The Return of the Black Company

by Cook, Glen

  The first two times I suffered these dreams I took them passively. The third night my own presence there seemed so real that I tried tinkering with reality.

  The dream did not change but my place within it did.

  I experimented much more next night.

  The morning afterward, after a not entirely inedible breakfast prepared by Mother Gota, I slogged through the snow to visit the Captain.

  “Had to get away?” he asked.

  “They’re not being bad. The old woman’s even fixing food that’s palatable. If you’re not real picky.”

  “What’s up? Where’s your shadow?”

  “I guess he didn’t want to deal with the snow.” The snow was the first thing I had seen that made Thai Dei want to back down. This winter was his first extensive experience with the white stuff.

  “None of us do. Anything from the old guy?”

  “In this weather? You’re kidding.” He was still sure that Uncle Doj was up to something. Maybe I ought to dream about him. “What I wanted you to know is, my dreams are getting really strange.” I explained.

  “Is it your imagination or are you really going out?”

  “It feels like being out there with Smoke. Almost. I don’t have any feeling of control. So far.”

  Croaker grunted. He looked thoughtful, seeing some possibilities. I saw a few myself.

  “What I thought was, I could make a quick circuit with Smoke to see how closely reality conforms to what I dreamed.” I had little trouble accepting the possibility because I had been experiencing such unusual dreams for so long.

  “Do it. Without wasting any time.”

  “What’s your hurry? This snow isn’t going anywhere for a while.”

  Croaker grunted again.

  He was turning into a genuine old fart.

  * * *

  The flight with Smoke showed me nothing I had not seen in my dreams. It did not show me Soulcatcher. Smoke still refused to get close. But I passed high overhead and saw that she was indeed caught in a side canyon where the snow was extremely deep.

  48

  The weather changed eventually. The snow melted. We came out of our shelters like a bunch of groundhogs. So did the rest of the world. But most everyone was interested in recovering, not in getting into fights.

  Fighting did continue inside Overlook, though mostly Longshadow’s soldiers were satisfied to keep Lady’s troops bottled up. Those men were in no hurry to get themselves killed now they were cut off from the outside. They had control of stores enough for a long time and complete confidence that Lady would make every effort to relieve them.

  She would. I used Smoke to look in on some of her planning. She had expected any men who got inside to be cut off for a while. She had chosen shock units and commanders she believed would be able to handle the hardship.

  * * *

  The Prince’s division was fighting in the ruins of Kiaulune and in the hills north of us, where Mogaba persisted in harassing the shit out of us. Lady’s division held the ground between the city and Overlook. One of the Captain’s divisions was around the other side, astride the road to the Shadowgate. The other remained in reserve.

  Spring was a real threat on the horizon.

  I asked Croaker, “You think the Prahbrindrah Drah is maybe going to get tired of getting the honors in all these fights?”

  He gave me a startled look. “Am I that obvious?”

  “About what?” I looked around. Only Thai Dei was close enough to hear anything.

  “You just … It could be his division is the most incompetent.”

  “And least reliable?”

  “This army will suffer a lot of casualties before we get to Khatovar, Murgen. Correct me if I’m wrong. It seems to me it would be in the Company’s interest if most of those happened outside our own ranks.”

  “Uhm?”

  “I trust my Old Division. A lot of those men want to join the Company. Most of them would fight the Prince if I gave the order.”

  Lately a lot of Taglians wanted to join the Company. I think most of the applications were genuine. Guys who take the oath always stick. They never take the oath lightly.

  The oath is always administered in secret. Recent recruits have been asked to keep their new allegiances to themselves. No one outside the Company had any idea how strong we really were. Some people inside were getting the mushroom treatment, too, if their name was something like Lady.

  The Old Man was turning paranoia into a fine art.

  “I understand that. What I’m wondering is, how come Lady is getting the hurt, too?” If something did not end up on the Prince’s back usually it went to her.

  Croaker’s shrug told me he was not quite sure himself. “I guess I don’t want her in any position where she has to deal with too much temptation.”

  “And the New Division?”

  “I wouldn’t ask them to face off with the Prince. They probably won’t ever be ready to take our side in a civil scrimmage.” He looked me in the eye. This campaign had elevated him to a new level of hardness. This was like trading looks with Kina.

  I did not look away.

  Croaker explained, “I’ll deliver on my promises.”

  He meant that our employers would not deliver. The Radisha, especially, was determined to screw us. The Prince had been out here long enough to become one of the gang.

  We never did get a chance to work our magic on his sister.

  I said, “I spend a lot of time wishing I’d stayed a farm boy.”

  “You still having trouble with the nightmares?”

  “Every night. But it’s not like it’s a direct attack. I always work my way through and use the opportunity to scout around. Sure as hell ain’t pleasant, though, I’ll tell you that.” Kina, or somebody or something who wanted me to think she was Kina, was in my dreams all the time. My own conviction was that it was Kina, not Catcher. She was still trying to promise me Sahra back.

  I wished she would do something about the odor.

  “She trying to work Lady, too?”

  “Probably.” Almost certainly. “Or maybe Lady is working her.”

