Dreams of Steel

Chapter Eighteen

The dreams worsened. They were dreams of death.

We all have nightmares but I’d never recalled so many so clearly after I wakened. Some force, some power, was summoning me. Was trying to enlist or subject me.

Those dreams were the creations of a sick mind. If they were supposed to appeal to me, that power didn’t know me.

Landscapes of despair and death under skies of lead, fields where bodies rotted and stunted vegetation melted down like slow, soft candlewax. Slime covered everything, hung in strands like the architecture of drunken spiders.

Mad. Mad. Mad. And not a touch of color anywhere.

Mad. And yet with its taint of perverse appeal. For amongst the dead I’d see faces I wished amongst the dead. I strode that land unharmed, vitally alive, its ruler. The ghouls that ran with me were extensions of my will.

It was a dream straight out of the fantasies of my dead husband. It was a world he could have made home.

Always, in the late hours, there’d be a dawn in that land of nightmare, a splash of color on a poorly defined horizon. Always in front of me, it seemed the dawn of hope.

Simple and direct, the architect of my dreams.

There was one dream, less common, that did without the death and corruption, yet was as chilling in its way. Black and white too, it placed me upon a plain of stone where deadly shadows lurked behind countless obelisks. I didn’t understand it at all but it frightened me.

I couldn’t control the dreams. But I refused to let them influence my waking hours, refused to let them wear me down.

“I’ve sent word out, Mistress,” Narayan said, responding to my question about recruits. We fenced whenever the subject of his brotherhood arose. He wasn’t yet ready to talk.

Blade suggested, “Someone ought to be watching things at Dejagore.” I understood, though sometimes his brevity caused problems.

Narayan said, “Ghopal and Hakim can take a party down. Twenty men should have no trouble. It’ll be quiet now.”

I said, “You had them spying on our neighbors.”

“They’re done. They’ve made their contacts. Sindhu can take over. He has a higher reputation.”

Another of those little oddities about Narayan and his cronies. They had their own hidden caste system. Based on what, I couldn’t tell. Narayan was the man of most respect here. Broad, stolid Sindhu ran a close second.

“Send them. If we have spies everywhere why haven’t I gotten any information?”

“There’s nothing to report that isn’t common knowledge. Except that there’s a lot of disaffection among Jah’s men. A third might defect if you offered to enlist them. Jah’s been doing some talking about you ignoring your duties as a wife because you won’t commit suttee or go into isolation, as befits a Shadar woman. He’s working on a dozen schemes but none of our friends are in his closest councils.”

“Kill him,” Blade said. And Sindhu nodded.

“Why?” A political victory would be better, long range.

“You don’t let the serpent strike if you know where he lies in wait. You destroy him.”

A simplistic solution with a certain appeal. It could have a big impact if we took him out where he seemed least vulnerable. And at the moment I didn’t feel patient enough to spin out a long game. “Agreed. But with finesse. Do we have good enough friends over there to let us sneak into camp?”

“Close enough,” Narayan admitted. “There’d be a question of timing. So the friends would be on duty.”

“Set it up. What about other enemies? Jah is just the most obvious because he’s right here. There’ll be more in the north.”

“It’ll be handled,” Narayan promised. “When there are men and time. We have too much work and too few hands.”

Right. But I felt good about my prospects. No one else was doing as much or pushing as hard. I asked, “Can we get any closer to the Radisha and her pet wizard? Smoke? Are Swan and Mather devoted allies of the Radisha’s?”

“Devoted?” Blade said. “No. But they’ve given their word, more or less. They won’t turn unless the Woman turns on them first.”

Something to consider. Maybe they could be misdirected, though that would work against me if they found me out.

Offered places in my camp and safety from reprisals, two hundred of Jahamaraj Jah’s men defected. Another fifty just deserted and disappeared. Several hundred of the other fugitives enlisted the same day the Shadar came over. I got the impression the Radisha wasn’t pleased.

Nearly a hundred Gunni women walked into fire the same day. I heard my name cursed from that side of the river.

I went over and spoke to a few women. We had no basis for communication.

Smoke was at the fortress gate when I recrossed the ford. He smirked as I passed. I wondered how much the Radisha would miss him.

