Bleak Seasons

by Glen Cook

  Only the baby was unhurt. A boy of about four looked like he would not make it. He for sure would not if I did not get him to One-Eye in a hurry.

  Water splashed and a man shrieked right outside. A body slammed against the door, which creaked and gave a little. Sahra swatted the girl to calm her, fitted her onto my back. I asked, “How about your mother?”

  Never mind. The Troll was with us now. She had a two-year-old of indeterminate sex riding her left hip and the business end of a broken spear clutched in her right hand. She was ready for Taglians.

  Getting ready actually took less time than it requires to tell it.

  Sahra carried the baby. Thai Dei tied the wounded boy onto his back, kept his sword in hand. He and I went to the door. I peeked through cracks between the mutilated timbers. A Taglian soldier lurched past outside. I asked, “You first? Or me? One to lead, one as rearguard.”

  “Me. From this day forward.”

  What?

  “Back!” I snapped. But he glimpsed the hurtling shape at the same time. He slid to the right as I moved to the left of the doorway. We were out of the way when the door blew inward. We jumped at the intruder, recognized him barely in time.

  “Uncle Doj?”

  He was a lucky man. The weight of the children we carried had slowed us just enough to allow us time to see who had blown in.

  “Go,” I told Thai Dei. We did not need to hold a conference.

  Thai Dei encountered a pair of Taglians immediately. I jumped out and drove one away. Ky Gota wobbled out behind us. She stuck the tip of her spearhead into the throat of the nearest Taglian. Then she settled the child more comfortably on her hip, turned on the other soldier.

  A white crow swooped past, laughing like a troop of monkeys.

  The surviving Taglian was not a foolish young man. He headed for the nearest gang of his countrymen.

  “Go! Go!” I barked at Thai Dei. “Gota. Sahra. Follow Thai Dei. Uncle! Where are you? We’re gonna leave your ass here.”

  Uncle Doj stepped outside as the Taglian pointed us out to his comrades. “Take the child away, Standardbearer. Ash Wand will be your shield.”

  He put on an amazing display though I glimpsed only a few furious moments. That funny little wide man took on the whole mob of Taglians and killed six of them in about as many seconds. The rest took off.

  Then we splashed into the alley. We reached safety moments later. In minutes One-Eye was working on the wounded children, albeit not cheerfully. And I was deploying some of the Old Crew, with Goblin, for a limited counterattack.

  72

  That night was the final watershed. There was never any pretense of friendship with Mogaba again. I had no doubts myself that he would have come after us if the “mistaken” attack on the Nyueng Bao had been a success.

  Fighting continued until the water got too deep.

  Despite insistence by One-Eye and others that protecting the Nyueng Bao was not our mission I did salvage a third of the pilgrims, about six hundred people. The cost of the attack to Mogaba was bitter. The following morning most of the remaining Taglians found themselves in positions where they had to commit for or against Mogaba.

  The Taglians who had been with us from the beginning stuck with us. So did those who had deserted to join us. More came over from Mogaba’s side now but not a tenth as many as I expected. Tell the truth, I was disappointed. But Mogaba could make a hell of a speech to the troops when he wanted.

  “It’s that old time curse again,” Goblin told me. “Even now they’re more afraid of yesterday than they are of now.”

  And the water kept rising.

  I took the Nyueng Bao down into our warrens. Uncle Doj was amazed. “We never suspected.”

  “Good. Then neither do our enemies, whose brilliance is eclipsed by yours.” I brought the Old Crew inside, too. We packed people in as comfortably as we could. The warrens were quite spacious for sixty men. Adding six hundred Nyueng Bao did cramp things some.

  We had to learn to recognize one another, too. My men had been trained to strike instantly at any unfamiliar face encountered underground.