  “Uhm.” He was not listening. He was concentrating on Overlook now. Fireballs had begun zipping around over there.

  Several fireballs flashed in the ruins of Kiaulune, too. The people Mogaba had in there were stubborn. The man really could find good soldiers and could motivate them. The Prahbrindrah Drah had begun razing parts of the ruined city, building by building, salvaging burnables where he could.

  It was still cold. At the moment there were eight inches of snow on the ground, atop a couple of inches of hard-packed sleet. This was spring? How many more storms would we have to endure before the weather gave up delivering unpleasant surprises? Longshadow’s surviving crystal turrets sure looked comfy. I wondered why he had not bothered us much lately.

  I checked the smoke rising from Kiaulune. I hoped the Prince would save a few nice places where us special folks could hole up in comfort after he rooted out the last partisans.

  I was tired of living like a badger.

  “What’s going on in there?” Croaker asked, indicating Overlook.

  “Nothing’s changed. I don’t understand Longshadow. Not even a little. It’s like he’s determined to destroy himself. He’s in some kind of emotional slough where he just can’t exercise any initiative. You’ve been there, I expect. I have, I know. You know what needs doing but you just can’t move. It doesn’t seem like it’s worth the effort. It’s the same sort of paralysis that came over Smoke those last few weeks before he got knocked into his coma.”

  Croaker looked thoughtful. “How about you? You feeling like you’re getting enough rest? With these dreams?”

  “It isn’t bothering me yet.” I lied. Though I did not need sleep. I needed an emotional respite. I needed a few weeks alone somewhere with my wife.

  “Where are your in-laws?” The eternal question. Uncle Doj was still missing.

  “Good que
stion. And before you ask, I still don’t have a clue what they’re up to. If they’re up to anything.”

  “I worry about so many Nyueng Bao being so close to us.”

  “Bad can’t happen, Captain. Not ever. They’re with us as a debt of honor.”

  “As you always tell me, you had to be there.”

  “That’d sure help you understand.”

  He glared at the great white fortress. “You think we could let refugees get through?”

  “Huh?”

  “Put another burden on Longshadow. More mouths to feed.”

  “He wouldn’t let them in.” I was still amazed that Longshadow had provided himself with such a small garrison. There were never more than a thousand people inside Overlook, including servants and families and those refugees who had gotten in before the destruction of the scaffolding. There was no mundane way the fortress could have been defended against multiple attacks.

  But Longshadow had not planned to deal with the mundane. He had expected to be safe behind countless adamantine spells for as long as he liked.

  “I don’t think it’ll be much longer, Murgen. Not much longer at all.”

  Fireballs flew around over there. A rising breeze lifted some of those box kites the quartermasters had dragged all the way from Taglios. In this sort of wind they could lift twenty-five pounds to the top of the wall.

  That was not what Croaker had brought them along for, he said. But he did not expound.

  “I admire your confidence, boss. Yeah. Next year in Khatovar.”

  “Next year in Khatovar” had become the sarcastic slogan of the Old Crew these past few years. Most would just as soon have faded away and gone back north. The constant stress of being in service to Taglios suited nobody but Lady. Despite her bouts with exhaustion she seemed to thrive emotionally where raging paranoia was the only sane way of facing reality.

  Croaker was not amused. His goals for the Company were not acceptable butts for humor.

  His sense of humor had been assassinated by this campaign. Or, at least, it had gone as comatose as Smoke.

  “Thai Dei. How about we go for a walk?” When the Old Man got in a mood it never hurt to be somewhere else.

  49

  One-Eye is supposed to be my backup as Annalist, at least till Sleepy gets back and learns the ropes. Those few times I have handed him the job, or Croaker did when he was doing the Annals, he proved conclusively that we need Sleepy desperately. The old fart cannot live beyond the moment most of the time. Not that I blame him at his age.

  So I was surprised when he bothered to tell me, well after the fact, that he had witnessed something interesting while he was out scouting with Smoke. No, he never wrote anything down and he could not recall all the details now but better late than never, right?

  Maybe. Old Smoke was not anchored in time.

  He and I drifted back to a moment not many hours after Narayan had visited Howler on the wall and their little chat got interrupted by Lady’s gang of insensitive brutes.

  * * *

  Singh and the Daughter of Night had reached safety in her quarters. The child did not talk much. Narayan was obviously extremely uncomfortable in her presence now, though she was a tiny thing even for her age. She ignored him, settled at a small worktable and turned up the wick on a small oil lantern. The stunner, for me, was seeing her set about the same sort of work that I did almost every day.

  Astounded, I watched as her little hand slowly, laboriously recorded words in a language I did not recognize and which, I discovered, she did not read. For as soon as I saw what she was doing I darted around through time looking for an explanation.

  The writing got started a week ago.

  * * *

  It was the middle of the night. Narayan had stayed up late, praying, calming his soul, trying to reach the state the Daughter of Night achieved when she touched the goddess. He had tried a hundred times. He failed this time as well.

  Failure no longer ached inside him. He was resigned. He just wished he could be allowed to understand.

