The Festival of Lights:

As Lady's army moved southward, her strangler allies insisted that she make a small detour. It was time for the Festival of Light, and they wanted her to attend. Soulcatcher had many crows watching the event. Unfortunately, it proved a little bit anti-climactic. Lady was able to tell that someone had been living in the temple, despite Soulcatcher's best efforts to clean up. When she informed the Deceivers, they postponed the festivities so that the temple could be purified.

Still, the crows reported a few interesting snatches of conversation. Lady said Kina came to her in her dreams. Did she mean that literally? Could Kina be an actual being, and not just a myth? Of course she could just be trying to impress the Deceivers.

More importantly, the stranglers did subject Lady to one test that apparently didn't need to be postponed. A strangler tried to ambush her. She was able to turn the tables on him, and after she killed him she used his blood in a little ritual to place a mark on each of the other stranglers, permanently staining their hands red.

It seemed to greatly impress, or perhaps intimidate, the stranglers. Soulcatcher wasn't sure of the wisdom of it, as it seemed to endanger the secrecy of the Deceivers, but perhaps Lady didn't care. She might have had doubts about the long-term prospects for her strangler alliance anyway.

Howler:

Howler found Longshadow's two-thirds finished fortress a little disturbing. Overlook was immense; where the walls were finished, they were a hundred feet high, and faced with metal plates engraved with powerful runes. It throbbed with magic, and suggested an obsessive, single-minded builder. The outside of the fortress was crawling with workers, as construction continued, but while substantial parts of the interior had been finished, few people seemed to live inside. The garrison was tiny.

Almost as soon as he arrived, Howler had an assignment from Longshadow.

"I've been in contact with the wizard Smoke, the court wizard of Taglios. He has expressed some interest in helping me deal with the Black Company. He's agreed to meet with me, so I need you to use one of your carpets and go retrieve him."

Flying to Taglios took Howler less than a day, though it was quite tiring to fly so far without breaks. He did feel the need to sleep for a few hours before returning; fortunately, it took a while for Smoke to get away from the palace anyway. The return flight left Howler completely exhausted, so he did not participate in Longshadow's initial meeting with Smoke.

When Howler had rested, he went to watch Longshadow at work. His opinion of his new ally dropped. Longshadow was trying to break Smoke, to turn him into some feeble mockery of a Taken. It was clear that he didn't know what he was doing, and that persuasion would have been faster and easier anyway. But Howler kept his comments to himself. Longshadow wouldn't listen.

After a few days, Longshadow was finally satisfied that he could completely control Smoke, and so Howler had to carry him back to Taglios. He wondered how Smoke would explain the long absence.

When Howler returned to Overlook again, Longshadow immediately demanded his help in contacting his new slave. The update proved to be all bad news. It appeared the Prahbrindrah and the Radisha were losing trust in their wizard.

"You should have seduced him," Howler opined, no longer inclined to hold his tongue. "It would have been faster, so he wouldn't have been gone such a suspiciously long time. And it wouldn't have made him behave suspiciously. You are too fond of brute force."

"Don't tell me how to..." Longshadow snarled, before restraining himself. He really couldn't treat Howler like a minion, however much he might despise the filthy pile of rags. "Never mind. We should assess the situation in Stormgard."

The two combined their magic to reach out to Shadowspinner. Since Jaicur was closer than Taglios, either could have performed this contact alone, but the two combined made the connection swiftly and strongly. Once again it was all bad news. Shadowspinner had lost another four thousand troops fighting against Lady's newly arrived reinforcements. He was being forced to fall back on a last resort plan to keep the situation under control. He was diverting nearby rivers to flood the plain and leave the city isolated in the middle of a new lake. Shadowspinner hoped it would prevent the besieged forces from being able to work together with Lady's reinforcements. And perhaps this plan would work, though nothing else had yet.

"We cannot allow that woman to continue to disrupt our every plan! Did you finish the larger carpet?" Longshadow asked Howler after the connection had ended.

