Shadow Games

Another two bolts missed. The gardner was going to be pissed about all the divots knocked out of his lawn. We completed our circuit and headed for camp. Our pursuers gave up.

As we dismounted Mogaba said, “We’ve drawn fire. Now we know what we’re up against.”

“One of the Shadowmasters is in there.”

“There may be another in that camp,” Lady said. “I felt something...”

“Where’d Shifter get to?” He had disappeared again. Everybody shrugged. “I hoped he’d sit in on a brain-storming session. Goblin, that was a dumb stunt.”

“It sure was. Made me feel forty years younger.”

“Wish I’d thought of it,” One-Eye grumbled.

“Well, they know we’re here and they know we’re bad, but I don’t see them making a run for it. Guess we’ll have to figure out how to kick their butts.”

Mogaba said, “Evidently they mean to fight outside the walls. Otherwise that encampment would not be there.”

“Yeah.” Things skipped through my mind. Stunts, tricks, strategies. As though I’d been born to come up with them by the hundred. “We’ll leave them alone tonight. We’ll form up and offer battle in the morning but let them come to us. Where are those city maps? I got a notion.”

We talked for hours while the chaos of a camp still settling raged around us. After dark I sent men out to rig a few tricks and plant stakes on which the legions could form and guide their advance. I said, “We shouldn’t bother ourselves too much. I don’t think they’ll fight us unless we get in close to the walls. Get some sleep. We’ll see what happens in the morning.”

Many pairs of eyes looked at me all at once, then, in cadence, shifted to Lady. A swarm of smiles came and went. Then everyone went away behind their smiles, leaving us alone.

Big Bucket and those guys don’t fool around. They had gone into the hills and diverted one of the irrigation canals to bring water to the camp. I figured it in my head. To give every man in the mob one cup we needed about 2, gallons. With the animals run it to 3,. But man and beast need more than a cup to get by. I don’t know what the flow was on the canal but not a lot of water was getting wasted.

Not much manpower was going to waste, either. The boys from Opal had dug some holding ponds. One they set aside for bathing. Being the boss wazoo I crowded the line.

Still soggy, I made sure Mogaba had done all the things I didn’t really have to check. Sentries out. Baracade ma

I was stalling.

This was The Night.

I ran out of busybodying so finally went to my tent. I got out my map of Stormgard, studied it again, then got to work transcribing these A

She had bathed, too. Her hair was damp. A ghost of lavender or lilac or something hung around her. She was a little pale and a little shaky and not quite able to meet my eye, at a loss what to do or say now that she was here. She buttoned the tent flap.

I closed this book. It went into a brass-bound chest. I closed my ink and cleaned my pen. I could think of nothing to say, either.

The whole shy routine was dumb. We had been playing around like this, and getting older, for over a year. Hell. We were grown-up people. I was old enough to be a grandfather. Might even be one, for all I knew. And she was old enough to be everybody’s grandmother.

Somebody had to take the bull by the horns. We couldn’t go on forever both of us waiting for the other one to make a move.

So why didn’t she do something?

You the guy, Croaker.

Yeah.

I killed the candles, went and took her hand. It was not that dark in there. Plenty of firelight leaked through the fabric of the tent.

She shivered like a captive mouse at first, but it did not take her long to reach a point of no turning back. And for goddamned once nothing happened to interrupt.

The old general amazed himself. The woman amazed him even more.

Sometime in the wee hours the exhausted boss general promised, “Tomorrow night again. Within the walls of Stormgard. Maybe in Stormshadow’s own bed.”

She wanted to know the basis for his confidence. As time labored on she just got more awake and lively. But the old man fell asleep on her.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Stormgard (formerly Dejagore)

Even I grumbled about the time of day I got everybody up. We all ate hurriedly, my valiant commanders in a clique so they could pester me about my plans. A crow perched on the tent pole at the front of my tent, one eye cocked my way, or maybe Lady’s. The bastard was leering, I thought. Really! Weren’t we getting enough of that from the others?

I felt great. Lady, though, seemed to be having trouble moving with her usual fluid grace. And everybody knew what that meant, the smirking freaks.

“I don’t understand you, Captain,” Mogaba protested. “Why won’t you lay it all out?”

“What only I know inside my head only I can betray. Just assemble up on the stakes I had put out and offer battle. If they accept, we’ll see how it goes. If they don’t kick our butts, we’ll worry about the next step.”

Mogaba’s lips tightened into a prune. He did not like me much right then. Thought I didn’t trust him. He glanced over to where Cletus and his bunch were trying to assemble shovels and baskets and bags in numbers enough for an army. They had a thousand men out scouring the hill farms for tools and more baskets and buckets and had men sewing bags cut from the canvas coverings from the wagons.

They knew only that I had told them to get ready for some major, massive earthmoving.

Another thousand men were out trying to forage timber. You need a lot of timber to invest a city.

“Patience, my friend. Patience. All will be clear in due time.” I chuckled.

One-Eye muttered, “He learned his trade from our old Captain. Don’t tell nobody nothing till you find some gink trying to shove a spear up your butt.”

They could not get to me this morning. He and Goblin could have had them a fuss as bad as back in Taglios and I’d have just gri

Two things to be observed about being the only guy in forty thousand to get some the night before. Thirty-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine guys are so envious they hate your guts. But you’re in such a positive mood it becomes infectious.

And you can always tell them their share is behind those walls over there.

Scouts reported while I was getting into my Widow-maker rig. They said the enemy was coming out of the camp and the city both. And there were a lot of the bastards. At least ten thousand in the camp, and maybe every man from the city who could be armed.

That bunch would not be thrilled to be headed into a fight. And they weren’t likely to be experienced.

I arrayed Mogaba’s legion on the left, Ochiba’s on the right, and put Sindawe’s new outfit in the middle. Behind them I put all the former prisoners we’d been able to arm and hoped they did not look too much like a rabble. The front formations looked good in their white, organized and professional and ready.

Intimidation games.

I had each legion arrayed by hundreds, with aisles between the companies. I hoped the other side would not be smart enough to jump on that right away.

Lady grabbed my hand before she mounted up, squeezed. “Tonight in Stormgard.”

“Right.” I kissed her cheek.

She whispered, “I don’t think I can stand to sit on this saddle. I’m sore.”