She Is The Darkness tbc-8 Page 34

  “It is over here.”

  “From what I hear the New Division suffered fewer casualties than anybody last night.”

  Sindawe observed, “You’ve been in this business most of your life, Standardbearer. You know morale can have little to do with the facts of a situation. Perceptions are more critical.”

  Absolutely. People want to believe what they want to believe, good, bad, or indifferent, and do not confuse them with facts.

  I said, “We maybe shouldn’t mention it to these guys but I think he expects to head on up there soon.”

  Bucket glared up the unwelcoming slope. “You’re shitting me.”

  “You didn’t believe him when he said that’s where we’re going? He’s never made a secret of the fact that we’re headed for Khatovar. It’s what we’ve been doing since we left the Barrowland.” Half a lifetime ago, it seemed. Before he ever joined up.

  Grimly, Isi observed, “I don’t think you’ll find anyone here who actually believed we’d get this far.” And he had not been with the Company as long as Bucket had.

  Isi was not exaggerating. I do not think anyone but the Old Man ever really believed in Khatovar. The rest of us went along because we had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but follow the standard. Every day was a gift, of sorts, and it did not much matter where the long night caught up. I said, “The last human obstacle went down last night. Lady has Longshadow wrapped up like a birthday present.”

  I glanced around again. Everywhere I looked men were hard at work. It was not something special suddenly put on for me but I did garner plenty of resentful stares just for being a guy from headquarters. Me turning up could only mean more demands, more work, more hardship.

  The light was getting strange. There was not a lot of daylight left. “What are they doing over there?” I asked, indicating a work gang apparently digging a defensive trench. Against shadows that would be as useful as teats on a bull.

  “Burying last night’s dead,” Bucket told me.

  “Oh. Look. You stick with me. Unless you’ve got something critical going. The rest of you go ahead with whatever you were doing.”

  Sindawe told me, “Isi or I would be better guides, Standardbearer. We’re in charge so we don’t do much.” He said that with such a straight face I almost thought he meant it.

  I walked over to the mass grave.

  They were digging a trench because that was the most efficient way to get bodies under the hard ground. I knelt, ran my fingers through what they had broken loose. Despite the rain earlier the hardpan was dry just inches beneath the surface. “It didn’t rain much over here?” I asked.

  “Mostly it just gets cold,” Isi said.

  I stared up the slope, past the Shadowgate. The ground grew more barren by the yard. There was some plant life up there but it was stunted, desertlike growth.

  The corpses the soldiers were planting bore the stamp of shadow death, they were all shriveled up, with skin darkened several shades. Each dead man’s mouth was open in a screaming rictus. The bodies were curled. They could not be straightened.

  Crows circled but the soldiers kept them back.

  I felt the hard soil again, eyed the slope. The rock itself looked like hardened mud, lying in hundreds of thin layers being gnawed away slowly by time. “I guess it wouldn’t rain a lot up there, either, then. Or there would be more gullies and obvious washes.” I wondered if erosion would create ways for shadows to escape from beyond the Shadowgate. Evidently not. Otherwise the world would have been overrun a long time ago.

  I had never found any record of a time when the Shadowgate had not been there. It was ancient beyond reckoning but even so had not found its way into native religion in any form I recognized. Except, possibly, in the infrequently used idiom common to many southern languages, “Glittering stone,” which seemed to mean an inexplicable possession of dark madness, a sort of demonically savage insanity complicated by congenital stupidity. One of those things Taglians will not discuss with outsiders, however pressed.

  Until the rise of the Shadowmasters there had been very little historical mention of the land beyond Kiaulune, except that it tied in somehow with the rise of the Free Companies of Khatovar over four hundred years ago.

  Though not religious myself I bowed and offered a short Gunni prayer for the dead before I ventured uphill for a closer look at the source of our trouble. Thai Dei beamed at me. I must have done right.