"Yes, it's ready."

"Then I need you to go get her. I'll send three of my best men with to back you up."

Howler didn't think he really needed the backup. Of course he knew Longshadow didn't think he needed them either; they would be there to make sure Howler didn't betray Longshadow and keep Lady for himself. Though he didn't know how Longshadow thought any of his minions could overpower Howler, it was perhaps not something to risk. He might have outfitted them with some kind of dangerous magical weapons; Longshadow certainly had more toys than any other wizard Howler had ever encountered.

"Consider her caught," Howler said. "I have a score to settle with her anyway."

Taglios:

Soulcatcher decided that impersonating her sister had been enough fun that she wanted to continue. Recently, Lady was always with a large man called Ram, one of the Deceivers who had appointed himself her bodyguard. Soulcatcher cast a spell to disguise Croaker as Ram, and another to make sure he remained silent, and while her sister was attempting to relieve the siege of Jaicur, the two of them visited Taglios.

Her first destination was the fortress which Lady had ordered built near the city as a base for assembling and training armies. Since Lady was supposed to be in Jaicur, her apparent arrival there produced some confusion. She was greeted by the Prahbrindrah himself. "We didn't expect you back so soon."

"We won a small victory north of Dejagore. Blade planned and carried out the operation. I left him in charge. I've returned to train new forces. The fortress looks good. I take it the priests have given up their obstructionism?"

"You've convinced them," the prince said with a troubled look. The two chatted for a while, and then Soulcatcher asked if her quarters were ready, so she could rest after her long ride. Once they had settled in, Soulcatcher consulted her spies. She then summoned a few men Croaker didn't recognize, and gave them orders.

"Smoke thinks the Deceivers are up to something," she explained to Croaker once they were alone. "My best reconstruction of his worries is that he thinks Kina is something like the Dominator, somehow bound or imprisoned as the Dominator was in the Barrowlands, and trying to get free. He believes that the Deceivers are trying to release Kina, and that my sister has joined the Kina cause."

"Do you think Kina is real?" Croaker asked.

"Well, it might explain some of the strange things that have been going on. The Dominator could still influence the world while he slept. If there's a real Kina, she could be doing the same. But there isn't much evidence yet. And I can't imagine my sister would try to raise another Dominator after having worked so hard to keep the first one down. Still, Smoke is quite convinced, enough to push him into the arms of Longshadow."

Croaker cursed. "Why is everyone we work with always so stupid?"

"Don't worry, I have the situation in hand." She gave Croaker a reassuring caress. "Those men I was talking to were some of your girlfriend's assassins. They'll keep Smoke away from Longshadow's agents until the agents can be eliminated. I'll have Frogface help them; Longshadow and Smoke won't be able to coordinate anything troublesome."

Soulcatcher continued to impersonate Lady in subsequent days, and Croaker was impressed by how well she was able to do so. He found it strange to hear Soulcatcher always talking with just a single voice, and at times he came close to forgetting which sister he was with. Soulcatcher performed the same kinds of organizational tasks that Lady would have done if she'd really returned, fixing problems and building up the troops and resources that the war would continue to require. Like Lady, she had plenty of experience with military leadership, and her efforts seemed to be improving efficiency.

Eventually, Frogface reported that Longshadow's agents were dead. "Unfortunately, I think Smoke may have the magical talent to contact Longshadow directly. He'll have to do it from somewhere in the palace, as the stranglers keep a good watch on him whenever he leaves."

Soulcatcher nodded. "He'll try to do it from his secure room." Previous scouting had revealed that Smoke had a personal study chamber which he'd tried to completely ward against shadows and scrying. Soulcatcher went into ritual mode for a while, and eventually summoned up a small, smoky demon. "I need you to kill a man called Smoke." She described the wizard. "Frogface will lead you to him."