  Hardly had he fallen into his dark dreams before the Daughter of Night was tugging at his shoulder. “Wake up, Narayan. Wake up.”

  He cracked an eyelid. The child was more animated than he had seen since before she learned that she was to be the instrument of Kina, the hands of the goddess in this world.

  He groaned. He wanted to swat her, wanted to tell her to go back to her pallet, but he remained wholly dedicated to his goddess, prepared to execute her will. The will of the Daughter had to be considered an extension of the will of the Mother, however difficult that might make life.

  “Yes? What is it?” He rubbed his face and groaned.

  “I need writing materials. Pens. Ink. Brushes. Inkstones. Penknives. Whatever is involved. And a big bound book of blank pages. Quickly.”

  “But you can’t read or write. You’re too little.”

  “My mother will guide my hand. But I must begin my task quickly. She fears we may not have much time left here, in safety.”

  “What are you going to do?” Narayan asked, wide awake now and completely baffled.

  “She wants me to make copies of the Books of the Dead.”

  “Make copies? They’ve been lost for thousands of years. Even the priests of Kina doubt that they exist anymore. If they ever did.”

  “They exist. In another place. I have seen them. They will exist again. She will tell me what to write down.”

  Narayan considered the notion for a while. “Why?”

  “The Books must be brought back into this world to help us bring on the Year of the Skulls. The first Book is the most important. I don’t know its title. But by the time I finish writing it down I will be able to read it and to use it to bring forth the other Books. I will be able to use those to open the way for my mother.”

  Narayan gulped air. He was illiterate. Most Taglians were. Like many who were illiterate, he was possessed of a vast awe of those who did read and write. He had seen great sorceries since associating himself with Longshadow, yet considered literacy the greatest witchery of all. “She is the Mother of All Night,” he murmured. “There is None Greater.”

  “I want those materials, Narayan.” That was no four-year-old talking.

  “I will find them.”

  * * *

  Back in the hours after their escape from Lady’s soldiers, while fighting persisted only a short distance away, the child wrote slowly and Narayan paced and shivered. Finally, she looked up, considered him with those disturbing eyes. “What has happened, Narayan?” She seemed to see right through him.

  “Events have surpassed my understanding. The small, smelly one called me to the wall to show me the heads of my brothers displayed on spears. A gift from your birth mother.” He picked at himself, reluctant to go on. I thought maybe the worst torture we could visit on him when we caught him would be a bath. “I cannot fathom what purpose moved the Goddess when she allowed all those faithful sons to fall into the woman’s hands. Almost none of our people remain alive.”

  The child snapped her fingers. Singh shut up instantly.

  “She killed them? The woman who gave this flesh life?”

  “Apparently. I made a bad mistake in not making sure of her when I brought you away to your true mother.”

  Not once did the child ever call Lady her mother. She never mentioned her father at all.

  “I am sure my mother had an overpowering reason for allowing that to happen, Narayan. Have the slaves clear out. I will consult her.” Several Shadowlander women attended the child most of the time. She treated them like furniture. They were not in fact slaves.

  Singh shooed the women while keeping one eye on the girl. She really did seem disconcerted by his complaints.

  Singh shut the door behind the last servant. The woman had made no effort to conceal her relief at being away from the little monster. The people of Overlook did not like the Daughter of Night. Narayan settled into a squat. The child was in a trance alr
eady.

  Whatever other place she went off to she did not stay long. She grew pale while she was there, though, and when she returned she was more troubled than when she had gone.

  The odor of death filled the ghostworld while she was away. I gutted it out. Kina did not come.

  The girl told Singh, “I don’t understand this, Narayan. She says none of it was her doing. She neither caused their deaths nor allowed them to happen.” The child sounded like she was quoting, though when she did speak she always sounded older than her years. “She was unaware that it had happened.”

  Now they both faced a crisis of faith.

  “What?” Narayan was startled, frightened. Fear was a constant of life these days.

  “I asked her, Narayan. And she didn’t know. The deaths were news to her.”

  “How could that be?” You could see the fear shove its cold claws deeper into the Deceiver’s guts. Now the enemies of the Deceivers could murder them wholesale without their goddess even knowing? Then what protection did the Children of Kina possess?

  “What fell powers do these killers from the north command?” the child asked. “Are Widowmaker and Lifetaker more than created images? Can they be true demigods walking the earth in the guise of mortals, powerful enough to spin cobwebs of illusion before my mother’s eyes?”

  You could see the doubts gnawing at both of them. If those red and yellow rumel men out there could be taken so easily and killed without alerting their protectress, what could save a living saint or even a Deceiver messiah?

  “If that is the case,” Singh said, “we had better hope this place is as impregnable as that madman Longshadow wants to believe. We had better hope that he can exterminate all the Taglians already inside.”

  “I do not think he’s finished, Narayan. Not yet.” But she did not explain what she meant.

  50

  You who come after me, and who read these Annals once I am gone, will have difficulty believing this but there are times when I do dumb things. Like the day I decided to stroll over to Lady’s forward command post to see the fighting with my own eyes instead of watching it from the comfort and safety of the ghostworld or my dreams.