  I went back outside after darkness fell. Thai Dei and Uncle Doj dogged me. I assembled the Taglian officers who had attached themselves to the Old Crew. I told them, “I believe that we have done all we can here. I believe it is time to begin evacuating everyone who wants to get out of this hellhole.” I did not know why but was convinced that not much work would be required to evade or outwit the Shadowlander pickets ashore. “I will send one of my wizards to cover you.”

  They did not buy it. One captain wondered aloud if I intended to drive them into slavery so I could make it easier to feed my own men.

  I had not thought this through, had not considered possible difficulties. I had forgotten that many of these men had attached themselves to us only because they believed that that was their best shot at staying alive. “Never mind. If you guys want to stay and die with us we’ll be happy to have you. I was just trying to release you from your soldier’s oaths so you would have some chance.”

  After dark, too, we let the Nyueng Bao men go back home to look for salvage and survivors and stores. They did not find much. Mogaba’s soldiers had been thorough in their own search and the water had risen to cover everything.

  Mogaba’s men, using makeshift boats and rafts, began attacking Jaicuri occupied buildings one by one, harvesting stores forced out of hiding by the rising water.

  Mogaba had drowned his own supplies.

  73

  When I was sure nobody would notice I pulled all my brothers inside. We bolted up and locked up and left Dejagore to its misery. We took the Nyueng Bao survivors with us. Excepting a few men who kept watch from lookouts accessible only from inside we withdrew into the deepest, most hidden parts of the warrens, behind booby traps and secret doors and a web of confusion spells scattered by Goblin and One-Eye, who left only the occasional flicker of a doppelganger to mark our passing.

  I started out sharing my quarters with eight guests. After just a few hours I told Uncle Doj, “Let’s you and me take a walk.”

  With all those Nyueng Bao down there the air was stuffy and getting riper fast. Light was provided by candles so scattered you could get lost trekking from one to the next.

  Uncle Doj was close to being spooked. “I hate it, too,” I told him. “It keeps me riding the edge of a scream. But we’ll manage. We lived this way for years once.”

  “No one can live like this. Not for long.”

  “The Company did, though. It was a terrible place. It was called the Plain of Fear, with good reason. It was filled with weird creatures and every one of them would kill you in a blink. We were hunted constantly by armies led by wizards way worse than Shadowspinner. But we gutted it out. And we came through it. Right here in these tunnels you have five survivors who can tell you about it.”

  The light was too bad to read him, though that was difficult in broad daylight. I told him, “I’m going to go crazy if all of you stay with me. I need room. Nobody can get around without stepping on somebody right now.”

  “I understand. But I do not know how to help.”

  “We have empty rooms. Thai Dei and his baby can have one. You could. Sahra could share one with her mother.”

  He smiled. “You are open and honest but pay too little attention to Nyueng Bao ways. Many things happened the night you helped Thai Dei rescue this family.”

  I snorted. “Some rescue.”

  “You saved all who could be saved.”

  “What a good boy am I.”

  “You had neither an obligation nor any cause of honor.” In actuality he used honor and obligation in lieu of Nyueng Bao concepts of similar but not identical meaning which include overtones of free will participation in a divine machination.

  “I did what seemed like the right thing.”

  “Indeed. Without any appeal or obligation. Which caused your current predicament.”

  “I must be missing something.
”

  “Because you are not Nyueng Bao. Thai Dei will not leave you now. He is the oldest male. He owes you six lives. His baby will not leave him. Sahra will not leave because she must remain under her brother’s protection until she marries. And, as you can see, she may be a while getting through the horror. In this city, upon this pilgrimage she never wanted to make, she has lost everything that ever meant anything to her. Except her mother.”

  “A man might almost think the gods had it in for her,” I said, then hoped that did not sound too much like a wisecrack.

  “One might. Standardbearer, the only good thing she recalls about that hellnight is you. She will cling to you the way a desperate swimmer will cling to a rock in a rushing stream.”

  It was time to be careful. A big part of me wished her clinging was more than metaphorical. “How about Ky Gota and those other kids?”

