Soldiers Live

24

Khatovar: The Unholy Land

We had been in the holy land of my imagination for four days. Nothing had been gained. Something had been lost. An old Company hand named Spiff was dead. Likewise, Cho Dai Cho, alias JoJo, the Nyueng Bao who had been One-Eye's indifferent bodyguard for so long.

Shadows had gotten them the first night. Killer shadows that had escaped the glittering plain after the forvalaka's breakout had damaged the Khatovar shadowgate. Shadows that had depopulated this part of Khatovar.

Once we knew they were there we had little trouble luring and destroying them. We had had plenty of experience. But the alarm method was awfully unpleasant.

It could have been worse. The fact of regional devastation had inspired everyone to a higher state of readiness.

During subsequent nights we eliminated a total of nine shadows. I hoped that augured well for the rest of this world. I hoped they were now that uncommon.

The Black Hounds helped destroy the shadows. They hated their undomesticated cousins from the plain. And feared them greatly. Though these shadows seemed much less aggressive than those we had encountered in the past.

They ranged afar, too, and found no living people south of Khatovar's equivalent of the Dandha Presh. Of the forvalaka they found little sign, either. Its trail, though, they were able to uncover. Apparently it was so plain my ravens suspected that it had been left that way on purpose.

"You really want to cross those mountains again?" Swan asked.

Lady remarked, "He looks exhausted already, doesn't he? And we haven't walked a foot."

I admitted, "This would be a great time to have one of those flying carpets."

"There're a lot of things we could use. Several of the black stallions from Charm would be handy. So would a hundred more fireball throwers. You wouldn't steal Sleepy's horse."

"Well, I couldn't, could I? It's the last one left. She'd notice it was missing."

"But she isn't missing you and me and the rest of these droppings beneath the roost of the rooks of dim wittedness."

"That's a cute image," Swan said. "Here come the lead birds of the flock." Murgen. Thai Dei and Uncle Doj were approaching. Like the rest of the band they wanted to know, "What now?" and I had promised to tell them this afternoon.

Murgen asked, "So what're we going to do, boss?"

"Go get it. We can't stay here. The shadows wiped out almost all the game."

They just kill. They will kill bugs if the passion takes them. Large animals they overlook only when they have the opportunity to suck the life out of something human.

Murgen asked, "You think that's why she didn't hang around here?"

Only part of it. "She does have to eat." A glance around told me the fire in their bellies for revenge no longer burned so hot.

Doj said, "But there is food here. And it's not that hard to find. I've seen wild pigs and a species of miniature deer that I didn't recognize. I've seen rabbits and several kinds of smaller rodents. I'd say there was food enough if she wanted it. I'd also say the shadows haven't been active here for a long time. Otherwise I wouldn't have seen the animals I have. The monster had to be rejoining her allies. And the shadows had to be sent. To spy on us."

I said, "Do go on."

"I've considered several alternate frames for the evidence. Maybe it does add up to nothing more than the surface picture. A raid by an insane monstrosity. But I think that is just too simple. I feel there has to be more. Insanity and revenge as motives don't seem adequate. But if she's working with someone local... "

I had been supposing almost from the moment I broke out of my coma. I did not have enough information to support my guesswork, though.

I grunted.

"The monster had to know she would be pursued. The Soldiers of Darkness have that reputation. And they've tried to kill her before, with much weaker provocation."

"And Goblin also tried to help her, as I recall. Which she repaid by turning on him before he could do her any good."

Doj continued, "She had to get through two shadowgates to reach Hsien. Which she knew, somehow, was where One-Eye could be found. Both shadowgates, as far as she knew, were damaged. So even if she was safe on the roads she could expect to be vulnerable at the gates. But she didn't get hurt. And then the distance between the gates would be a long one if she got no help from Shivetya. We have no reason to believe he helped her. On its face it looks like it would've been too long and too dangerous and too hungry a journey if One-Eye's murder was all she hoped to accomplish and could expect no help managing it."

I turned to Lady, then looked back to Doj. He was as smart as I was. "I see. Of course she couldn't have managed without help. With the shadows and, especially, with food. She had no chance to feed while she was in Hsien. The Hounds were after her all the time."

Lady chipped in, "Then she had help from helpers who expected a sizable payback. What might that be?"

"How about the same thing we worked for four years to dig out of the Land of Unknown Shadows?" Murgen said. "The secrets of the shadowgates."

