Dark Company

by Natale Ghent

  The man and horse wove slowly toward them, stopping not ten feet from where they hid. Caddy held her breath. The horse stamped and blew. It pawed the ground, champing on the bit and tossing its head at the scent of blood. The man’s eyes skimmed over them, hunting, and for a quick second she was sure they’d been seen. A high whistle penetrated the rain, and the man turned his horse and disappeared into the forest again.

  Caddy exhaled, though there was little to be relieved about. Poe was bleeding worse than before. There was no time to waste.

  “I’ll come back with April,” she told him. “Hold on.” If April was still there. The men could have gotten to her already.

  But April was sitting exactly where Caddy had left her.

  “I found Poe,” Caddy said.

  April lifted her head. “Where?”

  “We have to help him. He’s in bad shape.” Caddy put her hand on April’s arm. “The Company men are out there. Keep your eyes open.”

  April started to panic. “Maybe we should wait until it’s safe …”

  “There’s no time. We have to go now.”

  April walked on Caddy’s heels, matching her footsteps as they scouted back through the woods. When they reached Poe, April took one look at him and fell apart.

  “Oh, no …” She covered her face with her hands.

  “Help me lift him,” Caddy said.

  April choked and sobbed. “He’s dead … he’s dead …”

  “Pull yourself together,” Caddy told her. “He’s not dead. But he will be if we don’t do something, now.”

  April looked blindly around. “We need to find the others …”

  “The others can’t help us. It’s just you and me. Understand?”

  April continued to cry.

  Caddy shook her. “Do you understand?”

  April nodded, simpering.

  “Good. Now, help me get him to his feet.”

  Poe cried out in pain as they took his arms, hoisting him clumsily to his knees. He lost consciousness, his body going limp.

  “He’s too heavy,” April said. “We’re killing him.”

  “We need to find a better spot for him.” Caddy pointed to a large spruce tree. “Over there.”

  Gasping from the effort, hands wet and slipping, they dragged Poe through the mud, his head lolling, his feet twisting unnaturally over the ground. At the spruce, they hunched below its boughs, knees buried in the bed of brown needles beneath its branches, and tugged Poe by inches under the shelter of the tree.

  Caddy held her ear to his mouth.

  “Is he dead?” April asked.

  “He’s still breathing.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “You stay with Poe. I’m going to search for shelter. We found one farmhouse, maybe we can find another.”

  April looked like she was going to cry again. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to come with you.”

  “No. I can move faster alone. And someone has to stay with Poe.”

  “I’m hungry,” April said.

  “Me too.” Caddy squeezed her hand. “Stay hidden. And don’t come out unless you’re absolutely certain it’s safe.”

  Caddy had no idea where to go, only that she would move in a direction and hope for the best. She was counting on the rain to conceal her movements, though it would make it difficult for her to find her way back. She would rather have stayed under the spruce tree with Poe, but she couldn’t rely on April for anything.

  The forest floor dipped and rose. The mud sucked at her sneakers. After several miles Caddy stopped beside a boulder and pushed the strands of wet hair from her eyes. She was certain she saw movement. The trees seemed to breathe around her. She scanned the woods and a man’s face popped out of the rain. Caddy shouted, stumbling back, her feet sliding over the ground. The man was on her in seconds. He grabbed her arm and spun her around, grunting when her closed fist caught him in the chest. It was Red.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  “We need help,” Caddy blurted out. “Poe’s been hurt. He’s back a couple miles through the woods. April’s with him.”

  “We have them,” Red said. “Come with me.”

  Caddy pulled away from him. “I won’t go without them.”

  “They’re waiting for you.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  Caddy refused to move. How did she know he was telling the truth?

  “We found them under the spruce tree,” he said, giving her just enough information to change her mind. “That boy doesn’t look so good. If you want to waste time out here in the rain, be my guest.” He walked away.

