The Return of the Black Company

by Cook, Glen

  What would happen if the Shadowmaster just up and walked away, leaving us to sort ourselves out?

  Sounded like the smart thing for him to do.

  45

  Wheezer barely made it to the top. Then he spent five minutes hacking and wheezing before he could talk. That old man had no business soldiering at his age. He ought to be off living off his grandchildren. But like the rest of us he had nothing outside the Company. He would die under the deathshead standard. Under what passed for a standard today.

  It was sad. Pathetic, even.

  Wheezer was an anomaly. Usually the mercenary life is brutal and short, pain and fear and misery only occasionally interrupted by a fleeting moment of pleasure. What keeps you sane is the unfailing comradeship of your brethren. In this company. In lesser bands.… But they are not the Black Company.

  Croaker and I both put a lot of effort into sustaining that brotherhood. In fact, it looked like time to resurrect Croaker’s habit of readings from the Annals so the men would remember that they were part of something more enduring than most kingdoms.

  I told Wheezer, “You better take a couple hours off.”

  He shook his head. He would go on the best he could until he could go on no more. “The Nar lieutenant. Sindawe. Sends greetings. He said … we better … look out tonight.”

  “He mention why?”

  “He sort of hinted … that Mogaba might try … some big stunt after … dark.”

  Mogaba was always trying some big stunt. Shadowspinner ought to let him set himself up. One raid too many, at the wrong time, and Mogaba would find out personally why Spinner was called a Shadowmaster.

  Wheezer said something in his native tongue. Only One-Eye understood him. Sounded like a question. One-Eye muttered a few clicky syllables in reply. I figured the old man wanted to know if it was all right to talk in front of the Nyueng Bao. One-Eye gave him the go ahead.

  Wheezer said, “Sindawe said tell you guys the rumors about a big battle are probably true.”

  “We owe Sindawe, guys,” I said. “That sounds to me like him telling us he won’t back Mogaba a hundred percent anymore.”

  Thai Dei and Uncle Doj sucked up our conversation like Nyueng Bao sponges.

  * * *

  Tension built for hours. With no real evidence we began to feel this night would be critical. Mostly the guys worried about new nastinesses from Mogaba. We didn’t expect trouble from the Shadowmaster any time soon.

  I kept an eye on the hills.

  One-Eye snapped, “There it is!” He shared my anticipations. Pinkish light flared. Lightning crackled around a bizarre rider.

  “She’s back,” somebody said. “Where’s the other one?”

  I did not see a Widowmaker right away.

  Panic swept the plain. The apparition had taken the scattered Shadowlander camps unawares. Sergeants shrieked orders. Messengers galloped around. Soldiers stumbled into one another.

  “There he is!” Bucket yelled.

  “There who is?”

  “Widowmaker.” He pointed. “The Old Man.”

  The Widowmaker figure shimmered back in the hills, larger than life.

  Goblin grabbed my arm. I don’t know where he came from. “Look over there.” He indicated the Shadowlander main camp. We could not see the camp itself but a pale, gangrenous glow rose from its approximate location. The light intensified steadily.

  “Spinner wants to play,” I observed.

  “Yeah. He’s sending a big one.”

  “A big what? Do we need to get our heads down?”

  “Wait and see.”

  I waited. And I saw. A nasty ball of green fire streaked toward the hills. It hit near where Lifetaker first showed herself. Earth flew. Stone burned. All to no avail. Lifetaker was long gone.

  “He missed.”

  “What an eye!”

  “Lifetaker didn’t play fair. She didn’t stand still.”

  “He made a stupid choice of tools,” One-Eye sneered. “You can’t expect somebody to just hang around and wait for you.”

  “Maybe that was his best go. He hasn’t been healthy.”

  I sidled away. In a few minutes Goblin and One-Eye would start bickering.

  The confusion on the plain worsened. The southerners were more rattled than seemed reasonable. What I could get from their chatter suggested that they had been caught just starting something big of their own and their disarray left them virtually unable to defend themselves. In hushed tones, too, I heard Kina mentioned.

