Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South (36 page)

A big mob of the enemy rushed us. I assumed my pose, with my sword up, beside
the standard. I did not have much show left me. If Goblin and One-Eye were alive
at all they were too busy covering their own asses.

It looked like we would drive them off easily. Our line was locked together
solidly. They were just a howling mob.

Then the arrow came out of nowhere and hit me square in the chest and knocked me
right off my horse.

It wasn’t always best to be old and wise in the ways of battlefields, Lady
thought. She saw what was coming, clearly, long before anybody else did.

Briefly, after Murgen skewered the Shadowmaster, she had hopes it would turn,

but the advent of the troops from the encampment caused a shift in momentum that
could not be reversed.

Croaker should not have attacked. He should have waited as long as it took, made
them come to him, not been so concerned about the Shadowmasters. If he had
allowed the new army from the south to come forward and get in the way of the
men from the encampment, he could have then hurled his elephants in without risk
to his right. But it was too late to weep about might-have-beens. It was time to
try rooting out a miracle.

One Shadowmaster was out and the other was crippled. If only she had a tenth,

even a hundredth, of the power she had lost. If only she’d had time to nurture
and channel the little bit that had begun coming back to her.

If only. If only. All life was if only.

Where was that damned imp of One-Eye’s? It could turn this around. There was
nobody on the other side to keep it from going through those men like a scythe,

at least for long enough.

But Frogface was nowhere to be seen. One-Eye and Goblin were working as a team,

doing their little bit to stem the tide. Frogface was not with them. They seemed
too busy to be curious about that.

The imp’s absence was too important to be accident or oversight. Why? at this
critical juncture?

No time. No time to brood about it and slither down through all the shadows and
try to find the meaning of the imp’s presences and absences, which had been
bothering her so long. Only time to realize, with certainty, that the creature
had been planted upon One-Eye and wasn’t his to command at all.

By whom?

Not the Shadowmasters. The Shadowmasters would have used the imp directly. Not
Shifter. He’d had no need. Not the Howler. He would have gotten his revenge.

What else was loose in the world?

A crow flapped past. It cawed in a way that made her think it was laughing.

Croaker and his crows. He had been muttering about crows for a year. And then
they had started turning up around him any time anything big happened.

She glanced at the mound where Croaker and Murgen had set the standard. Croaker
had a pair of crows perched on his shoulders. A flock circled above him. He made
a dramatic figure there in his Widowmaker disguise, with the doombirds wheeling
around him, waving his fiery sword, trying to rally his crumbling legions.

While the mind pursued one clatch of enemies the body dealt with another. She
wielded her weapons with a dancer’s grace and the deadliness of a demigoddess.

At first there had been an exhilaration, realizing she was approaching a state
she had not achieved in ages, except by the path of its tantric cousin, last
night. And then she went over into the perfect calm, the mystic separation of
Self and flesh that actually melded into a greater, more illuminated and deadly
whole.

There was no fear in that state, nor any other emotion. It was like being in the
deepest meditation, where the Self wandered a field of glimmering insights, yet
the flesh performed its deadly tasks with a precision and perfection that left
the dead mounded about her and her terrible mount.

The enemy wrestled with one another to stay away from her. Her allies fought to
get into the safety of the vacuum surrounding her. Though the right wing had
begun to collapse, one stubborn rock formed.

The Self reflected on memories of illuminations won during the night from a pair
of bodies, sweating, straining together, on her absolute amazement during and
after. Her life had been one of absolute self-control. Yet time and again the
flesh had gone beyond any hope of control. At her age.

And she looked at Croaker again, now harried by his enemies.

And the shadow crept into the killing perfection and showed her why she had
denied herself for so long.

She thought of loss.

And loss mattered.

Mattering intruded upon the Self, distracting it. It wanted to take control of
the flesh, to force things to transpire according to its desires.

She started forcing her way toward Croaker, the knot of men around her moving
with her. But the enemy could sense that she was no longer the terrible thing
she had been, that she was now vulnerable. They pressed in. One by one, her
companions fell.

Then she saw the arrow strike Croaker and drop him at the foot of the standard.

She shrieked and spurred her mount over friend and foe alike.

Her pain, and her rage, only carried her into a mass of enemies who attacked
from every direction. She cut some, but others dragged her off her rearing steed
and harried the beast away. She fought with skill and desperation against poorly
trained opponents, but the ineptness of her enemies was not enough. She heaped
bodies, but they drove her down to her knees . . .

A wave of chaos swept over that fight within the battle, men fleeing, men
pursuing, and when it passed all that could be seen of her was one arm
protruding from a pile of corpses.

Lying mostly on my back, clinging to the haft of the lance with my left hand,

the standard flapping and the Shadowmaster flopping overhead. I don’t think the
arrow hit anything vital. But the sonofabitch went through my breastplate and
me, too. I think there are a couple inches sticking out in back.

What the hell happened to the spells protecting me?

I never been hit this bad before.

Coupla crows up with the Shadowmaster. Amusing themselves, trying to get his
eyes. Four or five prowling around down here, not bothering me. Act like they’re
standing guard.

Bunch showed up a while ago, when some enemy troops came after the standard.

Piled all over them till they went away.

Ah, that damned arrow hurts! Can I get a hand around there and break the shaft?

Pull the sucker back out after the head is gone?

Better not. The shaft might be keeping the bleeding from getting too bad inside.

Seen that happen.

What’s going on? Can’t move enough to look around. Hurts too much. All I can see
from here is the plain, covered with bodies. Elephants, horses, some men in
white, a lot more not. I think we took a lot of them with us. I think if the
formations had just held up we’d have kicked their asses.

