Soldiers Live tbc-10 Read online

  Soldiers live. And wonder why.

  10

  An Abode of Ravens:

  Recovery

  Two months had passed. I felt ten years older but I was up and around—and moving like a zombie. I had indeed been roasted well-done by a jet of almost pure alcohol blowing through the hole that had been drilled by Lady’s errant fireball. Everybody kept telling me how much the gods must love me, that I had no business being alive. That had I not been turned the way I was, with the forvalaka positioned perfectly to absorb a lot of the blast, there would not have been much left of me but bones.

  I was not entirely convinced that that might not have been the better outcome.

  Persistent pain does little to buoy one’s optimism or elevate one’s mood. I began to develop a certain sympathy for Mother Gota’s perspective.

  I did manage a smile when Lady began to rub me down with healing unguents. “Silver linings,” she told me.

  “Oh, yes indeed. Yes indeed.”

  “Would you look at that? Maybe you’re not as old as you think.”

  “It’s all your fault, wench.”

  “Sleepy’s worried about you wanting to avenge One-Eye.”

  “I know.” I did not have to be told. I had had to put up with people like me when I was Captain.

  “Maybe you should tone it down.”

  “It’s got to be done. It’s going to be done. Sleepy’s got to understand that.” Sleepy is all business. Her world does not include much leeway for emotional indulgence.

  She thinks I just want to use One-Eye’s death as an excuse to visit the Khatovar shadowgate, basing her judgment on the fact that I had tramped through Hell for a decade trying to get to that place.

  The woman is hard to fool. But she can also get fixed on one idea to the exclusion of other possibilities.

  “She doesn’t want to make any more enemies.”

  “More? We don’t have any. Not out here. They may not like us much but they all kiss our asses. They’re scared to death of us. And they get more scared every time another White Lady or Blue Man or wichtlin or whatnot lumbers out of folklore and joins Tobo’s entourage.”

  “Uhn. Is that the spot? I saw something Tobo called a wowsey with the Black Hounds yesterday.” That is my honey. She can see those things clearly, even over here. “It’s as big as a hippo but looks like a beetle with a lizard’s head. A lizard with big teeth. To quote Swan, ‘It looks like it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every single branch on the way down.’”

  Willow Swan seemed to be cultivating a new image as a churlish but colorful old man.

  Somebody has to step in and take One-Eye’s place. Though I was sort of thinking about picking up the stick myself.

  “What do we know about the forvalaka?” I asked. I had avoided asking for specifics before. I knew the damned thing got away. That was all I needed to know until I was prepared mentally to start planning the conclusion of its tale.

  “It left its tail behind. It suffered severe burns and several deep wounds and I blinded it partially with my last fireball. It lost several teeth. Tobo has created a number of fetishes using those and bits of flesh torn off by the Black Hounds while it was fleeing toward the shadowgate.”

  “But it did have what it takes to get back to Khatovar.”

  “It did.”

  “Then it’s going to be as hard to kill as the Limper was.”

  “Not anymore. Not with what Tobo has.”

  “He had your help?”

  “I’m ancient in the ways of wickedness. Am I not? Didn’t you write something like that a time or two?”

  “Especially after I got to know you... Ouch! Well... as long as you’re a bad girl like you’re being a bad girl right now...” I do not recall if I did write the exact words she claimed but I know I recorded those approximate sentiments many years ago. Without exaggerating. “I’m going to go after it.”

  “I know.” She did not argue. They were humoring me. They wanted to keep me quiet. Sleepy was involved in touchy negotiations with the File of Nine. The Court of All Seasons and the monks of Khang Phi were behind us already. The warlords of the File remain unconvinced that it would be wise to give us what we want even though the Company has grown to the point where it has become a serious burden on Hsien’s economy. And poses a threat, if the notion of conquest happens to take root. I, myself, do not see one warlord, or even a cabal of warlords, out there, who would stand much more chance than smoke in a high wind if the notion did take us. Most of the warlords are clear on that, too.

