My guess is, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Crows circle the Shadowlander camp. Always they circle. Some come, some go, but a baker’s dozen minimum are there all the time. Others haunt us day and night. Wherever I go, whenever, a crow is nearby. Except inside. They don’t get inside. We don’t let them inside. Those that try end up in somebody’s pot.

Croaker had a thing about crows. I think I understand it now. But the bats bother me more.

We don’t see the bats as often. The crows get most of them. (These crows are not ashamed to come out at night.) And those that the crows don’t get we do, most of the time. Inevitably, though, a few get away. And that isn’t good.

They spy for the Shadowmasters. They are the farranging eyes of wickedness out here where our enemies cannot always manipulate the living darkness.

Only two Shadowmasters remain. Spinner has problems. They do not have the reach or control they showed back when they could and did run the shadows into the very heart of the Taglian Territories.

They are fading from the stage.

One dreams.

Dreams too easily become nightmares.

When you look down from the citadel you have to wonder how the Jaicuri manage, all jammed inside Dejagore’s walls. Truth is, they don’t and never did.

At one time the hills surrounding the plain were covered with farms and orchards and vineyards. After the shadow came enterprises gradually disappeared as the peasant families abandoned the land. And then the antishadow, the Black Company, came, ever so hungry after the long sprint south from the victory at Ghoja Ford. And then came the Shadowlander armies which battered us.

Now the hills bear little but memories of what once was. Vultures never picked bones much cleaner than those hills have been gleaned.

The wisest peasants were those who fled early. Their children will repopulate the land.

Later the stupid ones ran here, inside the false safety of Dejagore’s walls. When Mogaba is particularly cranky he drives a few hundred out the gate. They are just mouths crying to be filled. Food must be husbanded for those willing to die defending the walls.

Locals who fail to contribute, or who demonstrate a weakness for getting sick or seriously injured, go out the gate right behind the peasants.

Shadowspinner won’t take any in but those willing to help raise his earthworks and dig his burial trenches. The former means laboring under falls of missiles directed by old friends inside, while the latter means making the bed where you will He as soon as you are useful no longer.

Hard choices.

Mogaba cannot fathom why his military genius isn’t universally hailed.

He doesn’t mess with the Nyueng Bao. Not yet. They haven’t contributed much to Dejagore’s defense but they don’t sap resources, either. Their babies are getting fat while the rest of us tighten our belts.

You don’t see many dogs or cats now. Horses manage only because they are militarily protected, and then only a handful of them. We’re going to eat hearty when the last fodder is gone.

Small game like rats and pigeons are becoming scarce. Sometimes you hear the outraged protest of a crow taken by surprise.

The Nyueng Bao are survivors.

They are a race possessed of a single impassive face.

Mogaba does not bother them mainly because when anybody does the whole bunch gets pissed off. And they consider fighting a really serious, holy business.

They stay out of the way when they can but they aren’t pacifists. A couple of times the Shadowlanders have regretted trying to push through their part of town.

The Nyueng Bao generated an amazing amount of carnage both times.

Rumor among the Jaicuri says they eat their enemies.

It is true, human bones showing evidence of butchery and cookery have been found. Jaicuri are mainly of the Gunni religion. Gunni are vegetarians.

I do not believe the Nyueng Bao are responsible, but Ky Dam refuses to deny even the blackest allegation against his people.

Maybe he will accept any canard that makes the Nyueng Bao seem more dangerous. Maybe he wants that kind of talk so fear will build.

Survivors grasp the tools at hand.

I wish they would talk. I’d bet they could tell stories that would curl your toes and straighten your hair.

Ah! Dejagore! Those halcyon days, slouching through hell with a smile on.

How long before all the fun goes out of the town?

Bone tired, just as I had been every night for as long as I could remember, I went to take my turn on the wall. I had no ambition at all and even less energy. Seated in a crenel, I heaped aspersions on the ancestors of all my bitty Shadowlander buddies. I am afraid I lacked creativity but I made up for that with virulence. They were up to something out there. You could hear rattlings and mutterings and see torches moving around.

There were all the harbingers of a night without sleep. Couldn’t these people be normal and handle their business during regular hours?

It didn’t sound like they were more enthusiastic than me. I caught the occasional sharp remark about me or my foredaddies, like this mess was all my fault. I guess they were motivated mainly by their sure knowledge that they would never go home if they didn’t recapture Stormgard.

Maybe nobody on either side would get out of this one alive.

A crow called, mocking us all. I didn’t bother throwing a rock at it.

It was misty out. A half-hearted drizzle came and went. Lightning stalked beyond the hills to the south. It had been hot and humid all day, then had turned viciously stormy toward evening. Lakes of water stood in the streets. Stormshadow’s engineers had not made good drainage a high priority, despite the natural advantages available.

It would not be a good night for attacking tall walls. And not much easier for anyone defending them.

Still, I almost felt sorry for the little buggers down below.

Candles and Red Rudy finished the long climb from the street, groaning. Each carried a heavy leather sack. Candles grumbled, “I’m too old for this shit.”

“If it works out we’ll all get to get old.”

Both men leaned on merlons while they caught their wind. Then they dumped their sacks into the darkness. Somebody down there swore in a Shadowlander dialect. “Serves you right, asshole,” Rudy growled back. “Go home. Let me sleep.”

All of the Old Crew invested time hauling dirt.

“I know,” Candles told me. “I know. But what good is alive if you’re too damned tired to give a shit?”

If you read the Annals you know our brothers have said the same thing since the beginning. I shrugged. I could come up with nothing inspirational. Mostly you don’t try to justify or motivate, you just go on.

Candles grumbled, “Goblin wants you. We’ll cover you here.”

In battered Shadowlander Rudy shouted downward, “Yeah, I know your turkey gobble. Fuck you.”

I grunted. It was my watch but I could leave if I wanted. Mogaba didn’t even pretend to try to control the Old Crew anymore. We did our part. We held our ground. We just would not conform to his ideas of what the Black Company ought to be.

But there was going to be one hell of a showdown if the Shadowmaster and his circus ever hit the road.

“Where is he?”

“Down Three.” That he signed in finger speech. We use deaf speech frequently if we talk business out in the open. Bats and crows can’t read it. Neither can any of Mogaba’s faction.

I grunted again. “Be back.”

“Sure.”

I descended the steep, slippery stair, muscles aching, anticipating the weight of the sack I would be carrying when I came back.

What could Goblin want? Probably a decision on something trivial. That runt and his monocular sidekick religiously avoid taking on any responsibility.