  Caddy chased after him, struggling to keep up. Red moved as sure as a fox through the woods, his steps quick and light for such a big man. And he saw things she didn’t. Several times he made her hide until it was safe to continue. They went on like this, trekking to the base of a huge escarpment. Hugging the rock, they laced in and out of the pine trees to a stone outcropping the shape of a shark’s tooth.

  “In here,” he said.

  Caddy hesitated. Had she made the right decision in following him? What was the point of questioning her choice now? She squeezed through the opening in the rock. There was no light. She trailed Red closely. After twenty feet or so, they came upon a slender fracture in the rock. They pushed through the gap, faces turned, hands feeling the stone. It was so restricting Caddy was afraid she’d get stuck again.

  “How did you get Poe through here?” she asked.

  “We took him another way.”

  “There’s another way?”

  “There are many.”

  “Why didn’t you take us all together?”

  “Better to go separate ways in case someone follows.”

  The passage abruptly opened into a deep cavern. Red lit a match and held it to a length of waxed rope. The cave walls jumped into the foreground, glittering with diamonds.

  “Mineral deposits,” he said, when he saw the look on her face.

  The rope torch threw moving shadows as they walked, the dark swelling and receding around them. Where the cave tapered, Red stopped and doused the light. He took her by the arm and pulled her in front.

  “Go down here.”

  “Where?”

  “In the hole.”

  Caddy couldn’t see a thing. She squatted, the blood thumping in her ears, her hands shaking as she felt around for the edge of the opening. Please, don’t let the bad feeling come, she prayed. Red nudged her to move. Caddy stuck her feet down the hole. They swung free.

  “There’s no bottom,” she said.

  He nudged her again. “Go.”

  Caddy pushed off, sliding down a kind of chute, her back scraping against the rough surface the entire way. At the bottom, she fell, bashing her hands and knees against the rock. She groaned softly. A small chink of light perforated the dark. She was in a corridor. It was cold and damp. Water dripped a slow rhythm against the stone. She winced as she stood, and with hardly enough time to jump out of the way as Red came plowing down behind her. He landed easily on his feet, fumbled a set of brass skeleton keys from his pocket and jerked his head for her to follow.

  At the end of the corridor was a small door. It looked ancient, with heavy, hand-forged hinges, and metal straps holding the wood together. It had a series of locks—seven in total—and Red set to work opening them. Some were turned, only to be relocked as others were opened. Caddy tried to memorize the pattern but it was too complex, and Red’s hands were a blur, they moved so quickly.

  At last, when all the locks were released, Red pulled the door open. It complained loudly, creaking like the hull of an old ship.

  “Go,” he said.

  Caddy stepped into a dimly lit hallway. Red closed the door, securing the locks in another flurry of keys and turns. When he was finished, he stashed the keys back in his pocket and escorted her along the hall to an empty room.

  “Stay here.”

  “No,” Caddy s
aid. She hadn’t come all this way to sit alone in a room. “You said I could see Poe.”

  He towered over her. “You will stay here.”

  “Take me to Poe,” she demanded.

  Skylark found the Speaker on his throne. Behind him, in rows on shelves that stretched out and back upon themselves in endless reflection, tinkled millions of tiny coloured glass vials. She approached, soundless as a prowling lion. In his hand, the Speaker held a vial. The mist inside was violet. Skylark felt a remote twinge at the sight of it. She knew the vial contained the soul of the mouse she called Sebastian, her connection to him now a cold memory.

  She knelt before her master, bowing in submission. “I am yours to command, Father.”

  The Speaker placed his hand on her head, his voice spellbinding. “My child … you are the fulfillment of a long-held dream.”

  Skylark looked into his frozen eyes. She could see only him—she wanted to please only him. Still, deep inside her, there was doubt. “Must there be destruction, Father?”

  The Speaker rolled Sebastian’s soul vial between his fingers. “It is the way of all things. There can be no beginning without an end.”

  She lowered her face though she could not hide the worry that plagued her. The Speaker understood.

  “You are concerned for him—the one you call Poe.”

