The Return of the Black Company

by Cook, Glen

  I stopped worrying about me and went to work worrying about how we would look after the raid was over. If we blew it we could not blame that on Taglian treachery or factionalism or incompetence, the usual sand in the machine.

  I reached the crest of a low ridge. My hands were frozen but my body was wet inside my clothing. Light wavered ahead. The Deceivers, those lucky bastards, had a bonfire to keep them warm. I paused to listen. I heard nothing.

  How did the Old Man know the leaders of the Strangler bands would gather for this particular festival? It was downright spooky the way he knew stuff sometimes. Maybe Lady was rubbing off. Maybe he had some magical talent he never mentioned.

  I observed, “We’re about to find out if Goblin still has that talent.”

  Thai Dei did not spend a precious grunt. Silence was comment enough.

  * * *

  There were supposed to be thirty to forty top Deceivers over there. We hunt them relentlessly and have done so since Narayan snatched Lady and Croaker’s baby. The Old Man has eliminated mercy from the Company vocabulary. And that fits Deceiver philosophy perfectly, though I would bet those guys up ahead would not think that way in a minute.

  Goblin still had the knack. The sentries were napping. Still, inevitably, all did not go as planned.

  I was fifty feet from the bonfire, sneaking along beside this especially big, ugly shelter when somebody went heeling and toeing out its end like all the devils in Hell were after him. He bent under the weight of a big bundle. That bundle wriggled and whimpered.

  “Narayan Singh!” I knew him instantly. “Stop!”

  Right, Murgen. Freeze him with your voice.

  The rest of the guys recognized him too. A yell went up. We could not believe our luck, though I had been warned that the big prize might be there to grab. Singh was the number one Deceiver, the villain Lady and the Captain want to spend long years killing, an inch at a time.

  The bundle had to be their daughter.

  I yelled orders. Instead of responding the men did whatever they thought of. Mostly they went after Singh. The racket wakened the rest of the Deceivers. The quickest tried to run.

  Luckily, some of the guys stayed on the job.

  “You warm now?” Goblin asked. I puffed heartily as I watched Thai Dei shove a skinny blade into the eye of a sleep-befuddled Strangler. Thai Dei doesn’t cut throats. He doesn’t like the mess.

  It was over. “How many did we get? How many got away?” I stared the direction Singh had fled. The silence there was not promising. The guys would have raised a real hoorah had they caught him.

  Damn! I was excited for a while there. If only I could have dragged him back to Taglios.… If wishes were fishes. “Keep some alive. We’ll want somebody to tell us bedtime stories. One-Eye. How the hell did Singh all of a sudden know we were here?”

  The runt shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe his goddess goosed him and told him to haul ass.”

  “Give me a break. Kina didn’t have anything to do with it.” But I wasn’t that sure. Sometimes it is hard to disbelieve.

  Thai Dei gestured.

  “Right,” I said. “Just what I was thinking myself.”

  One-Eye looked puzzled. Goblin grumbled, “What?” My wizards. Right on top of everything.

  “Sometimes I wonder if you guys could find your dicks without a map. The shelter, old-timers. The shelter. Don’t it seem like that’s an awful lot of shack for one runt killer and a kid barely tall enough to bite you on the kneecap? A bit big even for a living saint and the daughter of a goddess?”

  One-Eye developed a nasty grin. “Nobody else came out, did they? Yeah. You want I should start a fire?”

  Before I could answer him Goblin squealed. I whirled. A shapeless darkness, visible only because of the bonfire, reared out of the shelter entrance—then I slammed into the ground, felled by Thai Dei. Fire blasted over my head. Lights crackled. Balls of flame darted in from all around.

  The killing darkness took on a moth-eaten look. Then it came apart.

  That darkness was why so many of us had been shivering before the attack. But we won this round.

  I sat up, crooked a finger. “Let’s see what we’ve caught. It ought to be interesting.” My guys knocked the shelter apart. Sure enough, they turned up a half dozen wrinkled little old men, brown as chestnuts. “Shadowweavers. Running with the Stranglers. Now isn’t that interesting?”

