Shadow Games

Not that I would trade it in or take it back. Never.

Someday, when I’m old and retired and have nothing better to do than philosophize, I’m going to sit down for a year and figure out why it’s always better in the anticipation than in the consummation.

I sent Frogface flitting around checking the enemy’s mood. That was black. They wanted no more fighting after duking it out with elephants.

Stormgard’s walls were not heavily patrolled. Most of the male population had marched out in the morning and not made it back. But Frogface reported no great distress around the central citadel, where another Shadowmaster was in residence. In fact, he thought he sensed confidence in the eventual outcome.

The storm marched north. And it was a bitch kitty. I gathered my captains. “We got a mean storm coming. Might make what we’re going to try tricky, but we’re going to do it anyway. Be even less expected. Goblin. One-Eye. Get the dust off your old reliable snooze spell.”

They eyed me suspiciously. Goblin muttered, “Here it comes. Some damnfool reason for not getting any sleep again tonight.”

One-Eye told him, “I’m going to use that spell on him one of these first days.” Louder, “Right, Croaker. What’s up?”

“Us. Up and over those walls and open the gate after you put the sentries to sleep.”

Even Lady was surprised. “You’re going to waste all that work on that ramp?”

“I never intended to use it. I wanted them convinced I was committed to a certain course.”

Mogaba smiled. I suspected he’d figured it out ahead of time.

“It won’t work,” Goblin muttered.

I gave him a look. “The men working the trenches at the city end are armed. I promised them first crack at getting even. We get the gates open all we have to do is lean back and watch.”

“Won’t work. You’re forgetting that Shadowmaster in there. You think you’re going to sneak up on him?”

“Yes. Our guardian angel will make sure.”

“Shifter? I’d trust him as far as I can throw a pregnant elephant.”

“I say anything about trusting him? He wants us for a stalking horse for some scheme. He’s got to keep us healthy. Right?”

“Your mind is going, Croaker,” One-Eye said. “You been hanging around Lady too long.”

She kept a blank face on. That might not have been a compliment.

“Mogaba, I’ll need a dozen of the Nar. After Goblin and One-Eye put the sentries to sleep Frogface will climb the wall with a rope and anchor it. Your boys will go up and take the barbican from the rear and open the gate.”

He nodded. “How soon?”

“Anytime. One-Eye. Send Frogface scouting. I want to know what that Shadowmaster is doing. If he’s watching us we won’t go.”

We moved an hour later. It went like operations go in textbooks. Like it was ordained by the gods. In another hour every one of the freed prisoners, except those we had enrolled in the legions, was inside the city. They reached the citadel and broke in before resistance developed.

They raged through Stormgard, ignoring the rain and thunder and lightning, venting a lot of rage, probably mostly in directions askew.

Me in my Widowmaker suit stalked through the open gates fifteen minutes after the mob rush. Lifetaker rode beside me. The locals eowered away from us, though some seemed to be welcoming their liberators. Halfway to the citadel Lady said, “You even fooled me this time. When you said tonight in Stormgard...”

A gust and ferocious fusillade of rain silenced her. Lightning cut loose in a sudden vicious duel. By the flashes I witnessed the passage of a pair of panthers that I would have missed otherwise. Chills not of the rain crawled my spine. I had seen that bigger one before, in another embattled city, when I was young.

They were headed toward the citadel, too.

I asked, “What are they up to?” My confidence was less than complete. There were no crows out in this storm. I realized I had come to count them my good luck.

“I don’t know.”

“Better check it.” I increased my pace.

There were a lot of dead men around the entrance to the citadel. Most were my laborers. Sounds of fighting still echoed inside. Gri

“I hear she’s in the big tower. Up high. Her men are fighting like crazy. But she isn’t helping them.”

Thunder and lightning went mad for a full minute. Bolts smashed at the city. Had the god of thunders gone crazy? But for the torrential rainfall a hundred fires might have started.

I pitied the legions, out there on guard. Maybe Mogaba would bring them in out of it.

The storm died into an almost normal rain after that last insane fit, with only a few lightweight flashes.

I looked up the one tower that loomed over the rest of the citadel-and, deja vu, in a flash spied a cat shape scaling its face.

“Damn me!”

The thunder had left me unable to hear the horses coming. I looked back. One-Eye, Goblin, and Murgen, still flaunting the Company standard. One-Eye was staring up at the tower. His face was not pleasant to behold.

He was flashing on the same memory. “Forvalaka, Croaker.”

“Shifter.”

“I know. I’m wondering if it was him last time.”

“What’re you talking about?” Lady asked.

I said, “Murgen, let’s plant that standard up where the world can see it when the sun comes up.”

“Right.”

We stalked into the citadel, Lady trying to find out what had passed between me and One-Eye. I developed a hearing problem. One-Eye took the lead. We climbed dark stairs where the footing was treacherous because of blood and bodies. There was no more fighting going on above us.

Ominous.

The last fighters of both sides were in a chamber a couple stories from the top. All dead. “Sorcery here,” Goblin muttered.

“We go up,” One-Eye snapped.

“I know.”

Total agreement between them. For once.

I drew my sword. There was no flame in it, and no color to my costume now. Goblin and One-Eye had other things on their minds.

We caught up with Shifter and the Shadowmaster in the parapet of the tower. Shifter had assumed human form. He had the Shadowmaster at bay. It was a tiny thing in black, almost impossible to take seriously as a danger. There was no sign of Shifter’s sidekick. I told Goblin, “There’s one missing. Keep an eye out.”

“Got you.” He knew what was going on. He was as serious as ever I’ve seen him.

Shifter started moving in on the Shadowmaster. It had nowhere to retreat. I gestured Lady to move out to his right. I went left. I’m not sure what One-Eye was doing.

I glanced toward the camp south of the city. The rain had stopped while we were inside the tower. The camp was plainly visible by its own lights. I got the impression they knew something was wrong over here but they were not about to come find out what.

They were nice and close. Put artillery on the wall and life could get miserable for them.

The Shadowmaster backed up against the merlons edging the parapet, apparently able to do nothing. Why were they impotent? This one was who? Stormshadow?

Shifter was close enough to touch, now. One hand darted out and ripped the black robing off the Shadow-master.

I gawked. I heard Lady’s gasp from fifteen feet away.

One-Eye said it. “I’ll go to hell. Stormbringer! But she’s supposed to be dead.”

Stormbringer. Another of the original Ten Who Were Taken. Another one who was supposed to have perished in the Battle at Charm, after murdering the Hanged Man and... and Shifter!

Aha! I said to me, said I. Aha! A settlement of scores. Shifter knew all the time. Shifter had been out to get Stormbringer from the start.

And where one mysteriously surviving Taken was in business for herself, might there not be more? Like about three more?

“What the hell? They all still around but the Hanged Man, Limper, and Soulcatcher?” I’d seen those three go down myself.