She Is The Darkness

104

Lady was all business. She snapped orders. Men scurried off in search of her shopping list of apparently unrelated items. I strolled around the perimeter while waiting to learn what she was doing. Other than the settling dust in the distance this site was identical to the last. When I got to the road leading south I found a place to set the standard waiting. I took advantage.

I went back to Lady and watched over her shoulder while she concocted a rusty-colored dust that swirled in a small, lazy witch-wind in front of her. She considered it for a moment, then sent it splashing against the invisible barrier protecting us from the plain. It behaved like a liquid then. It ran down the barrier, defining it clearly.

It also defined, as clearly as imminent death, the holes Wheezer’s fireballs had opened. And the sun was charging the horizon.

Wheezer garnered some black looks. His hacking got worse but nobody offered any sympathy.

Lady kept everybody too busy to turn ugly.

The flock of crows returned for a second pass, this time laughing all the way. They circled once, then fled northward for good.

Lady’s way of dealing with the deadly holes was not dramatic. She employed no great gaudy sorceries. She took Wheezer’s ragged leather jacket away from him, cut chunks out of it, wadded them up and plugged the holes. Then she used some minor spell to cement them there.

Even she did not seem sure that her fix was a good answer. She snagged Wheezer’s shoulder and dragged him to a particular spot facing the damaged barrier. “Right here. And don’t move. All night. If anything gets through your screams will warn the rest of us.” Bam! She slammed him down.

Not a good idea to get her mad at you.

As I moved back to where Thai Dei had settled I overheard murmured prayers from men who seldom behaved as though gods were anything but nuisances.

There is that about the Company. You see little evidence of religion. For most of us all spirituality resides in a blade. Uncle Doj was right about that. But his approach was just too damned mystical.

Maybe the Lance of Passion was once a tutelary but time has taken that away. Any information would be in the Annals hidden back in Taglios.

We are not really a godless bunch. We are just the sort who ignore the gods probably in the unconscious hope that the gods will not notice us.

Obviously, in Kina’s case, that was not working. It had not worked even before we knew she existed. Half the guys did not believe in Kina even now. That they did not, did not matter. Kina believed in us.

Fresh meat did improve morale dramatically. But darkness coming crushed it right down again. I did not face the night with any eagerness myself. I told Thai Dei, “I just realized something, brother.”

He grunted.

“Almost all the important events in my life happen at night. I was even born right about midnight.”

Thai Dei grunted again but this time looked at me with some curiosity and maybe a little surprise.

“What? That part of Hong Tray’s prophecy or something?”

“No. But it may say something about your ruling stars.”

Oh, boy. They let astrology guide them, too? How come I never heard of this before? “I’ve had a bad day. I’m going to turn in.” Maybe I would get a chance to see my Sarie tonight.