Shadow Games

We were two hundred miles nearer our destination than we’d had any right to hope. There was no obvious reason to expect much trouble from those troops locked up in that camp south of the city. Their Shadowmaster captain was wounded. The people of Stormgard, for the most part, were accepting us as liberators.

What was to be bothered about?

Chapter Forty

Dejagore (formerly Stormgard)

Tonight in Stormgard.

Tonight in Stormgard was something, though somehow tainted with that lack of satisfaction that haunted me increasingly. I slept well past dawn. A bugle wakened me. The first thing I saw when I cracked my lids was a big black bastard of a crow eyeballing Lady and me. I threw something at it.

Another bugle call. I stumbled to a window. Then streaked to another. “Lady. Get up. We got trouble.”

Trouble snaked out of the southern hills in the form of another enemy army. Mogaba had our boys getting into formation already. Over on the south wall Cletus and his brothers had the artillery harassing the encampment, but their engines could not keep that mob from getting ready for a fight. The people of the city poured from their houses, headed for the walls to watch.

Crows were everywhere.

Lady took a look, snapped, “Let’s get dressed,” and started helping me with my costume. I helped with hers.

I said of mine, “This thing is starting to smell.”

“You may not have to wear it much longer.”

“Eh?”

“That bunch coming out of the hills has to be just

about everybody they’ve got left under arms. Break them and the war is over.”

“Sure. Except for three Shadowmasters who might not see it that way.”

I stepped to the window, shaded my eyes. I thought I could detect a black dot floating among the soldiers. “We don’t have anybody on our side now. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty with Shifter.”

“You did the right thing. He’d fulfilled his agenda. He might even have joined the others against us. He had no grudge against them.”

“Did you know who they were?”

“I never suspected. Honest. Not till a day or two ago. Then it seemed too unlikely to mention.”

“Let’s get at it.”

She kissed me, and it was a kiss with oomph behind it. We’d come a long way... She put her helmet on and turned into the grim dark thing called Lifetaker. I did my magic trick and turned into Widowmaker. The scurrying rats who people Stormgard-I guessed we should change the name back when the dust settled-stared at us in fear and awe as we strode through the streets.

Mogaba met us. He’d brought our horses. We mounted up. I asked, “How bad does it look?”

“Can’t tell yet. With two battles under our belts and two victories I’d say we’re the more tempered force. But there’ll be a lot of them and I don’t think you have any more tricks up your sleeves.”

“You’re right about that. This is the last thing I expected. If this Shadowmaster uses his power...”

“Don’t mention it to the men. They’ve been warned we might encounter unusual circumstances. They’ve been told to ignore them and get on with their jobs. You want to use the elephants again?”

“Everything. Every damned thing we’ve got. This one could be the whole war. Win it, we’ve got them off Taglios’s back and we’ve opened the road all the way south. They won’t have an army left to field.”

He grunted. The same went for us.

We got out onto the field. In moments I had messengers flying everywhere, most of them trying to dig my armed laborers out of the city. We were going to need every sword.

Mogaba had sent the cavalry off to scout and harass already. Good man, Mogaba.

The crows seemed to be having a great time watching the show take shape.

The Shadowmaster out there was in no hurry. He got his men out of the hills and into formation despite my cavalry, then had his horsemen chase mine off. Otto and Hagop might have whipped them, but I’d sent instructions not to try. They just came back, leading the enemy, pelting him with arrows from their saddle bows. I wanted them to rest their animals before the main event. We did not have enough remounts to carry a proper cavalry campaign.

I detailed a few men to assemble the former prisoners as they showed and send them off to get in the way of anybody who sallied from the camp. With weapons captured yesterday and during the night more than half were now armed. They were not trained and were not skilled, but they were determined.

I sent word for Cletus and his brothers to move the artillery over where he could give us support and could bombard the encampment gate.

I looked across at the new army. “Mogaba. Any ideas?” At a guess there were fifteen thousand of them. They looked at least as competent as those we’d met at the Ghoja ford. Limited, but not amateurs.

“No.”

“Don’t look like they’re in a hurry to get at it.”

“Would you be?”

“Not if I had a Shadowmaster. And had hopes we’d come to them. Anybody else got any ideas?”

Goblin shook his head. One-Eye said, “The Shadow-masters are the key. You take them out or you don’t got a chance.”

“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs. Messenger. Come here.” I had one idea. I sent him to draft one of the Nar and have him head into town, round up a thousand armed prisoners, and go to the city’s west gate. When the fighting started he was to hit the camp from behind.

It was something.

Lady said, “One-Eye is right.” I think it pained her to have to say that. “And the one to concentrate on is the healthy one. This is a time for illusion.” She outlined an idea.

Ten minutes later I ordered the cavalry forward, to nip at the enemy and try to draw their cavalry out, to see what the Shadowmaster would or would not do himself.

I really wished I could count on the prisoners to hold off the men in that camp.

In the half hour it took the Shadowmaster to lose patience with being harassed, One-Eye and Goblin put together the grand illusion of their careers.

They began by re-creating the ghost of the Company they had used in that forest up north, where we captured the bandits, I think both for sentimental reasons and because it was easier to do something they had done before. They brought them out in front of the army, behind me and Lady and the standard. Then I ordered the elephants brought forward and spread them on a broad front, each supported by ten of our best and most bloodthirsty soldiers. It looked like we had a horde of the beasts because their numbers had been tripled by illusion. I assumed the Shadowmaster would see through the illusions. But so what? His men would not, and it was them I wanted to panic. By the time they knew the truth it would be too late.

Cross your fingers, Croaker.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Ready,” Lady said.

The cavalry withdrew, and just in time. The Shadow-master had begun to express his ire. I gripped Lady’s hand a moment. We leaned together and whispered those three words that everybody gets embarrassed saying in public. Silly old fart me, I felt weird saying them to an audience of one. Elegies for youth lost, when I could say them to anyone and mean it with all my heart and soul for an hour.

“All right, Murgen. Let’s do it.” Lady and I raised pur flaming swords. The legions began to chant, “Taglios! Taglios!” And my phantom brigade began its advance.

Showmanship. All those elephants would have scared the crap out of me if I’d been over on the other side.

Where the hell did I ever get the idea a general was supposed to lead from the front? Fewer than a thousand of us going to whip up on fifteen thousand of them?...

Arrows came to greet us. They did no harm to the illusions. They slid off the real elephants. They bounced off Murgen, Goblin, One-Eye, Lady, and me because we were sheltered by protective spells. Hopefully, our opponents would be unsettled by our invulnerability.