As they waited to find out what happened, Croaker asked "Is killing Smoke really the best option? He might have valuable information about Longshadow's activities."

"It's unlikely that he knows much that I don't already know," Soulcatcher replied. "Considering how relentlessly he has schemed against the Black Company, I thought you'd welcome his death."

Croaker had little doubt that she knew more than she told him. That was the problem, of course, and the reason he'd have wanted to question Smoke himself. But it was unclear how he could have arranged that even if the traitor were to live. Still, it was frustrating getting such a selective story. "It is likely, however, that he knows things that I don't know."

"So suspicious! It's healthy, of course. But don't worry, I tell you everything you need to know," Soulcatcher said. Croaker was not much reassured.

"Well, he's not dead, at least not yet," Frogface reported upon his return. "But the demon interrupted him in the middle of his attempt to contact Longshadow. I don't know how much he managed to report before the attack. The Prahbrindrah and some of his guards also interrupted, and the demon retreated to avoid a big mess. The demon's gone now, returned home. But he did managed to badly injure Smoke. The wizard's unconscious, and it's unclear when or if he will awaken."

Soulcatcher had little time to consider her next move as the demands of directing the Taglian military buildup continued to distract her, demands she couldn't ignore without compromising her disguise. And she'd also committed to a dinner with the Prahbrindrah. She would deal with Smoke later.

Howler:

Howler found that intelligence about the situation near Jaicur was sparse. Confusion spells seemed to be everywhere, distracting the shadows that Shadowspinner used to scout, and preventing him from having any good information on the disposition of Lady's forces. So Howler had to do all his own scouting. Still, he could move quickly, and being able to look down from above was a big advantage; he was sure he would find Lady soon.

His reconnaissance was interrupted by a contact from Longshadow. He had to land to deal with the communication. "She's in Taglios!" Longshadow said as soon as the connection was strong enough. "Proceed there to retrieve her."

"That's not possible," Howler replied. "It's clear that she's been directing the war effort here. Her spells are everywhere, confusing our shadows."

"Smoke says he has seen her in Taglios, and several of my agents there have been killed. She must have found them."

"I don't know what's going on in Taglios, but while Shadowspinner's intelligence has been terrible, I'm sure he would have heard some report or rumor if the enemy commander had left the field. This must be some trick."

"Yes, it certainly must be some trickery, but Smoke saw her in Taglios. He's incapable of lying to me. The trick must be that she's trying to fool us into thinking she's in Jaicur."

"I suppose that's possible," Howler admitted.

"And if she has something so important to do in Taglios, and is going to such great lengths to prevent us from knowing about it, it's something we must stop. Proceed to Taglios immediately, and seize her!"

Howler moaned. As happened with increasing frequency, Longshadow seemed to be forgetting that they were supposed to be allies, not master and servant. Still, as a practical matter, it was not as equal an alliance as Howler would have liked; it was probably best not to argue. And anyway, it was always possible that Longshadow was right in this instance. "As you wish," he said and signed off. Back to Taglios it was. Howler usually liked flying, but he was getting a little tired of running the Overlook to Taglios shuttle.

When he arrived in Taglios, Howler heard reports that Lady was having dinner with the Prahbrindrah. He decided to ambush her when she was on her way home from that meeting. He deployed the men Longshadow had given him on a likely street, and began setting up magical traps.

Soulcatcher hadn't anticipated any trouble. She was using Lady's coach to get around, and she'd offered the Prahbrindrah and the Radisha a ride home after the dinner. She was distracted by her conversation with the city's leaders when Howler sprang the ambush.

Since it was unclear what the effects of killing the prince of the city might be, Howler decided it was best not to take chances on that score; he focused all of his attention on the woman he believed was Lady, and tried to avoid doing too much damage to anyone else. His initial magical assault succeeded in knocking Soulcatcher unconscious; he would have been very surprised at how easy it was if he'd known who his target really was. He levitated the unconscious body away while Longshadow's men tried to fend off other threats.

