yet. Ahead of us streamers of smoke sometimes rose as
fleeing enemy caravans failed to run fast enough to outdistance our own
horsemen.
Our headquarters party clung to the road. Always, now, there seemed to be
corpses lying beside it. They came in all varieties, few of them being our own
people.
Croaker had forced me out of One-Eye’s wagon. I was no longer allowed inside
while we were moving. So I led the way, mounted atop that giant black stallion,
always presenting the Black Company standard. Crows were around constantly. I
expect Soulcatcher, wherever she took their reports, was thoroughly amused. The
standard was one we had adapted from one she had assigned us decades ago, based
upon her own fire-breathing skull of a seal.
Uncle Doj walked beside me. He carried a lance as well as Ash Wand, his holy
sword. He had assumed the job of bodyguard while Thai Dei was elsewhere with his
mother. We two encountered all the corpses first. “There’s another one that
looks like a Deceiver,” I said, indicating a badly hacked body wearing nothing
but a ragged loincloth, despite the weather.
“It is good,” Uncle Doj told me. He rolled the corpse over. The man had been run
down by someone with an especial dislike for his cult. He had been mutilated
badly, mostly while he was still alive.
I did not feel a shred of pity. Men just like him murdered my Sarie.
We encountered nothing but signs of outstanding success. But those did not
inspire my confidence in the future.
Roads converged. Forces massed up even more. Every hour we drew nearer
Charandaprash, Mogaba and his four badass divisions of well-trained and
motivated veterans. Getting closer to soldiers who had been getting ready for us
for years. Getting closer to soldiers who were not the clumsy, indifferent
militias that had made up most of our opposition so far. The Old Man talked
confidently in front of the Taglians, who did not know any better, but I knew he
had his doubts.
We would have a numbers advantage but our men had not been drilled until they
were automatons. Our men did not fear their officers more than they feared death
itself. Our men did not know the price you paid if you stirred the anger of a
Shadowmaster. Not in the intimate way the defenders of Charandaprash knew.
Our men had not rehearsed again and again, learning every boulder on the ground
where they would be expected to fight.
Black Company GS 7 - She is Darkness
13
A breeze whipped smoke and the stench of death into my face. A soldier shouted.
I glanced back. The Captain, wearing the hideous black Widowmaker armor Lady had
created for him, was coming up. Ravens surrounded him. For the thousandth time I
wondered about his connection with Soulcatcher.
“You sent for me?”
“There’s something you ought to see, I think.” I had not seen it myself yet, but
did know what to expect.
He gestured. “Let’s go.”
We rode up a small rise. We stopped to look at the bodies of six small brown men
far too old to have been soldiers. They lay inside a bowl that had been hollowed
out of the hard ground, around a fire that still yielded a puny thread of smoke.
“Where are the men who killed them?”
“They didn’t hang around. You don’t take chances with these people.”
Croaker grunted, not pleased but understanding the thinking of the ordinary
soldier. He removed his ugly winged helmet. Crows took the opportunity to perch
on his shoulders. He seemed not to notice. “I’d say we’ve gotten somebody’s
attention.”
I had run into little brown men like these before, years ago when first we had
come into the south and more recently in the Deceivers’ holy Grove of Doom,
where I had ambushed many of their top people. A group of these skrinsa
shadowweavers had had the misfortune to be there on behalf of the Shadowmaster.
These men would have been doing the same as those others, using a gaggle of
little shadows to
fleeing enemy caravans failed to run fast enough to outdistance our own
horsemen.
Our headquarters party clung to the road. Always, now, there seemed to be
corpses lying beside it. They came in all varieties, few of them being our own
people.
Croaker had forced me out of One-Eye’s wagon. I was no longer allowed inside
while we were moving. So I led the way, mounted atop that giant black stallion,
always presenting the Black Company standard. Crows were around constantly. I
expect Soulcatcher, wherever she took their reports, was thoroughly amused. The
standard was one we had adapted from one she had assigned us decades ago, based
upon her own fire-breathing skull of a seal.
Uncle Doj walked beside me. He carried a lance as well as Ash Wand, his holy
sword. He had assumed the job of bodyguard while Thai Dei was elsewhere with his
mother. We two encountered all the corpses first. “There’s another one that
looks like a Deceiver,” I said, indicating a badly hacked body wearing nothing
but a ragged loincloth, despite the weather.
“It is good,” Uncle Doj told me. He rolled the corpse over. The man had been run
down by someone with an especial dislike for his cult. He had been mutilated
badly, mostly while he was still alive.
I did not feel a shred of pity. Men just like him murdered my Sarie.
We encountered nothing but signs of outstanding success. But those did not
inspire my confidence in the future.
Roads converged. Forces massed up even more. Every hour we drew nearer
Charandaprash, Mogaba and his four badass divisions of well-trained and
motivated veterans. Getting closer to soldiers who had been getting ready for us
for years. Getting closer to soldiers who were not the clumsy, indifferent
militias that had made up most of our opposition so far. The Old Man talked
confidently in front of the Taglians, who did not know any better, but I knew he
had his doubts.
We would have a numbers advantage but our men had not been drilled until they
were automatons. Our men did not fear their officers more than they feared death
itself. Our men did not know the price you paid if you stirred the anger of a
Shadowmaster. Not in the intimate way the defenders of Charandaprash knew.
Our men had not rehearsed again and again, learning every boulder on the ground
where they would be expected to fight.
Black Company GS 7 - She is Darkness
13
A breeze whipped smoke and the stench of death into my face. A soldier shouted.
I glanced back. The Captain, wearing the hideous black Widowmaker armor Lady had
created for him, was coming up. Ravens surrounded him. For the thousandth time I
wondered about his connection with Soulcatcher.
“You sent for me?”
“There’s something you ought to see, I think.” I had not seen it myself yet, but
did know what to expect.
He gestured. “Let’s go.”
We rode up a small rise. We stopped to look at the bodies of six small brown men
far too old to have been soldiers. They lay inside a bowl that had been hollowed
out of the hard ground, around a fire that still yielded a puny thread of smoke.
“Where are the men who killed them?”
“They didn’t hang around. You don’t take chances with these people.”
Croaker grunted, not pleased but understanding the thinking of the ordinary
soldier. He removed his ugly winged helmet. Crows took the opportunity to perch
on his shoulders. He seemed not to notice. “I’d say we’ve gotten somebody’s
attention.”
I had run into little brown men like these before, years ago when first we had
come into the south and more recently in the Deceivers’ holy Grove of Doom,
where I had ambushed many of their top people. A group of these skrinsa
shadowweavers had had the misfortune to be there on behalf of the Shadowmaster.
These men would have been doing the same as those others, using a gaggle of
little shadows to
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