Soldiers Live

47

The Shadowgate: The Repairmen

The encampment below the shadowgate became the hub of a flood of Unknown Shadow traffic as Tobo tried to head off the Voroshk threat. He remained especially worried about Longshadow's keepers till Shivetya somehow assured him that they were invisible to Voroshk eyes.

"Do you trust him?" Lady asked. She being the most naturally paranoid of any of us at the shadowgate. "He might try to make a better deal with the Voroshk."

"What better deal? We're going to give him what he wants. Without trying to control him or even to get much out of him."

"Bet he thinks we're too good to be true, then." She was in a mood.

I asked, "What happened to the golden pickax? The Deceiver key to the shadowgates."

After a pause to make up his mind about what to admit, Tobo said, "I left it with Shivetya. We may need it again. When it's time to kill Kina. I couldn't think of any other place where it would be safer from her followers." He was troubled as he looked the rest of us over. He was thinking he should have kept that to himself. The golden pickax was an extremely holy Strangler relic that could also be used to help set Kina free.

He was afraid that at least one of us was sure to tell somebody what we had just heard.

It was a long night followed by what promised to be a longer day.

For the uninvolved members of the band these were trying times. There was nothing for them to do but play cards and wonder if the people of the New City would be crazy enough to attack us.

Panda Man and Spook mostly watched the game. They did not do well when they played. Tonk is one of the simplest games ever invented, rules-wise, but a huge part of it is the table talk that goes along with the actual picking up, discarding and laying down of cards. A group accustomed to one another is an entirely different animal from one where the players barely speak the same language. Wherever the Company stops for fifteen minutes a tonk game soon develops. The tradition began ages before my time. It will persist long after I am gone.

Gone. I tried to imagine what life might have been like had I left the Company sometime in the past. My imagination was not up to the task. I confess. I do not have the strength of personality to abandon everything I know, even when all that is just a meandering, unhappy path that, too often, wanders through the outlying marches of hell.

I was a zombie most of the day, carrying that hod for my young bricklayer while most of me was elsewhere, boldly adventuring across those fields of might-have-been.

Sometime late in the afternoon I told Lady, "I probably should tell you this more often. I love you and I'm glad Fate conspired to bring our lives together."

I stunned her into silence. I know Swan and Murgen gaped and spent some time trying to figure out if I thought I was dying.

The Voroshk had not overlooked us. They were cautious. They showed themselves briefly several times during the day. Their customary arrogance seemed in abeyance.

Once I left my own preoccupations behind I asked Tobo, "What do you suppose they're up to?" We had talked about it before but I am never entirely comfortable taking a sorcerer's motives at face value.

"Looking for hope. Or anything that will give them an edge. I expect that, right now, their world is more like hell than almost anything any priest ever imagined. Most of the surviving shadows from the plain must be running loose there. One family of sorcerers, however wonderful their weapons, just has no chance to stop what's happening. Not before the devastation reaches the scale of an end of the world catastrophe."

Once upon a time I might have felt bad for the Voroshk and the people of Khatovar. This time when I examined my soul I found not much more than indifference within me.

"How much longer before you've finished making all your modifications?" Lady demanded. She was anxious to head north. From oblique remarks I gathered that she wanted to rejoin the main force before disaster struck it. What she could do to avert a disaster was beyond me. She did not have enough magic currently to start a fire without adding flint and steel to the mix.

'Ten minutes, tops," Tobo replied. "There's this one last braided strand that needs reweaving and we'll have us not just a completely healthy shadowgate, it'll be the toughest there ever was. Tough enough that what happened to the Khatovar gate can't happen here. In fact, it's already all those things. What this spell rope is going to do is create a little pocket of darkness that's invisible from outside so killer shadows can be turned into invisible sentries. They'll be there ready to jump out at anybody who tries to get through who isn't already approved by us or Shivetya."

"Neat," I said. Lady scowled. She was determined to believe that we were placing too much trust in the golem.

She seemed unable to recognize that trust was not a large part of this equation.

She said, "We're going to have company in a minute."

I looked up. Two Voroshk sorcerers were coming down the slope, following the old road, inside what would have been protection if they had not blown up their own shadowgate. A third post-rider remained a dot above the horizon, a remote witness. I asked, "You think they did more damage getting through the barrier and onto the road?"

After only a glance, Tobo said, "No. I think they came in the far end and flew here, following the roads. The other one paced them from above."

Admirable stupidity, I thought. The two at ground level had no chance of getting back out before dark. Did they think we would protect them from the night? If so they were huge daydreamers.

The Voroshk dismounted a hundred yards away. They walked toward us like walking was a foreign experience. Riding the flying fencepost had to be a huge status symbol back in Khatovar. So huge, walking was never done where your inferiors could see you.

"How long now?" Lady asked Tobo.

"Fifteen seconds. After that I'll fake it for a bit. Then we all step back through the gate. Are Dad and the others alert?"

Alert was not strong enough a word. A variety of missile weapons were ready. So was one fireball projector but it would not see use while the Voroshk remained on the plain side. The barriers could be damaged by fireballs. Arrows and crossbow bolts, however, could pass through and the wounds they made would heal in moments.

Not that arrows were likely to accomplish much against these chunky old men.

They did seem overweight. They projected an aura of fatness behind the constant stirring of their black cloaks.

"There. I think that should do it," Tobo said.

Click. Click. Click . That swiftly we three backed through the shadowgate into our own world. Tobo sealed the way. We waited. The kid said, "One of these will be the father of our two troublemakers."

Probably. The Voroshk did appear interested in communicating. They knew someone on our side spoke the language of the forvalaka.

Their luck was in. Of all the Black Company people who could have been there with Tobo they got me and Lady.

They would get no happiness out of that, though. Their kind rubbed me the wrong way. I would make nothing easy for them.