Shadow Games

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Back to scouting

The pinhead gods had other ideas.

I am not a swift worker, and Lady had her natural reluctances-and all of a sudden the sky opened up like somebody chopped open the bellies of the clouds. The downpour was heavy and cold and came with just a breath or two of chill wind for warning. I’d have thought I was already wet enough not to mind more, but...

We’d hardly stopped scrambling around trying to find some shelter when Murgen and the others came out of the night. Murgen said, “It was Goblin, all right, but he was gone when we got there.” He assumed I knew what he was talking about. “Croaker, I know us Black Company types is tough he-men and neither rain nor snow nor little brown geeks is supposed to stop us from doing any damned thing we want, but I’m burned out on this rain. I guess I got what you call conditioned at the Barrowland. I can’t handle too much of it. I get the collywobbles.”

I was burned out on it, too. Especially now it was coming down serious. But... “What about Goblin?”

“What about him? I’ll make you a bet, Croaker. That little dork is all right. Goddamned well better off than we are. Eh?”

This is where command really gets you. When you make a choice that feels like you’re taking the easy way out. When you think you are taking convenience over obligation. “Right, then. Let’s see if we can’t find our way back to town.” I let go Lady’s hand. We got ourselves in better array. Those guys pretended not to notice. I supposed the troops back in Taglios would know before sunrise, somehow. Rumor works that way.

Damn, I wished I was guilty as suspected.

We reached the village as the world began to turn grey. Even those fabulous mounts of ours were worn out. We boothorned them into a stable meant for half a dozen normal animals and went clumping inside. I was sure the owner would be thrilled to death to see his clientele expanded again and looking like they’d just spent the night rolling around in the mud.

The old boy wasn’t around. Instead, a pudgy little woman appeared from the kitchen, looked at us like she thought the barbarians had invaded, then saw Lady.

Lady looked just as rough as the rest of us. Just as mean. But there was no mistaking her for a guy. The old gal rushed her and babbled in Taglian and reached up to pat her back and I didn’t need Cordy to tell me she was doing an “Oh, you poor dear” routine. We followed them back into the kitchen.

And there was friend Goblin, leaning back with his feet up on a log in front of a fire, sipping something from a huge mug.

“Get the little bastard!” Murgen said, and started after him.

Goblin bounced up and squeaked, “Croaker!”

“Where you been, runt? Sitting here drinking toddies while we’re out stomping in the mud trying to save your butt from the baddies, eh?”

Murgen got him cornered. “Hey! No! I just got here myself.”

“Where’s your horse? The stable was one short when we put ours in.”

“It’s pretty miserable out there. I left it out back and came straight inside.”

“It’s not miserable for a horse? Murgen, throw him out and don’t let him back inside till he takes care of his horse.”

Not that we had done all that decent a job ourselves. But we’d at least gotten them in out of the wet.

“Cordy, when the old gal finishes fussing over Lady ask her how far it is to the Main.”

“The Main? You’re not still-”

“I’m still. As soon as I get some chow inside me and a couple hours of sleep. It’s what I came down for and it’s what I’m going to do. Your pals have been ru

He sort of smiled. “All right. If you have to see for yourself, see for yourself. But be careful.”

Goblin came in looking sheepish and conciliatory and wet. “Where are you going now, Croaker?”

“Where we were going in the first place. The river.”

“Maybe I can save you the trouble.”

“I doubt it. But let’s hear it. You find out something while you were adventuring on your own?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Sorry. It wasn’t one of my all-time best nights.”

“You’re having a lot of not-so-good times in recent years, Croaker. Being Captain gives you a sour stomach.”

“Yeah.”

We exchanged stares. I won the lookdown. He said, “After Lady and I split up I only got about half a mile before I realized them brown guys weren’t being fooled. I knew I did a good job with the illusion. If they didn’t all come after me, then they had some mojo of their own somewhere. I already suspected they did on account of how they stuck all the time even when we outran them. So I figured if I couldn’t get back to Lady I’d do the next best thing and go after whoever was controlling and guiding them. When I started sniffing around for it it was damned easy to find. And they gave me no trouble. I

guess they figured if I would go away from Lady they’d leave me alone. Only a few stuck with me. I turned on them and uncorked a few specials I was saving for the next time One-Eye got out of line, and after they all stopped kicking I buzzed over there and sneaked up and there was this hilltop that had been sort of hollowed out, like a bowl, and down in the bowl there was these six guys all facing a little fire. Only there was something weird. You couldn’t see them right. It was like you was looking at them through a fog. Only the fog was black. Sort of. Lots of little shadows, I’d guess you’d call them. Some of them no bigger than a mouse’s shadow. All buzzing around like bees.”

He was talking as fast as his mouth would go, yet I knew he was having trouble telling what he had seen. That words for what he wanted to convey did not exist, at least in any languages us mundanes would understand.

“I think they were seeing what we were doing in the flames, then sending those shadows out to tell their boys what to do to us and how to get into our way.”

“Hunh?”

“Maybe you were lucky, not dealing with them so much in the daytime.”

“Right.” I figured I’d had troubles enough chasing a walking treestump around the countryside. “See any crows while you were at it?”

He looked at me fu

“Not till you tell me.”

“I only saw them for a second, but it seemed like I could see right through them.”

“You always do,” I muttered, and he looked at me weird again. “So you figure any of the brown guys who’re still out there are wandering around lost now? Like puppies without their masters?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I figure they’re as smart as you or me. Well, as smart as you, anyway. They just don’t have their advantage anymore.”

The old woman was still fussing over Lady. She had taken her somewhere to get bathed and patched up. As if she needed patching.

“How does this save me a trip to the Main?”

“I’m not finished yet, Your Grand Impatience. Right after the blowup here came one of the guys I thought I’d finished, tracking me down, all on his lonesome, and he’s stumbling around holding his head like something got ripped out. I grabbed him. And I grabbed a couple loose shadows that were hanging around and I slapped one of them around a little and sent it off to tell One-Eye I needed to borrow his little beast. I taught another shadow how to make a guy talk and when the little monster showed up we asked the brown guy a few hundred questions.”