Shadow Games

“To get where you want to go you got to head right through the Shadowlands. Seven, eight hundred miles of them. I don’t think even you guys can make it. Neither does he.”

“You said they were four hundred miles away.” “Four hundred miles to Pityus, Cap. Where it started. They got everything from the border south now. Seven, eight hundred to Shadowcatch. And like I said, they started on us last year. Took everything south of the Main.”

I knew the Main to be a broad river south of Taglios, a natural frontier and barrier.

Swan continued, “Their troops are only eighty miles from Taglios some places. And we know they’re pla

I looked at Lady. “Damned awful lot of folks know more about what I’m doing and where I’m going than I do.”

She ignored me. She asked, “Why didn’t he run us off, Swan? Why did he send you to meet us?”

“Oh, he never sent us. He didn’t know about that part till we got back. He just figures if the Shadowmasters are scared of you guys then he ought to be friends with you.”

It wasn’t me who frightened them, but why give that away? Swan and his buddies and boss didn’t need to know who Lady had been. “He’s got guts.”

“They all got guts. Out the yang-yang. Pity is, they don’t know what to do with them. And I can’t show them. Like he says, the Shadowmasters would come sooner or later anyway, so why appease them? Why let them pick their time?”

“What’s in this for Willow Swan? You come on pretty strong for a guy just passing through.”

“Cordy ain’t here to hear me, so I’ll tell it straight. I’m not on the run no more. I’ve found my place. I don’t want to lose it. Good enough?”

Maybe. “I couldn’t give him an answer here, now. You know that if you know anything about the Black Company at all. I don’t think there’s much chance. It isn’t what we want to do. But I’ll give the situation a fair look. Tell him I want a week and the cooperation of his people.” I pla

“That’s it?” Swan asked.

“What else is there? You expect me to jump in just because you’re a sweet guy? Swan, I’m headed for Khatovar. I’ll do what I have to do to get there. You made your pitch. Now’s the time to back off and let the customer think.”

He babbled to his prince. The more the evening went on, the more I was tempted to issue a flat rejection. Croaker was getting old and cranky and not thrilled with the idea of learning yet another language.

The Prahbrindrah Drah nodded to Swan. He agreed with me. They rose. I did likewise, and gave the Prince a shallow bow. He and Swan walked away, pausing here and there to speak to other midnight diners. No telling what he said. Maybe what they wanted to hear. The faces I could see were smiling.

I got myself comfortable, leaned back to watch One-Eye at play. He had a swarm of bugs zipping around his victim’s head. I asked Lady, “What do you think?”

“It’s not my place to think.”

“Where would you be inclined to stand?”

“I’m a soldier of the Black Company. As you’re inclined to remind me.”

“So was Raven. So long as it suited his convenience. Don’t play games with me. Talk to me straight. Do you know these Shadowmasters? Are they Taken you sent down here to start building you a new empire?”

“No! I salvaged Shifter and sent him south, just in case, when the fury of the war and Stormbringer’s enmity were enough to explain his disappearance. That’s all.”

“But Howler...”

“Had his own escape pla

“I will. If they’re not Taken they sound close enough as makes no difference. So I want to know. Where do you stand?”

“I’m a soldier of the Black Company. They’ve already declared themselves my enemies.”

“That’s not a definitive answer.”

“It’s the best you’re going to get.”

“I figured. What about Shifter and his sidekick?” I hadn’t seen them since Thresh, but had the feeling they were just around the corner. “If it’s as bad as it looks we’ll need all the resources we can muster.”

“Shifter will do what I tell him.”

Not the most reassuring answer, but I did not press. Again, it was the best I was going to get.

“Eat your di

I looked down at food now so old it was no longer palatable.

Smirking, Frogface ambled off to help his master soften the will of an assassin.

One-Eye overdid it. He has that way when he has an audience. He gets too exuberant. Our prisoner expired from sheer terror. We gained nothing from him but notoriety.

As though we needed that.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Willow, bats, and things

It was late. Willow yawned as he tumbled into his chair. Blade, Cordy, and the Woman looked at him expectantly. Like the Prahbrindrah couldn’t talk for himself. “We talked.”

“And?” the Radisha demanded.

“You maybe expected him to jump up and down and yell,’Oh, goodie!’”

“What did he say?”

“He said he’d check it out. Which is about the best you could expect.”

“I should have gone myself.”

The Prahbrindrah said, “Sister, the man wouldn’t have listened at all had not someone just tried to kill him.”

She was astonished.

Willow said, “Those guys aren’t stupid. They knew we was up to something way back when they let us hook up with them at the Third Cataract. They been watching us as close as we been watching them.”

Smoke drifted in with all the racket of his namesake. It was a big room in the cellar of a friend of the Radisha, near the olive grove. It smelled moldy although it was open to the night in places. Smoke came a few steps into the light cast by three oil lamps. His face puckered into a frown. He looked around.

“What’s the matter?” Cordy asked. He shivered visibly. Swan got a creepy feeling, too.

“I’m not sure. For a moment... like something was staring at me.”

The Radisha exchanged looks with her brother, then with Willow. “Willow. Those two odd little men. One-Eye and Goblin. Fact or fraud?”

“Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Right, Blade? Cordy?”

Cordy nodded. Blade said, “The little one. Like a child. Frogface. That’s dangerous.”

“What is it?” the Woman asked. “The oddest child I’ve ever seen. There were times when it acted a hundred years old.”

“Maybe ten thousand,” Smoke said. “An imp. I dared not investigate lest it recognize me as more than a silly old man. I don’t know its capacities. But definitely a supernatural entity of great efficacy. My question is how an adept of a capacity as limited as the One-Eye creature obtained control. I’m superior to him in talent, skill, and training, but I can neither summon nor control such a thing.”

Sudden squeaks and flutters came from the darkness. Startled, everyone turned. Bats hurtled into the light, peeping, diving, dodging. A sudden larger shape flashed through, dark as a chunk of night. It ripped a bat on the fly. Another shape flung through a second later, dropping another bat. The others got away through a barred but otherwise unclosed ground-level window.

“What the hell?” Willow squawked. “What’s going on?”

Blade said, “Couple of crows. Killing bats.” He sounded perfectly calm. As if crows killing bats in a basement at midnight, around his head, was something that happened all the time.

The crows did not reappear.

“I don’t like it, Willow,” Cordy said. “Crows don’t fly at night. Something’s going on.”