The Return of the Black Company

by Cook, Glen

  “He’s supposedly Lady’s second in command. Not much doubt anymore that she survived. She’s also pissed off. And putting together a new army.”

  “Bet Mogaba’s jumping for joy. Running around hollering, ‘We’re saved! We’re saved!’”

  “You might say he’s jumping.”

  Over the following few days we heard a thousand wild stories. If a tenth were true some really bizarre changes were underway out there in the world.

  “You heard the latest?” Goblin asked me one night when I took a rare break from the books to examine that outer world from the wall. “Lady ain’t Lady after all. She’s the incarnation of some goddess named Kina. A real badass, too, apparently.”

  “She would be. Thai Dei. You know Kina, don’t you? Tell us about her.” Thai Dei wasn’t allowed into our warrens but he always turned up whenever I came up for air.

  He forgot all three words of Taglian he had admitted to knowing. The name of that goddess scrubbed his brain clean.

  I said, “That’s what happens when you mention Kina to any of these people. I can’t even get our prisoners to talk about her. You would think she belonged to the Black Company.”

  “Must be a real charmer,” Bucket opined.

  “Oh, she is. She is. There’s one.” I meant a shooting star. We were keeping count. Also of enemy watchfires. The southerners had scattered in small unit encampments around the plain recently. I guess they were afraid we might sneak away.

  “You know something about her, then?” Goblin asked.

  “From those books you guys found.” The men were bitter. The books and some sealed jars filled with grain were the only treasures they unearthed. The Gunni were the majority religion in Jaicur and the Gunni do not bury their dead. They burn them. The minority Vehdna do bury their dead but do not include any grave goods. Where their dead are bound they have no need of luggage. In paradise everything is provided. In hell, too. “One was a compilation of Gunni myths, in variants from all over. The guy who recorded them was a religious scholar. His book wasn’t meant to get out where it might confuse ordinary people.”

  “I’m confused and there ain’t nothing ordinary about me,” Bucket observed.

  “So what’s the scoop, Murgen? How come they won’t tell us about this bitch? Whoa! Did you see that one? It exploded.”

  “All right,” I told them. “The Gunni religion is the most common one around here.”

  “I think we know that, Murgen,” Goblin said.

  “Just making the point. Most people down here believe in Kina. Even if they’re not Gunni, they believe. Here’s the story. The Gunni have Lords of Light and Lords of Darkness. They’ve been doing their lording since the beginning of time.”

  “Sounds like standard stuff.”

  “It is. Only the value systems are different from what we knew back home. The balance between darkness and light is more dynamic here, and isn’t weighted the same emotionally as our struggle between good and evil. Moreover, Kina is a sort of self-elevated outside agency of decay and corruption that attacks both darkness and light. She was created by the Lords of Light to help defeat a horde of really nasty demons they couldn’t handle any other way. She helped by eating the demons. Naturally, she got fat. And apparently wanted dessert because she tried to eat everybody else, too.”

  “She was stronger than the gods who created her?”

  “Guys, I didn’t make this stuff up. Don’t ask me to rationalize it. Goblin, you’ve been everywhere. You ever seen a religion that can’t be picked to shreds by any nonbeliever with brains enough to tie his own bootlaces?”

  Goblin shrugged. “You’re as cynical as Croaker was.”

  “Yeah? Good for me. Anyway, there’s a lot of typically murky mythological stuff about mothers and fathers and vicious, hideous, probably incestuous carryings-on amongst the other gods while Kina kept getting stronger. She was real sneaky. That’s one of her attributes. Deceit. But then her main creator, or father, tricked her and put a sleep spell on her. She’s still snoring away somewhere but she can touch our world through her dreams.

  “She’s got her worshippers. All Gunni deities do. Big, little, good, bad, indifferent, they all have their temples and priesthoods. I can’t find out much about Kina’s followers. They’re called Deceivers. The soldiers won’t talk about them. They flat refuse, like naming Kina might actually waken her. Which, I gather, is the holy mission of her worshippers.”