  77

  “Help me plant this thing,” I told Thai Dei as I set up the standard a few yards downhill from a working party of soldiers. Thai Dei piled rocks around the foot of the lance until it would stand by itself. Then we walked uphill a little farther.

  Once upon a time there had been an actual fortress with outbuildings and a genuine gate here. I had not been able to see that in my ghostworld ventures. There were little more than grass-grown foundations left now. Everything had fallen ages ago. But the stone had not been carried away until recently, when some of our bolder soldiers had taken some from the safe side for use in constructing shelters. Which suggested that, chickenshit as they were about the terrors lurking in the past, they were fearless heroes compared to the people who used to live near the place.

  Made me wonder again about how any fear could persist so strongly for so long. And then wonder if maybe Kina was not somehow connected to that effect. Maybe her nightmares leaked over into the dreams of everybody who heard the name Khatovar.

  So why was I not dribbling down my leg?

  Maybe I am too stupid to be scared about the right things.

  The stone that had been used to construct the fortress was not a native rock. It was a greyish sandstone not only foreign to that slope, it was unlike any stone I had seen back in the direction from which we had come. It was not like the stone Longshadow had imported to build Overlook, either.

  I glanced back at Overlook. The setting sun was sneaking in under the clouds, firing the south face of the fortress. That was one wall that Longshadow had gotten completed. The metal signs and seals on its face flamed and fairly thundered with power despite the fallen estate of their creator. “Now that’s impressive,” I said.

  “But it doesn’t do us any good up here,” Isi observed. Glumly, Bucket nodded agreement. Sindawe, I noted, had faded away, gone back to whatever he had been doing before I arrived.

  “What are these guys doing?” The working parties were marking the slope and ruins with colored chalk dusts, augmenting similar markings that had suffered from the rain.

  “Defining the bounds of the gate. Different colors mean different things. I haven’t learned them all myself. I understand the different dusts will glow their particular colors in the dark if they’re excited by the proximity of fireballs. Apparently they define areas of threat and the level of danger to be expected in each.”

  “That what they do?” I asked Bucket.

  He shrugged. “Close enough.”

  I grunted, moved up closer to the workers. As I did I began to feel a vibration or hum that began way down deep inside me. It grew stronger faster. I asked, “Who’s the expert here?”

  A dirty little man, irritated at being interrupted, unbent his back. I stifled a grin. He was Shadar despite being small and in charge of a Gunni work party. He had a beard big enough for the usual six feet plus of his coreligionists. He was not a Company man. I had noticed that over here pledged brothers all wore something to identify themselves, usually some crude version of the fire-breathing skull we had adopted from Soulcatcher twenty years ago. Maybe they thought that might help protect them from whatever came through the Shadowgate.

  “How may I instruct you, Standardbearer?”

  Oh, that man was talented. Without venturing one inch from absolute propriety he let me know exactly how he would like to instruct me, right after I bent over and grabbed my ankles.

  “I’d like to know what you’ve determined about the layout here. Especially where the gate itself used to be, if you know, and where the weakest
spots are.”

  “You want to know where the shadows are getting through?”

  “Did the man stutter, hairball?” Bucket demanded.

  I made a calming gesture. “Easy. Yes. Where they’re getting through.”

  “Everywhere between those two yellow splashes.” The little Shadar scowled at Bucket. “The red area is what must have been the actual original gateway.”

  “Thank you. I’ll try not to trouble you much more.”

  The Shadar muttered, “Will miracles never cease?” as I went to walk over the ground. Bucket thought about adjusting the man’s attitude, decided it was not worth the trouble. Not now. But there would be later, when I was not around.

  A few rods below the Shadowgate there were torch racks and the remains of bonfires that had been used to produce light the night before. There were crude bunkers where soldiers had lain waiting for the shadows, protected only by repellent candles and their luck with the bamboo poles. There were two rickety ten-foot towers somebody had thrown up to provide plunging fire.

