Soldiers Live

33

Khatovar: Leave-taking

Looks clean," Swan said. Murgen and Thai Dei grunted agreement. I nodded to the Nyueng Bao. What he had to say meant something here. His eyes were still as sharp as those of a lad of fifteen. I was damned near blind in one and could not see out the other.

"Doj? What do you think? Did they run away? Or did they sneak back just in case we sneaked back?" Element of surprise no longer my ally, I did not want to run into the Voroshk again. Especially not those old men. They would be bitter and in a mood to drag me down to hell with them.

"They went away. They went back to prepare for the onslaught. They know horror and despair are headed their way but they also know they're strong enough to weather it if they remain calm and work hard."

I suspect I gaped. "How do you figure all that?"

"It's just a matter of mental exercise. Take what we know about them, about sorcerers as a whole, and about human beings in general, and the rest follows. They've been through this before, in a smaller way. They'll have worked out what to do if it happened again. All this empty country, from here to the other side of their Dandha Presh, will serve the same function as the cleared ground surrounding a fortress expecting to be besieged."

"You've convinced me. Let's just hope they're not so ready that they figure out how to come looking for us after they wrap up their pest problem." As badly as the shadowgate and nearby barrier had been damaged I doubted the Voroshk would have much energy to spare for generations.

Swan said, "He had me for a minute, too, but here comes the argument that proves what I always knew: Uncle Doj is full of shit."

A half dozen billowing black forms had emerged from the vegetation down the slope. They were walking very slowly, two by two, hands extended away from their sides, their flying posts tagging along behind at waist height.

I said, "I don't know what the fuck is going on but I want Goblin and Doj ready for anything. Murgen, you and Thai Dei spread out so we can hit them from in front and both sides with fireballs." Me and my pals had three live poles, literally all our band had left. Lady said there were just six usable fireballs between the three. She hoped.

One for each of the Voroshk.

Swan said, "You sure we really need to round up those spooks? Life would be a lot easier... "

"Right here. Right now. But what happens back home when we've got Soulcatcher coming at us and we yell for Tobo to let loose the Black Hounds and there ain't no Black Hounds? And the rest of the Unknown Shadows say, ‘Fuck that shit! I ain't getting skragged for these guys who wouldn't even try to bring the Hounds out of Khatovar.' "

Swan growled. Goblin sneered, "A little passion, Captain? I thought you'd lost it all."

"When I want shit out of you, runt, I'll kick it out. What did he just say?" The Voroshk had stopped coming toward us. One had spoken. And, O wonder, his words sounded like something I ought to understand. "Say that again, buddy."

The sorcerer got the idea. He repeated himself, loudly and slowly, the way you do with the hard of hearing, the dim of wit and foreigners.

"What is that noise?" I asked. "I know there were words in there that I should recognize."

"Remember Juniper?" Goblin said. "It sounds like he's trying to speak what they spoke there."

"Makes sense. Bowalk came from Juniper. So listen close." Goblin had served in Juniper, too. A long time ago. I have a knack for languages. Could I get enough of this one back fast enough to do us any good? We did not have many hours of daylight left.

Something began to get past the fact that the Voroshk had a horrible accent and his grammar was atrocious. He butchered tenses and inverted his verbs and subjects.

Goblin and I compared notes as we proceeded. The little wizard had never spoken the language well but he had had no trouble understanding it.

"What's going on?" Swan demanded. He was holding one of the bamboo poles. It was getting heavy.

"Sounds like they want us to take them with us. That they think the end of the world is coming and they don't want to participate."

Goblin nodded, agreeing. He added a caveat, "But I wouldn't trust them for a second. I'd always assume they were sent to spy on us."

"Yes," I said. "I'd do that with just about anybody."

Goblin ignored the jibe. "Make them strip. Bone naked. Doj I and I can go over their clothes like we're looking for nits."

"All right. Only I'm taking Doj with me to help collect my snail shells." I began telling the Voroshk what they had to do if they really wanted to go with us. They were not pleased. They wanted to argue. I did not argue even though I hoped to get my hands on a flying post or two so Lady and Tobo could study them. Damn, having a few of those sure would be handy.

I told the Voroshk, "If I don't see naked bodies I'd better see the backs of people getting away. Anybody who isn't doing one or the other by a count of fifty will die where he's standing on his dignity." The language came back to me quite well, though I did not really make my statement that clearly. The two Voroshk who were probably the brightest began disrobing almost immediately. They proved to be as pale and blond as the girls we had seen already, though red with embarrassment and shaking with fury. I watched carefully, not with much interest in their flesh. How much determination they put into something humiliating would give me a hint or two about their sincerity.

It was too much for one young woman. She got just far enough for her true sex to become evident before she found that she could not finish.

"Better run, girl," I said. And she did. She hopped aboard her flying log and scooted.