  “Yes, Father. I feel him close to me, closer than ever before.”

  “As do I, child. His mind is one with ours.”

  “What is to become of him?”

  He stroked her hair and she purred at his caress. “He shall be yours if that is what you desire.”

  “Forever?”

  “For all eternity.”

  Skylark kissed his hand, overwhelmed with gratitude.

  “The forces are gathering,” he said. “We are stronger than ever before. Soon you will see the power of the Dark, my love.”

  “The Light has power too, Father. I have seen the legions. They are strong and many. Even now they prepare for war.”

  “The earth is weak, child. The humans will destroy one another. It will advance our cause.”

  “Will Poe join us?”

  “When the Dark has devoured the Light, he will be yours.”

  His words ignited her soul, his promise the most precious of gifts. She wanted to repay him in kind. “I know a secret, Father, about the one they call Kenji.”

  His eyes burned into hers. “Speak, child, and let it be known.”

  TRUST AND TREACHERY

  Poe was on a cot in a small room, delirious with fever, the arrow embedded in his side. Next to the cot was a large, sober-faced woman in a white kerchief and a long blue cotton skirt. She was mixing something in a stone bowl. April stood in one corner of the room, bundled in a red wool blanket. She saw Caddy and ran to her, throwing her arms around her neck.

  “It’s so awful,” she sniffed. “They’re afraid to pull the arrow out in case something bad happens. They’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  Caddy walked across the room and sat beside Poe, laying her hand gently on his forehead. “He’s burning up.” She eased the bloodied fabric of his shirt to one side of the wound. The skin was black and necrotic. The icy filaments from the arrow had spread across his abdomen. “We have to remove it.”

  The sober-faced woman turned to Red, and some unspoken exchange took place.

  “Everybody leave,” she abruptly said.

  “I’m staying,” Caddy told her.

  “The procedure could kill him.”

  “He’ll die if we don’t do it.”

  The woman conceded. “The shaft can’t be broken—we’ve tried.” She set the stone mixing bowl next to some rough-woven cloth bandages and a brown stoppered bottle on a small wooden table by the bed. Beside this was a pitcher of water, a roll of gauze, a drinking glass, a plain silver teaspoon and some bread. “I don’t know what the arrow is made of. Nothing I’ve ever seen. We’ll have to pull the whole thing through, fletching and all. It won’t be kind.”

  “We have no choice,” Caddy said.

  The woman gathered her skirt and leaned over Poe. “Help me shift him.”

  Poe moaned as they moved him closer to the edge of the bed. Caddy clasped his hand. The woman wrapped the tip of the arrow in a length of cloth. She secured her footing, nodded at Caddy, and pulled. Poe shouted and fell unconscious. The arrow resisted, clinging to his flesh before giving way. The fletching drew through, bloodied and wet as a hatchling. As soon as it was free the arrow disintegrated to a fine dust. The woman stepped back, mystified, staring at her hands as though she’d seen a ghost. Poe groaned and the woman quickly collected herself, reaching for the stone bowl. Inside was a thick, yellowish-green gruel.

  “What is it?” Caddy asked.

  “A poultice. Comfrey leaves, scalded milk, and garlic.” The woman stirred the bowl with a whittled willow branch, clucking and muttering under her breath.

  Caddy inspected Poe’s wound. It looked worse. “Will the poultice work?”

  “It’ll pull the poison out, I hope.” The woman spread a thick layer of the gruel on a piece of bread and covered it with a square of cloth. Pressing it over the wound, she secured it with strips of gauze. “Now, we pray,” she said, drawing a frayed quilt over Poe.

  “What about infection?” Caddy asked.

  The woman handed her the brown stoppered bottle from the table. “Give him a teaspoon of this tincture in a small bit of water every four hours. There’s water and a glass on the table.” She retrieved the stone bowl and left the room.