They were not completely successful. The man Howler had believed to be Soulcatcher's bodyguard had the Black Company lance. Howler had no time to consider why before he was completely distracted by agonizing pain, as the bodyguard was quick to use the lance against him. His defenses seemed completely ineffective, and the wound hurt far more than it should have; he screamed far more loudly than usual. Howler could vaguely see that some sort of illusion around the bodyguard seemed to be fading as the bodyguard stabbed him, but he was much more concerned with getting away than finding out what was going on.

Still, Howler had dealt with pain for a long time. He wasn't so distracted as to lose track of his prisoner as he fled, and though he left Longshadow's men behind (not really a loss from his perspective), he was able to get to his carpet with the woman and take off.

The flight to Overlook was horrible. Some kind of poison or magic from the lance was eating away at him, and he felt himself grow steadily weaker. Worse, while it seemed very likely that Longshadow would be able to help him, he was far from sure the bastard would want to, so he had only the slimmest hope that returning to the fortress would do him any good. Still, it was the only hope he had, and he flew doggedly through the night.

Fortunately for Howler, it was during Howler's flight that Longshadow heard more dire news from Jaicur. Shadowspinner had been killed (by Kina, according to the confusing reports), and his army was no more. Most of the men had deserted, and some had joined the Taglian side. Thus, while letting Howler die was extremely tempting, Longshadow feared that he would have need of the little wizard in the times ahead. When Howler and his prisoner finally made it to Overlook, Longshadow had his guards drug the woman and throw her in a cell, and spent several days helping his ally fight off the horrible damage the lance had done to his body.

Overlook:

Longshadow's healing efforts gave Frogface enough time to locate his mistress. He easily slipped into her cell beneath Overlook. Longshadow still thought he'd captured Lady, but she'd shown enough power that he was keeping her drugged to ensure that she couldn't use magic to escape. Frogface repeatedly sucked out her blood, cleansed it of the drugs, and returned it to her, until she was largely recovered.

"Your disguise was too good. Longshadow sent Howler to capture Lady, and he ended up with you instead."

"Yes, obviously." Soulcatcher laughed. "Longshadow will regret that mistake. So, this means Croaker is free in Taglios."

"Yes, and Lady was still camped near Jaicur, last I heard. She and her Deceiver friends managed to sneak into Shadowspinner's camp and assassinate the shadowmaster, so the siege of Jaicur has been lifted."

"Croaker will surely seek out my sister to tell her that he's still alive. And she will look for Croaker as soon as she hears he's alive. We can't have them getting back together; that's no fun at all. Find some way to prevent their reunion. Rainy season is starting; find some way to ensure that they are on opposite sides of the Main when the river becomes impassable again."

"As you wish. And then?" the imp asked, somewhat hopefully.

"I am most grateful for the rescue. Return after dealing with the Lady and Croaker situation, and if you have succeeded, I will free you."

The imp rushed off enthusiastically. Soulcatcher crept through the fortress, learning what she could about it as she sought an exit. She was surprised at how few people there were in the huge structure. Apparently the paranoid Longshadow felt safer with fewer potential traitors around. Still, even with its immensity and its amazingly impressive fortifications and defensive magics, it seemed to Soulcatcher that with so few troops the fortress would have trouble defending itself against a determined attacker.

Some of the few guards did catch up with her as she finally found an exit. She opened a hole in reality, and a massive beast forced its way through, tearing at the opening and widening it. The demonic creature charged the guards, whose weapons couldn't even scratch it. Soulcatcher slipped away as the beast rampaged through the fortress.

When Howler recovered, he and Longshadow discovered Soulcatcher's escape, and were able to guess from the reports that they had had the wrong prisoner. Agents operating near Jaicur had also managed to send back more reports, enabling the two wizards to piece together a more accurate picture of what had happened. Soulcatcher's demon was gone by now, but the damage had been considerable.

"How could you have seized the wrong woman?" Longshadow raged.

