Bleak Seasons

80

“Holy shit,” Swan murmured when I stepped out where he could see me. “No wonder you went back.”

“Hands off, pretty boy. Ay, Nyueng Bao! If you are out there go see Tam Dak. It’s important. Taglians. See Rudy from the Company.” I turned back to Swan. “There. We’re down to a few snipers. Just in case.”

He stopped staring at Sahra. “Sorry. You really stumbled into the sweet shit, didn’t you?” He did have the courtesy to make his remarks in Forsberger.

“Yeah. I did. What’s going on? I wake up the other day, after my wizards did an experiment on me, and I find out that somebody has been inside my head, messing with my memories. I find out I’m back over there in hell’s kitchen hunting rats and fighting cannibals when all the time my so-called friends are sitting around out here not even letting me know the Shadowmaster is dead.”

Swan gave me a dumb look. “But... You knew that, Murgen. You was over here when we killed the bastard. You was here for a week after that.”

“Killed him?”

It began to dawn. “You didn’t insist on going back? She said you...”

“No. I didn’t. When I found myself headed that way I thought I was escaping from Shadowspinner. I really believed that I hadn’t gotten to you people. I think.” It got more confused as I tried to figure it out.

Somebody called out something in Nyueng Bao. My troops had not followed orders. Someone else, in Taglian, called, “Can you come up here please, Mr. Murgen?”

I told Swan, “I don’t know what’s up. You better stand fast. These guys are real touchy.”

“I got nothing else to do with my life.”

“I mean it. They’re paranoid in a big way. If you had spent the last several months in there you’d understand,” I clambered up a steep slope to where one Taglian knelt in some scraggly brush with a Nyueng Bao about fifteen years old.

The boy pointed, eager to be the first to deliver bad news.

Fresh smoke rose from Dejagore. From, near as I could tell, the north barbican. It looked like there was fighting there.

A mauve flash told me One-Eye or Goblin was involved.

Mogaba must be trying to recover the barbican.

I spied flickers around the west gate, too.

“Damned Mogaba. Thanks, guys. Nothing we can do about it, though.” I hoped One-Eye and Goblin carved Mogaba a new poop chute. “Get on back to camp, will you? There’s stuff that’s got to get done.”

Lady was gone. Blade was in charge and just sitting around collecting refugees from the city, keeping them from reporting back with news about Shadowspinner. He admitted that. “That’s what she wants done.” He seemed indifferent to Sahra, unlike every other man in camp.

“She’s lucky she’s not here,” I grumbled. “I’d turn her over my knee.”

Since there was nothing else going on I sat around with him and Swan and Mather until it started to get dark. Somebody found a puppy for To Tan to play with. When it got late I said, “We’d better get back to our people. They’ll be getting nervous.”

“No can do, buddy,” Mather told me.

Blade agreed. “She said no exceptions.”

The warmth went out of the air. I gave each one what I thought of as the Nyueng Bao look. Swan and Mather averted their eyes. Blade took it but with a twitch.

Sahra seemed untroubled. I suppose, after Dejagore, it was hard to imagine a turn for the worse. She even smiled.

“I assume the prison pen is where I left it?” I remembered that part of my previous visit perfectly.

“We will keep you more comfortably,” Blade promised.

Mather volunteered, “I’ll show you where to bunk.”

We were far enough away not to overhear, Swan thought. He told Blade, “You look at her good? That’s one spooky woman.”

I glanced at Sahra. I assumed she heard, too, but her expression told me nothing.

If Blade answered Swan he spoke more softly.

I continued to study Sahra, wondering what Swan had seen.