  I pushed forward into the buzz until I no longer felt comfortable, which was right at the edge of the red chalk dust. From there I could make out the remains of the fallen gate. It must have been truly substantial in its time. It looked like it had been wide enough to permit passage of four men marching abreast. There was no sign that there had ever been a moat or a ditch or anything such, though. And a ditch is the oldest form of defense work there is. It persists today below every wall that is not some engineering monstrosity like the ramparts surrounding Overlook and Dejagore.

  The implication was that the forgotten builders had not been concerned about threats from downhill.

  There were still some strong spells on the Shadowgate. You could feel them growl if you pushed against them hard enough.

  I did not press my luck.

  I mused, “Why is the road in halfway decent shape when everything else here is almost completely gone?” The farther uphill you looked the better preserved the old road was.

  Nobody offered an opinion. Chances were nobody gave a rat’s ass. It was bad enough they just had to be there.

  I strolled back down to the standard. Somehow, vaguely, it seemed to have come alive. I felt a vibration from it, too. That seemed to center on the head of the lance. Which would fit with Croaker’s theories about the Lance of Passion.

  Thai Dei, Bucket and Isi felt what I felt but did not know what it was. I told Thai Dei, “I want to move the standard up where it’ll be the first thing a shadow runs into when it comes through the gate. Let them know the boys are back.” I told Isi, “Tonight shouldn’t be as rough. Lady thinks she’s got Longshadow under control. She might even get the Shadowgate shut down completely before dark.” Which I doubted because that was not very far off anymore.

  The relief on Isi’s face was almost comical.

  A couple of soldiers caught part of what I said and scattered to start rumors that, no doubt, would grow fat in the retelling. Bucket grumbled, “I can’t wait to see the twist that gets put on that by the time it comes back around.”

  Hum! We did not want any Taglians still loyal to the Prahbrindrah Drah to become too confident of their safety. “That’s only might,” I said. “And even if she shuts it down tighter than a virgin’s twat there’s still a shitload of shadows that got out of there last night and are still hiding under rocks and stuff waiting for sunset.” Darkness always comes. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Not by a long way.”

  I made sure I was overheard saying that, too.

  I will teach you to fear the darkness. Who said that? Lady’s first husband, maybe, back before my time. Certainly somebody who learned a lesson of his own way back in one of the old Annals.

  I added, “We’re going to face it every night for a long time to come.”

  “We’re really going up there?” Bucket asked, pointing, when nobody but Thai Dei could hear him. He did not consider the question a major secret, though, or he would have asked in a language unfamiliar to Thai Dei.

  “Maybe. I don’t know how soon, though. The Old Man keeps talking about getting crops in so we don’t need to kill ourselves foraging.” While I talked I tried to figure how big a circle of influence the standard would cast. With Thai Dei’s help I replanted it an estimated half radius from the Shadowgate, mid-line on the old road. Then I went back down and talked a couple of Vehdna into letting us take over their frontline bunker. Funny. They hardly argued about it.

  Lady’s horse had followed me around the whole while, staying out of the way but missing nothing. I told him, “Thanks a bunch. You can go back to your boss now.” I always talk to mine as an equal. You treat the critters right, they’ll do any damned thing. Even run somebody all the way to Taglios. Or back.

  The horse argued less than the Vehdna soldiers did. Off he trotted.

  I wondered how Sleepy was doing.

  He could not have run far yet. It had not been that long since everything turned to shit.

  78

  Chalk dust bands defined fields of fire for the soldiers, so they could pick off shadows more efficiently. But, though they glowed, the dusts did not betray the shadows perfectly.

  Lady had given me some tools and instructions on how to use them. I was supposed to resist any temptation to take shortcuts.

  A lot of soldiers came to watch. The Taglians were awed because a man who was neither priest nor sorcerer could read. They made me feel like a freak.

  Essentially, Lady’s directions had me lay down strips of leather rope in semicircles around the most dangerous passthrough, which was where the original gate had stood. More ropes went down as spokes.