Howler didn't bother pointing out that it was Longshadow who had told him to look for her in Taglios. "Presumably the 'Kina' who killed Shadowspinner was really Lady. Even if she did it with the help of her strangler friends, though, it is worrying that she is now strong enough to take out one like him."

"And she has access to the Lance of Passion. And after this debacle, Soulcatcher may be inclined to work with them against us. Well, more than she already has been."

"That's certainly a danger," Howler said, trying his best to keep calm.

"Well, that at least is something we can fix. For now, Soulcatcher is alone and on foot, and deep in our territory. It will take her a long time to get to anywhere where she could get any help. We must make sure she doesn't have the chance to rejoin our other enemies."

"And how do you propose to accomplish this?"

"There are much larger and more powerful shadows on the plain than any I have yet unleashed. It is time I sent out one of the big ones."

Howler moaned loudly. "You haven't done that yet because you've insisted it would be too dangerous. Has it become less dangerous? And are you really sure that it will be able to kill her?"

"You managed to knock her out in Taglios," Longshadow observed.

"I'm not sure how. She must have been distracted by the other magic she was maintaining. Her defenses will be fully up now, obviously."

"That won't matter. The shadows are not so easily stopped."

Longshadow waited until the next morning to begin summoning the great shadow. He usually summoned shadows at night, so they could be sent out immediately, but establishing control over this one would be far more difficult than dealing with one of the lesser shadows; he would need several hours, and it was best to work on it while daylight kept the shadow weak.

During the night, Howler found a few crows, which had to be Soulcatcher's agents since they were active at night, and told them "shadows hunt you." He assumed they'd get the message to their mistress. The next day he kept watch as Longshadow worked the spells to control the great shadow, ostensibly to be available to help if things went badly wrong.

By the time night fell again, Longshadow thought he had the monster sufficiently controlled, and he sent the shadow out to hunt Soulcatcher. It caught up with her before the next morning.

With the warning she'd gotten from Howler Soulcatcher had had time to prepare for the shadow's arrival, and with the knowledge she'd gained from Moonshadow she was able to keep the nightmare confused and distracted, preventing it from getting close enough to attack her. She considered trying to take control of it herself, but she rejected this as likely to take far too much time.

However, she knew that the shadows wanted more than anything to kill, as many people as possible. Only the tightest magical control could keep them focused on an assigned task. Soulcatcher led the giant shadow to a nearby town, slowly working to loosen Longshadow's controls as she eluded it. Upon arriving in a population center, it was soon distracted by all the other people available for it to kill. Soulcatcher was able to slip away during the slaughter. Longshadow already seemed to be wildly unpopular with his subjects, but it couldn't hurt to further reinforce the terrible reputation of the shadowmasters.

The rogue shadow kept Longshadow and Howler busy as Soulcatcher put ever more distance between herself and Overlook. She stole a succession of horses to move more quickly. She was halfway across the shadowlands when Frogface reported back in.

"I wasn't sure quite how to carry out your mission, but fortunately it proved easy. Lady decided to return to Taglios after her victory at Jaicur. At the same time, Croaker decided to go to Jaicur, hoping to catch up with Lady there. But for some reason Croaker decided it was extremely important that nobody know he was going to Jaicur, so he traveled secretly, along a side route. The two passed one another without knowing it. Croaker is now in Jaicur, and Lady is in Taglios. Lady is pregnant, by the way."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Anyway, the Main is flooding now, so mission accomplished."

"It doesn't sound like you did very much work at all."

"You told me what you wanted to happen; there was nothing about me needing to work hard. Anyway, somebody had decided to build a bridge at the Vehdna-Bota ford. I took it down, and they won't be able to rebuild it until the flood recedes again. So without me Croaker would surely be on his way to Taglios to return to his beloved in just a couple of weeks, instead of having to wait several months."