  They still want Maricha Manthara Dhumraksha—our Shadowmaster Longshadow—desperately. Their hunger for revenge borders on racial obsession. They are not forthcoming about the evils Longshadow visited upon their forbears but we have our sources inside Khang Phi. Longshadow’s cruelties had been as capricious as any wickedness of Soulcatcher’s but far more terrible for their victims. The need to haul the Shadowmaster up before a tribunal colored every consideration of the warlords, the legal and noble courts, even the several spiritual traditions of Hsien. Maricha Manthara Dhumraksha was the one thing they all agreed upon. Nor did I ever sense a hint of a chance some rogue would try to acquire control of Longshadow in an effort to amplify his own power.

  Sleepy did not want a short-tempered, foulmouthed but still influential former Captain stumbling around being sarcastic and opinionated while she was trying to wring the one last concession she wanted out of the File of Nine. She was confident that our years of good behavior would tilt the scale. And if it did not, well, she was the kind of planner who always had a secondary scheme in motion. In fact, she was that wonderful kind of villain for whom the public and obvious scheme might well be only a tertiary effort meant primarily as a smoke screen. Our Sleepy was one wicked little girl.

  There are no great sorcerers in the Land of Unknown Shadows. “All Evil Dies There an Endless Death” means that they have persecuted the talented since the flight of the Shadowmasters. But Hsien does not lack or disdain knowledge. There are several huge monasteries—of which Khang Phi is the greatest—dedicated to the preservation of knowledge. The monks do not sort it into good and evil knowledge, nor do they make moral judgments. They take the position that no knowledge is evil until someone chooses to do evil with it.

  Even though it has been engineered to wreak havoc upon the human body, a sword is strictly inert metal until someone chooses to pick it up and strike. Or chooses not to do so.

  There are, of course, a thousand sophistries spewed by those who wish to deny individuals the opportunity to choose. Which is an arrogant presumption of a divine scale.

  This is what happens when you get old. You start thinking. Worse, you start telling everybody what you think.

  Sleepy was nervous lest I express an unfortunate opinion to one of the Nine, whereupon, in high dudgeon, the offended party would abandon all sensibility and self-interest and deny to us forever the knowledge we need to repair the shadowgate opening on our native world. She misapprehends my ability to evoke the unfriendly response.

  Before the werepanther came I might have stumbled. I might have expressed an actual opinion to a member of the File, some of whom are amongst the most reprehensible generals I have ever encountered. I doubt that, given the opportunity to rule unchallenged, many of them would be more enlightened than the hated Shadowmasters.

  People are strange. The Children of the Dead are among the strangest.

  I will not upset anyone. I will be diligently supportive of any policy Sleepy sets. I want to leave this Land of Unknown Shadows. I have things to accomplish before I hand these Annals over for the last time. Settling up with Lisa Daele Bowalk is just one. There is the Great General, Mogaba, the darkest traitor ever to stain the Company’s history. There is Narayan Singh. For Lady, there is Narayan and Soulcatcher. For both of us there is our child. Our wicked, wicked child.

  I asked, “Is there anything besides Longshadow we could offer the File of Nine? Sweeten it just enough to make them move
over beside Khang Phi and the Court of All Seasons?”

  My sweetie shrugged. “I can’t imagine what.” She smiled enigmatically. “But it may not matter.”

  I did not pay sufficient attention. Sometimes I overlook the new truths. These days my Company is managed by sly children and devious old women, not straightforward stalwarts like myself and the men of my time.

  11

  An Abode of Ravens:

  Exercise Session

  As soon as I healed enough I asked Uncle Doj to let me resume the martial arts exercises I had given up many years ago. “Why are you interested now?” he asked. Sometimes I think he is more suspicious of me than I am of him.

  “Because I have time. And the need. I’m as weak as a puppy. I want to get my strength back.”

  “You chased me away when I offered.”

  “I didn’t have time then. And you were so much more abrasive.”

  “Ha.” He smiled. “You’re too kind.”

  “You’re right. But I’m a prince.”

  “A Prince of Darkness, Stone Soldier.” He knew that would get my goat. “But a lucky prince.” The old fart indulged in a smirk. “Several of your contemporaries have approached me recently, also motivated by anticipation of those hardships that can no longer be that far ahead.”

