Soldiers Live

61

The Taglian Territories: Nightfliers in Dejagore

Three flying posts formed the goose flock formation. Tobo had the point with Willow Swan riding pillion. Swan was in the throes of an apparently severe religious relapse, muttering a continuous polysyllabic one-word prayer. With his attitude toward heights he would be bruising Tobo by hanging on so tight. His eyes would be closed so intently that he would have muscle cramps all the way back to his ankles.

Lady and Shukrat flew the other posts. Lady had Aridatha Singh aboard behind her. Shukrat carried Uncle Doj.

Murgen, Thai Dei and I shared the flying carpet with the Howler, whose shrieks were being contained inside a big glass bowl sort of thing Lady had put over his head. It worked well enough to save trouble with people who did not know we were coming.

Murgen and Thai Dei were along only because Sahra had to be placated. She did not want her baby going into harm's way alone. People everywhere were irked because the boy's father and uncle had had to be flown back to Gharhawnes before the raid could be launched. But Sahra had been stubborn and loud and Sleepy had given in rather than lose a friend.

Sahra's recollections of and fears of Dejagore remained abiding and debilitating.

I hoped Murgen and Thai Dei handled it better, though at takeoff time Murgen had been sweaty, pallid, shaking and appeared to be having trouble breathing. And Thai Dei had seemed more self-engrossed than ever.

I had spoken to each alone and had tried telling each that I was counting on him to keep an eye on the other and carry him if the emotional strain became too much. I have found that assigning major external responsibilities like that can get many of my brothers through times of deep emotional stress.

Howler kept the carpet in the pocket of the formation. We moved northward at a pace that created a cold wind strong enough to pull the tears out of my eyes. Murgen and I occupied the carpet's rear corners. I told him, "I'd forgotten just how much I don't like this. Why didn't I send some of those eager young bucks from Hsien?"

"Because you're just like every other recent Captain of the Company. You've got to have your pointy nose right in the middle of things so you can make sure things get done your way."

Up ahead Tobo lifted the shutter on a red lantern. He winked the light several times. There was an answering signal from the ground, miles off our track and much farther forward than I expected.

Blade and the cavalry had made good time and were already in the ring of hills surrounding Dejagore. The moon would rise in an hour. It would provide the light they needed to filter through the hills and descend the inner slope.

We passed over the rim and discovered the scattered lights of Dejagore. We slowed to a crawl. The flying posts gathered together. Aridatha tried to explain to Tobo where we needed to go.

I told Murgen, "You should've gone with Tobo. You know Dejagore better than anyone else."

"Dejagore twenty-five years ago, maybe. It's a whole new city since my day. Aridatha belongs with him. It's only been weeks since he was there."

Few details could be distinguished by starlight but as we moved closer the walls and main buildings matched my recollections almost exactly.

The logs formed up in line astern with Lady and Aridatha leading. Howler fell in behind. We resumed moving.

Ten minutes later we were on the ground. Five minutes after that Aridatha hustled us into his brother's shop.

Sugriva Singh seemed to be a shorter and older version of Aridatha. He had done well for himself. He had the whole downstairs of a building for his business and everything above for his family—none of whom were ever in evidence.

Sugriva's past good fortune assured his deep displeasure at our invasion. All of a sudden he had ten villains in amongst the vegetables and only his brother and the bountiful little blonde did not look willing to roast him for a prank. He had a great deal to lose here. And maybe more to lose if he did not cooperate. The Strangler cult was hated in the extreme in Dejagore. Just a whisper about his relationship to the living saint of the Deceivers would destroy him and just about anyone who had ever spoken to him.

Aridatha dispensed with introductions. Sugriva did not need to know his visitors. Chances were, he recognized a few of us anyway.

Aridatha told his brother, "Our father is dead. He was murdered a few weeks ago. Strangled."

Sugriva was the elder by a decade. He remembered the Narayan Singh who had sold vegetables and doted on his children before the invasion of the Shadowmasters. He was stricken as Aridatha had not been stricken. "And that should be no surprise, should it? Is that what you mean?" Sugriva said through tears that might have been due as much to rage as to pain.

He needed a few minutes to collect himself.