  “Too weird for me,” Bucket grumbled.

  Goblin said, “That explains why Lady scares the shit out of everybody whenever she dresses up. If they really think she’s turned into this goddess.”

  “I figure we should find out everything we can about this Kina.”

  “Crack plan, Murgen. How? If nobody will talk?”

  Yeah. Even the boldest Taglians threatened to get the vapors if I pressed. It was obvious that they were not just terrified of this goddess. They were scared of me, too.

  * * *

  One-Eye brought heartening news. “This stuff about the relief force is gold, boss. Every night now Spinner is sneaking troops out through the hills like he don’t think we can see them go if it’s dark.”

  “Could he be giving up the siege?”

  “The troops are all headed north. Home ain’t north.”

  I did not offer another alternative. One-Eye would not have come if he was not sure.

  Of course, One-Eye being sure never meant that One-Eye was right. He was One-Eye.

  I thanked him, sent him to do a small chore, found Goblin and asked him what he thought. The little wizard seemed surprised I would bother. “Did One-Eye stutter or something?”

  “No. But he’s One-Eye.”

  Goblin could not contain his big frog grin. That made perfect sense to him.

  Nobody relayed the news to Mogaba. I thought it would go easier for everybody if he didn’t know. But Mogaba heard rumors, too.

  Dejagore was a nightmare town filled with factions only loosely united in defiance of the besiegers. Mogaba’s forces were the strongest. The Jaicuri were most numerous. We Old Crew, with our auxiliaries, were less numerous and less powerful. But boy were we strong in our righteousness.

  And then there were the Nyueng Bao. The Nyueng Bao remained an enigma.

  43

  Ky Dam’s family occupied the same dismal, filthy, smoky, pungent hole until the deluge drove them out. The perquisites of power did not appeal to the Speaker. He had a place to get out of the rain. That was enough.

  Maybe that was more than he had had back in the swamp.

  He did share with a troop of descendants who stopped bickering only when the outsider came around. And then the children restrained themselves only for a while.

  On successive afternoons Ky Dam summoned me to consult on trivial matters. We faced each other over tea served by the beautiful granddaughter while the children quickly lost their awe of me and resumed brawling. We traded information on friends and enemies. That fevered character in the shadows moaned and groaned.

  I did not like that. He was dying. But he was taking a long, long time getting it done. Every time he cried out the beautiful one went to him. I ached in sympathy. She was so haggard.

  Second visit I said something to indicate sympathy, one of those things you toss off without much thought. Ky Dam’s wife, whom I now knew to be named Hong Tray, glanced up from her tea, startled. She said three soft words to Ky Dam.

  The old man nodded. “Thank you for your concern, Stone Soldier, but it is misplaced. Danh welcomed a devil into his soul. Now he pays the due.”

  A burst of rapid, liquid Nyueng Bao erupted from the shadows. A squat old woman waddled into the light. She was bowlegged, ugly as a warthog, in a vicious humor. She barked at me. She was Ky Gota, the Speaker’s daughter and my shadow Thai Dei’s mother. She was a dark legend among her own people. I have no idea what she was on about but I got the feeling that she laid all the ills of the world squarely at my feet.

  Ky Dam said so
mething gently. It did not get through. Hong Tray repeated his words, more gently, in a whisper. Silence fell instantly. Ky Gota scurried into the shadows.

  The Speaker offered, “In all our lives we enjoy successes and failures. My great sorrow is my daughter Gota. She has within her a cancer of agony she cannot conquer. She insists on sharing it with the rest of us.” A tiny smile touched his lips. This was self-deprecating humor, meant to inform me that he was speaking metaphorically. “Her great failure, the wellspring of heartbreak for all of us, was her hasty choice of Sam Danh Qu as the husband for her daughter.” He indicated the beautiful flower. The flower betrayed a blush as she knelt to refill our cups.

  There was no doubt that all these people understood Taglian perfectly.