  The geezers gobbled their willingness to surrender.

  We had run into their kind before. They never were big on personal heroics.

  A soldier called Wishbone said, “These Shadowlanders are getting good at this ‘I surrender’ stuff.” He sneered. “Everybody down there must be practicing their handy Taglian phrases.”

  “Except Longshadow,” I reminded. I told Thai Dei, “Thanks.”

  He shrugged, a gesture foreign to the Nyueng Bao. The world did touch him occasionally. “Sahra would expect it.”

  And that was very Nyueng Bao. He would blame his actions on his sister’s expectations rather than on any notion of duty or obligation or even friendship.

  “What are we supposed to do with these guys?” Wishbone asked. “We got any use for them?”

  “Save a couple. The oldest and one other. Goblin. You never said how many got away.”

  “Three. That counts Singh but not the kid. But we’re going to get one of them three back on account of he’s hiding in the bushes right over there.”

  “Collect him. I’ll give him to the Old Man.”

  Sarky One-Eye cracked, “Give them a little authority, they turn into field marshals. I remember this kid when he was so green he still had sheep shit between his toes. He didn’t know what shoes were for.” But the humor wasn’t in his eye. Every move I made he watched like a hawk. Like a crow, in fact, although we had no crows hanging around tonight. Whatever experiment Goblin and One-Eye had going in that area was a complete success during this outing.

  Goblin suggested, “Ease up, Murgen. We’ll get the job done. How about some of you lazy asses toss a couple logs on the fire?” He began to circle the hidden Deceiver in the direction opposite that taken by One-Eye.

  They were right. I get too serious under stress. I was a thousand years old already. Surviving Dejagore had not been easy. But all the rest of these guys had come through that, too. They had seen Mogaba’s slaughters of innocents. They had suffered the pestilences and plagues. They had seen the cannibalism and human sacrifices, the treacheries and betrayals and all the rest. And they had come away without letting the nightmares rule them.

  I have to get a handle on it. I have to get some emotional distance and perspective. But there is something going on inside me that is beyond my control or understanding. Sometimes I feel like there are several of me in there, all mixed up, sometimes sitting behind the real me watching, watching. There may be no chance for me to recover complete sanity and stability.

  Goblin came strutting back. He and One-Eye accompanied a man who was not much more than skin and bones. Few Deceivers are in good shape these days. They have no friends anywhere. They are hunted like vermin. Huge bounties ride on their shoulders.

  Goblin flashed his toadlike grin. “We’ve got us a red-hand man here, Murgen. A genuine black rumel guy with the red palm. What do you think of that?”

  The thought lightened my heart. The prisoner was truly a top Strangler. The red hand meant that he had been there when Narayan Singh tricked Lady into thinking she was being inducted into the Strangler cult when in fact the Deceivers were really consecrating her unborn child as daughter of their goddess Kina.

  But Lady had employed a trick of her own, marking every Strangler there with the red hand that could not be denied later. Nothing they tried would take the color away, short of amputation. And a one-handed Strangler could not manage the rumel, the strangling scarf, that was the tool of the Deceivers’ holy trade.

  “The Old Man will be pleased.” A red-hand man would know what was going on inside his cult.


  I crowded closer to the fire. Thai Dei, done helping dispose of redundant shadowweavers, eased in beside me. How much had Dejagore changed him? I could not imagine him ever being anything but dour, taciturn, remorseless and pitiless, even as a toddler.

  Goblin, I noted, was doing that thing he did lately where he watched me from the corner of his eye while pretending to do something else. What were he and One-Eye looking for?

  The runt held his hands out. “Fire feels good.”

  15

  Paranoia has become our way of life. We have become the new Nyueng Bao. We trust no one. We let no one outside the Black Company know what we are doing until we are sure what the response will be. In particular we prefer keeping the Prahbrindrah Drah and his sister, the Radisha Drah, our employers, way back there in the deep dark shadows.

  They are not to be trusted at all, ever, except to serve their own closest interests.

