Soldiers Live

75

Taglios: The Palace

Mogaba was not yet aware of the disaster that had befallen the Army of the Middle when he found the two women in his quarters. Lady he recognized. The young blonde he did not. She would, he presumed, be a sorceress, too. Fear cramped his stomach. His heartbeat doubled. But he betrayed nothing outwardly.

He had had to mask his emotions in the presence of madmen and a madwoman for decades. The madmen were gone. With luck the madwoman would follow. And he would persist.

He bowed slightly. "Lady. To what do I owe the unexpected honor?"

"To disasters. Of course."

The Great General glanced at the younger woman. She was completely exotic, like no woman he had ever seen.

Though white and blonde she did not resemble Willow Swan otherwise. There was an alien feel to her.

She must be from wherever the Black Company had hidden the last several years.

He said, "I'm sure you didn't come this far just to stand around looking cryptic."

"The Daughter of Night and the thing inside what used to be Goblin somehow overwhelmed the Protector. The girl put on Soulcatcher's leathers. She's pretending to be her. She's squandered ninety-five percent of your Middle Army. She's headed this way. We aren't in any condition to chase her. My husband thought you should know. He wants me to remind you that the Daughter of Night exists only to bring on the Year of the Skulls. I want you to know that Kina is real. Doubt any of the other gods you want but not this one. She's out there. We've seen her. And if she gets loose none of our other squabbles will mean a thing."

Mogaba did not need to be reminded that the Year of the Skulls would be an atrocity far huger than any of Soulcatcher's random cruelties. Catcher was mere Chaos. Kina was Destruction.

"We have a plan for handling the Protector. It should work as well against someone pretending to be the Protector. Possibly better." He did not ask what had become of Soulcatcher. He was content to hope that phase of his life was complete.

"The girl doesn't have Soulcatcher's finely honed powers but she does have plenty of raw talent. She's somehow surrounded herself with an aura that makes anyone within a hundred feet want to love her and do anything to please her. This has manifested itself before, in smaller ways, so I fear we can expect it to grow as she comes to understand it and exercise it."

"That isn't good. That's not good at all. That'll make sniping difficult. Any way around it?"

From the blonde's slight start, Mogaba judged Lady's, "Not that we know of yet," to be less than honest. But in her place he would have reserved something, too. And what they had obviously was not reliable. Otherwise they would have used it themselves.

The Great General said, "Thank you for the warning. We'll make use of it. Was there anything more?" Down deep he nurtured the tiniest hope that there could be a reconciliation. A hope he knew was unrealistic. But everyone nurtured impossible dreams. Even the gods were pursuing the impossible.

Mogaba stated the facts as they had been reported to him. He made that point clear. "We aren't their friends. They just want someone else to assume part of the cost of eliminating the enemies they have to go through in order to get at us."

Ghopal Singh asked, "What about the truth of the report? Are they just trying to trick us into attacking the Protector? If they could get us to make the attempt and we were to fall at a time when they were close behind the Protector they'd reach the gates just when Taglios was falling into chaos."

Aridatha groaned. "We went to them, Ghopal. Remember me chasing halfway to the other end of the world to tell them we were going to try to get rid of the Protector? Remember me helping them take over Dejagore as a sign of good faith?"

"Circumstances have changed."

Mogaba interjected, "Ghopal, I've given this a lot of thought. I think it's true. The Protector is out of the game. Possibly only momentarily. Hell, probably. She's made unlikely comebacks before. What hurts my feelings, of course, is that those people don't consider us much worth worrying about in terms of the greater struggle."

Aridatha grumbled, "Which might not be that unreasonable when you think about it dispassionately."

Ghopal asked, "And you're equally sure that the Middle Army has been destroyed?" Even military insiders had not yet fully digested the news about the losses of Dejagore and the Southern Army that had clung to it's skirts. A lot of people were still waiting to hear how Dejagore responded to it's change of masters.

The nature of that response would have repercussions throughout the Taglian empire.

Would the return of the royals be celebrated? Or resented? The Dejagoran response was likely to set the fashion for all the cities and towns that came under the Company sway.

"I'm sure of it," Mogaba told Ghopal. "But I'm less sure of the condition of the invaders afterward. I got the distinct impression that their defeat of the Middle Army was neither cheap nor easy."

Aridatha said, "We've got to have better intelligence."

Mogaba took a moment to stifle his sarcasm before confessing, "I'm open to ideas. Any ideas."

No inspirations sprouted immediately.

Aridatha said, "We could always do something mythic. Like damning ourselves by bringing in an ally worse than our enemies. One that will devour us after it finishes doing what we brought it in to do."

Mogaba and Ghopal recognized the effort but did not get Aridatha's joke.

"It's an allusion. Or a parable. Or something," Aridatha explained. "Like all stories about Kina. The Lords of Light created her or brought her in for the demon plain war. And probably would have been better off if the rakshasas had won, ultimately."

Mogaba did have a sense of humor. He just had not brought it along tonight. "I guess you had to be there. Anyway, there's nobody we could bring in. We're on our own. So suggestions are in demand. Practical suggestions will be particularly welcome." That was something in the nature of a jest so, perhaps, he had brought part of his sense of humor.

Ghopal said, "All we can do is send out more spies and set up more remount stations so the spies can get their observations to us faster."

"And we have only one courier battalion." Mogaba sat quietly for half a minute. Then he asked, "How is our support among the priests and bourgeoisie? They've had time to think about the royals coming back. They plan to desert us?"

"We're the devil as far as they know," Ghopal replied. "The Protector has been their benefactor. And only a few of the slickest talkers can hope to benefit if we get thrown out. We worked hard to eliminate the Radisha's friends once we could no longer hide the fact that the princess was gone, not just hiding out feeling sorry for herself."

The Great General proposed, "Let's try the same strategy. Make believe we haven't lost the Protector. Aridatha. You seem to be distracted."

"I keep thinking about the girl. The Daughter of Night."

"And?"

"I saw her once. Five years ago. There's something about her... Makes you want to throw her down on her back. And makes you want to worship her at the same time. Makes you feel like you should do anything you can to please her. It's scary when you step back far enough to realize what happened."

"She's all grown-up that way." Mogaba explained what Lady had told of events to the south. "That girl got hundreds of men killed. We'll have to assassinate her remotely somehow. See if some mechanical engine can be contrived."

"I have a question," Ghopal said.

"Go."

"What's that thing you're fiddling with? You've been playing with it ever since you got here."

"Oh. Some kind of snail shell. They're all over the Palace. Nobody knows where they come from. Nobody's ever actually seen one crawling around. They're sort of relaxing when you roll them around in your fingers."

Both Singhs eyed the Great General as though thinking his behavior was distinctly odd.

Ghopal said, "Regarding the Daughter of Night. We might consider poison. There're some talented poisoners in Chor Bagan, the thieves' market."

The years had changed Mogaba. He did not immediately reject the suggestion as unworthy of men of honor.