"Fair enough. You've been extremely useful, so it will be hard to lose you, but a deal is a deal. You don't happen to have any friends I might be able to work with, do you?"

"I might be able to think of one or two. Contact me after I get home and maybe I'll have a couple of names for you."

"All right. You are released, imp." The creature promptly vanished.

"Was it a good idea letting the imp go?" Soulcatcher asked herself in a baritone voice as she continued to ride northward.

"If I showed he couldn't trust me, he would have become a lot less useful," the serious woman's voice pointed out.

"But without his help I'd still be Longshadow's prisoner. This place has grown dangerous!" a little girl's voice said.

"That much is true," a deep bass man's voice said. "I've been taking too many unnecessary risks. I need minions to take the risks for me."

"Minions can be treacherous," a deathly whisper pointed out.

"Yet it's still more dangerous to be without," the scholar's voice said. Besides, when she'd had Croaker around it had been pleasant having someone to talk to, though she didn't voice that thought with any of her voices. She would never admit to being lonely.

"Why have I been taking so many risks?" the serious woman's voice asked.

"And how was Howler able to take me down so easily?" She remembered the strange way Stormbringer and Shapeshifter had gone down.

"Was someone weakening me?" a shaky voice asked.

"I handled that huge shadow well enough," the scholar's voice said.

"So maybe Howler is better than I thought," the serious voice mused. "But suppose someone was messing with me. And other wizards; there's been a suspicious number of deaths recently."

"Well, maybe the shadow's just not as dangerous as a wizard. Though surely Longshadow wouldn't have sent it if he didn't think it would be more than I could handle."

"Perhaps whoever is meddling isn't in the area. The suspiciously easy defeats of wizards all happened near Jaicur, or in my case near Taglios, several hundred miles north of the fight with the shadow. Or perhaps the meddler only pays attention to fights between two wizards."

"An interesting puzzle," a cheerful voice opined. "It may take a while to solve."

"If I survive," the serious voice commented. "I do need to be more cautious. And minions may well help. What kind of minions could I find? Perhaps I could steal some of the shadows."

"A wizard or two would be best. Someone I could communicate with at long range," the deep bass man's voice offered.

She dug through Moonshadow's memories. Moonshadow had gathered a few of the minor sorcerers in his territory and recruited them for shadow weaver training. He had tried to exterminate everyone else with any magical talent, especially anyone who seemed to be particularly strong. This seemed to be standard shadowmaster procedure, to eliminate potential threats. But the shadowmasters had been distracted by their squabbles with one another and with Taglios, and had not managed to be completely thorough. There were always some who escaped, some refugees who fled to territories outside the shadowlands. Any refugees that had gone north were likely to have signed up with some faction in Taglios, and the territory beyond the shadowlands in other directions was fairly inhospitable, so refugees were unlikely to have prospered, but some might have survived, especially if they had powerful magic.

In particular, digging through Moonshadow's memories turned up the name Oracle, an ancient witch who had ruled a city in the eastern shadowlands before Moonshadow's armies arrived, and who had eluded all Moonshadow's efforts to hunt her down. Someone clever, with magical talent and a grudge against the shadowmasters, could be very useful to Soulcatcher in carrying out her schemes. Of course, Oracle had managed to hide herself from Moonshadow, but Moonshadow had been distracted by ruling his empire. And anyway, he wasn't nearly as skilled as Soulcatcher.

A/N: I thought I was going to introduce an O.C. or two in this chapter, but I underestimated how much background still needed to be covered, so not yet. Well, I guess a name has turned up in the last paragraph, but that's it. There will be newness next chapter, though! We're pretty much at the end of Dreams of Steel now. In the canonical timeline it's more than three years until the battle of Charandaprash. The books are very sketchy on the years between the siege of Jaicur and the march to Charandaprash (apart from offering more detail than I really wanted to know about Murgen's squabbles with his in-laws). Those three years are where I intend to start inserting a lot of new material, often involving substantial divergences from canon.