Soldiers Live

109 Taglios: No Excuses Accepted

Damn it! No matter how much I wanted it Mogaba refused to be stupid. Facing potential problems with an infestation of airborne wizards? Take advantage of the season’s almost constant winds. Put up about ten thousand giant box kites with poisoned sharp things hanging on tails made of braided fibers almost too tough to cut.

There would be no zooming about with youthful exuberance over Taglios. Especially not after dark. Those kites would not be able to hurt us in our Voroshk clothing but they could entangle us and knock us off our posts. Whereupon whoever lost their seat would need someone else to come along and bring them out. Unless...

Shukrat once fixed me up with a post that would travel on its own when its master could not manage it.

I issued an order.

Just hours later Shukrat’s post brought the girl herself back virtually mummified in cord and deadly sharps that took hours to overcome. But she had cleaned away scores of kites.

I made Tobo untangle her. I was having a real problem getting him engaged with life. But Shukrat was supposed to be important to him.

She certainly thought so. Once he finished freeing her, too slowly to suit her, she popped him in the middle of the forehead with the heel of her right hand. “How about you at least pretend to be interested, Tobe?” And, moments later, “You’re making me wonder just how bright I am.”

Tobo was a real young man. He started to protest. I tried to warn him by shaking my head. No way was he going to break even here. Shukrat cut him off, unwilling to grant him the validity of any excuse. After that I tried not to hear what they were saying.

I mused on Shukrat’s swift, nearly effortless grasp of Taglian. She had almost no accent at all, now. And she appeared equally adaptable regarding strange customs.

Arkana was having more difficulty but she was coming along marvelously, too.

Having allowed the girlfriend time to make her point, I approached Tobo. “Tobo, we need to know about what’s going on behind those walls.”

He did not look like he cared much.

Shukrat punched him.

I told him, “You have to let go.”

He gave me one ugly look.

“You have to let go of the guilt. It wasn’t your fault.”

I doubted that telling him would do any good. These things never are rational. Your mind goes on chasing the irrational even when it knows the truth. If Tobo wanted to feel guilty about his father and mother he would find ways to do that in the face of every argument, of any bit of evidence, and of all the common sense in the universe. I know. I have suffered through that bleak season a few times myself.

I had a little of it going right then, featuring my wife.

Shukrat said, “The Great General did it, Tobe. The Taglian supreme commander. And he’s inside those same walls.”

There you go, girl. Appeal to the darkness within, to the stores of rage and hatred. We really needed to get those emotions cooking inside the most powerful sorcerer left in this part of the world.