  “The children can be adopted into the families of their mothers. Gota, surely, can move.” Doj continued muttering under his breath, which was uncharacteristic. Sounded like something about wanting to move her a couple thousand miles. “Though she will not take it well.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re less than enchanted with Ky Gota too?”

  “No one is enchanted with that ill-tempered lizard.”

  “And I once thought that you two were married.”

  He stopped cold, stunned. “You’re mad!”

  “I changed my mind, didn’t I?”

  “Hong Tray, old witch, what hast thou wished upon me?”

  “What?”

  “Talking to myself, Standardbearer. Engaging in the debate I cannot lose. That woman, Hong Tray, my mother’s cousin, was a witch. She could see into the future sometimes and if what she saw failed to please her she wanted it changed. And she had some strange ideas about that.”

  “I trust you know what you’re talking about.”

  He did not get it. “Not entirely. The witch toyed with all our destinies but never explained. Perhaps she was blind to her own fate.”

  I let myself be distracted. “What will your people do now?”

  “We will survive, Standardbearer. Like you Soldiers of Darkness, that is what we do.”

  “If you really think you owe me for stumbling in there with Thai Dei, tell me what that means. Soldiers of Darkness. Stone Soldier. Bone Warrior. What do they mean?”

  “One might almost accept your protestations.”

  “Look at it this way. If I do know what you’re talking about you have nothing to lose by telling me what I already know.”

  In that light it was hard to tell but I believe Uncle Doj smiled again. For the second time in one day. “Clever,” he said. And did not explain a thing.

  74

  Uncle Doj relieved me of most of my guests. I ended up sharing quarters with Thai Dei and his son To Tan, plus Sahra. Sahra helped with the baby and struggled to put together meals, though the Company kitchen could serve everyone in the warrens. She needed to stay busy. Thai Dei followed me almost everywhere. Both he and Sahra were lethargic and uncommunicative and added up to about half a human being between them.

  I began to worry. They belonged to a hardy people accustomed to surviving cruel disasters. They should show some signs of recovery.

  I assembled the brains of the outfit: Cletus, Loftus, Longinus, Goblin and One-Eye, Otto and Hagop. “I got some questions, troops.”

  “He got to be here?” Goblin meant Thai Dei.

  “He’s all right. Ignore him.”

  “What kind of questions?” One-Eye demanded.

  “So far we haven’t had any major health problems in the Company. But there’s cholera and typhoid out there, not to mention plenty of the old fashioned drizzling shits. We all right?”

  Goblin muttered something and passed gas loudly.

  “Barbarian,” One-Eye sneered. “We’re all right because we follow Croaker’s health rules like they was religious laws. Only we can’t make the rules stick much longer. We’re almost out of fuel. And these Nyueng Bao. They don’t like to bother boiling water and keeping clean and not shitting where they live. We got them going along right now but it ain’t going to last.”

  “It’s been overcast and nasty for a few days, I hear. Are we collecting any rainwater?”

  “Plenty for us,” Loftus told me. “But not enough for us and them, let alone getting any put back into the cisterns.”

  “I was afraid of that. About the fuel, I mean. You guys know any way to fix rice or beans so you can digest them without cooking them?”

  Nobody knew. Longinus suggested, “Maybe soaking them a long time in water might help. My mother did that.”

  “Damn. I really want us to get through this. But how?”

  Goblin seemed to develop a small secret smile at that, like he had a definite idea. He exchanged glances with One-Eye.

  “You guys got something?”

  “Not yet,” Goblin told me. “There’s an experiment we still have to try.”

  “Get on with it.”

  “After the meeting. We need you to help.”

  “Wonderful. All right. Can anyone tell me what the rest of the city thinks about our disappearance?”

  Hagop coughed, clearing his throat. He did not say much ordinarily so everybody paused to listen. “I been doing watches in the lookouts. Sometimes you can hear talk. I don’t think we done our reputation any good. Also, I don’t think we fooled anybody. They don’t talk about us much but nobody figures we just cut out. They think we found some way to dig a hole and fill it up with wine, women and food and pulled it in after us and we ain’t coming back out again till the rest of them are good and dead.”

