The Return of the Black Company

by Cook, Glen

  A handful of horsemen drifted toward town. Among them was a blob of darkness that had to be Shadowspinner. He was staying busy. Pink fireflies swarmed around him. He had trouble fending them off.

  As though they realized their boss would be in a foul temper when he got back, the southerners’ attack suddenly picked up.

  “I’m not sure,” Goblin mused. He sounded like he had been scared sober. “I can’t get any sense of the one in the Lifetaker armor. There’s a shitload of power there, though.”

  “Lady had no power left,” I reminded him.

  “The other one does feel like Croaker.”

  Couldn’t be.

  Wheezer finally gasped, “Mogaba…”

  Several men spat at mention of the name. Everybody had an opinion about our fearless war chief. Listening to them you might have concluded that Mogaba was the most lusted after man in town.

  A writhing pink thread reached for Shadowspinner’s party. The Shadowmaster batted it away from himself but it slew half his party. Parts of bodies flew in all directions.

  “Shee-it!” somebody said, pretty much capturing the popular feeling.

  Wheezer barked, “Mogaba … wants to know … if we can free up … a few hundred men to … counterattack the enemy who … are inside the city.”

  “How stupid does that bastard think we are?” Sparkle grumbled.

  Goblin asked, “Don’t that camel’s wife know we’re on to him?”

  “Why should he think we might suspect him? He’s got such a tall opinion of his own brain.…”

  “I think it’s funny,” Bucket crowed. “He tried to screw us and only ended up with his own ass in a sling. Even better, maybe the only way he can pry it out is to have us do it for him.”

  I asked Goblin, “What’s One-Eye up to?” One-Eye looked like he was praying over one of the ballistas with Loftus. Rags lay scattered around their feet. A gruesome black spear lay in the engine’s trough.

  “I don’t know.”

  I checked the nearest gate. The Nar there could see us. Mogaba would know I was lying if I claimed we were too beat up to send help. I asked, “Anybody think of a reason we should help Mogaba?” To hold my sector, besides the Old Crew itself, I had six hundred Taglian survivors from Lady’s division and an uncertain and changeable number of liberated slaves, former prisoners of war and ambitious Jaicuri.

  Everyone replied in the negative. Nobody wanted to help Mogaba. As I approached the engines I asked, “How about if we do it just to save our own butts? If we let Mogaba get stomped we could end up facing the rest of the Shadowlander mob by ourselves.” I glanced at the gate. “And those people over there can see everything we do.”

  Goblin looked, too. He shook his head to lessen the beer buzz. “We’ll have to think about that.”

  “What are you doing, One-Eye?” I was beside him now.

  One-Eye indicated the spear proudly. “Little something I’ve been working on in my spare time.”

  “It’s ugly enough.” Nice to know he could do something useful without being told.

  He had begun with a black wooden pole and had worked it for a lot of hours. It was covered with incredibly ugly miniature scenes along with writing in an unfamiliar alphabet. Its head was as black as its shaft, darkened iron finely traced with silver runes. There was some color on the shaft, too, although so fine as to be almost invisible.

  “Very nice.”

  “Nice?” Sigh. “You heathen.” He pointed. Loftus looked. So did I.

  Shadowspinner’s party, sadly depleted, surrounded by swarms of pink sparkles and mocking crows, was getting close.

  One-Eye snickered. “This here is my Shadowmaster blaster, bastar’!” He howled. He must have put away a lot of that beer. “Nothing he couldn’t stop on a lazy afternoon, but this ain’t no lazy afternoon, is it? Loftus shoots, this stick won’t be in the air five seconds. That’s all the time he’ll have to figure out what’s coming and what to do to unravel the spells that are there to keep him from turning it. And look how busy that asshole is already. Loftus, my man, get ready to carve you a big victory notch on this thing.”

  As anybody with any sense does, Loftus ignored One-Eye. He laid his weapon with an artist’s care.