There are times when you wonder about the self hidden from yourself. I certainly did as Narayan, Sindhu, and I stole toward the Shadar cavalry camp.

I was excited. I was eager. I was drawn as a moth to flame. I told myself I was doing this because I had to, not because I wanted it. It wasn’t a pleasure. Jah’s malice had called this down upon him.

Narayan’s friends had confirmed that Jah planned to grab the Radisha and me and make it look like I’d carried her off. How he figured he could get to me I don’t know. I guessed his plan included me murdering the Radisha-thus eliminating her brother’s spine-then being a good girl who committed suttee. With assistance.

So I was moving first, earlier than I’d wanted.

Narayan exchanged whispered passwords with a friendly sentry who turned blind as we stole past. The camp beyond was a pesthole. Ordinarily Shadar set great store by cleanliness. Morale was abysmal.

We stole like shadows. I was proud of myself. I moved as silently as those two. They were surprised a woman could do it. We approached Jah’s own tent.

It was oversized and guarded well. The man knew he wasn’t popular. A fire burned on each of the tent’s four sides. A guard stood near each fire.

Narayan cursed, said something in cant. Sindhu grunted. Narayan whispered, “No way to get any closer. Those guards will be men he trusts. And they’ll know who we are.”

I nodded, pulled them back, said, “Let me think.”

They whispered while I thought. They didn’t expect anything from me.

There was a small spell which could be used to blind the unaware briefly. Perfect, if I could manage it. I recalled it all right. One of those children’s things that used to be as easy as blinking. I hadn’t tried it in ages. There’d be no way to tell if it was working, unless I messed it up so badly the sentry sensed me and gave the alarm.

Nothing to lose but my life.

I went into that spellcasting as though it was the most dangerous demon-summoning I’d ever done. I did it three times to make sure it had a chance to take, but when I finished I didn’t know if I’d succeeded or failed. The guard didn’t look changed.

Sindhu and Narayan still had their heads together. I said, “Come on,” and returned to the edge of the light. No one was in sight but that guard.

Time to test it or chicken.

I walked straight toward the sentry.

Narayan and Sindhu both cursed and tried to call me back. I summoned them with a gesture. The guard couldn’t see me.

He didn’t see me!

My heart leaped as it had when I’d summoned the horses. I beckoned Narayan and Sindhu, indicating they should stay out of the guard’s direct line of vision. He might remember someone he saw head on. And he would be questioned later.

They slunk past like dogs, unable to believe he couldn’t see them. They desperately wanted to know what I’d done, how I’d done it, if they could learn to do it, too, but they dared not say a word.

I parted the tent flap an inch, saw no one on the other side. The interior was compartmented by hangings. I slipped into what must have been the audience area. It constituted the majority of the interior. It was well appointed, further evidence that Jah had put his own comfort before the welfare of his men and the safety of his homeland.

I had learned better as a child. You win more loyalty and respect if you share the hardships.

Eyes still big, Narayan gestured, reminding me of the layout as he had it from his spies. I nodded. This late Jah should be asleep. We moved toward his sleeping area. I moved the hanging with a dagger. Narayan and Sindhu got their rumels out.

I know I made no noise. I’m sure they didn’t. But as we went in Jah boiled up off his cushions, flung himself between Narayan and Sindhu, bowling them aside. He charged me. There was a lamp burning. He saw us well enough to recognize us.

Ever a fool, Jahamaraj Jah. He never yelled. He just tried to get away.

My hand dipped to the triangle of saffron at my waist, yanked, flipped. My rumel moved as if alive, snaked around his throat. I seized the flying end, yanked the loop tight, rolled my wrists and held on.

Luck, fate, or unconscious skill, none of that would have mattered had I been alone. Jah was a powerful man. He could have carried me outside. He could have shaken me off.

But Narayan and Sindhu grabbed his arms and held them extended, twisted them, forced him down. Sindhu’s bull strength counted most. Narayan concentrated on keeping Jah’s arms extended.

I got my knees into Jah’s back and concentrated on keeping him from breathing.

It takes a while for a man to strangle. The skilled strangler is supposed to move so quickly and decisively that the victim’s neck breaks and death comes instantly. I did not yet have the wrist roll perfected. So I had to hang on while Jah went the hard way. My arms and shoulders ached before he shuddered his last.

