Soldiers Live

124

Taglios: The Sandbar

Already there were stories on the street about how the Great General had sacrificed himself in order to void the strictures of all the oaths and vows binding him and his allies. Because he had wanted to spare the city further devastation by the invading rebels and outlanders. Amazing. We had just started taking charge and already people were nostalgic for the good old days of the Protectorate.

Hard to blame them, I suppose. It was a generation ago that the Prahbrindrah Drah last saw the inside of his capital city.

Let them feel however they wanted. As long as they stayed out of my way.

Tobo and I drifted above the Palace, studying the ruin. Smoke still found its way out of the rock pile. Every few hours a little more caved in. A third had collapsed already. That third included almost all of the occupied modern sector. Maybe the abandoned parts had been constructed from sterner stuff. They had survived generations of neglect.

Even during the worst fighting Aridatha had used volunteers from the City Battalions to keep sifting the ruins for survivors to rescue and bodies to deliver to distraught relatives. He continued in that role, now reinforced by units formerly committed to the fighting. Elsewhere, whole battalions now engaged the more stubborn fires instead of invaders.

I asked Tobo, "You really think they're still in there somewhere?" I meant Booboo and Goblin.

"I know they are. The hidden folk have seen them. They just can't remember how to get to them."

"Strange as it may seem, I need them out of there alive. Without them I can't keep my promise to Shivetya."

Tobo grunted. I had not included him in my planning. In fact, the inner circle still consisted of a council of one. Me. And I intended to keep it that way. Nothing spoken, nothing betrayed.

"I think Arkana's in love." Below, the Voroshk girl had come up with another excuse to consult Aridatha Singh.

Tobo grunted again. He was better than he had been but victory had given him no satisfaction. He would be a long time getting over the loss of his mom and dad.

I asked, "Have you found any trace of Mogaba or Ghopal Singh?" Aridatha said they were dead. He claimed to have been told so by the white crow—not an entirely reliable witness.

The boy studied me before responding. "They drowned. While trying to escape upriver. By boat. Evidently the boat capsized."

"I see."

My tone made him stare at me intently. I could not see his expression, of course. The Voroshk apparel concealed that. And mine masked my features. We continued to dress up because some people did not approve of our conquest. Incidents abounded.

Mostly, though, Taglios had heaved a huge collective sigh and began getting on with the business of life. Thus far there had been almost no retribution against those who had served the displaced regime. Most people seemed of the opinion that the Greys had done more good than harm, since they had repressed criminal behavior with a ferocity greater than they had shown to enemies of the Great General and the Protector.

In general, the masses of people were entirely indifferent to who ruled Taglios and its dependencies. The who seldom touched their lives deeply, one way or another.

The human species never ceases to amaze me. I would have bet more people would have cared a lot more. But from the inside nothing is ever what it looks like from without.

Rajadharma graffiti continued to appear. Some folks are never satisfied. Thi kim is here was turning up now, too. I had not pressed the kid on that. He did not want to talk about it.

I would let it ride even though that mystery was not yet solved to my satisfaction. There had to be more to his relationship with the Unknown Shadows than had become obvious so far.

I left the boy and circled the Palace. Our men had replaced the City Battalions on that perimeter. They made a colorful line. City troops were clearing rubble, particularly in areas where Tobo's friends believed people were trapped. A number remained alive, caught inside interior rooms that had not collapsed. Now thirst was their implacable enemy.

All was going as it should. It seemed. But I was not comfortable. I had a sense of there being a wrongness somewhere. Intuition. Based upon subconscious cues.

I drifted away from the Palace, waving in passing to Shukrat, who just had to see Tobo after having completed a courier run to the approaching Prahbrindrah Drah and Radisha. Once out of sight I put on speed and headed for the river.

I started at the downstream end of the waterfront. I drifted upstream. The boats were out. As they would have been had the fighting still been under way. I asked a few questions of terrified fishermen, not at all sure what I might find. The current had had ample time to carry bodies and wreckage down to the delta swamps.

Or perhaps not.

There is a miles-long sandbar just off the curve of the north bank. It has been there so long that it is an island now, with grass on its flanks, brush above that and trees along its highest parts. The channel on its north side is narrow, shallow and choked with mud. An overturned boat lay in the mouth of that channel. One dead man sprawled in the mud. A dozen Taglians clad only in loincloths were trying to right the boat preparatory to dragging it off the bar. None of those men showed the least interest in the corpse. But it was obviously Shadar and they were all Gunni.

The scavengers had a definite interest in not being anywhere around when people came swooping out of the sky in a billowing black cloud. A couple jumped into the channel and swam for the north bank. Others ran into the growth on the island's spine. A few tried to make it back to the boat that had brought them. It had beached a hundred yards down the bar.

The dead Shadar appeared to have been an officer of the Greys. I discovered a second corpse underneath the boat, also Shadar. There were disturbed crows in and above the nearby trees, which was interesting because we saw so few of those birds anymore.

I made a couple of lazy passes overhead, to finish scaring the birds away, before dropping carefully through the branches.

Mogaba was recognizable only because of the unique color of the bits of skin left to him. Ghopal Singh I identified only by deduction. They had been tortured. Terribly, and for a long time. Mogaba maybe for days. His corpse was not that old.

I slid downstream behind the island and eventually rejoined my own people. I searched out Arkana. "We need to talk, adopted daughter." I jerked a thumb. Somewhere up high, in the brilliant noonday sun.

She picked up on my concern. She drove upward a thousand feet, tending south, as though we were going to check on the Prahbrindrah Drah's progress. In fact, a sizable dust cloud could be seen to the south.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I think Tobo may be out of control. Or so close to it as makes no difference. If we're not careful we might all be sorry his mother isn't here to scold him. And that Sleepy and Murgen are gone. He may be a grown man but he still needs direction." I told her what I had found on the sandbar.

"Why tell me? You don't let anybody in on anything, Pop."

"Because I've seen you making moon eyes at General Singh. And he was a partner with the Great General and Ghopal Singh. If Tobo's really unhinged he might go after Aridatha next."

"Why do you blame Tobo?"

I led her through my reasoning, which relied heavily on my assessment of the character of the Great General. "Mogaba knew Aridatha wanted to spare Taglios from the fighting. He wanted that himself. He couldn't surrender, though. And Aridatha's sense of honor wouldn't let him desert Mogaba. So Mogaba decided to arrange it so Aridatha wouldn't be encumbered. And Tobo got him."

"You didn't say why you blame Tobo."

"Because only Tobo could've known what Mogaba was doing and where he would be doing it. There was something badly wrong on the river that night. All the waterfront people felt it and ran off to hide in the city."

"All right. Suppose it's true. What're you going to do?"

"I just did it. I told you to be careful. And now I'm going to see if my wife's gotten any better since this morning." I knew Lady would not have done so. I had begun to lose hope for her.