  One-Eye babbled, “Most of the spells are designed to penetrate his personal protection, counting on him not having time to do anything actively. Because I wanted to concentrate on piercing one point in a passive…”

  I shut him out. “Goblin. Any chance this will work? The runt’s not exactly a heavyweight.”

  “It’s workable, tactically. If he really worked that hard on it. Say One-Eye is an order of magnitude weaker than Shadowspinner. That really only means that it takes him ten times as long to get the same work done.”

  “An order of magnitude?” So that was One-Eye’s problem.

  “More like two orders really, probably.”

  He lost me. And I didn’t have time to wring an explanation out of him.

  Loftus was satisfied he was leading his target perfectly, he had the range, whatever. “Time,” he said.

  28

  “Loose,” I suggested.

  The ballista offered its distinctive thump. Silence spread along the wall. The black shaft darted across the night. The occasional spark floated behind it. One-Eye said five seconds of flight. The truth was more like four but they took forever.

  There was ample firelight to illuminate the Shadowmaster. Shortly he would disappear behind one of the enfilading towers. He stared back at the hills as he rode. Those bizarre riders out there were on the plain now, daring someone, anyone, to answer their challenge.

  I gasped.

  Widowmaker carried the Lance. The standard itself was not apparent but that was the lance on which it had ridden from the day the Black Company left Khatovar. Every single Annalist has kept close track—although the reason for doing so has been forgotten.

  I focused on Shadowspinner in time to see One-Eye’s treasure arrive.

  Later Goblin told me Spinner sensed the threat as the missile hit the peak of its arc. Whatever he did then, it was the right thing. Or he was lucky. Or a higher power decreed that this was not his night to die.

  The spear changed course by scant inches. Instead of striking Shadowspinner it hit his mount’s shoulder. And ripped through the beast as though it was no more substantial than air. The wound glowed red, flickered. The red spread. Shadowspinner bellowed in rage as the animal threw him. He fell in a heap, lay there twitching long enough for One-Eye to start nagging Loftus about hitting him with a barrage of regular shafts, then he scuttled off like a crab to escape the stallion’s pounding hooves.

  I recognized that animal then. It was one of those magically bred monster horses Lady brought south with the Company, out of her old empire. They vanished during the battle.

  The horse screamed and screamed.

  A normal animal would have perished in moments.

  I stared at those two riders out there. They walked toward the city slowly, offering their challenge. Now I could see that they, too, were mounted on Lady’s stallions. I told Goblin, “But I saw them killed.”

  One-Eye grumbled, “We got to check this boy’s eyes.”

  Goblin said, “I told you before, that’s not Lady. You look real close, you can see differences in the armor.”

  The troops were seeing that. There was a stir among the Taglians.

  “And you don’t know about the other one? What’re they talking about over there?”

  “No. It could be the Old Man.”

  Sparkle went to see why the Taglians were excited.

  Shadowspinner’s horse collapsed but continued screaming and kicking. Wisps of greenish steam rose from its wound. That continued to grow. The beast’s death was a long time coming.

  The sorcerer would have died more slowly and gruesomely still had One-Eye’s shaft struck home.

  Sparkle came to say, “They’re all excited because that armor is an exact match for some goddess nam
ed Kina in her battle avatar. That’s the way she’s always portrayed in paintings about her war with the demons.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, only that Kina was some sort of death goddess in these parts.

  I wondered when the Shadowmaster would snipe back at One-Eye.

  “He won’t,” Goblin assured me. “The moment he gave it attention enough to be effective those two out there would cut his legs off.”

  I watched Shadowspinner limp out of sight.

  His embarrassment spurred his soldiers to increase their efforts again. Somebody would pay for his indignity in pain. Understandably they preferred that we pick up that tab.

  Some of them seemed to recognize the Lifetaker armor, too. I heard the name Kina shouted more than once below the wall.

  “Thai Dei. Time for a message to your grandfather. I want to bring part of my force through his area so I can help drive the southerners out of the city.”

