“Yeah.” Swan chuckled. “That’s right. We can talk. Tell us.”

“We want help, Mr. Swan.”

Willow mused, “Let’s see, the way I hear, around seventy-five, a hundred years ago people finally started playing games. Archery shoots, whatnot. But never anything man to man. Then here come the Shadowmasters to take over Tragevec and Kiaulune and change the names to Shadowlight and Shadowcatch.”

“Kiaulune means Shadow Gate,” Smoke said. His voice was like his skin, splotched with oddities. Squeaks, sort of. They made Willow bristle. “Not much change. Yes. They came. And like Kina in the legend they set free the wicked knowledge. In this case, how to make war.”

“And right away they started carving them an empire and if they hadn’t had that trouble at Shadowcatch and hadn’t got so busy fighting each other they would’ve been here fifteen years ago. I know. I been asking around ever since you guys started hustling us.”

“And?”

“So for fifteen years you knew they was coming someday. And for fifteen years you ain’t done squat about it. Now when you all of a sudden know the day, you want to grab three guys off the street and con them into thinking they can work some kind of miracle. Sorry, sister. Willow Swan ain’t buying. There’s your conjure man. Get old Smoke to pull pigeons out of his hat.”

“We aren’t looking for miracles, Mr. Swan. The miracle has happened. Smoke dreamed it. We’re looking for time for the miracle to take effect.”

Willow snorted.

“We have a realistic appreciation of how desperate our situation is, Mr. Swan. We have had since the Shadow-masters appeared. We have not been playing ostrich. We have been doing what seems most practical, given the cultural context. We have encouraged the masses to accept the notion that it would be a great and glorious thing to repel the onslaught when it comes.”

“You sold them that much,” Blade said. “They ready to go die.”

“And that’s all they would do,” Swan said. “Die.”

“Why?” the Woman asked.

“No organization,” said Cordy. The thoughtful one. “But organization wouldn’t be possible. No one from any of the major cult families would take orders from somebody from another one.”

“Exactly. Religious conflicts make it impossible to raise an army. Three armies, maybe. But then the high priests might be tempted to use them to settle scores here at home.”

Blade snorted. “They ought to burn the temples and strangle the priests.”

“Sentiments my brother often expresses,” the Woman said. “Smoke and I feel they might follow outsiders of proven skill who aren’t beholden to any faction.” “What? You going to make me a general?” Cordy laughed. “Willow, if the gods thought half as much of you as you think of yourself, you’d be king of the world. You figure you’re the miracle Smoke saw in his dream? They’re not going to make you a general. Not really. Unless maybe for show, while they stall.”

“What?”

“Who’s the guy keeps saying he only spent two months in the army and never even learned to keep step?”

“Oh.” Willow thought for a minute. “I think I see.”

“Actually, you will be generals,” the Woman said. “And we’ll have to rely heavily on Mr. Mather’s practical experience. But Smoke will have the final say.”

“We have to buy time,” the wizard echoed. “A lot of time. Someday soon Moonshadow will send a combined force of five thousand to invade Taglios. We have to keep from being beaten. If there’s any way possible, we have to beat the force sent against us.”

“Nothing like wishing.”

“Are you willing to pay the price?” Cordy asked. Like he thought it could be done.

“The price will be paid,” the Woman said. “Whatever it may be.”

Willow looked at her till he could no longer keep his teeth clamped on the big question. “Just who the hell are you, lady? Making your promises and plans.”

“I am the Radisha Drah, Mr. Swan.”

“Holy shit,” Swan muttered. “The prince’s big sister.” The one some people said was the real boss bull in those parts. “I knew you was somebody, but...” He was rattled right down to his toenails. But he would not have been Willow Swan if he had not leaned back, folded his hands on his belly, put on a big grin, and asked, “What’s in it for us?”

Though the empire retained a surface appearance of cohesion, a failure of the old discipline snaked through the deeps beneath. When you wandered the streets of Opal you sensed the laxness. There was flip talk about the new crop of overlords. One-Eye spoke of an increase in black marketeering, a subject on which he had been expert for a century. I overheard talk of crimes committed that were not officially sanctioned.

Lady seemed unconcerned. “The empire is seeking normalcy. The wars are over. There’s no need for the strictures of the past.”

“You saying it’s time to relax?”

“Why not? You’d be the first to scream about what a price we paid for peace.”

“Yeah. But the comparative order, the enforcement of public safety laws ... I admired that part.”

“You sweetheart, Croaker. You’re saying we weren’t all bad.”

She knew damned well I’d claimed that all along. “You know I don’t believe there’s any such thing as pure evil.”

“Yes there is. It’s festering up north in a silver spike your friends drove into the trunk of a sapling that’s the son of a god.”

“Even the Dominator may have had some redeeming quality sometime. Maybe he was good to his mother.”

“He probably ripped her heart out and ate it. Raw.”

I wanted to say something like, you married him, but did not need to give her further excuses to change her mind. She was pressed enough.

But I digress. I was remarking on the changes in the Lady’s world. What brought the whole thing home was having a dozen men drop in and ask if they could sign on with the Black Company. They were all veterans. Which meant there were men of military age at loose ends these days. During the war years there had been no extra bodies anywhere. If they were not with the grey boys or that lot they were with the White Rose.

I rejected six guys right away and accepted one, a man with his front teeth done up m gold inlays. Goblin and One-Eye, self-appointed name givers, dubbed him Sparkle.

Of the other five there were three I liked and two I did not and could find no sound reasons for going either way with any of them. I lied and told them they were all in and should report aboard The Dark Wings in time for our departure. Then I conferred with Goblin. He said he would make sure that the two I did not like would miss our departure.

I first noticed the crows then, consciously. I attached no special significance, just wondered why everywhere we went there seemed to be crows.

One-Eye wanted a private chat. “You nosed around that place where your girlfriend is staying?”

“Not to speak of.” I had given up arguing about whether or not Lady was my girlfriend.

“You ought to.”

“It’s a little late. I take it you have. What’s your beef?”

“It isn’t something you can pin down like sticking a nail through a frog, Croaker. Kind of hard to get a good look around there, anyway, what with she brought a whole damned army along. An army that I think she figures on dragging along wherever we go.”

“She won’t. Maybe she rules this end of the world, but she don’t run the Black Company. Nobody runs with this outfit who don’t answer to me and only to me.”

One-Eye clapped. “That was good, Croaker. I could almost hear the Captain talking. You even got to standing the way he did, like a big old bear about to jump on something.”

I was not original, but I didn’t think I was that transparent a borrower, either. “So what’s your point, One-Eye? Why has she got you spooked?”

“Not spooked, Croaker. Just feeling cautious. It’s her baggage. She’s dragging along enough stuff to fill a wagon.”