  Ky Dam added, “That is the one great error that Gota cannot deny, a culmination of deficiencies that is like a brand. She was widowed young. She arranged the marriage hoping to enjoy her elder years luxuriating on the wealth of the Sams.” The Speaker showed me that little smile again, probably sensing my incredulity. Wealth and Nyueng Bao are contradictory concepts.

  The old man continued, “Danh was clever. He concealed the fact that he had been disinherited because of his cruelty and wickedness and treachery. Gota was too much in a hurry to investigate harsh rumors. And Danh’s evil only grew worse after the nuptials. But that is enough about me and mine. I asked you here because I wish to keep an eye on the character of the leader of the Bone Warriors.”

  I had to ask. “Why do you call us that? Does it mean anything?”

  Ky Dam traded looks with his wife. I sighed. “I get it. It’s more of the Black Company claptrap everybody does. You think we’re something our predecessors were supposed to have been four hundred years ago, only probably weren’t because oral history exaggerates ridiculously. Speaker, listen. The Black Company is just a gang of outcasts. Really. We’re plain old mercenary soldiers caught up in circumstances we don’t understand and really don’t like. We’re just passing through. We came this way because our Captain has a bug up his ass about the Company’s history. Most of the rest of us couldn’t think of anything else we wanted to do more.” I told him about Silent and Darling and others who had parted with the brotherhood rather than hazard the long journey south. “I promise you, whatever scares everybody—and I wish somebody would tell me what that is—it would have to involve way more work than I’m willing to put into anything.”

  The old man eyed me, glanced at his wife. She said and did nothing but something passed between them. Ky Dam nodded.

  Uncle Doj materialized. The Speaker told me, “Perhaps we misjudge you. Even I allow prejudice to guide me at times. There is a chance I will know better when next we speak.”

  Uncle Doj made a small gesture. Time for me to leave.

  44

  Goblin caught me hitting the Jaicuri books. “Murgen!” I started. “Huh?”

  “About goddamn time.”

  “What? What’re you talking about?”

  “I been standing here watching you for ten minutes. You never turned a page. You never blinked an eye. I couldn’t tell if you was breathing.”

  I started to make an excuse.

  “Won’t sell. I had to yell four times and slap you on the back of the head to get your attention.”

  “So I was thinking.” Only I could not recall even one thought.

  “Yeah. Right. Mogaba wants your scrawny ass over to the citadel.”

  * * *

  “A lot of southerners have sneaked off to meet this relief column,” I told Mogaba. “At first I thought they were trying to trick us. Pull back and hit us when we tried to take advantage. But Goblin and One-Eye promise me they’ve just kept going. There can’t be a relief army, though. Where would the soldiers come from? Who would lead them?” Would Mogaba believe that I had not heard the more interesting rumors? He heard more than I did. And Croaker’s survival probably figured in a lot of those.

  What would he do if the Old Man turned up alive?

  I was pretty sure Mogaba thought about that a lot.

  I was thanked and told to return to my people with no other comment. I did not find out why he sent for me.

  Mogaba did just what I feared. He launched a recon in force, maybe trying to find new weak spots. He employed only his own most trustworthy men. And I was content to sit atop my part of the wall, watching. And wondering why Mogaba was so sure we would desert if we got outside.

  I tend to ignore Mogaba here. He was a much greater part of everyday life than I show. He was misery on the hoof. My dislike makes it impossible to write about the man rationally so I discuss him only when I must.

  Of all the Nar, in those days, only Sindawe ever made the effort to be civil.

  Anyway, Mogaba thought he had a chance to hurt the Shadowmaster but the planners outside were getting the hang of how his head worked. He did not let a lack of success discourage him. There was that about Mogaba. He never became discouraged. No setback ever shook his conviction that he was invincible. If his plans fizzled he just recalculated.

  Mogaba’s soldiers began to desert without benefit of escape from the city, coming to hide out with friends among our Taglians. They complained that Mogaba was too profligate with soldiers’ lives.

  Mogaba responded by ordering special rations and preferential access to prostitutes for his most dedicated men.