  The Nyueng Bao stepped out of the shadows just long enough to listen. He stared at those riders, troubled. Then he grunted, descended to the street and trotted off into the night.

  “Listen up, people. We’re going to go save our fearless dickhead leader. Bucket…”

  29

  I stepped into a dark alleyway, planning to set up shop behind a southern company with Goblin to do his hoodoo on them. And it was like I stepped off the edge of the world, into an abyss without bottom. Like some great psychic flyswatter slapped me down into the void. Goblin barked something in the instant it took to go but I did not understand him.

  I had that moment to feel seasick, to be bewildered, to wonder who had ambushed me with what sorcery, and why it seemed to twist me like a wet rag being wrung out.

  Had Mogaba taken his treachery to another level?

  30

  Something had hold of me. It pulled so virulently there was no resisting it. I lost track of who I was and where. I knew only that I was asleep and did not want to wake up.

  “Murgen!” a far voice called. The pull strengthened. “Murgen, come on! Come home! Fight it, Kid! Fight it!” I fought. But it was that voice I fought. It wanted me to come somewhere that much of me did not want to go. Pain awaited me there.

  The pull redoubled as the force dragged at me with inescapable power.

  “That did it!” somebody shouted. “We have him back now.”

  I knew that voice.…

  It was like coming out of a coma except that I remembered where I had been in every detail. Dejagore. Every little ache, every horror, every fear. But already the sharp edges were going dull. The ties were slipping. I was here now.

  Here? Which when and where was here? I tried opening my eyes. My lips would not respond. I tried to move. My limbs refused to be troubled.

  “He’s all here.”

  “Pull that curtain.” I heard heavy cloth being moved. “Will it keep getting harder? I thought we were supposed to be over the worst. That he couldn’t recede so far that we would have this much trouble bringing him home.”

  Oh! That voice belonged to Croaker. The Old Man. Only the Old Man is dead, because I saw him killed.… Or did I? Didn’t I just leave Widowmaker, alive long past his time?

  “Well, he didn’t listen. But it can’t do anything but get better now. We’re around the corner. Over the hump. Unless he wants to stay lost.”

  I got an eye open.

  I was in a dark place. I’d never seen it before but it had to be in the Palace at Trogo Taglios. Home. Never have I seen that kind of stone used anywhere else. And there was nothing astonishing about not being able to recognize parts of the Palace. The princes of Taglios all add on a bit during their reigns. Supposedly only the old royal wizard Smoke ever knew his way around the whole place. And Smoke isn’t with us anymore. I don’t know what happened to him afterward but several years ago he got torn up when a supernatural creature he disagreed with tried to eat him. Handy, because about then was when we discovered that he had been seduced by Longshadow and had gone over to the Shadowmasters.

  I was amazed at me. Although I had a headache like the mother of all hangovers my mind, suddenly, was crystal clear.

  “He’s got an eye open, chief.”

  “Can you hear me, Murgen?”

  I tried my tongue, blurted fluent gibberish.

  “You had another one of your spells. We’ve been trying to bring you back for two days.” Croaker sounded put out. Like I was inconveniencing him on purpose? “All right. You know the drill. Let’s get him up and walking.”

  I remembered doing this part several times before. I was less confused now, more able to grasp quickly the distinction between past and present.

  They got my feet under me. Goblin got under my right armpit. Croaker wrapped his arm around me from the left, lifted.

  I said, “I remember what to do.”

  They did not understand. Goblin asked, “You got a grip on when you are, Murgen? Ain’t going to drift off into the past on us again?”

  I nodded. I could communicate that way. Maybe I could use the deaf and dumb speech.

  “Dejagore again?” Croaker asked.

  I had the connections all made inside. Even plenty I didn’t want made. I tried talking again. “Same night. Again. Later on.”

  “Set him down. He’ll be all right now,” Croaker said. “Murgen. You get any clues this time? Anything we can latch onto to break you out of this cycle? I need you here. I need you full time.”

