Soldiers Live

54

The Taglian Territories: The Thing in the Cesspit

I have a question," Murgen said. The stronghold at Nijha was in sight. "Who's going to tell Sleepy we're in bed with the Protector?"

I replied, "I don't reckon anybody has to. Not putting it that way, anyhow."

"She's a reasonable woman," Lady opined. "She'll understand what we did and why."

Tobo laughed. Murgen just grinned weakly. The boy wizard said, "You must not have been paying attention. Or you must've mistaken the Sleepy I know for somebody else."

I told him, "She'll get over it. How's Soulcatcher doing on cutting Booboo off?"

"She has pickets out in a line south of Dejagore. The line keeps spreading out wider, to either side of the Rock Road. She doesn't entirely trust me to send her solid information. And I'm not giving her everything I know because I don't want her guessing how well I can keep an eye on her. She's not talking about this to her captains, by the way. My guess is she's afraid she'll start losing them if they begin worrying about Kina."

What a bold lot we were. When first the Company arrived in the Taglian Territories a fixed part of Taglian culture was that the Goddess was never named lest her attention be attracted. If a name just had to be used people would reference the watered-down avatar from Gunni myth, Khadi.

The fact that the name Kina is now widely used in daily speech is one more indication of the magnitude of the impact the Company has had these past few decades.

Maybe those old-timers had been right to be terrified of us. We have shaken a civilization to its foundations. And its future does not look bright.

They asked for it. All we ever wanted was to pass on through.

"We won't have to deal with Sleepy for a few days yet," Tobo told us. "She's moving out of the highlands onto the plain, following the south bank of the Viliwash right now. She's only moving a few miles a day. The countryside there has enough of a surplus to support her easily. She's started trying to recruit. In the name of the Prahbrindrah Drah. The Prince and his sister are showing themselves off."

I had a feeling they would not sell well in those parts. That was territory that had been conquered by the Black Company in Taglios' name. "What about Booboo?"

"Almost up to the Protector's picket line now. Sticking to the Rock Road. The Black Hounds have instructions to make sure she gets caught."

Lady grumped, "I thought she was caught already. That she was a prisoner."

"That's true. But right now she seems content to have it that way. I understand that her guards aren't nearly as attentive to her security as they ought to be."

Having read Sleepy's Annals I was not surprised. Booboo seemed capable of having a mind-numbing impact on nearby male-type people.

"Then that's something you need to let my sister know. Otherwise she could get a surprise that would leave all of us unhappy."

We were approaching the Nijha wall. I said, "You experts ought to give this place the once-over. See if our bitty old buddy left any evidence behind." That earned me frowns and scowls. Here came a chance to rest and I was talking about more work. Not for me but for them. I changed the subject and asked Lady, "You said Sleepy burned the Books of the Dead? The real ones? You were a direct witness?"

"I was a witness through the white crow. She burned all three of them. Shivetya himself has their ashes. He's been having Baladitya dispose of them a pinch at a time by having them carried away by anyone who's traveling the plain."

Tobo said, "I moved a lot of them back when Suvrin and I were exploring the plain. What's up?"

"An old man natural's curiosity, I guess. Everyone, and the Deceivers seemed to agree, thinks the Daughter of Night—or whoever inherits her job if she fails—will have to have the Books of the Dead to complete the rituals of the Year of the Skulls. No books, no resurrection. Right?"

I did not get an answer. There was no answer anyone could give. In actual fact nobody really knew. Possibly not even my befuddled daughter or poor old Deceiver and now very dead Narayan Singh.

Lady stipulated, "The old witch is still in there trying, isn't she?"

"Isn't she?"

Lady and Tobo found nothing of interest at the Nijha post. Goblin had not shed his skin or left any secret Deceiver hex signs. He had just started running while the getting was good, as soon as somebody realized that he might be responsible for Narayan's murder.

Uncle Doj rejoined us at Nijha. So did some stragglers who had accumulated there. Sleepy would not have much trouble with desertions. These men knew no one outside the Company and spoke not a word of Taglian or any other local language.

With the stragglers added we would number more than a hundred when we resumed traveling. Of the original group we lacked only Spook and Panda Man, who had been awarded the dubious honor of staying behind to watch the shadowgate.

Once she finished looking for other evidence, Lady cornered Doj. "Where's the body?"

"Huh?" The old swordmaster was baffled.

"Narayan Singh. What did you do with his corpse?"

Tobo and I exchanged looks. That question had not occurred to either of us. It might be a good idea to make doubly certain just who had died. Narayan Singh had been a veritable Prince of Deceivers, beloved of Kina.

One of the injured men left to garrison Nijha volunteered, "They threw him in the old cesspit, then filled it with dirt and rock from the new latrine, ma'am. Which was built according to your specifications, sir."

I have had a reputation as a martinet along those lines ever since I joined the Company. And when health, hygiene and waste disposal are handled my way the Company tends to experience significantly fewer disease problems than do people who do not do things my way. It remains impossible to reason with some men, though, so I just give orders and make sure they are carried out.

"Dig him up," Lady directed. And when nobody rushed to grab up picks and shovels she began to glow darkly and swell up and even to develop fangs.

Then people started looking for tools.

"That was interesting," I told her.

"Been working on it since I ambushed myself and that tree. It doesn't take much effort or power but it ought to be visually impressive."

"It definitely was that."

The exhumation satisfied Lady. There was a body. It resembled Narayan Singh, even including his bad leg. And it was unnaturally well preserved considering where it had been buried.

"Well?" I asked after she had gone so far as to open the body up. I do not know what she expected to find.

"It does seem to be him. Considering who he served, who seemed to love him, I was almost certain there wouldn't be a body. Or it wouldn't be Narayan's if there was."

The truth was, she had not wanted it to be Narayan. She did not want Singh evading her vengeance this easily.

"There's no dramatic unity in real life," I told her. "Save it up and take it out on Goblin."

She offered me a wicked look.

"I mean on the thing that's taken possession of Goblin." The real Goblin would be my oldest surviving friend.

She carved Narayan's corpse into little pieces. She left a trail of those for the bugs and buzzards over the next several days. But the man's head, heart and hands she kept in a jar of pickling brine.

I did not ask why or if she had a plan. Narayan's escape had left her in much too black a mood for small talk.

A couple of times I did overhear her cursing the fact that there were no great necromancers left in the world.

She would call Narayan back from paradise or hell to make him pay for taking our daughter.

The smaller Voroshk girl, the captive, came out to see us. In not bad Taglian she told us, "Sedvod just died." She stared at Tobo the whole time.

I went to check. The sick boy had, indeed, passed on. And I still had no idea why.

I figured the Goblin thing probably deserved the blame.