  “Good.” Did he know something I did not? Probably a lot. “When and where?”

  His grin became evil, revealing bad teeth. Which made me wonder if Sleepy had found anybody to fill the dentistry vacancy left by One-Eye’s passing. The old fool had not bothered taking on apprentices.

  “When” was the crack of dawn and “where” was the unpaved street outside Doj’s small house, which he shared with Tobo’s uncle Thai Dei and several bachelor officers of local origin. My fellow victims were Willow Swan, the brothers Loftus and Cletus, who remain the Company’s principal architects and engineers, and the exiled ruling prince and princess of Taglios, the Prahbrindrah Drah and his sister the Radisha Drah. Those are not names, they are titles. Even after decades I do not know their personal designations. And they show no inclination to share.

  “Where’s your pal Blade?” I asked Swan. For a while Blade had been Sleepy’s military envoy to the File of Nine, but I had heard that he had been recalled after One-Eye’s death. I had not seen him around, though.

  “Old Blade’s got too much on his plate for anything like this.”

  Loftus and Cletus both grumbled under their breaths but did not clarify. I had not seen much of them lately, either. I supposed they were working themselves to death building a city from scratch. Suvrin, who arrived just in time to hear what they mumbled, nodded vigorously. “She’s going to work us all till there’s nothing but grease spots left.” I am not sure about Suvrin. I have no trouble imagining him going around endlessly repeating the silent mantra, “Every day in every way I am going to become a better soldier.”

  “Well, old Blade never was real ambitious,” Swan replied. “Except when it came to carving up priests.” He seemed to know what he was talking about even if it was not obvious to me.

  Clete said, “If we’re getting the straight shit from Shivetya there’ll be a whole new crop in need of culling when we get home.”

  The Prahbrindrah Drah and his sister edged closer, eager for hard news from home. Sleepy took no trouble to keep them posted. She did not have much of a diplomatic streak. I had best remind her that she will need their amity once we are back across the plain.

  They were not handsome, those two. And the Radisha looked more like the Prince’s mother than his sister. But he had been under the ground with me while she rode the Taglian tiger and tried not to lose its reins to Soulcatcher. They strove to remain unobtrusive here, the Prince because he had been our active enemy in the field, the Princess because she had turned on us at the very last moment of our victory over the last Shadowmasters.

  Sleepy fixed her for that.

  Technically, the Radisha was our prisoner. Sleepy had abducted her. She and her brother will become tools of the Company once Sleepy stages our return. Everyone agrees. But I suspect that the royals have reservations.

  “Rajadharma .” I said, bowing slightly. I could not resist the taunt, reminding them both that by attempting to betray us they had ended up failing to fulfill their duty to their subjects.

  “Liberator.” The Radisha returned a tiny bow. I swear, the woman gets homelier by the month. “You appear to be healing well.”

  “I’ve got a knack for coming back. But my bounce sure ain’t as fast or as high as it used to be. Guess it’s old age creeping up.” I lied and told her, “You’re looking well yourself. You both are. What have you been doing? I haven’t seen you for a while.”

  The Prahbrindrah Drah said nothing. He remained inscrutable. He had been quiet and unexpressive since our resurrection. We had gotten along well, once. But times change. Neither of us were the men we had been during the Shadowmaster wars.

  “You’re lying like a snake’s belly,” the Radisha told me. “I’m old and I’m ugly and I’m still ashamed of myself... But you’re telling the lie my soul wants to hear. Forget rajadharma , though. That accusation has no power to hurt me anymore. From outside. I still crucify myself. I know what I did. At the time I thought it was the right thing. The Protector manipulated me using my sense of rajadharma . Once we get back there you’ll see us in a different light.”

  Rajadharma means the ruler’s obligation to serve the ruled. When the word is thrown into a ruler’s face, or is used as an epithet, it is a savage accusation of failure.

  The Radisha is a hard, stubborn little woman. Unfortunately, she will have to get the better of a hard, stubborn, crazy, almost supremely powerful sorceress if she wants to fulfill her expectations for herself.