  Lifetaker, who resembled that goddess of corruption, vanished. Maybe she lost interest. She did not reappear. Shadowspinner pasted the hills with any sorcery he could slap together. Other than starting a few brush fires he had no obvious impact.

  The fox was in the henyard. Southerners scooted all over, their panic feeding on the panic of others. When one got close my guys took turns sniping. Goblin said, “They keep cussing about their feet getting wet.” I heard that, too. It made no sense.

  “Holy shit!”

  I don’t know who said it but I could not have agreed more.

  Scores of brilliant white fireballs erupted straight up above the Shadowlander main camp. They obliterated the darkness completely. They seemed a tool of more use to a Shadowmaster’s enemies than to the villain himself.

  A huge uproar followed.

  Uncle Doj vanished. One moment he was beside me, the next a shadow running through the street below, then gone.

  One-Eye told me, “This time I’m sure it’s Lady.”

  His tone alerted me. “But what?”

  “But the other one ain’t the Captain.”

  Widowmaker had been visible for less than one minute. “Tell me it ain’t so,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  “That we got two sets. Each one only half the real thing.”

  A crow nearby cackled.

  I asked, “What kind of sorcery would do that? Split them in two?”

  “I wish I could tell you something you want to hear, Kid. But I’ve got a very bad feeling there’s stuff going on we don’t even want to know about.”

  46

  One-Eye was a prophet. Although I did want to know. And thanks to the Nyueng Bao I heard a story.

  The light across town faded. The attendant racket subsided. Part of that drifted toward the hills. The rest fell back toward Mogaba’s part of town.

  The crackle of small sorceries rippled across the plain. The whole expanse glistened silver. “That was a strange one. One-Eye, what say we build a watchtower on top of one of the enfilading towers? That way we could get high enough to see what Mogaba and Spinner are doing.”

  “You got Nyueng Bao to spy for you over there.”

  “Suppose I don’t ask you to do any work yourself?”

  “The idea sounds a lot better already. But I still think the Nyueng Bao could be your eyes, you play it right. You don’t need to get as paranoid as Croaker. Just look at what they bring you so you see whose purpose it might serve. Consider what might be missing the same way.”

  “Sometimes I’m as lazy as you are,” I told One-Eye. “Only with me it’s mental. That sounds like a lot of thinking. And I’d rather see stuff with my own eyes anyway.”

  “Just like the Old Man,” he grumbled. “You got to read them Annals all the time, how about you read some that was written by somebody besides Croaker? I was looking forward to a little relief from his righteousness.”

  So we were back to the black-market bread scheme.

  Goblin turned up. “Pretty exciting stuff happening over there.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “I got up on the wall over there. For a while. Mogaba’s guys weren’t worried about getting caught letting me peek. He led this raid in person.”

  “Just tell us about it,” One-Eye grumbled. “You all the time got to flap on about stuff that … Awk!” A huge bug landed in One-Eye’s mouth. Goblin’s smirk hinted that he might have been involved in the insect’s errant navigati
on.

  “That Doj character can tell you more than me. Some of his guys snuck out there behind Mogaba’s gang.”

  “Why?”

  “I think Mogaba was trying to bushwhack Spinner. But he stumbled into Lady instead.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “When that bunch of flareballs went up? There she was. Her and about fifteen guys. They were right outside the camp gate, practically crawling over Mogaba’s mob. Least that’s what I heard. I didn’t see it myself.”

  “So where’s Uncle Doj?”

  “Probably checking in with the Speaker.”

  Probably. “Yeah? Look, we’ve got a bunch of deserters from the First. See if some will sneak back to find out more.”

  “Here comes chunky boy now.”

  We talked right in front of Thai Dei, like he was deaf. Or like we didn’t care squat what he heard.

  Uncle Doj brought a couple other Nyueng Bao. They surrounded another chunky boy, this one a wide little Taglian. He seemed more prisoner than companion though no weapons were in evidence.

