Dreams of Steel

Chapter Ten

Swan lay in the shade on the bank of the Main, lazily watching his bobber float on a still, deep pool. The air was warm, the shade was cool, the bugs were too lazy to bother him. He was half asleep. What more could a man ask?

Blade sat down. “Catch anything?”

“Nope. Don’t know what I’d do if I did. What’s up?”

“The Woman wants us.” He meant the Radisha, whom they had found waiting when they’d reached Ghoja-much to Smoke’s dismay. “She’s got a job for us.”

“Don’t she always? You tell her to stick it in her ear?”

“Thought I’d save you that pleasure.” “I’d rather you’d saved me the walk. I’m comfortable.”

“She wants us to drag Smoke somewhere he don’t want to go.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Swan pulled his line out of the water. There was no bait on his hook. “And I thought there weren’t any fish in that crick.” He left his pole against a tree, a statement of sorts. “Where’s Cordy?”

“Probably there waiting. He was watching Jah. I told him already.”

Swan looked across the river. “I’d kill for a pint of beer.” They’d been in the brewery business in Taglios before the excitement swept them up.

Blade snorted, headed for the fortress overlooking Ghoja ford.

The fort stood on the south bank of the Main. It had been built by the Shadowmasters after their invasion of Taglios had been repulsed, to defend their conquests south of the river. The fortress had been overwhelmed by the Black Company after the victory north of the river. Taglian artisans were reinforcing it and begi

Swan sca

Jahamaraj Jah was a powerhungry Shadar priest. He had commanded the mounted auxiliaries during the southern expedition. His flight north had been so precipitous he’d beaten Swan’s party to the ford by several days.

“I think he’s guessed. He tried to sneak a messenger across last night.” The Radisha, through Swan, ad forbidden anyone to cross the river. She didn’t want news of the disaster reaching Taglios before its dimensions were known. “Uhm?”

“Messenger drowned. Cordy says Jah thinks he made it.” Blade chuckled wickedly. He hated priests. Baiting them was his favorite sport. All priests, of whatever faith.

“Good. That’ll keep him out of our hair till we figure out what to do with him.”

“I know what to do.”

“Political consequences,” Swam cautioned. “That your solution to everything? Cut somebody’s throat?”

“Always slows them down.”

The guards at the fortress gate saluted. They were favorites of the Radisha and, though neither Blade nor Swan nor Mather wanted it, they commanded Taglios’ defenses now.

Swan said, “I got to learn to think in the long term, Blade. Never thought we’d be back at this after the Black Company showed.”

“You got a lot to learn, Willow.”

Cordy and Smoke waited outside the room where the Radisha holed up. Smoke looked like he had a bad stomach. Like he’d make a run for it if he got a chance.

Swan said, “You’re looking grim, Cordy.” “Just tired. Mostly of playing with the runt.” Swan raised an eyebrow. Cordy was the calm one, the patient guy, the one who poured oil on the waters. Smoke must have provoked him good. “She ready?” “Whenever.”

“Let’s do it. I got a river full of fish waiting.” “Better figure on them getting grey hair before you get back.” Mather knocked, pushed the wizard ahead of him.

The Radisha entered the room from the side as Swan closed the door. Here, in private, with men not from her own culture, she didn’t pretend to a traditional sex role. “Did you tell them, Cordy?”

Willow exchanged glances with Blade. Their old buddy on a nickname basis with the Woman? Interesting. What did he call her? She didn’t look like a Cuddles. “Not yet.” “What’s up?” Swan asked.

The Radisha said, “I’ve had my men mixing with the soldiers. They’ve heard rumors that the woman who was the Lieutenant of the Black Company survived. She’s trying to pull the survivors together south of here.”

“Best news I’ve heard in a while,” Swan said. He winked at Blade.

“Is it?”

“I thought it was a crying shame to lose such a resource.”

“I’ll bet. You have a low mind, Swan.”

“Guilty. Hard not to once you’ve had a gander at her. So she made it. Great. Gets us three off the hook. Gives you a professional to carry on.”

“That remains to be seen. There’ll be difficulties. Cordy. Tell them.”

“Twenty-some men from the Second just came in. They’d stayed off the road to avoid the Shadowmasters’ patrols. About seventy miles south of here they took a couple prisoners. The night before our guys grabbed them Kina and a ghost army supposedly attacked their camp and killed most of them.”

Swan looked at Blade, at the Radisha, at Cordy again. “I missed something. Who’s Kina? And what’s got into Smoke?” The wizard was shaking like somebody had dunked him in icewater. Mather and Blade shrugged. They didn’t know. The Radisha sat down. “Get comfortable.” She chewed her lip. “This will be difficult to tell.” “Then just go straight at it,” Swan said. “Yes. I suppose.” The Radisha collected herself. “Kina is the fourth side of the Taglian religious triangle. She belongs to none of the pantheons but terrifies everybody. She isn’t named lest naming invoke her. She’s very unpleasant. Fortunately, her cult is small. And proscribed. Membership is punishable by death. The penalty is deserved. The cult’s rites always involve torture and murder. Even so, it persists, its members awaiting someone called the Foretold and the Year of the Skulls. It’s an old, dark religion that knows no national or ethnic bounds. Its members hide behind masks of respectability. They sometimes call themselves the Deceivers. They live normal lives among the rest of the community. Anyone could belong. Few of the common people know they exist anymore.”

Swan didn’t get it and said so. “Don’t sound much different from the Shadar Hada or Khadi avatars.”

The Radisha smiled grimly. “Those are ghosts of the reality.” Hada and Khadi were two aspects of the Shadar death god. “Jah could show you a thousand ways Khadi is a kitten compared to Kina.” Jahamaraj Jah was a devotee of Khadi.

Swan shrugged, doubting he could tell the difference if they drew pictures. He’d given up trying to understand the welter of Taglian gods, each with his or her ten or twenty different aspects and avatars. He indicated Smoke. “What’s with him? He shakes any more we’ll have to change his diaper.”

“Smoke predicted a Year of Skulls-a time of chaos and bloodshed-if we employed the Black Company. He didn’t believe it would come. He just wanted to scare my brother out of doing something that scared him. But he’s on record as having predicted it. Now there’s a chance it might come.”

“Sure. Come on.” Swan frowned, still lost. “Let me get this straight. There’s a death cult around that makes Jah and his Khadi freaks look like a bunch of nancy boys? That scares the guano out of anybody who knows who they are?”

“Yes.”

“And they worship a goddess named Kina?”

“That is the most common of many names.”

“Why aren’t I surprised? Is there any god down here without more aliases than a two-hundred-year-old con man?”

“Kina is the name given her by the Gu

“Gah. All right. I’ll bite. There’s a bad-ass in the weeds called Kina. So how come me and Cordy and Blade never heard of her before?”