To his credit Sugriva Singh did not rail against the inevitable. He understood exactly how his arm was being twisted and, though events were not going to proceed quite like Aridatha had led him to expect during his previous visit, he chose to cooperate. He wanted to get it over as fast as he could, then he would pray that the new administration would be as indifferent to him as he was to the one presently in place.

Things were not exactly working out the way Aridatha had hoped they would, either.

Sugriva said, "You haven't chosen the best night to do this. The moon is going to expose anyone moving toward the city from outside."

Tobo chuckled. "You might be surprised. The night is our friend, brother Sugriva."

"I rather expect you'll find that my father believed the same thing, young man."

And his father's son? Sugriva had been unhappy, even angry, when we turned up, but not really surprised. What kind of vegetable dealer was not surprised to be wakened in the night? Inside a city that closed its gates with fanatical devotion when the sun's lower limb touched the western hilltops?

Could Aridatha's big brother be some sort of crook?

Aridatha told his brother, "The reason we're troubling you is that we don't know how the gatekeeping is managed."

"You told me before. I looked into it. There's a company of soldiers assigned to each gate. The west gate is the most closely controlled because it sees more traffic than the other three put together." One of Dejagore's quirks was that most of today's roads to the city joined outside it, to the west, so there was not much traffic elsewhere. The north and south gates were used only by people involved in agriculture and its produce.

"The east gate looks like it should be the easiest to seize and control," Sugriva said. A true road did connect with the east gate but there was little out that way but a few distant villages. "The guards are slackers, at all levels. None of them are natives. None of them are old enough to remember the last time Jaicur was attacked." Sugriva had adopted the local accent and the local name for the city when he had assumed a Dejagoran name.

The trouble with the east gate was that Blade was west of Dejagore. But he was well ahead of schedule. There was time, before sunrise, if he hustled.

Tobo suggested, "Lady, why don't you go tell Blade that it has to be the east gate?"

"Because I'm going to be getting dressed."

Widowmaker and Lifetaker were coming to the party. They had been away for far too long.

Half a minute later Shukrat said, "I guess it's time to find out if you can really trust me, Tobo."

I jumped in before the boy could speak. "I suppose so. Tell Blade not to waste time. We need as much of the night as we can get. And we won't stay unnoticed long once we start. Tell him we'll be waiting when he gets to the gate."

A smile tickled Shukrat's freckled, almost pudgy face. She bounced up onto her toes and gave Tobo a peck on the cheek. Bold, bold behavior by any standard in this part of the world. They must do things differently among the Voroshk.

She bounced away. Tobo was completely flustered. I grinned till Lady poked me in the ribs. Evidently I was enjoying the bouncing part a little too much.

Murgen said, "I suggest we get to work here, folks. I don't want to be inside these walls a minute longer than I have to." He was holding it together but the strain was obvious.

Thai Dei was frazzled, too, and with even better reason. A lot of people very close to him had died here during the siege. No matter how tough a man pretends to be, such losses gnaw at his soul. Unless he is not human at all.

"The man has a point," I said. "Start getting ready."

Lady and I had the most to do. We had a big show to put on. We retreated into a small separate room, colder than the main shop. As we strove to turn ourselves into walking nightmares I asked, "Hon, have you really got that post-riding stuff figured out?"

"It isn't that hard. Except for staying on. Any idiot could do it. There are some little black rods and slidy things you move around. You go up or down, or faster or slower, or whatever, when you do. Why?"

"It occurs to me that it might be better for us and him both if we got Aridatha back to Taglios. He's been gone a long time. Mogaba needs to have him back where he can show him off before news of tonight's business gets around."

She did not stop donning the Lifetaker armor but did look at me in a way that I do not see often. It was like she was looking right through me, at all the secret places inside. It was frightening sometimes.

"All right. We'll have to move fast if I'm going to be aloft before daylight."

"Will the log make it that far?" Not knowing how those things worked I did not know what you might have to feed it, like a horse. The posts did seem to work on a different principle than Howler's flying carpets, which required a strong-willed, powerful sorcerer to drive them. They demanded his undivided attention every moment they were aloft.

"I'm sure it will. What do you want me to tell Mogaba?"

The long-time taunt, "My brother unforgiven," came to mind, along with, "All their days are numbered." But this was not the time.