  It amazed me that Uncle Doj could climb to the ramparts without breathing hard. Maybe he used some wild sorcerery that stole Wheezer’s breath.

  That sounded like something out of the Gunni myth book.

  “What have you got, Uncle?” I stared at the squat Taglian. He was indifferent to my gaze.

  “An outsider. The Speaker sent Banh and Binh to watch the black men, who wanted to attack the Shadowmaster himself. But they ran into others from the outside pursuing a similar goal. This one left his party and joined those running for the wall when the flares went up. The outsider group may have been betrayed intentionally so this one could become separated in the confusion.”

  I continued to study the outsider. He was a Gunni, more stockily built than anyone in these parts. Maybe he worked at that. He seemed possessed of a powerful arrogance.

  I asked, “Is there anything special about him?” Uncle Doj seemed strongly interested in him, too.

  “He bears the mark of Khadi.”

  That took a moment. Oh. Yeah. In the books from the catacombs. Khadi was an alternate or regional name for Kina. There were quite a few of those. “If you say so. I don’t see it myself. Point it out.”

  Uncle Doj’s eyes narrowed. He drew a deep breath, exasperated. “Even now you refuse to reveal yourself, Soldier of Darkness?”

  “Even now I don’t have any fucking idea what you’re raving about. I am tired of hearing it.” I was developing suspicions, though. “Instead of sputtering and fussing and offering cryptic grumbles why don’t you say something I can understand? Pretend I’m what I say I am and can’t call down the lightning to part your hair. Who is this guy? Who do you think I am? Come on, Uncle. Talk to me.”

  “He is a slave of Khadi.” Uncle Doj glared at me, daring me not to understand that. He did not want to be more explicit.

  That made no sense to me. But I am not a superstitious man. Did he believe his one mouth had the power to raise the she devil alone? “Kina must be one badass bitch,” I told One-Eye. “She’s got Uncle drizzling down his leg. You. You got a name?”

  “I am Sindhu. I am of the staff of the warrior woman you call Lady. I was sent to observe the situation here.” He continued to meet my gaze. His eyes were colder than any lizard’s.

  “Sounds reasonable enough.” If taken with a block of salt. “Lady? This is the Lady who was second in command in the Black Company?”

  “That Lady. The goddess has smiled upon her.”

  I asked Uncle Doj, “Is he a liaison man, then? Between us and Lady?”

  “He may tell you so. But he is a spy for the toog. He will not speak truth when a lie will do.”

  “Uncle, old buddy, you and me and the old man need to sit down and try to talk the same language for a while. What do you think?”

  Uncle Doj grunted. Which could mean anything. “The toog will not speak truth when a lie will do.”

  Sindhu was amused.

  The man struck me as a complete false face. I said, “Goblin, find this guy some place to sleep.” I shifted languages. “And don’t let him out of your sight.”

  “I have chores enough already.”

  “Somebody’s sight. All right? I don’t like him at all. I don’t think I’m going to like him even this much tomorrow morning. He smells like trouble.”

  One-Eye agreed. “Big trouble.”

  “Why don’t we just chuck his hairy ass off the wall, then?” Goblin can be pragmatic in the extreme.

  “Because I want to find out more about him. I think we’ve crawled right up to the edge of the mystery that has hung us up ever since we got here. Let him run free. We’ll play dumb and keep track of every breath he takes.” I was sure I could count on the Speaker’s help with that.

  My two wizards scowled and grumbled. Hard to blame them. They always end up carrying the load.

  47

  I was snoring heroically down deep in our warrens, having gone to Nod confident I could sleep in. Tomorrow nobody would have the ambition to get up to any mischief.

  I was down there so far and so far out of the way that not five people knew where to find me. I was on a mission to catch up on my sleep. If the end of the world came the guys could celebrate without me.

  Somebody shook me.

  I refused to believe it. It had to be a bad dream.

  “Murgen. Come on. You got to come see this.”

  No I didn’t.

  “Murgen!”

