Now I understood why the troops had been issued calthrops.

Calthrops are like large kids’ jacks, only the tips are sharp and sometimes poisoned. The calthrop is a handy tool if you have to run for it, particularly if the guys after you are going to be on horseback. You scatter calthrops where horses have to follow narrow paths and you have yourself a guaranteed head start or even grounds for a nasty ambush.

Aha! I spied the missing complimentary in-law.

Uncle Doj was dressed up in his best outfit, his holy fencing duds, like he maybe did not want us going to a whole lot of trouble when we laid him out. Hell. I would have to check with Thai Dei on Nyueng Bao funeral customs. A lot of Nyueng Bao had died around me but I never took part in what went on later.

I still resented being left out when they took care of To Tan and Sahra without me.

Uncle Doj strutted uphill till he was just fifty feet from the first line of Shadowlanders. He stopped and bellowed a challenge to Narayan Singh.

Guess who did not come out to fight? Nobody even answered. Nobody even bothered to relay the message to the Deceiver camp.

Uncle Doj began issuing a series of formal insults, belittling the Deceivers and all their allies. Trouble was, they were formal insults from a stylized school of challenge and response. He did not know how to make his presentation in a manner accessible to people who did not speak Nyueng Bao.

Poor Uncle. Forty years of intense preparation brought him to the ultimate moment and all those guys over there saw was a crazy old man.

Doj began to get it.

He began to get angry for real. He started yelling his challenges in Taglian. A few Shadowlanders understood him. His message soon reached the Deceivers. It was not well received.

I found the show as amusing as anything could be out there.

None of this was part of the Captain’s plan.

Uncle kept hollering.

Over in the Deceiver camp the miniature messiah of the Stranglers told his cronies, “We will not respond. We will wait. Darkness is our time. And darkness always comes.” After a pause he asked, “Who is that man?”

A wide, creepy looking guy told him, “He was in Dejagore. One of the Nyueng Bao pilgrims.” The man speaking was named Sindhu. He had come into Dejagore during the siege to spy for Lady and for the Deceivers. He was a real villain. I had been sure he was dead.

The Sahras die but the Sindhus and Narayan Singhs go on. Which is why I cannot be a religious man. Unless the Gunni are right and there is a wheel of life and eventually everybody gets what they deserve.

Sindhu continued, “He was a priest of some kind and their Speaker. A member of his family eventually wed the standardbearer of the Black Company.”

“It becomes clear. The Goddess is scribbling one of her subtle death plays.” He glanced at the Daughter of Night. The kid sat so still it was spooky. Spookier than usual. No four-year-old could do that.

Narayan Singh seemed vaguely troubled. His goddess enjoyed the occasional death joke at the expense of her most devout followers. He did not want to become one of her pranks.

“Darkness is our time,” he said again. “Darkness always comes.”

Darkness always comes. Sounded like Kina’s motto. I took another look at Lady and Croaker’s brat. She bothered me bad. She was spookier every time I looked. If it had not been so hard to care out there I could have cried for Lady and the Old Man.

Actually, I almost could. Maybe I was becoming capable of feeling while I worked.

I drifted away, found that Mogaba was taking stronger exception to Uncle’s antics than was Singh. But he remembered Uncle Doj from the bad old days. “I want that man silenced,” he said. “The soldiers are watching him instead of their enemies.”

When he drew no response from the Deceivers, Uncle Doj began insulting the Shadowlanders and their masters. A javelin streaked his way. In a motion too swift to follow he drew Ash Wand and brushed the missile aside. “Cowards!” he called. “Renegades! Are any of you Nar men enough to come out?” He exposed his back contemptuously, headed for friendly lines before a missile storm could devour him. A masterful move, it did not look like a withdrawal at all.

All hell broke loose. Horns shrieked. Drums grumbled. A stumbling, shambling, inept, mean-spirited and poorly armed rabble headed uphill wailing, sixty thousand hungry and hard up camp followers attacking the servants of shadow. Our soldiers drove them at swordspoint.

I was stunned. I was awed. The Captain had his hard moments but I never figured him for hard enough to let camp followers accumulate and tag along so he could use them as a human avalanche. But on reflection, yes, for weeks he had been warning the soldiers not to let anyone they cared for join the march. Those who discussed it at all thought it meant that the Old Man did not expect to be successful.

Those people were going to get slaughtered. But they would hurt some Shadowlanders and grind the rest down, which would work to our advantage.

The soldiers were merciless. They whipped the camp followers into a terrified frenzy. When they hit Mogaba’s center and right they actually penetrated the Shadowlander front rank.

Blade’s division remained untouched.

While everyone was concentrating on our attack, Croaker’s special forces left Lady’s shadow and hastened into the wastes flanking the pass. Mogaba had sentries concealed in amongst those rocks, of course. Fighting broke out immediately.

Our elephants moved forward behind the troops pushing the camp followers. The Shadowlanders were too busy to bother them. The elephants used huge mallets to drive big iron spikes into the earth.

Came a shrill of brassy Shadowlander trumpets. For no reason I could discern Blade’s division suddenly moved out, left oblique, downhill, at an angle that would take it around our right flank. I marvelled at how well his men maintained formation crossing that rough ground.

Now I got to witness one of Longshadow’s epic rages. “You have gone too far this time!” he thundered at Mogaba, once he controlled himself enough to manage a coherent sentence. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, making moves like that without consulting me? At least explain your thinking!” While he yelled he stamped around the rough platform, shaking, clawing at his mask till I thought he might show the world the face he kept hidden except when he was alone.

“I have no idea what he’s doing.” Mogaba ignored the Shadowmaster’s rage. He leaned on the platform rail, stared at Blade’s division and looked as confused as ever I had seen. “Be quiet.”

Howler punctuated the racket with a series of shrieks.

Longshadow became incoherent again.

Taglian trumpets blared. Shadar cavalrymen galloped out of the gap between the Old Man’s two divisions and rushed into that between Blade’s division and the rest of the Shadowlander army. Their movement was a lot less impressive than Blade’s. They did not even pretend to maintain formation once they were moving.

Blade ignored them. He continued his march.

Mogaba became as excited as ever I have seen him. He did not have a clue what Blade was up to.

Longshadow and Howler nearly came to blows.

What the hell was going on?

Sudden drums announced the advance of Croaker’s lead division. It headed straight into the space vacated by Blade’s force. The cavalry drifted onward, screening the division’s outside flank. Then the reserve division faced right and began to follow Blade. And I gawked.

Events were unfolding as though carefully choreographed yet nobody knew what was going on. Confusion was universal. In some more remote areas, like Lady’s command post, people had no idea at all.