  We found those sealed jars of grain left over from the Shadowmasters’ first siege. Whether to share generated considerable debate. One-Eye insisted that Mogaba would not be satisfied just to share. He would want to know all about our find. He would want to see for himself. Did we want him wandering around our warrens?

  No.

  So what does the little shit do? He turns right around and starts selling fresh-baked bread for twenty times what a loaf cost before the siege.

  I found a nice quiet spot for just One-Eye and me, atop the wall on a lazy afternoon. There were fresh rumors of a battle up north but that was not our topic. I asked, “What did you tell me about why we shouldn’t let Mogaba share the stores we found?”

  “Huh?” This was not the hassle he expected.

  “You were extremely persuasive. All that stuff about not letting the man get into our hideout.”

  He grinned, proud of himself. “So?”

  “You stand by what you said?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then what the fuck are you doing selling his men bread when we’re not supposed to have no grain to grind for flour?”

  He frowned. The connection eluded him. “Making a profit?”

  “You really figure Mogaba is so stupid he won’t notice that bread? You really figure he won’t ask questions?”

  “You got too rigid a way of looking at things, Kid.”

  “You keep up your crap you’re really going to think rigid. You get me killed I’m going to haunt your ass forever.”

  “You probably would. There’s times I think you’re halfway a haunt already.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “These spells you have. When you have them it’s like there’s somebody else looking out from behind your eyes. It’s like there’s some other soul swirling around you.”

  “I never noticed.” Would I notice?

  “If we had us a skilled necromancer or a spirit talker we might be surprised what we found. You wasn’t born twins, was you?” His stare was fierce.

  A chill stalked my spine. The hairs on my neck stirred. I did feel spooky, sometimes. But he was just trying to change the subject.

  Goblin joined us uninvited. “There’s something going on with the Shadowlanders, Murgen.”

  A crow nearby made a sound like laughter.

  I asked, “They aren’t setting up for another big attack? I thought Mogaba screwed their main ramp.”

  “I couldn’t get close enough to catch any details. Mogaba is staying out where people can see him. But I think there was a battle. And I think Shadowspinner’s creeps got whipped. We may have
friends out there ready to bust us out.”

  “Calm down. Don’t start packing your gear.”

  One-Eye snickered. “That’s the runt all over, counting his chickens when he ain’t even stole no eggs yet.”

  I grumbled, “You remember what we were just discussing? Stupid moves? And you’d dare get down on Goblin?”

  Of course he would. That was his great mission.

  “What’s going on?” Goblin demanded.

  Uncle Doj materialized. His presence ended the discussion. That man could be spookier than any shade, he moved so fast and quiet. “Speaker says tell you southerners carrying tools instead of weapons are assembling south of the city.”

  “And what’s that over there?” From our perch most of the activity was hidden behind the curve of the wall but it looked like a big engineering party had begun to gather north of the city as well. “You see any prisoners or slaves out there…? Huh? What’s that?”

  That was the sparkle of sunlight off metal in the hills. The sparkle repeated itself. People were moving out there, not carefully enough.

  Shadowspinner’s men had no need to sneak. I told Goblin, “Pass the word. Full alert come sundown.”

  Uncle Doj considered the hills. “You have good eyes, Bone Warrior.”

  “Know something, Stubby? I’d a whole lot rather be called Murgen.”

  The squat man smiled thinly. “As you wish, Murgen. I have come on behalf of the Speaker. He says tell you hard times are coming. He says prepare your hearts and minds.”

  “Hard times?”

  One-Eye laughed. “The party is over, Kid. Now we got to pay for loafing around and getting fat while the houris slithered all over us.”

  “Keep it in mind next time you’re tempted to do some profiteering.”

  “Huh?”

  “You can’t eat money, One-Eye.”

  “Killjoy.”

  “That’s me all over. Tell Wheezer to hike over to the citadel and tell Sindawe the southerners are up to something.” Sindawe might be all right. I could talk to him without having to conquer an urge to squeeze his throat. And this would cover me on keeping Mogaba informed.