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she thought we ought to talk more later. I might consider staying out of her
way. Maybe I had been too open with her already.
I stayed at a distance but watched. Lady's interrogation methods were deft,
vicious and effective. The lesson was not lost on any witnesses.
Within minutes the Strangler admitted that he had infiltrated the
camp-follower crowd after our victory at Charandaprash. The order had come
from Narayan Singh himself. Willow Swan had been his primary target. Other red
rumel men had been assigned other targets. They, too, had concealed themselves
among the camp followers. They had been directed by the Daughter of Night
herself to be very careful executing their missions. The Children of Kina had
become so few that part of their obligation to their goddess now was to
preserve themselves for her sake.
Lady knew just how to charm a man into talking. One of those things you learn
when you are around forever, I suppose. One of those things people like
Longshadow would like to mine out of your head.
She was so effective the Strangler abandoned hope of his eternal reward to
tell her names.
I took a walk as Blade began organizing a throat-cutting expedition.
Just to underscore her disaffection with them Lady strangled one of the
Deceivers herself. She used her own black scarf, taken from a black rumel man
years ago. Every Deceiver knew the tale.
She sent her messages thus.
Crows took off in multitudes.
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By way of conversation with Narayan Singh, Lady had the heads of the Deceivers
put on lances and carried across to Overlook.
Croaker joined me. "That's my sweetie," he said, shaking his head. Like he
would have been kinder had he gotten to those men first.
He knew what I was thinking. "A lady doesn't murder people in polite company."
He grinned.
"What polite company? The Company ain't polite. And I think it was a very
Lady-like thing she did."
"Yeah." He seemed almost cheerful about it all.
Chapter 43
I spent a good many hours at it but I finally located Sleepy with some
base-camp elements from Big Bucket's special forces battalion. Bucket's gang
was doing the biggest part of the work of hunting Mogaba's partisans. I told
the kid, "Let's go for a walk. I need to talk to you." I collected a handful
of flat stones to throw at crows if those squawking nightmares got too
curious.
"This about what I hope it is?" The boy was excited. I could not remember
having been excited about becoming the standardbearer. But I had gotten the
job by default. There had been no one else able to do it. It had had to be
handled.
"Partly. I got the final word from the Old Man. He says you're all right with
him. He's leaving the choice up to me. So you're in, far as I'm concerned. But
he wants me to handle the standard myself till after we know one way or the
other how it's going to go with Longshadow. We can start teaching you some
stuff right away. And see that you get out of some of the more unpleasant
duties so you'll have time. Especially for working on your reading and
writing."
The boy beamed. I felt a little shitty. "But there's one special job I need
you to do first." I saw Big Bucket headed our way, probably to hand the kid
one of the very jobs I had just mentioned.
"What? I can handle it."
Absolutely. Which was why Bucket would pick him out of the crowd.
"I've got a secret message that needs to get to Taglios. It's critical. You
can take a few guys with you, just in case. Use guys who can ride hard. I'll
give you authorization to use courier remounts." I raised a hand to forestall
anything Bucket had to say. "This has to go through as fast as it can."
Bucket had heard some of it. "You taking away my best man to carry a letter?"
"Yes. Because it has to get through."
"This really serious?" Bucket asked.
"That's why I have him out here where nobody can hear us."
"Then I'd better go away." For a fugitive thief Bucket made a very good
soldier...
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"Probably."
"Hate to lose you, kid." Bucket shuffled off to dump whatever it was on
somebody else.
Sleepy said, "If you loan me your horse I won't have to take anybody with me.
And I'll get there and back a lot faster."
He had a point. He had a marvelous point and it had not occurred to me. "Let
me think about this."
There was an iffy side. The Old Man might want me to do something before
Sleepy got back. If I did not have my horse he would ask questions.
I was not planning to share my plan with the Captain. If I did he would forbid
it.
"I'll be back in less than a month."
With my horse he could manage that if he had a butt of iron. He was young and
hardy but I did not think anybody was that tough. Still... Nothing was likely
to happen around here for at least that long. It would take more than a month
for all the stragglers to come in, for our leaders to hash out some kind of
plan. It was not possible that Croaker had a plan worked out for Overlook the
way he had had for Charandaprash. I was not likely to get caught.
And once the kid had a week's head start even Soulcatcher would not be able to
intercept him.
"All right. We'll do it your way. One thing, though. The message has to be put
into the hands of a specific person. He might not be available right away. You
might have to wait for him."
"I'll do whatever the job calls for, Murgen."
"All right. Come down to my... " I could not do that. Thai Dei was sure to
overhear something. "No. First, I have to tell you who to find." I glanced
around. Sleepy was one of the few veterans of Dejagore who had not acquired a
Nyueng Bao bodyguard, but the Nyueng Bao as a group did keep an eye on him.
"I'm listening." The kid was eager to prove himself.
"His name is Banh Do Trang. He was a friend of my wife's. He's a trading
factor who goes back and forth between Taglios and the delta. He sells
everything from rice to crocodile skins. He's old and slow but he's the only
way to get a message into the swamp."
"You have a whole family--"
"You might've noticed how little the Captain trusts those people."
"Yes."
"There's good reason not to trust them. Any of them who're here with us. In
this case, any of them but Banh Do Trang himself."
"I understand. Where do I find this man?"
I gave him directions. "You can tell him who the message is from but only if
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he asks. He should deliver it to Ky Sahra at the Vinh Gao Ghang temple of
Ghanghesha."
"You want me to wait for an answer?"
"That won't be necessary." If the message got through I would get my answer
directly from Sarie. "I'm going to go write several copies of the message. You
do what you think is best to make sure one of them survives the whole
journey."
"I understand."
Though he had not reacted to Sahra's formal name I suspected that he
understood more than I was telling.
Later, I introduced Sleepy to my horse and made the stallion understand that
it was time to earn his oats. The animal was smart enough to be as disgruntled
as any soldier asked to get up and bust his butt.
The kid slipped away without anybody but Bucket knowing that he was going.
Chapter 44
The Shadowmaster was in his crystal tower, immersed in some arcane experiment.
He was seeing no one. The stinking ragbag that contained the Howler was
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