Dreams of Steel

Chapter Forty-Seven

The riders paused to consider the hill beside the road. The woman said, “She’s sure gotten them busy.” What had been a bald hilltop a few weeks ago now boasted a maze of stonework. Construction looked like a day and night project.

“She gets things done.” Croaker wondered how Lady was getting on down south. He wondered why they had come here.

“She does. Damn her.” The sorceress touched him gently, like a lover. She did that all the time now. And she looked so much like Lady. He had trouble resisting.

She smiled. She knew what he was thinking. He had his justifications lined up. She had the battle halfway won.

He ground his teeth, stared at the fortress and ignored her. She touched him again. He tried to remark on the layout of the fortress, found nothing would come out. He looked at her again, wide-eyed.

“Just a precaution, my love. You haven’t surrendered your heart. But in time you’ll come around. Come. Let’s visit our friends.” She urged her stallion forward.

Circling crows led the way. Catcher wanted to attract attention. She got it. She was a beautiful and exotic woman.

He understood when she spoke to a man as though she knew him. She meant to pass as Lady. No wonder she wanted him mute.

No one paid him any heed. As they passed through the press of sweating men and animals, dust and clatter, the stench of labor and dung, only the insects noticed him.

In this he might disappear. If her attention lapsed. If the crows became distracted. Could they pick him out of such a mob?

She led the way toward the works atop the hill, already nearing completion. She paused again and again to speak to men, usually about matters of no consequence. She was not playing the role right if she meant to usurp Lady. Lady’s manner was distant and imperious unless she was striving for a specific result... Of course. She wanted word spread that Lady was back.

What was she up to?

His conscience told him he had to do something. But he could think of nothing.

Nobody recognized him. That did his ego no good. Only months ago all Taglios had hailed him Liberator.

Word ran ahead. As they approached the inner fortress a man came out. The Prahbrindrah Drah himself! He was here directing construction? That was not like him. He stayed holed up where the priests could not get to him. The prince said, “I didn’t expect you back right away.”

“We’ve won a small victory north of Dejagore. The Shadowmasters lost four thousand men. Blade planned the operation and carried it out. I decided to leave him in charge. I came back to recruit and train new formations. You’ve done well here. I take it the priests abandoned their obstructionism?”

“You convinced them.” The prince looked troubled. “But you don’t have any friends now. Don’t leave your back unguarded.” His gaze kept drifting to Croaker. He seemed puzzled, “Your man Ram seems odd today.”

“Touch of dysentery. How is the recruiting going?”

“Slow. Most of the volunteers are helping here. Most men are holding off, waiting to have their minds made up for them.”

“Let them know about the victory. Let them know the siege can be broken. Shadowspinner has no strength left. He’s getting no help from Longshadow. He’s on his own with an army so battered only its fear of him holds it together.”

Croaker glanced up at a few clouds sliding east from the sea. Nothing remarkable about them but they did cause thoughts to click. The subtle bitch! He knew exactly what she was doing.

Lady was down there sparring with Shadowspinner, beyond the Main, which became impassable during the rainy season. A touch here, a nudge there, and that contest would go on till it was too late for Lady to get back over the river. The season was not that far away, now. Two months at the most. Lady would be trapped over there with the Shadowmasters. Catcher would have five months to take control here, without interference. Probably without anyone discovering who she was. Her crows would watch the routes north. Messengers would be intercepted.

The bitch! The black-hearted bitch!

The prince frowned at him, sensing his turmoil. But he was preoccupied with the woman. “Maybe we can do the garden again sometime.”

“That would be lovely. But remember, it’s my turn to put on the spread.”

The prince smiled weakly. “If they’ll let you. After last time.”

“I didn’t start it.”

What was that about? Something involving Lady had happened in the gardens? Soulcatcher did not tell him everything. Only what would leave his heart raw.

He sensed someone watching, spied Smoke lurking in shadows. The wizard’s face was a mask of hatred. That faded when he realized he had been spotted. He started shivering, slipped away.

Crows followed, Croaker noted. Of course. Wherever Smoke went he would be watched. Soulcatcher knew all about him.

Catcher asked, “Have my quarters been completed? It’s been a long, dusty road. It’ll take me two hours to get human.”

“They’re not finished but they should do. Shall I have someone take your horses and give you a hand with your things?”

“Yes. Of course. Kind of you.” She did some trick with her eyes. The prince went shy. “There are some men I want to see.” She named names unfamiliar to Croaker. “Send them to my quarters. Ram will entertain them till I’m cleaned up.”

“Of course.” The prince summoned his hangerson, sent them to find the men she wanted.

At Catcher’s gesture Croaker dismounted and handed his horse over. He followed her as she followed the prince. The crows did a good job scouting, he admitted. Grudgingly. She was pulling it off without a hitch.

In Lady’s quarters he discovered why he could be called “Ram,” why no one knew him. He encountered a mirror. He did not see himself in it. He saw a big, dirty Shadar with hair enough for a gorilla.

She had laid a glamor on him.

The men Catcher asked for were low caste, skin and bone, nervous little creatures unable to meet her eye. As he introduced himself each added words in cant that Croaker did not recognize. The honorifics were puzzling enough. Daughter of Night ? What did that mean? Too much was happening and he had no way of knowing what, nor any control.

Catcher told those men, “I want you to watch the wizard Smoke. At least two of you should be within sight of him all the time. I especially want to know if he goes near the Street of the Dead Lamps. If he enters it, stop him. By whatever means necessary, though I’d rather he didn’t make an early entrance into paradise.”

The men all plucked at bits of colored cloth peeking from their loincloths. One said, “As you will, so shall it be, Mistress.”

“Of course. Get on with it. Find him. Stick tight. He’s dangerous to us.”

The men hurried out, obviously eager to be away from her. “They’re terrified of you,” Croaker observed. His voice came back when he was alone with her.

“Naturally. They think I’m the daughter of their goddess. Why don’t you get cleaned up? I can smell you from here. I’ll have them bring you new clothes.”

The bath and clothes were the only good things that happened that day.