  “Not one damned thing.” I paused to catch my breath. I was adapting faster this time. “I don’t even know when it hit me. I was just there, suddenly, like a poltergeist or something, with no thoughts of any future at all. Then after a while I was just Murgen with no awareness, no anomalies like I get now.”

  “Anomalies?”

  Startled, I turned. One-Eye had materialized from somewhere. I saw that curtain still stirring. It closed off half the room.

  “Huh?”

  “What do you mean by anomalies?”

  When I concentrated I really didn’t know what I meant. I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s gotten away from me. When am I?”

  Croaker and the wizards dealt a hand of significant looks between them. Croaker asked, “Do you remember the Grove of Doom?”

  “Sure. I’m still shivering.” A chill did touch me. Then I recalled the key thing. I had no memories of having visited this room before but I should have had them. Because I was still in my yesterdays. I just wasn’t as far away as I had been at Dejagore, which was years ago.

  Then I tried to remember the future.

  I remembered too much. I whimpered.

  “Do we need to get him up again?” Goblin asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m solid. Let’s think. How long between this spell and the last one? How long since we got back from the grove?”

  Croaker said, “You got back three days ago. I told you to bring your prisoners to the Palace. You tried. You lost the shadowweaver along the way, in circumstances so questionable I issued orders for all Company people to stay especially alert.”

  “He was old. He just died of fright,” One-Eye said. “Ain’t nothing mysterious about that.”

  My headache was not improving. I had vague recollections of those events but they were not as clear as my memories of other events immediately before previous seizures. “I don’t recall much of it.”

  “The red-hand Deceiver got here all right. We meant to start questioning him that night. But you went back to your apartment, supposedly just walked through the doorway and collapsed. Your mother-in-law, uncle, wife and brother-in-law all agree. Probably the first, last and only time that will happen.”

  “Probably. The old lady is like One-Eye. She disagrees just to be disagreeable.”

  “Hey! Kid.…”

  “Quiet,” Croaker told him. “So you just fell down and went rigid. Your wife got hysterical. Your brother-in-law came for me. We took you out of there to ease the stress on your family.”

  Ease the st
ress? Those people never heard of the word. Besides, Sarie was the only one of them I considered family.

  Goblin said, “Open your mouth, Murgen.” He turned my face to the best light and stared down my throat. “No damage in here.”

  I knew what they thought. Epilepsy. I had considered that myself. I had asked about it of anyone who would listen. But no epileptic I ever heard of got bounced into the past from a seizure. Into a past that was never exactly like the past I had lived already.

  “I told you it isn’t a disease,” Croaker growled. “When you find the answer it will be right there inside your own field and you’ll probably feel stupid about not having seen it earlier.”

  “If there’s anything to be found we’ll find it,” One-Eye promised. Which left me wondering what he had up his sleeve. Then I knew that I had to know already because they were going to tell me pretty soon. But I could not recall that future clearly enough to grasp it.

  Sometimes it was spooky being me.

  “Was that headless character there again?” Croaker asked.

  After figuring out what he meant I said, “Yes. But he was faceless, boss. Not headless. He had a head.”

  “Might represent the source of the problem,” One-Eye suggested. “You ever remember any features, anything at all, tell somebody. Or get it written down right away.”

  Croaker told me, “I don’t want this to happen to anybody else. Can you imagine managing a campaign when your people can fade out on you any minute, for days at a time?”

  I felt confident that that would not happen. But I didn’t say so because they would press me on it and I did not feel like being poked and prodded. “I need something for a headache. Please. A hangover kind of headache.”

  “Did you have this headache the other times?” Croaker demanded. “You never mentioned it.”

  “It was there but not this bad. Just a minor discomfort. A four-beer hangover kind of headache, if it was beer brewed by Willow Swan and Cordy Mather. That mean anything?”

  Croaker smiled at the reference to the world’s second worst beer. “Between me and Goblin we watched you almost every minute since you got back from the Grove of Doom. It seemed likely that this would keep happening. I didn’t want us to miss anything.”