  I smuggled my prisoners into the city and hid them in a warehouse near the river, a Company-friendly Shadar fish place possessed of a very distinctive air. My men scattered to their families or someplace where they could drink beer. I was satisfied. With one quick, nasty stab we had decimated the surviving Deceiver leadership. We almost got that fiend Narayan Singh. I got within spitting distance of Croaker’s baby. In all honesty I could report that she seemed all right.

  Thai Dei knocked the prisoners to their knees, wrinkled his nose.

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “But this place don’t stink half as bad as your swamp does.” Taglios claims the river delta but the Nyueng Bao disagree.

  Thai Dei grunted. He could take a joke as well as the next guy.

  He does not look like much. He is a foot shorter than I am. I outweigh him by eighty pounds. And I am far prettier. He has crudely cropped black hair that sticks out in unkempt spikes. Skinny, lantern-jawed, taciturn and surly, Thai Dei is entirely unappetizing. But he does his job.

  A Shadar fishmonger brought the Captain to us. Croaker was getting old. We were going to have to call him Boss or Chief or something. You cannot call the Captain the Old Man once he’s really old, can you?

  He was dressed like a Shadar cavalryman, all turban, beard and plain grey clothing. He eyed Thai Dei coolly. He did not have a Nyueng Bao bodyguard himself. He loathed the idea despite his having to disguise himself whenever he wanted to walk the streets alone. Bodyguards are not traditional. Croaker is stubborn about Company traditions.

  Hell, the Shadowmaster’s officers all employ bodyguards. Some have several. They could not survive without them.

  Thai Dei reflected Croaker’s gaze impassively, unimpressed by the presence of the great dictator. He might say, “He is one man. I am one man. We begin even.”

  Croaker examined my prizes. “Tell it.”

  I told it. “But I missed Narayan. I was this close. That bastard has a guardian angel. There’s no way he should have slipped Goblin’s sleep spell. We chased him for two days but even Goblin and One-Eye couldn’t hang onto his track forever.”

  “He had help. Maybe from his guardian demon. Maybe from his new buddy the Shadowmaster, too.”

  “How come they went back to the grove? How did you know they would be there?”

  I thought he would say a big black bird told him.

  They are less numerous these days but the crows still follow him everywhere. He talks to them. Sometimes they talk to him, too. So he says.

  “They had to come someday, Murgen. They are slaves to their religion.”

  But why this particular Festival of Lights? How did you know?

  I did not press. You don’t press Croaker. He has grown cranky and secretive in his old age. In his own Annals he did not always tell the whole truth about personal things, his age especially.

  He kicked the shadowweaver. “One of Longshadow’s pet spook doctors. You’d think he wouldn’t have enough left to waste them anymore.”

  “I don’t reckon he expected us to jump them.”

  Croaker tried to smile. He produced a nasty, sarcastic sneer instead. “He’s got lots of surprises coming.” He kicked the Deceiver. “Let’s don’t hide them. Let’s take them to the Palace. What’s the matter?”

  Ice had blasted my back, like I was out on the wind of the Grove of Doom again. I didn’t know why but I had a grim sense of foreboding.

  “I don’t know. You’re the boss. Anything special you want in the Annals?”

  “You’re the Annalist now, Murgen. You write what you have to write. I can always bitch.” Unlikely. I send everything over but I don’t think much gets read. He asked, “What was special about the raid?”

  “It was colder than a well-digger’s ass out there.”

  “And that walking sack of camel snot Narayan Singh got away from us again. So that’s what you write. Him and his kind are going to get back into our story before we’re done. When we’re roasting him, I hope. Did you see her? Was she all right?”

  “All I saw really was a bundle that Singh carried. I think it was her.”

  “Had to be. He never lets her out of his sight.” He pretended he did not care. “Bring them to the Palace.” That chill hit me again. “I’ll make sure the guards know you’re coming.”

  Thai Dei and I exchanged looks. This might get tough. People in the streets would recognize the prisoners. And the prisoners might have friends. And for sure they did have enemies by the thousand. They might not survive the trip. Or we might not.

  The Old Man said, “Tell your wife I said hello and I hope she likes the new apartment.”