  I cracked an eyelid. “I’m trying to get some sleep here, Bucket. Go away.”

  “You ain’t got time. You got to come see.”

  “I got to come see what?”

  “You’ll see. Come on.”

  There would be no winning this. He would pester me till I lost my temper, then get his feelings hurt. But the long climb to the sunshine was not an inducement to rise.

  “All right. All right.” I got up and got myself together.

  * * *

  They didn’t need to drag me out but I understood the impulse. Things had changed. Radically.

  I stared at the plain, mouth open. Only, what plain? Dejagore was surrounded by a shallow lake that featured the tops of burial mounds as small islands. Each mound boasted its handful of disconsolate animals. “How deep is it?” I asked. And, “There any chance we can catch some of those critters for the pot?” With all that water down there no southerner would be guarding against sorties.

  “Right now, five feet,” Goblin said. “I had men go down and measure.”

  “Is it still coming up? Where is it coming from? Where is Shadowspinner?”

  Goblin pointed. “I don’t know about Spinner, but there’s the water. Still coming in.”

  I have good eyes. I made out the water boiling and foaming as it roared out of the hills. “The old aqueduct came down there, didn’t it?” Two major canals had irrigated the hill farms and fed aqueducts to Dejagore before the fighting started. The Company cut those when the southerners were on the inside. Now the city survived on rainwater and the contents of large, deep, very stagnant cisterns we knew nothing about back then.

  “Exactly. Clete and his brothers figure they diverted the entire river into the canal. Same thing south of town.”

  Dejagore sits on a plain below the level of the country beyond the hills. Modest rivers run both west and southeast of the hills.

  “I presume the boys are studying the engineering aspects?” I asked.

  “Them and three dozen Taglians who had some skills the guys could use.”

  “Any conclusions yet?”

  “Like?”

  “Like how high will the water get? Are we going to drown?” If that was Shadowspinner’s plan it indicated major changes in his thinking. Before, he wanted Dejagore recovered intact. This seemed a more practical and final answer to his problems, though more destructive of property—which, of course, was more valuable than any number of lives.

  “They’re trying to figur
e that out right now.”

  I grunted. “I take it Spinner pulled out after Lady left.”

  “No,” One-Eye responded. “They hung around to swim. They don’t get to a lot of beach parties where they come from.”

  “Man’s not as stupid as we thought,” I mused.

  “Huh?”

  “He floods the plain, even if he don’t drown us he locks us up so tight he don’t have to use hardly any men to keep us under control. He can chase Lady all he wants. We can’t help her and she can’t help us. For him it’s better than getting reinforcements out of the Shadowlands. Longshadow’s soldiers couldn’t be trusted behind his back.”

  Thai Dei showed up. He always turned up soon after I came out, which indicated how closely we were being watched.

  Thai Dei was a waste of manpower. He didn’t carry many messages. He didn’t understand any of our languages well enough to be a good spy for the Speaker. But he was always, always just a few steps away.

  There would be a reason. The Speaker would do nothing without consideration. I just did not grasp his view of the world.

  The longer I stared at the flood the more questions I came up with that needed answers soon. Most critical? How high would the water rise? How long would it take to do so? The rate of rise would slow down substantially as each vertical foot required more water volume because of the fall back of the hills, evaporation from the larger surface area, and absorption by more covered soil.

  I told Goblin and One-Eye, “Dig up every educated man in town and give him to the brothers.” I thought about building boats and heightening towers and securing stores. I thought about our vast and wonderful warrens and the likelihood that thousands of manhours would go for naught. I thought about how we would have to prepare ourselves mentally for lots worse if we were going to survive. I thought about Ky Dam and his talk of hard times to come.

  Thai Dei stepped over when nobody else was near. “Grandfather would speak with you. Soon, if possible.” His manners were impeccable. He did not call me Stone Soldier even once.

  The old man must want something badly. “As you wish.” I noticed the outsider Sindhu on the battlements off toward the Western gate. I could feel him watching me. “One-Eye.”