I grunted. "I was afraid of that." Maybe I had tried to shut it out. It was going to hurt.
Sleepy seemed to think we did not have time for pain.
I had begun to trust her instincts.
"You had it right, Croaker. Soldiers live. Only three people got out of that scrape unhurt. Tobo, Arkana and a very lucky soldier named Tam Do Linh. Howler, the First Father, Nashun the Researcher, Murgen and all the other soldiers, didn't. The rest of you are hurt. Tobo feels guilty. He thinks he should've done more. He thinks he should've realized it was a trap."
"I understand. What about Shukrat?"
"Bruises and abrasions and emotional distress. The Voroshk clothing took good care of her. It knew her so well it adapted faster than Lady's could. As I understand it."
"Murgen could've worn Voroshk protection." But he had refused. Damn him.
There had not been much fight in him since Sahra's disappearance.
"I want you to straighten Tobo out. We need him back. We need the Unknown Shadows. If I was in Mogaba's boots I'd have another attack force headed our way already."
"I don't think so."
"The man doesn't wait around, Croaker. His gospel is, seize the initiative."
I could only make an ass of myself arguing with a woman who had fought the Great General more years than I had known him. Who had lived in Taglios for as many years as I had, much more recently. Evidently I was just another cranky old man raising a fuss for the attention. Except when she needed something. "Then we'd better arrange for it to get really dangerous for him personally if anything happens to any of us."
I felt stupid before I finished saying that. For Mogaba there was little chance life would ever be more dangerous than it was already.
I had forgotten an early lesson. Try to reason like the enemy. Study him until you can think just like him. Until you can become him.
Sleepy told me, "You need to find yourself an apprentice, too. If you're going to keep getting involved in lethal stuff." At your age was implied—until the Captain actually said, "You're too long in the tooth to be out there right where it's happening. It's time you eased up and started passing your secrets along."
Sleepy went away, leaving me wondering. Who was I supposed to tap? I was inclined to pick her buttboy, Mihlos Sedona, except that the kid had one huge shortcoming. He was totally illiterate. And I did not have any inclination to put in all the hours needed to alter that condition.
Then the man I maybe should have been thinking of turned up on his own, voluntarily.
"Suvrin? What the hell's gotten into you? You're going to leave us most any day now."
"So perhaps I've had an epiphany. Maybe I need to learn the Annals because I've decided to face my destiny."
"Is that the fragrance of bullshit wafting on the breeze?" Being an old cynic I thought it was more likely that he thought this would somehow get him laid. But I did not suggest anything. I just accepted him, then groaned upon discovering that Sleepy's wonderfully educated young man neither wrote nor read a single word of Taglian, which has been the language of these Annals for the last twenty-five years.
Lady's book was the last written in another language. And Murgen had translated and updated that, along with a couple of my own that had not really needed any polish.
"Think you can learn to read and write Taglian?" I asked. "You might never need to do either... "
"Unless I want to read the Annals. The holy scriptures of the Black Company."
"Yeah. If I go, you'll be on your own unless Sleepy makes time or Lady recovers." I had had time enough now to put together an act of indifference. But I was not convincing anybody.
Suvrin stared, waiting for the punchline.
There was none, really, except that he ought to make an effort to see that I stayed healthy long enough for him to develop the needed skills.
Two days after Suvrin became my understudy Sleepy stage-managed a ceremony that formalized his appointment as Lieutenant of the Black Company and her heir-apparent.
We were outside that big, nameless hilltop stronghold which broods over the Rock Road approach to Taglios. A large plain had been leveled and prepared as a place where troops could camp or could practice the close-order skills necessary for success in battle. Or as a place where forces defending the city could engage an advancing enemy.
No one bothered us there, other than small Vehdna cavalry bands made up of youths who wanted to show off their courage. But I advised both Sleepy and Suvrin against leaving the stronghold unvanquished behind us.
Sleepy was no more interested in advice than ever before but these days she did pretend to listen. Her own approach to conquest had been a disaster mitigated only by the fact that a few of us had survived.
108
Taglios: Someone at the Door
Upon reflection, after we beat back a relief sortie by troops from Taglios, the commander of the fortress offered to surrender on terms. He wanted paroles for himself and damned near everyone who ever bore arms in the three nearest counties. Which was not all that unreasonable, I thought, considering we were going to turn all this over to the Prahbrindrah Drah as soon as the deal closed and the Prince could get his ass up here from Ghoja.
Even after all her years in the real world Sleepy retained some Vehdna notions about right and wrong that had nothing to do with the practicalities of the moment.
"Even if this Lal Mindrat is the worst human monster since the Shadowmasters themselves, you have to consider what your moral rigidity can cost the rest of us," I told Sleepy. Evidently Lal Mindrat had betrayed some of our allies during the Kiaulune wars. I had not heard of him before Sleepy started getting uppity so it could not have been a major betrayal.
A good many friends of the Company had been turned by the Protector in those days. Soulcatcher had had the power and wealth.
"Be flexible," I advised. "But treacherous when absolutely necessary."
She understood. With some half-ass help from Tobo and his friends, and the appropriate promises of parole and safe passage, Sleepy got our enemies to evacuate the stronghold with no more violence than occurred when Lal Mindrat came out with his lifeguard.
Thus the Captain finished her business with a minor traitor from her own era. For the time being.
Mogaba made our approach hell, at least for those of us who pulled the recon, picket and vanguard duties. Horsemen never stopped harassing our forward elements. The Voroshk girls and I went out whenever the enemy's behavior became overly obnoxious.
Eventually we reached the great South Gate of Taglios, something that had not existed in my time. These days a truly substantial wall stretched into the distance at either hand. The soldiers on the ramparts seemed much too small. The wall reared up like a vast cliff of limestone.
"Wow!" I told Sleepy. 'There's been some changes made." The entrance to the city was a fortress in itself, outside the wall but attached to it. I could not tell from the ground for sure but it looked like an equally formidable structure guarded the pass-through from within.
Sleepy grunted. "Been a few since I was here. Methinks the Great General must have inveigled some appropriations out of the Protector somehow. They've added several feet to the height of the wall. And that barbican complex... " She shrugged.
As I remembered city politics, public works were particularly vulnerable to graft and corrupt practices. "Somebody in the treasury offices must have been blowing in the Protector's ear."
Sleepy grunted again, uninterested in my opinion. She was watching Suvrin spread the troops out facing the city, offering battle. No response was expected. No response was what he got.