Can’t hear. Total silence. Me? What was that? Silence of stone? Where did I hear
that?

Tired. So damned tired. Want to lay down and sleep. Can’t. The arrow. Probably
be too weak soon, though. Thirsty. But not thirsty like with a belly wound,

thank the gods. Never wanted to die with a gut wound. Ha. Never wanted to die.

Keep thinking about sepsis. What if the bowman put garlic or feces on his
arrowheads? Blood poisoning. Gangrene. Smell like you’re six days dead when
you’re still breathing. Can’t amputate my chest.

Shame and guilt. Brought the Company to this. Didn’t want to be the last
Captain. Guess none of them did. Shouldn’t have fought today. Sure shouldn’t
have charged. Thought the illusions and elephants would be enough, though. Came
close, too.

Know what I should have done, now. Stayed up in the hills where they couldn’t
see me and let them come to me. Could have sneaked around and used the old
Company trickery on them there. Show the standard in one direction and attack
from another. But I had to come down here after them.

Feel like a fool lying here in my underwear and a breastplate. Wonder if it did
any damn good for Murgen to put that Widowmaker suit on and go try to turn the
tide? Mogaba will have his cojones for abandoning the standard.

But I’m here. Still holding the sucker up.

Maybe somebody will come before I pass out. Getting so even somebody from the
other side would look good. Damned arrow. Finish it off. Get it over.

Something moving . . . Just my damned horse. Having lunch. Turning grass into
horse hockey. Just another day in the life for him. Go fetch me a bucket of
beer, you bastard. You’re supposed to be so damned intelligent, why can’t you
get a dying man a last beer?

How can the world be so damned quiet and bright and cheerful-looking when so
many men just died here? Look at that mess. Right down there, fifty dead guys in
a patch of wildflowers. Going to smell the stink for forty miles in a couple
days.

How come this is taking so long? Am I going to be one of those guys who makes a
career out of croaking?

Something out there. Something moving. Way out. Crows circling . . . My old
friend the stump, crossing the plain of the dead on a holiday stroll. Stepping
light, though. In a good mood. What was that before? Not yet time? Crows? This
critter Death? I been looking my own death in the eye all the way down here?

Carrying something. Yeah, a box. About a foot by a foot by a foot. Remember
noticing that before but not paying much attention. Never heard of Death
carrying a box. Usually a sword or a scythe.

Whatever the hell it is, it’s here to see me. Headed straight for me. Hang in
there, Croaker. Maybe there’s new hope for the dead.

Geek up on the lance getting all bent out of shape. I don’t think he’s happy
about developments.

Getting closer now. Definitely no walking stump. A people, or something walking
on two legs, very short. Funny. Always looked bigger from a distance. Close
enough now we ought to be eyeball to eyeball, if I could see any eyes inside
that hood. It’s like there’s nothing in there at all.

Kneeling. Empty hood, yes, inches away. Damned box right beside me.

Voice like a very slight breath of a breeze in spring willows, soft, gentle, and
merry. “Now it’s time, Croaker.” Half a titter, half a chuckle. A glance up at
the critter skewered on the lance. “And it’s time for you too, you old bastard.”

Completely different voice. Not just a different tone or a different inflexion,

but an entirely different voice.

I guess all the other dead ones being alive set me up for it. I recognized her
instantly. Almost as if something inside me had been expecting her. I gasped,

“You! That can’t be!” I tried to get up. “Soulcatcher!” I don’t know what the
hell I thought I was going to do. Run away? How? Where to?

The pain ripped through me. I sagged.

“Yes, my love. Me. You went away without finishing it.” Laughter that was a
young girl’s giggle. “I have waited a long time, Croaker. But she finally
exchanged the magic words with you. Now I avenge myself by taking from her what
is more precious than life itself.” Again the giggle, like she was talking about
some simple practical joke with no malice in it.

I had no strength to argue.

She made a lifting gesture with one gloved hand. “Come along, my sweet.”

I floated up off the ground. A crow landed on my chest and stared off in the
direction I began to move, as though it were in charge of navigation.

There was a good side. The pain faded.

I did not see the lance and its burden move, but sensed that it too was in
motion. My captor led the way, floating, too. We moved very fast.

We must have been a sight for anyone watching.

Darkness nibbled around the edge of consciousness. I fought it, fearing it was
the final darkness. I lost.

Mad laughter rolled out of that high crystal room on top of that tower at
Overlook. Somebody was tickled silly about the way things were going up north.

“That’s three of them down, half a job done. And the hard half at that. Get the
other three and it’s all mine.”

More insane mirth.

The Shadowmaster gazed out at the brilliant expanse of whiteness. “Is it time to
release you from your prison, my beauties of the night? Time to let you run free
in the world again? No, no. Not just this moment. Not till this island of safety
is invulnerable.”

The plain is filled with the silence of stone. Nothing lives there. But in the
deep hours of the night shadows flutter among the pillars and perch atop the
columns with darkness wrapped about them like cloaks of concealment.

Such nights are not for the unwary stranger. Such nights the silence of stone is
sometimes broken by screams. Then the shadows feast, though never do they sate
the raging hunger .

For the shadows the hunt is ever poorer. Sometimes months pass before an unwise
adventurer stumbles into the place of glittering stone. The hunger worsens with
the years and the shadows eye the forbidden lands beyond. But they cannot go,

and they cannot starve to death, much as they might wish to die. They cannot
die, for they are the undead, bound by the silence of stone.

It is immortality of a sort.