I checked. Hard to tell from so far away but they looked more like a labor battalion than armed men on the march. Curious. A similar group was forming north of the city.

Sindhu appeared. They got the word about yesterday. Theyre bad rattled.

I lifted an eyebrow.

I got close enough to hear some talk. Theyre making a move. Dont know what it is.

Daring, Sindhu. You didnt hear where we could find Shadowspinner, did you?

No.

I sent everybody off with instructions. Ram and I donned our armor. Ram said nothing the whole time. Usually he had some small talk, thoughtless but comforting.

Youre awfully quiet.

Thinking. All whats happened in just a couple months. Wondering.

What?

If the world really is so black its time for the Year of the Skulls.

Oh, Ram. He was not a fast thinker but an inexorable one, now suffering a crisis of faith brought on by events in the grove but sprouting from seeds that had fallen earlier. He cared again. Kina was losing her hold.

And damn me, I let Croaker get past my defenses and turn me soft inside, too. I Felt enough now that I could not just use and discard.

Maybe that soft center was there all the time. Maybe I was like an oyster. Croaker always thought so. Before we hardly knew one another he wrote about me in ways that suggested he thought there was something special inside me.

Those people down there took him. They destroyed his dreams and hamstrung mine. I did not give a damn about the Year of the Skulls or Kina. I wanted restitution.

Ram, stop. I stepped close, placed a hand on his chest, looked him in the eye. Dont worry. Dont tear your heart out. Believe me when I tell you Ill try to make everything work out.

He did trust me, damn him. A big damn faithful dog look came into his eyes.

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Three

The Prahbrindrah Drah took Smokes advice. He reread the old books about the Black Companys first visit. They told a tale of death and heartbreak but reread as he might he found nothing to indict the Company returned from the north. The more he studied the more he veered from the attitude Smoke wanted him to adopt.

The Radisha joined him. Youre going to wear those things out.

No. I dont have to read any more. Smoke is wrong.

But...

Never mind the woman. Id bet my life-and I am-that she has no intention of becoming the Daughter of Night. Its subtle. You have to read this stuff over and over before it sinks in, but therere signs missing that would be there no matter how hard they tried to hide them. They were exactly what they pretended.

Oh? the Radisha asked. Didnt they mean to return to Khatovar?

Without knowing what it is. Could have been interesting seeing what would have happened if theyd made it.