Soldiers Live

146

The Voroshk World: Stronghold Rhuknavr

The Voroshk shadowgate was being watched from the other side. Shukrat's uncles hoped she would find her way home, too, and they were eager to obtain another breeder.

We did not work hard to avoid being discovered by the watchers. But we did come by night and Shukrat did leak some of her most unusual companions through to distract the sentries.

Tobo did not stint when he gave her Unknown Shadows to help her out in her adventures down this way. Unlike when he gave me those two wanna-be ravens that were never around and had not been seen now in months. He assigned her some of the biggest, the darkest, the smartest, that would stand by her and do what she said.

The Black Hounds darted around and over the two watchers, keeping them from flying just long enough for us to get through the shadowgate and add ourselves to the equation. Shukrat was able to put them both to sleep despite the state of high excitement the Unknown Shadows had aroused.

In moments we understood why.

"They're just kids!" I said, while undressing one. "This one can't be more than eleven or twelve."

The one Shukrat stripped was even younger. "These two are the youngest Tologev brothers. Somebody really is desperate if he's sending kids this young out alone when there're still shadows roaming around."

I thought that was just fine. The thinner the Voroshk were spread, the better.

The two boys we left behind, up in trees for their own safety. We confiscated their posts and clothing.

It was a long flight. We did not show ourselves during the day. Along the way Shukrat showed me the ruins of Khatovar. I did not feel inclined to explore. I did not have time. There were changes going on inside me. I had to hold them off until I got Arkana free.

The white crow mocked me and accused me of cheating on Lady. She refused to believe I was not. I no longer argued. She was still bitter because she had not been able to take me away from her sister.

Arkana was being held in a minor Voroshk fortress called Rhuknavr. We flew in low, to within a mile, then awaited midnight while floating high up in the tops of trees that were old when Khatovar fell. We put out a dozen shadowtraps Shukrat had crafted according to Shivetya's instructions. Once she released the Unknown Shadows, though, the traps were not necessary.

At my insistence Shukrat made doubly sure that the Unknown Shadows clearly understood we were about to butt heads with people who had considerable experience dealing with creatures of darkness. Their advantage over the killer shadows was that they were not just driven clumps of hunger and hatred. They were cunning and wicked and able to reason, although unfortunately weak on the concept of cooperation.

I asked Shukrat, "You think we might have better luck in the daytime, after everybody inside there relaxes?"

"They're not that alert. They haven't had an incident here for a long time."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do. Now that I'm close enough to feel them." Meaning, probably, that she was hiding the whispers of the Unknown Shadows already.

"Uhm? Are you close enough for them to feel you?"

"No. Because I'm alone. And because I'm dressed. And because they aren't trying to feel for me."

"I see." If it was not our unseen associates it must be something like the way I had begun to sense Shivetya. "Bird. Pay attention." It was not my intent to waste any resource. The white crow was a valuable resource. "So where is my other baby, Shukrat? Be as exact as you can because my feathered friend needs to know how to get there to tell her that we're coming and she should be ready to go."

The crow squawked like it had just found a snake raiding its nest. It protested so vigorously that the surrounding night fell into an uneasy silence.

"Good for you nobody in these parts would recognize Taglian. What's the big squawk? You infiltrated how many places at other times?"

The crow continued to mutter something to the effect of, that was different. The difference mainly being whose idea the infiltration was. She understood that I was getting real thick with Shivetya, though, and the golem might have a great deal to say about whether or not she ever got out of the cave of the ancients. Once she got the frustration worked out she was ready to go.

I had Shukrat describe the interior of Rhuknavr the best she could. Which was not that well. She had not been there in ten years. The crow would have to locate Arkana on her own. Shukrat could not pin her down.

I said, "You just tell her we're coming and she should be ready. And, if she can manage it, she might put a sleep spell on anybody near enough to touch."

The crow left. We waited. I stared at the sky. I found this one far stranger than that of the Land of Unknown Shadows. There was no large moon here, apparently. At least none tonight nor during the nights I spent here before. But there were scores of little ones, the biggest maybe a fifth the size of my own. All the moons seemed terribly busy, scampering hither and yon. When I mentioned them to Shukrat she began telling me about her world's unique breed of astrology, which relied upon the motions of all those moons. Even after ages of study those moons still presented the occasional surprise.

"Once, when I was little, two of them banged off of each other. None of the others have moved quite the same way since. And it rained down pieces for years. Only about a hundred miles from here there's a place where a really big piece hit. I was at Junkledesag, which is over that way another eighty miles, and it was still awful. There were earthquakes and noise like the end of the world. There was a fire in the sky that took all night to fade away. It was like when one of the rheitgeistiden explodes, only a million times worse. It knocked a huge hole in the ground. Now the hole is kind of a lake."

The white crow dropped out of the night. "Ready."

"Easier than you expected, eh?"

The bird grunted sullenly.

"Show us the way, Fearless Feathered Explorer."