  “Sure.” I shivered. Thai Dei frowned at me.

  Croaker produced a sheaf of papers rolled into a tube. “This came in from Lady while you were gone. It’s for the Annals.”

  “Someone must have died.”

  He grinned. “Bang it around and fit it in. But don’t polish it so much she gets all righteous again. I can’t stand it when she flays me with my own arguments.”

  “I learned the first time.”

  “One-Eye says he thinks he knows where he left his papers from when he thought he was going to have to keep the Annals.”

  “I’ve heard that one before.”

  Croaker grinned again, then ducked out.

  16

  Four hundred men and five elephants swarmed around an incomplete stockade. The nearest friendly outpost lay a hard day’s march northward. Shovels gnawed the earth. Hammers pounded. Elephants swung timbers off wagons and helped set them upright. Only the oxen stood around, lazing in their harnesses.

  This nameless post was barely a day old, the newest point in the relentless Taglian leapfrog into the Shadowlands. Only its watchtower was complete. The lookout there scanned the southern horizon intently. There was an electric urgency in the air, a heaviness like the smell of old death, a premonition.

  The soldiers were all veterans. Not a one considered fleeing his nerves. Each had developed the habit and expectation of victory.

  The sentinel began to gaze fixedly. “Captain!”

  A man distinct for his coloring dropped a shovel, looked up. His true name was Cato Dahlia. The Black Company called him Big Bucket. Wanted for common theft in his home city, he had become advisor-commander of a battalion of Taglian border rangers. He was a hardass leader with a reputation for getting his jobs done and bringing his people back alive.

  Bucket scrambled onto the observation platform, puffing. “What have you got?”

  The lookout pointed. Bucket squinted. “Help me out here, son. These eyes ain’t what they used to be.” He could see nothing but the low humped backs of the Loghra Hills. Scattered clouds hung above those.

  “Watch.”

  Bucket trusted his soldiers. He selected them carefully. He watched.

  One small cloud hung lower than the others, dragging a slanting shadow. This rogue thunderhead did not travel the same direction as the rest of its family.

  “Headed right for us?”

  “Looks like it, sir.”

  Bucket relie
d on his intuition. It had served him well during this war without major battles. And intuition told him that cloud was dangerous.

  He descended, spread word to expect an attack. The men of the construction company, although not combat soldiers, did not want to withdraw. Sometimes Bucket’s reputation worked against him. His rangers had prospered, freebooting across the frontier. Others wanted a share.

  Bucket compromised. He sent one platoon north with the animals, which were too valuable to risk. The other workers stayed. They overturned their wagons in the gaps in the stockade.

  * * *

  The cloud advanced steadily. Nothing could be seen inside its shadow and tail of falling rain. A chill ran before it. The Taglian soldiers shivered and pranced to keep warm.

  Two hundred yards beyond the ditch, teams of two men shivered in covered, concealed pits lighted by special candles. One man maintained a watch.

  Rain and darkness arrived. Behind the initial few yards of downpour the rain slackened to a drizzle. Men appeared. They looked old and sad, ragged and pale, vacant and hopeless, hunched against the chill. They looked as though they had spent their entire lives in the rain. They bore their rusting weapons without spirit. They could have been an army raised from the dead.

  Their line passed the pits. Behind them came horsemen of the same sort, advancing like zombies. Next came massed infantry. Then came the elephants.

  The men in the pits spied the elephants. They used crossbows to speed poisoned shafts. The elephants wore no belly armor. The poison caused intense pain. The maddened beasts rampaged through their own formations. The Shadowlanders had no idea why the animals were enraged.

  Little shadows found the pits. They tried to slither inside. Candlelight drove them back. They left a deeper chill and a smell of death behind.

  The shadows found a pit where rain had gotten to the candle. They left shrieking, grimacing death in a grave already dug. Lady encountered the northbound laborers. She questioned them, considered the cloud in the distance. “This may be what we’re after,” she told her companions. “Ride!” She urged her stallion to a gallop. Foaled in sorcerous stables when she was empress of the north, that giant black outdistanced the rest of her party quickly.