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them to go.
    It would not be long after we left that the Radisha would start
wondering who was taking care of the wizard now. My bet was that
she would start looking for him. She was stubborn enough to find
her way to the room.
    Though she had shown little interest in Smoke lately she had never given up hope of bringing him back. If we enjoyed many
successes against the Shadowmaster she would want his help even
more.
    Everything we did seemed to have potentially unpleasant
consequences.
     
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8
    When the Old Man decides to move he moves. It was still tomb
dark when I left the Palace and found him waiting with two of the
giant black stallions that had come down from the north with the
Black Company. Specially bred during the Lady’s heyday, with
sorcery instilled into their very bones, they could run forever
without getting tired and could outrace any mundane steed. And they
were almost as smart as a really stupid human.
    Croaker grinned down at my in-laws. They were completely
nonplussed by this development. How were they supposed to keep
up?
    Kind of pissed me off, too. “I’ll handle it,”
I said in Nyueng Bao. I handed Thai Dei my stuff, climbed the
monster Croaker had brought for me. It had been a long time since I
had ridden one but this one seemed to remember me. It tossed its
head and snorted a greeting. “You too, big boy.” I took
my stuff from Thai Dei.
    “Where’s the standard?” Croaker demanded.
    “In the wagon with One-Eye. Sleepy put it there
before—”
    “You let it out of your control? You don’t ever let
it out of your control.”
    “I was thinking about giving Sleepy the job.”
Standard-bearer was one of the hats I wore. And not one of my
favorites. Now that I am Annalist I should be passing it on.
Croaker has mentioned that himself on occasion. “Give me your
stuff now,” I told Thai Dei once I had mine settled in front
of me.
    Thai Dei’s eyes got big as he realized what I
intended.
    I told Mother Gota and Uncle Doj, “Stay on the stone road
all the way and you’ll catch up with the army. If
you’re stopped show the soldiers your papers.” Another
innovation of the Liberator. More and more people involved in the
war effort were being given bits of paper telling who they were and
who was responsible for them. Since hardly anybody was literate the
effort did not seem worthwhile.
    Maybe. But the Old Man always has his reasons. Even when those
are simply to confuse.
    Croaker realized what I was doing just as I extended my hand to
help Thai Dei climb. He opened his mouth to raise hell. I said,
“Don’t bother. It ain’t worth a fight.”
    Thai Dei looks like a skull with a thin layer of dark leather
over it at the best of times. Now he looked as though he had just
heard a death sentence pronounced. “It’ll be all
right,” I told him, realizing he had never been on a horse.
The Nyueng Bao have water buffalo and a few elephants. They do not
ride those, except as children sometimes, helping with the
plowing.
    He did not want to do it. He really did not. He looked at Uncle
Doj. Doj said nothing. It was Thai Dei’s call.
    Croaker must have started looking smug or something. Thai Dei
stared at him for a moment, shuddered all over, then extended his
good hand. I pulled. Thai Dei was as hard and tough as they came
but he weighed almost nothing.
    The horse gave me a look nearly as ugly as the one I had gotten
from my boss. The fact that they are capable of a job does not make
the beasts eager to do it.
    “Whenever you’re ready,” Croaker said.
    “Go.”
    He headed out. The pace he set was savage. He rode like he could
feel no pain. He grumbled and fussed at me to keep up. He grumbled
even more after we collected a cavalry escort south of the city.
The regular horses had no hope of matching the pace he wanted to
set. He had to keep waiting for them to catch up. Usually he was
well ahead, surrounded by crows. The birds came and went and when
we exchanged words he always knew