The next stage was anticlimactic. Only three or four actual Voroshk occupied Rhuknavr. In behavior so human I do not know why I did not foresee it, a small faction of survivors were concealing Arkana's return from the rest. For what little advantage controlling a viable breeder gave.

We left our posts nuzzling the fortress beside an unglazed hall-end window. The interior was too tight for flight. The crow showed the way to Arkana's chamber. There were no bars anywhere but there was a sleeping, non-Voroshk sentry slumped on a stool in the hallway. There had been a pretense that Arkana was a guest.

The girl jumped on me the moment we entered. "I knew you'd come."

"Did you?"

"I hoped you would. All right? I'm sorry. I was stupid. I just wanted... I had to... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

"Why not save your talking until we're out of here? The point of sending the bird ahead was so you'd be ready." The critter named flapped out the room's one small window.

She grabbed odds and ends. Not much. "I don't know where my rheitgeistide and shefsepoke are."

"We brought something for you. Let's go."

All went well until we were sliding out the window. Then a child, rubbing sleep from her eyes, wandered into the hallway, presumably disturbed by some sound. She stared for a moment, then folded, touched by a sleep spell from one of the girls.

Nothing happened immediately. But in time the child would tell somebody. Unless she had a habit of sleepwalking.

Comfortably aloft and heading south, I asked Arkana, "Are you pregnant?"

She took no offense. "No. They hadn't worked out who got to be first. Though every time I turned around somebody was trying to sneak in. Like they thought I couldn't possibly resist them. I passed out enough bruises that even Gromovol would've figured out that that kind of shit could get somebody hurt—but these guys were real optimists."

She had been hanging out with the right people to learn how to sucker a guy who thought girls ought to be easy prey. I said, "I guess we can thank some god for that small favor."

"You can thank Arkana for not putting up with their shit."

"That's my delicate flower."

Soon after sunrise Shukrat spotted seven or eight protean black dots bobbing in the air far behind us. "They're chasing us, Pop."

I checked. "We climb up a little higher, we'll be able to stay far enough ahead."

The girls agreed. But Arkana added, "There weren't that many of the Family at Rhuknavr. They must've sent for help from Junkledesag or Drasivrad. There aren't but fifteen or sixteen of the Family left alive."

I said, "Just in case they do start pressing us, do either of you have an objection to more of them getting hurt?"

Arkana gave me an unhappy look. Despite our hours aloft she was not yet fully clad in apparel taken from one of the boy sentries at the gate. Getting dressed is hard to do when you are riding one of those posts and staying out of sight by skimming the treetops. Not to mention that before she started changing she had to convince the clothing that it now belonged to her, not the boy from the shadowgate. "How do you expect to manage that, Pop?" She sounded suspicious. And rightly so.

"Same way I got Kina. But you'll have to name me names." I had the First Father's book with me. I had taught myself enough of the Voroshk language to use the codes to blow those guys out of the sky. If I knew who I was turning into a cloud of dust.

"Don't do that. Not if you don't have to."

I gave it a moment. Then, "If you can forgive them, then I can."

"They never really did anything to me."

They would have but I did not belabor the point. Both of these kids were too forgiving and too understanding for their own good. Those guys back there would have done a whole lot of ugly to both of them, given the chance. I know those kind of guys. I have been those kind of guys.

Just for my own pleasure, privately, when the girls were not paying attention, I tripped the codes that would kill Arkana's post. We were too far from Rhuknavr for me to tell if it worked. I hoped not, now. Because after I did it I remembered the sleepy little girl in the hallway.

She would haunt me for a while.

It was closer than it really needed to be, us getting through the shadowgate ahead of trouble. The key gave me some grief, probably because I was in too much of a hurry.

"Now what?" Shukrat asked once we were safe from the men and naked boys cursing us from the other side of the barrier.

I said, "I guess you two can go back to the army. I'm going to stay here. On the plain. With Shivetya. There's a job I've got to do. A promise I have to keep."

Nobody spoke again until we were close to the fortress with no name. Then Shukrat asked, "What about Lady?"

"If she's in good enough health you can bring her down here to me and I'll do what I can to help her. If she's not, leave her the fuck alone. Her main problem is she's got to heal herself."

Both girls looked at me like I was some really stinky monster that had just popped up in the middle of a bunny farm ripping the fur out of cute and tender throats.

"Look, I love my wife just one whole hell of a lot. There isn't any way I can explain it to you. But the fact is, love her is about all I can do. She's insane. By any standard but her own. And there's nothing I can do to change that. If you were familiar with the Annals you would know that."

Arkana sneered. "You don't ever give up, do you?"

She caught me off balance that time. "Actually, no. I wasn't thinking about finding somebody to keep the Annals. I was trying to clarify my relationship with my wife."

But did I know what that was myself? Even after all these years? Possibly more important, did she have any idea?

All that seemed to matter less and less as we drew closer to the fortress with no name.