She Is The Darkness

43

I spent a good many hours at it but I finally located Sleepy with some base-camp elements from Big Bucket's special forces battalion. Bucket's gang was doing the biggest part of the work of hunting Mogaba's partisans. I told the kid, "Let's go for a walk. I need to talk to you." I collected a handful of flat stones to throw at crows if those squawking nightmares got too curious.

"This about what I hope it is?" The boy was excited. I could not remember having been excited about becoming the standardbearer. But I had gotten the job by default. There had been no one else able to do it. It had had to be handled.

"Partly. I got the final word from the Old Man. He says you're all right with him. He's leaving the choice up to me. So you're in, far as I'm concerned. But he wants me to handle the standard myself till after we know one way or the other how it's going to go with Longshadow. We can start teaching you some stuff right away. And see that you get out of some of the more unpleasant duties so you'll have time. Especially for working on your reading and writing."

The boy beamed. I felt a little shitty. "But there's one special job I need you to do first." I saw Big Bucket headed our way, probably to hand the kid one of the very jobs I had just mentioned.

"What? I can handle it."

Absolutely. Which was why Bucket would pick him out of the crowd.

"I've got a secret message that needs to get to Taglios. It's critical. You can take a few guys with you, just in case. Use guys who can ride hard. I'll give you authorization to use courier remounts." I raised a hand to forestall anything Bucket had to say. "This has to go through as fast as it can."

Bucket had heard some of it. "You taking away my best man to carry a letter?"

"Yes. Because it has to get through."

"This really serious?" Bucket asked.

"That's why I have him out here where nobody can hear us."

"Then I'd better go away." For a fugitive thief Bucket made a very good soldier...

"Probably."

"Hate to lose you, kid." Bucket shuffled off to dump whatever it was on somebody else.

Sleepy said, "If you loan me your horse I won't have to take anybody with me. And I'll get there and back a lot faster."

He had a point. He had a marvelous point and it had not occurred to me. "Let me think about this."

There was an iffy side. The Old Man might want me to do something before Sleepy got back. If I did not have my horse he would ask questions.

I was not planning to share my plan with the Captain. If I did he would forbid it.

"I'll be back in less than a month."

With my horse he could manage that if he had a butt of iron. He was young and hardy but I did not think anybody was that tough. Still... Nothing was likely to happen around here for at least that long. It would take more than a month for all the stragglers to come in, for our leaders to hash out some kind of plan. It was not possible that Croaker had a plan worked out for Overlook the way he had had for Charandaprash. I was not likely to get caught.

And once the kid had a week's head start even Soulcatcher would not be able to intercept him.

"All right. We'll do it your way. One thing, though. The message has to be put into the hands of a specific person. He might not be available right away. You might have to wait for him."

"I'll do whatever the job calls for, Murgen."

"All right. Come down to my... " I could not do that. Thai Dei was sure to overhear something. "No. First, I have to tell you who to find." I glanced around. Sleepy was one of the few veterans of Dejagore who had not acquired a Nyueng Bao bodyguard, but the Nyueng Bao as a group did keep an eye on him.

"I'm listening." The kid was eager to prove himself.

"His name is Banh Do Trang. He was a friend of my wife's. He's a trading factor who goes back and forth between Taglios and the delta. He sells everything from rice to crocodile skins. He's old and slow but he's the only way to get a message into the swamp."

"You have a whole family—"

"You might've noticed how little the Captain trusts those people."

"Yes."

"There's good reason not to trust them. Any of them who're here with us. In this case, any of them but Banh Do Trang himself."

"I understand. Where do I find this man?"

I gave him directions. "You can tell him who the message is from but only if he asks. He should deliver it to Ky Sahra at the Vinh Gao Ghang temple of Ghanghesha."

"You want me to wait for an answer?"

"That won't be necessary." If the message got through I would get my answer directly from Sarie. "I'm going to go write several copies of the message. You do what you think is best to make sure one of them survives the whole journey."

"I understand."

Though he had not reacted to Sahra's formal name I suspected that he understood more than I was telling.

Later, I introduced Sleepy to my horse and made the stallion understand that it was time to earn his oats. The animal was smart enough to be as disgruntled as any soldier asked to get up and bust his butt.

The kid slipped away without anybody but Bucket knowing that he was going.