  I glanced at her brother. The Prince’s expression had not changed but I sensed that he thought he appreciated the difficulties more fully than his sister did.

  Uncle Doj whacked something with a practice sword. The loud crack ended our chatter. “Your canes, please. On the count, commence the Crane Kada.” He did not bother to explain what that was to the new guy.

  Maybe two decades ago I had observed and briefly joined the Nyueng Bao exercises. Murgen was Annalist then. He had had Gota, Doj and his wife Sahra’s brother, Thai Dei, living with him. Doj expected me to remember.

  About all I recalled of the Crane Kada was that it constituted the first and simplest of a dozen slow-motion dances incorporating all the formal steps and strokes of Doj’s school of fencing. The old priest led from up front, his back to his pupils. Although he was the eldest of us all, he moved with a precision and grace that verged on beauty. But when Thai Dei and Tobo joined us briefly, later, both outshone the old man. It was hard not to stop just to appreciate Tobo’s mastery.

  The boy made me feel clumsy and inept just standing still.

  Everything came so easily for him.

  He had all the talents and skills he could possibly need. If any question remained, it concerned his character. A lot of good people had worked hard to make sure that he became a virtuous and upright man. Which he did appear to be. But he was a blade not yet tested. True temptation had not yet whispered in his ear.

  I missed a step badly, stumbled. Uncle Doj laid his cane across the seat of my trousers as vigorously as if I had been an adolescent. His face remained bland but I suspected that he had wanted to do that for a long time.

  I tried to concentrate.

  12

  Glittering Stone:

  Steadfast Guardian

  The being on the huge wooden throne in the heart of the fortress at the center of the stone plain is a construct. Possibly he was created by the gods, who fought their wars upon that plain. Or perhaps his creators were the builders who constructed the plain—if they were not gods themselves. Opinions vary. Stories abound. The demon Shivetya himself is not disposed to be unstinting with the facts, or is, at best, inconsistent in their distribution. He has shown his latest chronicler several
conflicting versions of ancient events. Old Baladitya has abandoned all hope of establishing an exact truth and, instead, seeks the deeper range of meaning underpinning what the golem does reveal. Baladitya understands that in addition to being foreign territory the past is, as history, a hall of mirrors that reflect the needs of souls observing from the present. Absolute fact serves the hungers of only a few disconnected people. Symbol and faith serve the rest.

  Baladitya’s Company career duplicates his prior life. He writes things down. When he was a copyist at the Taglian Royal Library he wrote things down. Now, nominally, he is a prisoner of war. Chances are he has forgotten that. In reality he is freer today to pursue his own interests than ever he was at the library.

  The old scholar lives and works around the demon’s feet. Which has to be as close to personal heaven as a Gunni historian can imagine. If the historian does not remain too determinedly wedded to Gunni religious doctrine.

  Shivetya’s motives for refusing categorical declarations may stem from bitterness about his lot. By his own admission he has met most of the gods face-to-face. His recollections concerning them are even less flattering than those spicing most of Gunni mythology, where few of the gods are extolled as role models. Almost without exception the Gunni deities are cruel and selfish and untouched by any celestial sense of rajadharma.

  A tall black man stepped into the light cast by Baladitya’s lamps. “Learned anything exciting today, old-timer?” The copyist’s fuel expenses are prodigal. He is indulged.

  The old man did not respond. He is almost deaf. He exploits his infirmity to its limits. Not even Blade insists that he share routine camp chores any longer.

  Blade asked again but the copyist’s nose remained close to the page on which he was writing. His penmanship is swift and precise. Blade cannot decipher the complicated ecclesiastical alphabet, except for some of those characters it shares with the only slightly simpler common script. Blade looked up into the golem’s eye. That appeared to be about the size of a roc’s egg. The adjective “baleful” fit it well. Not even naive old Baladitya has ever proposed that the demon be delivered from the restraint guaranteed by the daggers nailing its limbs to the throne. Neither has the demon ever encouraged anyone to release it. It has endured for thousands of years. It has the patience of stone.