Heads nodded. I asked, "How would they know? And why would they want it? To stop this gate from leaking? Didn't Shivetya say they always repair themselves to that level? Tobo and Suvrin never found any that were open, did they?" I assumed Doj would be familiar with Tobo's adventures.

All eyes were on me. Murgen suggested, "This is Khatovar. Source of the Free Companies."

"More than four hundred years ago. Closer to five, now. They might not even remember."

"Probably not."

"And they must have some knowledge of shadowgates. They got Bowalk through this one, in and out of Hsien, then back through here again. Without destroying anything."

Lady said, "Another thing we can infer is that someone here knows something about controlling shadows."

"We can?"

"Implicit in the fact that Bowalk made it to Hsien and back again. As well as in the fact that we should've had more shadows to deal with here if a horde did break out and devastate the world when Bowalk came through the gate the first time. There's game, Doj says. If those were feral shadows we destroyed they would've killed all the game. Those things were here to watch us."

I growled. "Damn! Murgen. All that time at Khang Phi. You ever hear tell of any Shadowmasters that never were accounted for? We're not going to have to butt heads with Longshadow's long-lost mom, are we?"

"They're accounted for. Any that turn up here would have to be home grown." Which was possible. Two of the three we had destroyed in our world were exactly that. One had been one of the Lady's henchwomen believed dead but gone fugitive instead.

Continued talk led to the notion that we might have been lured to Khatovar specifically so we could be stripped of whatever knowledge we might possess.

Even now Lady remained a tremendous repository of arcane information.

I went off alone with my raven companions. One I told to take the Unknown Shadows out scouting, ranging as far as necessary to find the nearest natives. The other I sent to find Tobo. It carried a detailed and honest report, just as if Sleepy had sent us to Khatovar and expected regular communiques.

I hoped Tobo might have some useful suggestions. I hoped he knew more about Khatovar than he had pretended.

Neither Lady nor I could sleep. The white raven had not taken long to find people. An army was headed our way, though it was still on the far side of the mountains. The forvalaka was there, accompanying a family of wizards who, according to reports from Tobo, were the uncontested overlords of modern Khatovar.

Tobo's source was indirect. He had consulted the scholar Baladitya, who took our questions to the demon Shivetya. Shivetya then tacitly acknowledged his ability to monitor events in the worlds connected to the glittering plain.

The rulers of Khatovar were a sprawling, brawling, turbulent clan of wizards known as the Voroshk, which was simply their family name. The founding father's talented blood had bred true. And often. He had been a man of immense appetites. There were several hundred Voroshk today. Their regime was cruel. Its sole purpose was to further enrich and empower the Family. Following the disaster caused by the forvalaka's breakthrough into Khatovar, the Voroshk had learned to manage the shadows. It would be the Voroshk who had sent the shadows we had destroyed.

Kina, or Khadi, was no longer worshipped in the world bearing the name that meant Khadi's Gate. The Voroshk had exterminated the Children of Kina.

Nevertheless, once each year, sometime during the time when the Deceivers would have celebrated their Festival of Lights, somebody managed to strangle a member of the Family and get away.

Chances were good that the Voroshk knew their history well enough to recall that the Free Companies of Khatovar had gone out as missionaries on behalf of the Mother of Night. They might well dread the Queen of Darkness's return.

My own supernatural allies were under instruction to avoid notice except in instances where Khatovar's shadows could be picked off without risk of our secret strength being revealed.

Her face against my chest, Lady murmured, "These Voroshk sound like bad people, hon. As bad as any you've run into before."

"Including you?"

"Nobody's as bad as me. But you need to worry about this. There's a whole family of them. And they don't squabble amongst themselves. Much. Even when I had the Ten on their shortest rein they were always trying to stab each other in the back."

There was a message there, under her teasing. I held her and told her, "I'll retreat to the plain rather than risk the confrontation. We can always sneak back here some other time." But I would not be happy if I had to let Bowalk get away yet again.

I drifted off wondering about the minds of the Voroshk. Wondering about this mysterious world that had sent our forbrethren out so long ago, on a crusade that had gotten lost. Were the Voroshk unwitting pawns of Kina? Could they be yet another device by which the Dark Mother might try to bring on the Year of the Skulls?

"No," Lady said when I suggested it aloud. "We know whose role that is."

"Don't want to think about Booboo, hon. Just want to go to sleep."