Narayan lifted me away. I was shaking with the intensity of it, the almost orgasmic elation that coursed through me. I’d never done anything like that, with my own two hands, without steel or sorcery. He grinned. He knew what I was feeling. He and Sindhu seemed unnaturally calm. Sindhu was listening, trying to judge if we’d made too much noise. It had seemed a ferocious uproar to me, there in the middle of it, but evidently we’d made less racket than I’d thought. Nobody came. Nobody asked questions.

Sindhu muttered something in cant. Narayan thought a moment, glanced at me, grinned again. He nodded.

Sindhu pawed through Jah’s clutter, looking for the ground. He cleared a small area, looked around some more.

While I watched him, trying to figure out what he was doing, Narayan produced an odd tool he’d carried under the dark robe he’d donned for the adventure. The tool had a head that was half hammer, half pick, that weighed at least two pounds. Maybe more if it was the silver and gold it appeared to be. Its handle was ebony inlaid with ivory and a few rubies that caught the lamplight and gleamed like fresh blood. He began pounding the earth with the pick side, but quietly, unrhythmically.

That wasn’t a tool that would be used that way ordinarily. I know a cult object when I see one, even if it’s unfamiliar.

Narayan broke up the earth. Sindhu used a tin pan to scoop it onto a carpet he’d turned face down, careful not to scatter any. I had no idea what they intended. They were too intent on what they were doing to explain. A litany of sorts, in cant, passed between them. I heard something about auspices and the promise of the crows, more about the Daughter of Night and those people-or whatever they were.

All I could do was keep watch.

Time passed. I had a tense few minutes when the guard changed outside. But those men had little to say to one another. The new men didn’t check inside the tent.

I heard a meaty whack and muted crunch, turned to see what they were doing now.

They’d gotten a hole dug. It was barely three feet deep and not that far across. I couldn’t guess what they meant to do with it.

They showed me.

Narayan used the hammer face of his tool to break Jah’s bones. Just as Ram had been doing with a rock that morning in that draw. He whispered, “It’s been a long time but I still have the touch.”

It’s amazing how small a bundle a big man makes once you pulverize his joints and fold him up.

They cut open Jah’s belly and deposited him in the hole. Narayan’s final stroke buried the pick in the corpse’s skull. He cleaned the tool, then they filled the hole around the remains, tamping the earth as they went. Half an hour later you couldn’t tell where they’d dug.

They put the carpets back, bundled up the excess dirt, looked at me for the first time since they’d begun.

They were surprised to find me impassive. They wanted me to be outraged or disgusted. Or something. Anything that betrayed a feminine weakness.

“I’ve seen men mutilated before.”

Narayan nodded. Maybe he was pleased. Hard to tell. “We still have to get out.”

The firelight outside betrayed the positions of the guards. They were where they were supposed to be. If my spell worked a second time we’d only need a little luck to get out unseen.

Narayan and Sindhu scattered dirt as we walked toward our camp. “Good rumel work, Mistress,” Narayan said. And something more, in cant, to Sindhu, who agreed reluctantly.

I asked, “Why did you bury him? No one will know what happened to him. I wanted him to become an object lesson.”

“Leaving him lie would have told everyone who was responsible. Innuendo is more frightening than fact. Better you’re guilty in rumor.”

Maybe. “Why did you break him up and cut him open?”

“A smaller grave is harder to find. We cut him open so he wouldn’t bloat. If you don’t they sometimes bloat so much they come up out of the ground. Or they explode and loose off enough gas so the grave can be found by the smell. Especially by jackals, who dig them up and scatter them all over.”

Practical. Logical. Obvious, once he explained it. I’d never had occasion to conceal a body before. I’d surrounded myself with very practical-and clearly very experienced-murderers.

“We have to talk soon, Narayan.”

He grinned that grin. He’d tell me some truth when he did.

We slipped back into camp and parted company.

I slept well. There were dreams but they weren’t filled with gloom and doom. In one a beautiful black woman came and held me and caressed me and called me her daughter and told me I’d done well. I wakened feeling refreshed and as vigorous as if I’d had a full night’s sleep. It was a beautiful morning. The world seemed painted in especially vivid colors.

My exercises with my talent went very well.