Soldiers Live

78 Midway Between: Bad News

People began to scurry as though in near panic. I knew the signs. News had come in and it was not good. I suspected the cavalry force sent to probe the defenses at Ghoja had suffered some major misfortune.

I headed for Sleepy’s tent without being summoned. By the time I ducked inside I had overheard a half dozen rumors already, not a one of them reassuring.

Generating rumors is one thing even the most inept armed force does exceedingly well.

Sleepy was heads-together with Suvrin and Runmust, Riverwalker and several brigade commanders from Hsien. Tobo was there but was goofy with painkillers. Howler and Shukrat were not present. Tobo looked a little peeved. My guess was that he had brought the bad news but could not keep himself together well enough to contribute anything beyond his report.

I had given up on him. If he wanted to cruise around on a post trying to do things while he was all busted up and in casts I was not going to nag him anymore. He had a half-crazy mom to handle that.

Sleepy glanced my way, for a second revealed extreme irritation. That turned to resignation as other former Captains let themselves in behind me. Even Willow Swan invited himself to sit in.

Sleepy did face a unique challenge. No other Captain in the Company’s history has had such a cabal of ex-Captains looking over his shoulder. Even though none of us intrude, or even offer much unsolicited advice, Sleepy’s particular insecurities leave her feeling like she is being judged whenever she had to Captain in front of us. And, of course, she is, though like proper old ladies we do it only behind her back.

“Since everybody but the cooks and grooms is here, I suppose I should get on... No. Tobo is here. He can tell it better than I.” She deferred to the kid as soon as her gaze fell upon him. I glared at her. She had no business putting him through...

Tobo’s eyes focused. He shut them, took a cleansing breath, started talking. “The hidden folk have been tracking Goblin and Booboo the best they can, though it’s hard even when we know what route they have to take.” He was something less than intimidating, strapped into position aboard a Voroshk flying log, so covered with casts and splints that he was able to use only one hand. “They travel inside a fog of, for want of a better description, divine darkness and confusion. By knowing their route, though, I was able to have the Black Hounds seed the way with snail shells... I got lucky. One of the hidden folk eavesdropped on an argument between Goblin and the girl.” His words came in a soft, swift gush that forced his audience to stay quiet and lean forward.

Tobo paused. For effect, I would have suspected in normal circumstances. The kid liked his drama.

The boy made the grim announcement, “The thing inside Goblin knows the Books of the Dead by heart. Once the Daughter of Night transcribes them they plan to start the rites associated with initiating the Year of the Skulls.”

Fox in the henhouse, oh, my, oh!

It took Sleepy several minutes to get everyone settled down. In the interim Tobo grabbed the opportunity to relax. When a measure of calm returned he said, “That’s not as bad as it sounds. Remember, there’re only two people involved. Should we kill either one, the resurrection fails. For the rest of our century and beyond. And, as anyone who ever worked on the Annals will tell you at great length, it takes a long time to write a book. Even if you’re just copying. I saw the Books of the Dead before Sleepy destroyed them. They were huge. And the Daughter of Night will have to transcribe them error-free. So we don’t exactly face an immediate crisis even though this is trouble that we never anticipated.”

I jumped in. “If you got one of your critters close enough to find out all that then you probably know right where they are. We can set up some kind of ambush.” Lady and Howler were supposed to have been ransacking the cobwebby cellars of their minds in an effort to recall some ancient device whereby Goblin and the girl might be distracted, disoriented, distressed and destroyed. Or just disarmed, in the case of my missus. Realist and pragmatist though she was, she nevertheless nurtured a blind bit of self-delusion wherein she would turn Booboo around. Though she would never admit that, of course.

Tobo said, “All right, Master Strategist, Architect of the Destruction of the Shadowmaster Evil, tell me how you ambush somebody you fall in love with before they get inside crossbow range.”

“Kid has a point,” Lady said, eyeing me expectantly.

“Your snail-shell lurker didn’t fall in love with her, did it? It just hunkered down there and eavesdropped till it decided to come running to you with its gossip.”

“And?”

“So the Unknown Shadows aren’t affected by the Daughter of Night. Is the opposite true?”

“They couldn’t do her much physical harm.”

“Skryker? Black Shuck? That big old jumping duck thing? You’re shitting me.”

“No, really.”

“Well, they really wouldn’t have to, anyway, would they? They’d just need to haunt her. Keep interfering with her sleep. Driving her crazy. Jogging her elbow whenever she tries to write. Really be guilty of all the annoyances they’re blamed for back in Hsien. They could piss in her inkwell. They could hide her pens. They could spill stuff on whatever she’s trying to write. They could make food go bad and milk turn sour.”

“They could keep her husband from performing on her wedding night,” Sleepy snapped. “You’re roaming a little far into the future, Croaker. And possibly targeting the wrong victim. The Goblin thing is the one who has the Books of the Dead locked up inside his gourd. He might be able to manage without the Daughter of Night. I’m pretty sure she can’t manage without him.”

Points worth considering.

“Both are just ephemeral tools,” Sahra announced in a hollow, oracular voice. “Both can be replaced. In time. So long as Kina herself persists the threat from the glittering plain lives on.”

That took all the cheer right out of the gathering.

Everybody stared at Tobo’s mother, the injured boy himself included. There was a creepy feeling to her, like something had taken control of her, to speak using her mouth.

Murgen later said Sahra had looked and sounded exactly like her grandmother, Hong Tray, when she issued her prophecies, decades ago.

She scared the shit out of Murgen and Tobo both. They used all the energy they could muster to insist that Sleepy’s concern about Goblin and the Daughter of Night was not yet critical.