There was no reflection off the water anywhere nearby.

"Shadows."

A half-dozen balls streaked out. They defined a river of darkness snaking across the lake. Then balls started flying around over the remnants of the village that had been burning while that boat sank.

The discharges there reached panic level quickly. The Captain ordered, "Swing one of the wagons around. Give them some support down there. And let's see if we can't get a couple more wagons up here fast."

Some individuals were plinking at the village already, for whatever help that would provide. Croaker told the crew of the second wagon, "Cut loose on that island. Everything you've got. Murgen. I want everybody awake and up here. The shit-storm is about to hit."

I ran off to tap-dance on a couple of snorers famous for their bugle calls.

Both wagons cut loose about the same time. Their trigger cranks squealed and rattled as they whirled. Bamboo tubes discharged color in furious series. How many balls could a wagon launch? A shitload.

Cavalry tubes carried fifteen charges. Standard infantry and infantry long carried thirty and forty charges respectively. The hundreds of tubes on each wagon were longer still.

The fireflies went mad. Every single ball launched darted downward after a shadow. Each made its dip nearer shore.

"Lots of shadows," Croaker observed laconically. This was a new thing but a thing we had feared for years. Shadows attacking in waves and a flood instead of sneaking around like spies and assassins.

The Old Man seemed calm. Me, I damned near drizzled down my leg. I ran, but only far enough to get hold of the standard and a bundle of bamboo. I planted the former beside the Old Man, got the business end of a pole pointed southward, found the handgrip trigger mechanism and started turning. Each quarter turn sent another fireball streaking. I told Thai Dei, "Grab you some bamboo, brother. You too, uncle. This isn't going to be anything you can stop with a sword."

Balls were arcing over from the far slope now. There were enough in transit to define the wave of darkness headed our way. Fireballs plunged into that darkness like bright hail, flared, faded. This was the nightmare tide we had dreaded for so long, the hellpower of the Shadowmaster unleashed.

Balls consumed shadows by the thousand. The flood came on. Unlike mortal soldiers those things could do nothing but follow commands. Sorcery compelled them.

My pole went dry. I grabbed another one. Uncle Doj and Thai Dei began to grasp the situation. They found poles and got into the act, though Thai Dei was not very fast one-handed.

The dark tide came off the water and headed upslope. As it drew closer I began to make out individual shadows.

I saw these things first way back when we first came to Taglios, in the days when there were four Shadowmasters and together they could reach a lot farther than could Longshadow now. The skrinsa shadowweavers came north to kill us. They failed. But in their time they used small shadows, few bigger than my fist. I never saw one bigger than a cat.

Some in this flood dwarfed cattle. Those absorbed fireballs with no apparent effect. I saw dozens survive multiple hits. I muttered, "Maybe Lady wasn't as clever as she thought."

Croaker replied, "Think what it would be like without her cleverness."

We would be dead already. "Got you."

Closer. Closer. The dark wall was but a hundred yards distant now, the shadows far fewer in number and moving slower but relentless nevertheless.

Now the wagons could not depress their aim low enough to hit the shadows. They shifted their attentions to that island.

Uncle Doj shouted, drew Ash Wand. I have no idea what he thought that would do to the huge clot of darkness racing straight toward us while a swarm of small shadows scurried around it like frightened offspring. No sword held any power against this darkness.

I tried to burn a hole through the clot's heart, poised on the brink of panic.

Death ravened closer and closer.

Balls from the rear began falling around us as little shadows slithered in amongst the rocks.

The screams began.

The dark mass became a bonfire as fireballs hammered it. It slowed, slowed some more, but never stopped coming. It reared like a boar grizzly issuing his challenge. I spun my hand grip hard, yelled some kind of nonsense. That killer slice of hell's breath strained to get at me but could not. It was as though the thing, at the last instant, had encountered some invisible and unbreakable barrier.

The darkness radiated a dank psychic horror I imagined went with the grave, a hunger known only by things undead, an odor of the soul I remembered from too many bad dreams about bone-strewn wastelands and old men bound up in cocoons of spun ice. My terror grew stronger. I yanked at my handgrip long after my pole went dry, long after there was no more reason to crank.

The shadow kept trying to get to me until the barrage of fireballs consumed its last whisper of darkness.

The excitement faded quickly. Only balls launched toward the island found many targets.

The rock outcrop was taking a pounding from Lady's division, too, the troops over there having figured out what was happening. I thought the volume of fire so heavy it might actually consume the island.

Then Croaker ordered fire reduced to precautionary levels. "No sense wasting our tools. We're going to run into this sort of thing again." He stared at me for half a minute. Then he asked, "How did we get surprised like this?" He used that Juniper tongue.

I shrugged. "Don't ask me." I chose Forsberger because I did not know the other well enough. "I was busy carrying the standard." Meaning I was cut off from Smoke most of the time these days for what he considered sufficient reason. He was going to have to count on One-Eye to provide his warnings.

"Shit," he said, without much venom. "Goddamn shit. Don't get clever with—"

A grand shriek rolled across the lake. Lady's troops loosed a furious barrage at something that darted up from the island and raced away southward. Croaker grunted. "The Howler!"

"We got them scared now, boss. The Shadowmaster is sending the big boys out to play."

Croaker showed me a twitch of the lip. Not much. His sense of humor had gone to hell lately. Maybe he lost it when he was Soulcatcher's prisoner. Or maybe when he came back to find out that he was a father but chances were he would never see his kid.

Howler escaped.

We stood down eventually but hardly anyone got any more sleep.