  Caddy measured out the tincture and poured it in the glass with some water. Supporting Poe’s head with one hand, she held the glass to his lips. He sipped the fluid weakly, mumbling through his delirium. Caddy was sure more than once she heard him call for Meg.

  “Rest now,” she said, easing his head onto the pillow.

  Red appeared, standing in the doorway. “Come with me.”

  “No,” Caddy refused. “I won’t leave him.”

  “There are things you must know. People you must meet.”

  “I won’t go.”

  Red left and came back with the sober-faced woman. She fixed her small dark eyes on Caddy. “I’ll watch him like he was my own,” she said.

  Caddy was outnumbered. She took the time to smooth the hair on Poe’s forehead before following Red from the room. They walked down the hall. It was lit by candles in tin sconces along the walls. They reached an arched wooden door, not as old as the one with many locks, but close. Red opened it. Caddy stopped dead on the threshold to the room. Her hand flew to her safe stone. Hex was there, sitting half-seen in the shadows in a worn, overstuffed chair.

  “Come closer,” she said.

  Caddy turned to Red for an explanation. Was she the next to be punished? He nodded at her to comply. She took a tentative step. Hex leaned into the candlelight and Caddy stared at her in confusion. It wasn’t her after all. It was a woman who looked just like her. Was this some kind of trick? The woman was missing her left eye—just like Hex—though she didn’t hide the barren socket behind a pair of dark glasses. She motioned toward a low wooden stool.

  “Please, sit.”

  Caddy perched on the stool, stupefied. Now that she was closer, she could see that the woman’s face was beautiful, like Hex’s, though older. She spoke with a Russian accent too, but less pronounced. Her eye, the one remaining, was blue as a robin’s egg. Around her neck she wore a burnished gold pendant of a tree in a circle. It glimmered in the candlelight.

  “I … I don’t understand,” Caddy said.

  “We’re happy you’re here. We had hoped for this.” The woman’s voice was soothing. Sincere. There was honesty in it. Still, Caddy remained guarded.

  “You’re perplexed,” the woman said. “It’s not your fault. I have a lot of explaining to do.” She settled back in her chair. “We call ourselves Weavers of Light. We are the true Dreamers.”

  Caddy shot Red a questioning look.

&
nbsp; The woman understood. “You’re wise to be cautious. There are wheels within wheels. It makes one circumspect. I can only show you what we are. I can’t convince you to stay, though I hope you will. You have an exceptional ability. We’d be blessed to have you join us.”

  “I don’t like being held prisoner,” Caddy said.

  “There are no prisoners here. You’re free to go. I only ask one thing … that you stay long enough to meet us before you make your decision.”

  Her show of kindness filled Caddy with contempt. Here was another person telling her she had choices when clearly she didn’t. “Why should I trust you? How do I know you’re not the imposter?”

  “I can only hope your heart will lead you to the truth,” the woman said.

  “The truth? I’ve been drugged, starved, hunted like a dog. I’ve seen people killed. My father may be dead. I don’t know what the truth is anymore.”

  The woman listened sympathetically. “I’m sorry for your pain. We tried to reach you earlier. But there were … complications. The Dreamers got to you first. It made things difficult. We had to take a chance, wait for the right moment. We couldn’t risk exposure.”

  Caddy had heard enough. She was so tired, so wrung out. She rested her elbows on her knees, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “It’s purposefully complex,” the woman said. “Hex and the Company have created an elaborate ruse, a skillful trap. They took what they knew of our society and replicated it to catch as many Dreamers as they can. Without the Dreamers, there is no dream. Without the dream, the Emptiness is certain.”

  Caddy met her gaze at the mention of the Emptiness. “So, what you’re saying is that Hex is a liar and a murderer …”

  “Quite simply, yes.”

  Caddy pointed at Red. “Then what’s he doing here?”

  “Red is a Cheyenne elder, a deep operative. Among his people, he is known as Tatananayaho—he who sees far into the distance. He works both sides to our advantage. He’s very good at what he does. We would have never gotten as far as we have without him.”