Soldiers Live

77

Above Ghoja: Seeking the One Safe Place

Goblin and the girl both rode, though their mounts remained skittish and frightened and Goblin's had to be kept in blinders so that it could not see its rider. Neither animal was allowed to look back. Goblin himself wore a rag to protect his damaged but nearly healing eyes.

The handful of soldiers who joined their flight from the middle ground fell away rapidly. Driven by the "love me" spell they gave it everything they had but eventually every man drifted outside the spell's influence, then vanished immediately.

Only the two touched by Kina crossed the bridge at Ghoja. They reached the north bank as dawn began to paint the eastern sky. It was still only the morning after the destruction of the Taglian Middle Army. They had killed several post horses but even so had not arrived ahead of rumors of the disaster to Taglian arms.

"Our enemies have been here before us," the Goblin-thing said. He wanted to be called Khadidas, Slave of Khadi. The girl simply refused to address him by that appellation. "These people have been warned and threatened but they will raise no hand against you because of who they think you are." Not because of who she was.

The Daughter of Night played Protector with a blend of arrogance and small-mindedness nothing like her aunt's but the garrison commanders found her sufficiently convincing. And she ached every second because it was clear that these unbelievers would never yield themselves to the service of the Dark Mother. She knew that they would have tried to destroy her had they known she was not her aunt. This world deserved the Year of Skulls.

The aura the girl radiated got her through her brief confrontations.

"I'm exhausted," she whined to Goblin. "I'm not used to riding."

"We can't stop here."

"I can't go on."

"You will go on. Until you are safe." The Khadidas's voice left no doubt who it believed to be in charge. "There is a holy place not many leagues further. We'll go there."

"The Grove of Doom." There was no enthusiasm in the girl's response. "I don't want to go there. I don't like that place."

"We will be stronger there."

"It'll be the first place they'll look for us. If they don't already have soldiers there waiting." She knew that was unlikely. Those people were not yet prepared to tell their soldiers that the woman inside the black leather was not the Protector anymore, but they did have the capacity to move their game pieces from afar. They seemed able to thwart the Goddess whenever they liked.

She said, "They already know what we're going to do. Because we just talked about it."

"We're going to the Grove. I will be much stronger there." No argument would be allowed.

The Daughter of Night was no less devoted to her spiritual mother today but she did not like this creature who bore a fragment of Kina inside him. She found it difficult to articulate even to herself, but she missed Narayan. She missed him because he had loved her. And she, in her self-centered way, had loved him enough in return that now her life was one ongoing trail of loneliness and desolation... leading where? This new hand of the Goddess seemed incapable of any emotion but anger. And he refused flatly to indulge her in any way, or even to acknowledge her humanity.

She was a tool. That she was a living thing with wants and emotions all her own was just an annoyance, a nuisance, an inconvenience. There was an ever stronger implication that she should learn to abandon her distractive qualities. Or else.

Goblin said, "We need a place where we can be safe and our power is strong because there is much we need to do before we commence the actual rite of resurrection." By which the Daughter of Night understood him to mean bringing on the Year of the Skulls.

She became attentive despite her inclination to be rebellious. It sounded like the Khadidas was going to impart some real information at last. Hitherto, the possessed little man had done nothing more than present his bonafides, then tell her what to do. They had been together for only a few days but throughout them he had been completely unforthcoming.

She asked, "How can we possibly bring on the Year of the Skulls? Our cult has been exterminated. I doubt that there are a hundred devout believers left in the entire world."

"There will be hands enough to undertake the holy task. Narayan Singh did well in his last years. But before we bring them together we must recover the Books of the Dead."

The Daughter of Night had to pass on the cruel truth that had been used to torment her all the while she had been a captive of the Black Company. "The Books of the Dead no longer exist. The woman who commands our cruelest enemies burned them personally. Not even a scrap survived. The monster that dwells in the place of glittering stone, that prevents my mother from rising, had the ashes scattered throughout all the realms that touch upon the demon plain."

"That's true." The Khadidas grinned evilly. "But books are knowledge. The knowledge contained within the Books of the Dead is not lost. The knowledge also resides within the Goddess herself. And whatsoever there was within her that needed to be brought forth into this world she placed within me before she sent me forth."

"You know the Books of the Dead by heart?"

"I do. Which is why we must find our one safe place. The scriptures are no good locked up inside me. They must be out, in written form, to assume their full power. They must be there so that the cantor priests can sing from them continuously during the time of resurrection. Come. We must travel faster."

The Daughter of Night hurried her pace, her exhaustion pushed back briefly by the stunning implications of what she had just heard.

The holy books were not lost!

She was ashamed that she had suffered even a slight wavering of faith.