  Everything had to be done just so. None of which took into account the presence of the standard. If Lady understood that the standard was special she never made much of it.

  I scuttled around inside the bunker we had appropriated. It was barely three feet from floor to ceiling. There was room for four men and a pile of bamboo. The place stank. No one had gone out after dark, no matter how pressing the need. As a shelter it was a feeble improvement over sitting out in the rain.

  I told everyone watching, “When a shadow crosses one of the leather ropes it’ll make a spark so we’ll not only know that one is there, we can follow its movements. As long as we stay calm we can pick them off without wasting any fireballs.”

  The situation there was grim. A repeat of last night meant not many guys would see another sunrise.

  “Not much of a mattress,” I told Thai Dei, patting the ground. “Why don’t you get some rest?” Whatever happened, I had to sleep later so I could prowl. If that worked for me again.

  I crawled outside, settled on a comfortable block from the old wall. I studied the roof of my new home. It had been fashioned from a tent taken from the Shadowlanders. Everywhere around me I saw a wealth of plunder taken from our enemies. So much that in another month we would be as gaunt and disease-ridden as we were when we broke the siege of Dejagore.

  The big edge we held over our enemies now was that we were still around. We could pretend to be an army still. Mogaba’s band was the best they had left.

  What would Mogaba do when he heard about Longshadow’s disaster?

  “Speaking of disasters.” Real bad news was headed my way.

  At the bottom of the slope, where the road southward gave up its final pretense and became an eroded dirt track, Uncle Doj stood staring up at the Shadowgate. If he had come any later it would have been too dark to pick him out. Mother Gota was fifty yards behind him, still moving, bitching so loudly that I caught snatches from where I sat. Both carried packs, which suggested that they planned to move in with me again. They had become professional squatters.

  I flipped a stone at a crow. It was not a serious effort and the crow showed slight enthusiasm about getting out of the way. He just leaned. There were not a lot of the birds around now that dusk was thickening, though at their most numerous they had remained uncommon all day. Curious. I had seen no
thing to explain the absence of the usual flocks. Nobody had started roasting them.

  Maybe they were all off taking care of Mom.

  I sat by the entrance to the bunker. “Thai Dei. How come your mother and Uncle Doj are over here?”

  Thai Dei peeked outside, looked down the long slope, muttered in salty Nyueng Bao, went back in and lay down. You would have thought he had no respect for his elders.

  He did not answer my question.

  I checked the amulet I had not returned to Croaker. I considered the height of my shadow-repellent candle. We should be all right.

  I hoped.

  Somebody a lot smarter than me once said, “Put no trust in wizards.”

  I shut my eyes and waited.

  “Murgen, you know a couple guys name of Wobble and Leadbeater?”

  I opened my eyes. “Rudy. You ugly son of a bitch. Where’d you come from? I ain’t seen you in half a year. How the fuck are you?”

  “What is that? It’s been so long I forget how. But I still got all my limbs and I’m still breathing.”

  “Makes you a winner in the soldiering game. Yeah. I remember Wobble. He was Jaicuri. Everybody he ever knew died during the siege of Dejagore. He just stuck with us after we came out of the city. He was a stonemason by trade. He was with us when we caught the Deceivers in the Grove of Doom.”

  “That’s the guy. He made a good showing at Charandaprash, too.”

  “And the other one? Leadbeater? I didn’t know him.”

  “He was some kind of Shadowlander. A prisoner of war who started out doing scutwork and gradually turned into one of us. Only took the oath maybe a month ago.”

  I knew but I had to ask. “What about them?”

  “They didn’t make it last night. I had to tell you. On account of you always want to put all that stuff in the Annals.”

  “Thank you. Though I don’t know if I like this or not.”

  “What?”

  “Only time half you guys talk to me anymore is if somebody gets his ass skragged. Then you come around because you want me to remember them.”