I looked at the slopes rising to either hand. If Mogaba had a lot of men up there he could embarrass us easily.

“He doesn’t,” Croaker said, as though I had spoken my thoughts.

“You’re getting spooky.” He wore most of the fancy Widowmaker armor most of the time now. There was hardly ever a time when he did not have a crow on his shoulder. He seemed to know his favorites because he always had tidbits for them.

“When I have to play a role I try to live it.” He began talking with his fingers again. “I want you to find Goblin. It is critical.”

“Huh?”

He signed, “I would do it myself but there is no time.” Aloud, he added, “These delaying tactics are working very well for Mogaba. This pass is just too damned tight.” He turned away, strode up the stalled column. The Prahbrindrah Drah was about to get talked to like a new recruit.

Suddenly, over his shoulder, he shot, “Where’re your in-laws, Murgen?”

“What?”

“Where are they? What’re they up to?” He used colloquial Taglian, which meant he did not care what Thai Dei heard. Or specifically wanted him to know about the query.

“I haven’t seen them.” I glanced at Thai Dei. He shook his head. “Maybe they went home.”

“I don’t think so. If that was the case the rest of these clowns would be gone with them. Wouldn’t they?”

I did not think so but there was no need arguing the point. Croaker would never be comfortable with the Nyueng Bao. I told him I would keep an eye out and would let him know if I learned anything, then moved along.

I ran into Sleepy on the way back to One-Eye’s wagon. “Hey, kid. How you doing?” I had not seen him since I gave him his assignment that night in Taglios. He had been working with Big Bucket, helping oversee the special forces teams. He looked tired but still not old enough to be a soldier.

“I’m tired and hungry and beginning to wonder if being buttfucked by my uncles really was worse than this.”

Anybody who could sustain a sense of humor after what Sleepy had suffered was all right by me.

I wondered if he would ever go back and kill them. I doubted it. That sort of thing was acceptable in this bizarre southern culture.

Sleepy asked, “You talk to the Captain yet?”

“I talk to him all the time. I’m the Annalist.”

“I mean about the standardbearer job. You said you might...”

“Oh. Yeah.” His excitement was obvious. But becoming standardbearer meant those above you thought you were destined for big things in the Company. The standardbearer often became Annalist. Frequently he became Lieutenant because he was always near the center of things and knew everything that was going on. The Lieutenant almost always becomes Captain when the job comes open.

Croaker was an anomaly of epic proportion, elected at a time when there were only seven of us, none more qualified, and nobody else would take the job.

“I bounced it off him. He didn’t say no. He’ll probably leave it up to me. And that means it’s a someday sort of thing because right now everybody in this army is working twenty hours a day. There’s no time to teach you anything.”

“We’re not doing anything. I could just hang around you and—”

Big Bucket’s voice rose above all the other tumult of an army on the move, telling Sleepy to get his dead ass back up here, they’ve decided nobody else can crack this nut but us.

“Good luck. And don’t get in a hurry, kid,” I told him. “Hell. Do like I’m doing with the Annals. Wait till the siege of Overlook. We’ll have plenty of time then. Including learning to read and write.”

“I’ve been learning. Believe it or not. I know fifty-three common characters already. I can puzzle out almost anything.”

Written Taglian is fairly complicated because there are more than a hundred characters in the common alphabet and another forty-two in the High Taglian used only by Gunni priests. A lot of the characters duplicate what they mean but distinguish caste. Caste is very important among the Gunni.

“Keep at it,” I told Sleepy. “You’ll make it on determination.”

“Thanks, Murgen.” The kid began scooting uphill, sliding through the press like he was greased.

“Don’t thank me,” I mumbled. Most standardbearers are not as lucky as I have been. It is not a job with an extended life expectancy.

I spotted Lady across the pass, as always surrounded by her admirers and most of the Nar who had not deserted the Company. I headed that way.

Men moved to let me through. Things like that happen when you can leave someone as a good taste or foul odor in history’s mouth. Croaker really made the importance of the Annals an article of faith with everyone in the Company.

Lady looked around. Her ordinarily impassive expression betrayed an instant of irritation. I said, “Looks like we’re going to be stalled here till Bucket’s crew convince Mogaba’s people they’d really rather go home and get in out of this weather.”

That was looking kind of bleak. A wind was building. It was colder than the wind had been for days. Heavy clouds were piling up overhead. Looked as if we were going to get some snow.

“Yeah. Let’s hope,” Swan said. “We need to get down out of these rocks.” He was not talking to me, really. “I hate mountains.”

“I’m not too fond of cold and snow, either,” I said. Of Lady I asked, “You really need to keep avoiding me?”

“What do you want to know?”

“How can you be getting your powers back? I thought that business in the Barrowland stripped you forever.”

“I’m a thief. Otherwise, none of your business.”

Her entourage sneered at me, mostly because they thought that would make points with her.

“Have you been dreaming again?”

She thought about that one before admitting, “Yes.”

“I thought so. You’ve been looking a little ragged.”

“You want to play you have to pay the price. What about you, Annalist?”

I found I was reluctant to reveal anything. Especially in front of those guys. I forced myself. “Yeah. Something that might have been Kina turned up in my dreams a couple times. Almost like an intrusion from outside. I wondered if that might have been the same time she was bothering you.”

That interested her. You could see the thoughts begin moving behind her eyes, the consideration, the calculation. She told me, “If it happens again, note the time. If you can.”

“I’ll try. How did you manage to go head-to-head with Kina the other night and come out in one piece?”

Without missing a beat Lady shifted to Groghor, a language on its last death rattle. “That was not Kina.” I learned it from my grandmother, whose people had all been wiped out in the consolidation wars that had built the Lady’s empire. Granny was dead and so was my mother and I had not used the tongue except to cuss people out since I signed on with the Company.

“How do you... ?” I sputtered. “How could you know that I... ?”

“The Captain has been kind enough to have your work copied and forwarded to me. You mentioned Groghor somewhere. I am a little rusty. I have not spoken this language in more than a century. Pardon my lapses.”

“You’re doing fine. But why bother?”

“My sister never learned the language. Nor did this bunch, half of whom are probably spies for someone.”

“What’s the deal? You said that wasn’t Kina. Sure fooled me if it wasn’t. Sure fit the description.”

“That was my beloved sister. Pretending to be Kina. I expect she surprised Kina’s worshippers as much as she surprised the rest of us.”

“But...” The Daughter of Night had seemed happy enough.

“I can touch the real Kina, Murgen. Believe me. It’s why I don’t sleep well. The real Kina is still in her trance. She can only touch the world in dreams. And I have to stay a part of those dreams.”

“So Kina is definitely real, then?”