Soldiers Live

59 With the Middle Army: When Guests Arrived

The Goblin creature proved difficult to catch. What should have taken just a few days took two weeks and, in the end, necessitated Soulcatcher’s personal intervention—with, to her chagrin, considerable coaching from the shadowy cat thing she could never quite see and never quite ambush and bind to her own service.

In the meantime she amused herself with the girl.

The Daughter of Night was imprisoned in a cage inside Soulcatcher’s tent. That was the largest and most ostentatious tent in the midway camp. The girl had been stripped naked, then had been decorated with a variety of chains and charms. She would not be guarded by or even approached by anyone male. Soulcatcher knew only too well how men could be manipulated by the women of her blood.

Though the girl did not seem interested in listening, Soulcatcher said, “To this day I’m not quite sure how you and that old man managed to get away from me. But I have some suspicions. And it won’t happen again. You’re far too important to your mother to be running around loose.” The voice Soulcatcher selected was annoyingly pedantic.

The girl did not respond. She was alone in her own reality. This was not her first time as a prisoner of someone who planned to use her. She could be patient. Her moment would come. Someone would slip up. An impressionable guard would be assigned. Something. Somewhere, sometime, she would have an opportunity to deceive someone into loving her long enough to want to set her free.

The girl’s continued indifference pricked Soulcatcher into trying to hurt her with news she had wanted to reserve. “He’s dead, you know. Your old man. Narayan Singh. He was strangled. They threw his body in a cesspit.”

That blow did strike home. But after an initial flinch and a brief, black look the Daughter of Night lowered her eyes and settled back into her pose of patient indifference.

Soulcatcher laughed. “Your freak Goddess has abandoned you.”

To which the girl offered her only spoken response since her capture. “All their days are numbered.” Which was like a slap in Soulcatcher’s face. It was one of those slogans Black Company-inspired graffitists had used to taunt her for years.

Soulcatcher snatched a whip, flailed away without doing the girl much harm. The cage itself prevented that.

Someone shouted for Soulcatcher’s attention from outside the entrance to her tent. In that respect her soldiers were well-trained. They did not bother her with trivia.

Responding, Soulcatcher found a gaggle of soldiers with a dead man on a crude litter. The corpse was twisted. Its features were severely distorted. Raindrops slid off the ruined face like tears. “You,” she said, picking a man. “Tell it.” A cavalryman covered with mud, he must have been on picket duty.

“This man came up from the south. He gave the proper recognition signs. He told us that he was bringing you important news about traitors but wouldn’t say anything else.”

“He arrived healthy? How did he get this way?”

“Just before we got to camp he stood up in his stirrups and screamed. His horse reared and threw him. After he hit the ground he shuddered and twitched and made gurgling noises trying to scream. And then he died.”

“Traitors?” No doubt there would be many of those to pay off before this played out. These situations brought them out from under every rock and bush.

“That’s all he said, ma’am.”

“Bring him inside. It’s possible I can still get a little something out of him. Be careful where you track your mud.” She stepped aside, even held the flap for the soldiers. Reluctantly, a few found courage enough to bring the body forward. Soulcatcher’s soldiers shared a common opinion that it was not good to catch the Protector’s eye. These stepped carefully, leaving as little mud and moisture as possible.

In a merry young voice Soulcatcher observed, “You must all have mothers.”

Soulcatcher had the corpse partially stripped, disassembling its apparel thread by thread, when there was another disturbance outside the tent entrance. Irked, she responded, hoping this would be the news she had been awaiting so long: that Goblin had been captured at last.

As she was about to open up she caught motion from the corner of her eye. She spun. For an instant she thought she glimpsed a tiny man, maybe eight inches tall, ducking down behind the corpse.

The racket outside remained insistent.

It was not the news she wanted. The soldiers there—they always came in groups—pushed one of their number forward. “A courier just came in, ma’am. The enemy is on the move again. Westward.”

Mogaba had called it right, then. “When did this start?”

“The courier will be with you in a minute, ma’am. With dispatches. He had some physical needs he couldn’t put off before he could see you. But the command staff insisted you get the main news immediately.”

