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lieutenant commanding our guards that his mission was complete, that imperial
soldiers crossing the frontier might be construed as an unacceptable
provocation.
Sometimes her people are too loyal.
A half-dozen border militiamen, equally divided between sides, clad
identically and obviously old friends, stood around a short distance away,
discussing us in murmurs of awe. The rest of us fidgeted.
It seemed ages since I had been beyond imperial frontiers. I found the
prospect vaguely unsettling.
"You know what we're doing, Croaker?" Goblin asked.
"What's that?"
"We're travelling backward in time."
Backward in time. Backward into our own history. A simple enough statement,
but an important thought.
"Yeah. Maybe you're right. Let me go stir the pot. Else we'll never get
moving."
I joined Lady, who gave me a nasty look. I pasted on my sweetest smile and
said, "Look here. I'm over on the other side of the line. You got a problem,
Lieutenant?"
He bobbed his head. He was more in awe of my rank and title, unearned though
they were, than he was of the woman who was supposed to be his boss. And that
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was because he believed he owed her certain duties even she could not
overrule.
"The Company has openings for a few good men with military experience," I
said. "Now that we're out of the empire and don't have to have the imperial
permission, we're actively recruiting."
He caught on real fast, skipped across beside me, gave Lady a big grin.
"There is one thing," I said. "You come over here and do it, you're going to
have to take the oath to the Company, same as anybody else. Meaning you can't
pledge yourself to any higher loyalty."
Lady gave him a nasty-sweet smile. He stepped back across, figuring he'd
better do some serious thinking before he committed himself.
I told Lady, "That goes for everybody. I would not presume before. But if you
come out of the empire and continue to ride with us it will be under the same
conditions accepted by everyone else."
Such a look she gave me. "But I'm just a woman...."
"Not a precedent, friend. It didn't happen often. The world don't have much
room for female adventurers. But women have marched with the Company." Turning
to the lieutenant, I said, "And if you sign on, your oath will be taken as
genuine. First time you get an order and look to her for advice on yes or no,
out you go. Alone in a foreign land." It was one of my more assertive days.
Lady muttered some very unladylike sniggen snaggen riddly rodden racklesnatzes
under her breath, then told the lieutenant, "Go talk it over with your men."
The moment he was out of hearing she demanded, "Does this mean we stop being
friends? If I take your damned oath?"
"Do you reckon I stopped being friends with the others when they elected me
Captain?"
"I admit I don't hear a lot of yes sir,' 'no sir,' 'your worship sir.'"
"But you do see them do what they're told when they know I mean what I say."
"Most of the time."
"Goblin and One-Eye need a little extra convincing once in a while. What's it
going to be? You going to be a soldier?"
"Do I have a choice, Croaker? You can be a bastard."
"Of course you have a choice. You can go back with your men and be the Lady."
The lieutenant was talking to his troops and the idea of going on south was
proving less popular than he or I had thought it would. Most of the bunch
started getting their horses together, facing north, before he finished
talking.
He finally came over and presented us with six men who wanted to go on with
us. He did not include himself with the group. Evidently his conscience had
shown him a way around doing what he considered to be his duty minutes before.
I questioned the men briefly and they did seem interested in going on. So I
brought them over the line and swore them all in, making a production of it
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for Lady's sake. I do not recall doing anything particularly formal for anyone
else before.
I gave the six to Otto and Hagop for dividing between them, and kept the one
for me, and later entered their names into the Annals when we learned how they
wanted to be known.
Lady remained content to be called Lady. It sounded like a name when heard by
speakers of any language but one, anyway.
Crows watched the whole show from a nearby tree.
Chapter Ten: SHADOWMASTERS
Though the sun stared in through a dozen vaulted windows there was darkness in
that place where Darkness met.
A pool of molten stone simmered in the center of the vast floor. It cast
bloody light upon four seated figures floating a few feet in the air. They
faced one another over the pool, forming an equilateral triangle with a couple
at its apex. Those two were leagued more often than not. They were allied now.
There had been war among the four for a long time, with nothing gained, one in
relation to another. But at the moment there was an armistice.
Shadows slithered and swirled and pranced around them. Nothing could be seen
of any of them except vague shapes. All four chose to conceal themselves
within robes of black, behind black masks.
The smallest, one of the couple, broke a silence that had reigned an hour.
"She has begun moving south. Those who served her and still bear her indelible
mark are moving also. They have crossed the sea, and they come bearing mighty
talismans. And their road is strewn with those who would join their destinies
to that black standard. Including some whose power we would be foolish not to
beware."
One angle of the triangle made a sound of contempt.
The other asked, "And what of the one in the north?"
"The Great One remains secure. The lesser one who lay in the shade of the
prisoning tree does so no longer. It has been resurrected and given new form.
It comes south too, but it is so insane and vengeance-starved that it is not
to be feared. A child could dispose of it."
"Have we cause to fear that our presence here is known?"
"None. Even in Trogo Taglios only a few are convinced that we exist. Beyond
the First Cataract we are but a rumor, and not that above the Second. But he
who has made himself master in the great swamps may have sensed us stirring.
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