Soldiers Live

69 Midway Between: The Unanticipated

Soulcatcher’s soldiers fought stubbornly for a while, along the edge of the wood, but had been too badly mauled already to last long under determined attack by our professional bloodletters.

Most of the Taglians had no desire to see their wives and children lose their husbands and fathers. Sleepy gave orders to let anyone who abandoned his weapons go.

Any Taglian economy inherited by the Prahbrindrah Drah would be better off if it was not crippled by a great slaughter of the empire’s young men. It was only now recovering from the horrible losses suffered during the Shadowmaster and Kiaulune wars.

“It wasn’t anywhere nearly as eloquent a victory as I’d hoped. But I’ll take it,” Sleepy said. “Despite our casualties. This war may have been won today.”

That earned her a lot of bewildered or disbelieving looks. Soulcatcher was still out there, in a really foul temper now. More unpleasant surprises could be expected.

“But if we keep after her she’ll be distracted when she reaches Taglios.”

Mogaba’s plans were a longshot. I said so. “And whatever sweet nothings his conscience whispered to him a couple months back, he’ll be a whole lot more worried about saving Mogaba’s skin once he has old enemies pounding on his door for real.”

Sleepy started to say something about Aridatha Singh but thought better of it.

A carmine flash appeared on the killing ground. Using Lady’s chart Tobo had triggered a booby trap by bombarding it from the Howler’s flying carpet.

Sleepy told Runmust Singh, “After Tobo’s done I want you to march some prisoners back and forth through there. I don’t want any of those things left active. Some kid might wander in there and get himself killed.” Like the countryside was swarming with stupid children.

I said, “I’d be more pleased if we could grab a few of those things for our own use. If Mogaba had something like that he might stand a chance of killing Soulcatcher.”

Lady ruined the fun. “She’d smell it out. She created those things. There’ll be safeguards so they can’t be thrown back at her.”

A whole lot of shouting started in the woods. Tobo and Shukrat darted that way, in case the soldiers needed help. Moments later Howler’s carpet streaked back our way.

Tobo did not bother to dismount. He just announced, “They’ve found the Daughter of Night. She’s in a cage. Soulcatcher ran off and left her.”

Lady and I exchanged looks. That seemed completely unlikely. Unless the girl was bait in a truly deadly trap. Which might be. Soulcatcher had sown the field of death that had consumed our soldiers without the Unknown Shadows noticing her doing it.