In a casual tone, Soulcatcher observed, “The drizzle seems to be letting up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Get that courier here as fast as possible.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The reports from the south did indeed have the rested Black Company forces moving westward but not on the track previously anticipated. Part of their journey would have to be made without the benefits of roads, over rough terrain.

Soulcatcher said, “They must be striking for Balichore by the shortest route. Why? Can anyone tell me what’s special about Balichore?” Soulcatcher controlled a sprawling empire she knew only a little about.

After an extended silence someone tentatively suggested, “That’s the farthest upriver heavy barge traffic travels. Cargos have to be portaged and loaded on smaller boats or onto wagons.”

Someone else recalled, “There’s some kind of problem with rocks in the river. A whatchamacallit. Cataract. The Liberator once ordered a canal built around it but the project was abandoned...”

A couple of pokes in the ribs were necessary before the speaker recalled who was responsible for the neglect of public works in recent times.

Soulcatcher did not respond, however. She concentrated on the transport idea.

A large portion of the Company had barged up the Naghir River after fleeing Taglios five years ago. Could this new Captain be in a rut? Or was she thinking she could catch Taglios by surprise, from the river side, where there were no walls and no defensive works and the peoples of those poorer quarters tended toward nostalgic recollections of the Prahbrindrah Drah, the Radisha and even the Liberator.

Soulcatcher asked, “Does anyone happen to know how long it takes to get a barge down the Naghir, through the delta channels, and upriver to Taglios?” She knew barges manned by veteran crews traveled day and night, unlike soldiers afoot or on horseback.

Another disturbance at the entrance arose before anyone produced a reliable answer.

The drizzle had ended, she discovered. Yet the men demanding attention were covered with mud. And they had brought her a present.

“For me? And it’s not even my birthday.”

Goblin was a present who looked way the worse for use. He was bound and gagged. His head and hands were wrapped in rags as well. His captors had been determined to take no chances.

Soulcatcher gloated. “He stumbled into one of my traps, didn’t he?”

“Yes he did, ma’am.”

There were hundreds of those out there, taking many forms. Soulcatcher had begun to put them out as soon as it had become evident that the new, improved Goblin could evade the best efforts of her soldiers. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?” If he was dead her concern that he might have allowed himself to be caught would slide down her list of worries.

“Your instructions were perfectly clear, ma’am.”

Soulcatcher memorized that man’s face. He was mocking her behind a mask of rectitude. She preferred open defiance. That she could crush without mystifying anyone. “Take the mask and gag off. Set him up over here.” The Daughter of Night, Soulcatcher noted, was interested enough to forget to hide her interest.

She could not know the little wizard’s significance, could she?

No. Impossible. The girl was just doing what she did whenever anything happened inside the tent. She paid attention because she might learn something useful.

Soulcatcher waited until she judged that Goblin was sufficiently recovered. She told him, “Your former brothers really don’t like turncoats, do they?”

Goblin stared at her with eyes colder, deeper and more remote than those of the Daughter of Night. He did not reply.

She stepped closer. Her mask was just a foot from his face. She purred, “They came to me for help settling your account.”

Goblin twitched but remained silent. He did try to look around.

He smiled when he glimpsed the Daughter of Night.

Soulcatcher said, “They told me all about it, little man. They told me what you are now. They expect me to just kill you because of what you did to my foot. They really just want you dead.” She rubbed her gloved hands together. “But I think I’m going to be a lot cruder.” She giggled.

“All their days are numbered,” Goblin said in a whisper. The voice borrowing the taunt only vaguely resembled that of the man who had gone down into the earth to challenge the Dark Mother.

“Some more closely than others.” Soulcatcher’s voice was old and emotionless. Her right hand lashed out, sliced across Goblin’s face. Blades a half inch long on the ends of her fingers destroyed his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He shrieked, at first as much in surprise as in pain.

The Protector turned on the men who had brought the prisoner in. “Bring me another cage like the one the brat is in.” The cage did in fact exist already. Such had been her certainty that she would capture Goblin.

The blacksmith had orders to create three more, suitable for housing her sister, her sister’s husband, and that treacherous Willow Swan.

Later, in Taglios, she meant to work with a glassblower to bottle them all so they could be displayed outside the entrance to her palace. They would be kept alive and fed until they drowned in their own ordure.

Such was the fate that the Dominator often bestowed upon his most important enemies, in his time.