Her desertion had a definite impact on one of the young men. He changed his mind even though he was already naked. I did not hurry him as he dressed.

That left four, three boys and a girl, all in their early to middle-teens.

I waved uphill, confident that by now Lady would be watching and could guess what I needed. She is clever that way. And shortly a couple of guys were headed downhill lugging bundles of odds and ends with which to dress our prisoners.

They did not yet quite understand their new status. I brought them through the shadowgate one at a time, watching carefully. I did not expect them to try anything but I am alive at my age because I make a habit of being ready for trouble when it seems most unlikely. I asked, "Anybody got any reason to think whoever goes out the gate is going to get into trouble?" To their further humiliation the Voroshk kids found themselves with their hands bound behind them as soon as they were dressed.

The fellow with the feeble command of Juniper's lingo protested the indignity. "It's only temporary," I assured him. "Just while us few are on the outside." I shifted to Taglian. "Murgen, Swan, Thai Dei, you keep these guys on a short leash."

Bamboo poles lashed the air. Despite age and its attendant cynicism, those guys could put on a show of enthusiasm. Mainly faked. Swan promised me, "Anything happens to you, there won't be anything left of them but grease stains and toenails."

"You're a good man, Swan. Doj, you go through first." The elderly Nyueng Bao drew the sword Ash Wand and stepped through the damaged shadowgate into Khatovar. He positioned himself. I said, "Your turn, Goblin." By hand sign I told Murgen not to be shy about flinging a fireball at surprise targets outside.

What followed was anticlimactic. I took a sack around to all the places I remembered seeding earlier and collected snail shells. Those in which something had hidden itself had a distinct feel.

My ravens returned while I was involved in the harvest. They reported the Voroshk feverishly preparing for nightfall. They believed our defectors were genuine. Terror and panic were spreading across the world as fast as Voroshk messengers could fly.

The birds made the recovery of our shadow companions much easier. They let me know which shells were a waste of time and where to find the ones I had forgotten. We were all back through the shadowgate an hour before sunset.

Goblin was still examining the clothing removed from the Voroshk kids. The little wizard piped. "This is some truly amazing material, Croaker. I think it might be sensitive to the thoughts of whoever is wearing it."

"Is it safe?"

"I think it's completely inert as long as it isn't in contact with whoever is keyed to wear it."

"A little something more for Tobo to play with during all the spare time he's going to have in the middle of a war. Bundle it up. Put it on a mule at the front of the column. We need to get going." I shifted languages, told the unhappy youngsters, "I'm releasing you now. I'm going to bring you back out here, one at a time, so you can get your posts. You won't be allowed to ride them. You'll travel at the rear of our column." I went on to tell them about the dangers of the plain while they were following instructions. Their fear of the shadows gave me a good chance to retain their attention. I tried to impress them that a screw-up on the plain would kill not just the fuck-up but the whole crew, so they should not expect my people to be gentle if their behavior was unacceptable.

I was the last of the Company to leave Khatovar's soil. Before I departed I indulged in a little personal ceremony of farewell, or perhaps of exorcism.

The youngster capable of some communication wanted to know, "What is the meaning of what you just did?"

I tried to explain. He did not get it. In time I determined that he had never heard of the Free Companies of Khatovar. That he knew almost nothing of the history of his world before his ancestors had taken power. That, furthermore, he did not care.

He seemed a shallow young man, overall. No doubt his companions were much the same.

The Company was going to be a revelation for them.

Lady and I stayed at the end of the road, waiting to make sure we had sealed it successfully against shadow incursions. The sun set. The sense of presence that comes when a large number of killer shadows are gathering grew powerful as darkness came. A rising excitement informed that presence, as though the Host of the Unforgiven Dead knew that some change had taken place even though they could not come out and scout around in the daytime.

The skies remained clear over Khatovar. The moon rose just before sunset, so there was ample silvery light to reveal the opening stage of the shadow invasion. A trickle of small explorers gradually slithered through the shattered boundary. The scream of a dying pig reached us. More shadows descended the slope. Though they did not appear to be communicating with one another, somehow more and more and bigger and bigger shadows became aware of the opportunity.

"Look there," Lady said. A line of Voroshk flyers had begun passing near the moon. Before long little balls of light were bubbling into existence within the dense vegetation down the slope. "Maybe something like our fireballs."

The fireballs had been created, originally, to destroy the floods of darkness the Shadowmasters insisted on throwing against us.

"They're going to put up a fight, anyway. Will you look at that?" That being the Nef.

"The dreamwalkers are going out? I wonder why."

"Too bad we couldn't let the shadows all get out, then slam the gate shut behind them."

Even Shivetya would agree, I supposed. He was not pleased with some of the improvements made on his plain during recent millennia.

Lady said, "We should get moving. And you might want to put some thought into what to do with our new children once we get to the other end and they become tempted to run away."

Yes. I should. We did not need any more psychotic sorcerers getting under foot.