Bleak Seasons

26

“I don’t know,” I told Goblin when he asked about my Nyueng Bao shadow. “He don’t talk much.” I had not gotten a word out of him yet. “His all-purpose vocabulary seems to be the noncommittal grunt. Anyway, the visit wasn’t necessary. The Nyueng Bao know more about the coming shit rain than we do. The old man admits it’s all Mogaba’s fault and says we’re off the hook.”

Goblin made as though to look over his shoulder like he was trying to check his own behind.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Strap on your chastity belt. What’s happening?” I didn’t see Bucket or Sparkle.

“Not much yet. Spinner and his bunch just got to the hills.”

And all kinds of excitement broke out out there. A strong pink light cast silhouettes on the night again. Goblin said, “They look exactly like the Lifetaker and Widowmaker costumes Lady made for her and Croaker. Hey! How come you look like you got bit on the ass by a ghost?”

“Because maybe I did. They do look exactly like what you say. Only if you remember I took the Widowmaker armor off Croaker after that arrow got him. I put it on and pretended to be him. And failed because I started too late.”

“So?”

“So last week somebody stole the Widowmaker armor. Right out of my quarters while I was laying there asleep. I thought I had it hidden where nobody but me could ever find it. But somebody came in, stepped over me, got it dug out, and got out of there with the load and I never saw or heard a thing. And neither did anybody else.” And that was definitely scary.

“Is that why you were asking all those weird questions the other day?” Goblin squeaked. He could sound like a stomped mouse when he was distressed.

“Yeah.”

“How come you never said anything?”

“Because whoever took the armor had to use sorcery to get past me. I figured it was one of you guys and I wanted to find out which one so I could cut him off at the ankles before he knew it was coming.”

One-Eye came puffing up the stairs. Not bad for a guy two hundred years old. “What gives? How come the grim faces?”

Goblin filled him in.

The little black wizard grumped, “You should have told us, Murgen. We might have picked up a hot trail.”

Not likely. The only evidence I had found was one small white feather and a glob of what looked like bird shit. “It don’t matter now. I know where the armor is. Out there.” I pointed at the hills, which lay beneath what looked like a premature pink dawn. “What did you do?”

“We killed off a bunch of goddamned southerners, that’s what we did. Mogaba must be selling them tickets over there. The little suckers are thicker than lice. Anyway, we got out before we used up our luck. Them Nyueng Bao are really going bug fuck.” He gave Thai Dei the fish-eye. “Looks like they’re trying to make the Shadowlanders want to go chomp on Mogaba’s rear. Serve the asshole right, he gets ate up by his own plot. What the hell is going on out there?” He meant the pink-soaked hills.

Goblin replied, “That’s something we weren’t looking for.”

A gout of darkness reared against the pink. Human figures tumbled within it. They flared, burned like bright, brief-lived stars. Moments later an earth tremor rocked the city. I lost my footing briefly.

One-Eye observed, “For once you’re right, runt. There’s a player in the game we didn’t know about.”

A pair of crows a few yards off went into hysterics. They jumped into the darkness, kept laughing as they flapped away.

“Surprise, surprise,” I muttered. “What with all that booming and crashing and crap in those hills. Come on, guys! Tell me who. The rest even a dummy like me can figure out. So just tell me who.”

“We’re gonna work on that,” One-Eye promised. “Maybe we’d even start now if you went away and left us alone. Come on, runt.”

While him and his frog-faced buddy got to work I turned my attention to the excitement still festering inside Dejagore.

Possibly thousands of Shadowlanders had crossed the wall now. A lot of fires were burning. I asked Ky Dam’s grandson, “Will the light be trouble for your people?”

He shrugged.

This fellow was no gossip.