  “Guys, I tried to get the wine, women and banquets but all I could come up with was the hole.”

  Out of nowhere, Otto said, “The water’s going down.”

  “What?”

  “It is, Murgen. It’s down five feet already.”

  “Would flooding the city make that much difference? No? Why’s that?”

  Goblin and One-Eye exchanged significant looks.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “After we do our experiment.”

  “All right. The rest of you guys. You know the problems. Go see if there’s anything we can do about them.”

  75

  “Talk to me,” I told the runt wizards.

  Goblin said, “We think something was done to you when you were out there.” He jerked his head shoreward.

  “What? Get serious! I...”

  “We are. You were gone a long time. And you changed. How many disappearing spells have you had since you got back?”

  I gave it an honest think. “Only one. Maybe. When I was kidnapped. I don’t remember anything about it. I’m sure they drugged me. I was drinking tea with the Speaker, then I was in that street where you found me. I have no idea how I got there. I have vague recollections of smelling smoke and going out a door which put me somewhere that I did not expect to be when I got to the other side. I vaguely remember thinking something about being in the house of pain.”

  “They tortured you.”

  “They did.” I still had the nicks and bruises to prove it. I had no idea what I might have been asked, if anything. I did suspect that Sindhu’s pals were behind my abduction and the attempt on Mogaba.

  If so, their life sure took an unpleasant turn when the Black Company found them.

  “We’ve been watching you,” Goblin said. “And you have been behaving pretty strange sometimes. What we want to do is put you to sleep and see if we can’t reach the part of you that was there when things happened.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “You don’t have to. You just have to cooperate.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “We’re sure.”

  He did not sound sure.

  I awakened on my own pallet. Not refreshed. Someone was wiping my hot face with a cold, wet cloth. I opened my eyes. In the light of one tiny candle Sahra looked more lovely than ever. She
looked better than imagination. She continued to wipe my face.

  I had another hangover type headache. What had they done? I ought at least to get the enjoyment that came before the pain.

  To Tan began to fuss. He slept in a basket of evil smelling rags beneath my writing table. I reached over and took his hand. He stopped crying, content to have human contact. He did not cry for his mother much anymore.

  I raised my other hand to take Sahra’s. She pushed it back gently. She never spoke. I never did hear her speak, not even to her own children.

  I looked around. Thai Dei was gone. Anymore it seemed I had a better chance of shaking my shadow. Thai Dei was there even in the dark.

  I started to sit up. Sahra held me down with two fingers. I was too weak to do anything. And my head felt like it doubled in size just rising that foot.

  Sahra offered me a hand-carved wooden cup filled with something that smelled so foul my eyes watered. Nyueng Bao swamp medicine. I drank. It tasted worse than it smelled.

  She continued to mop my face. I shivered and shook. The pain went away. I began to relax, to feel both energetic and positive. That was good stuff. Maybe they made it smell and taste bad so people would not take it all the time.

  We stared at one another a long time, saying nothing but reaching a decision our conscious minds did not entirely recognize at the moment. Hong Tray drifted across my thoughts with a smile and an admonition.

  This time I managed a smile when I sat up. Unchallenged. “I have work to do.”

  Sahra shook her head. She fished under the table for To Tan, dug him out of his basket. He was in desperate need of changing. Sahra tugged my finger.

  “I haven’t done this in twenty years.” Not since I was a kid myself and had baby brothers and sisters and cousins to change. “Stop wiggling, you little turd. You ought to know the drill by now.” To Tan looked back at me with serious big eyes, not understanding my words but catching my tone.

  We got him cleaned up and clothed again, in rags that would have embarrassed a beggar. I told Sahra, “I’ll go kill somebody, get him something better to wear.”