The Return of the Black Company

by Cook, Glen

Neither she nor Narayan had witnessed all that could be done by the Shadowmaster’s pets.

  Neither had we, I feared.

  Lady had established a factory for replenishing spent bamboo poles. She had been confident that we would need them.

  I was afraid she was right.

  * * *

  Stone shudders. Eternity sneers while it devours its own tail. This cold feast is almost finished.

  Even death is restless.

  The walls are bleeding.

  In the darkness of the grey fortress it is hard to distinguish but dribbles of cardinal venous blood have begun to leak from the cracks between stones. It glistens in the light rising from the abyss. Small shadows squabble around it hungrily.

  One crow watches.

  The mist from the abyss has begun to fill the fortress. Half the tilting throne is covered. The throne is tilting precariously now. It looks like the figure there would slide away into the mist if it were not pinned in place.

  The throne slips another millionth of an inch. A groan rises from the tortured figure. Its blind eyes flutter.

  One crow cackles.

  There is no silence. Stone is broken.

  Where there is even a crack life will take root.

  Light will find a way in.

  52

  I told the Old Man about the troops shooting over the Shadowgate. He scowled blackly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He bellowed for a courier. He sent out a strong suggestion to our brothers with the division to the south.

  “No crows around here,” I noted.

  “One-Eye custom-built me a spell I can use to make them get hungry and go away for a while. But not forever.”

  I got the hint. “I don’t think we’re doing enough to support Lady’s men inside Overlook.”

  Croaker shrugged. “I’m not concerned about Overlook anymore. Much.”

  “What? Not worried about Longshadow? Howler? Narayan Singh and your … the Daughter of Night?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not indifferent. They just don’t matter as much as they did.”

  “I must’ve missed something. What’re you saying?”

  “I’m just suggesting it, Murgen. But we could go on south now. If we wanted. If I’m right about the standard.”

  “Uh…” I said. No flies on me.

  “The standard has to be the key to the Shadowgate. I think we could walk right through and keep on going, without any danger, as long as we carry the standard.”

  “Uh…” I said again, but this time I had a few more thoughts. “You mean we could just get everybody together, say screw you to the rest of this mob, and trot off singing merry marching songs?”

  “Exactly. Maybe.”

  So he was not completely sure.

  “Wouldn’t that leave a lot unsettled? Not to mention risk opening the Shadowgate the wrong way?”

  “Longshadow is the master of the Shadowgate. He can keep it sealed.”

  “What if he can’t?”

  Croaker shrugged. “We don’t owe anybody.… You just got finished telling me the Radisha is still fixing to screw us. The Prahbrindrah Drah was up to something down here. Howler is no friend of ours and Catcher has been helping me only because she thinks that’ll help her get an angle on Lady.”

  “I’ve got a wife out there, Boss. And she’s got a bun in the oven. Not to mention Goblin and his crew. Whom I can’t find, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere, on some mystery mission from you.”

  “Hmm? Didn’t think about that. There’s no mystery. Goblin’s job is to be forgotten. Then he’s supposed to be in the right place if the Prince runs out on us. Or decides to pull some other stunt where we could use some help that comes from the blind side.”

  I grunted. It might be true. Or it might only be what he wanted me to think. I set it aside. I could answer the question using Smoke if I was determined and clever and felt any real need. I asked, “What about Singh? You just going to walk away from him?”

  I did not believe Lady would accept that. It was hard to tell what was going on inside her head but I did think that no one and nothing would make her walk away while Narayan Singh remained in good health.

  “I’ve been letting things work themselves out. I’ll go on doing that for a while. But when the moment comes I won’t hesitate to take the Company on down the road to Khatovar.” His voice turned cold and hard and confidently formal.

  I was getting angry. That was not good. I told him, “I think I’d better excuse myself now.”

  “Just in time, too.” He flashed a wan smile.

  One of his huge crows had shoved its beak into the room. If it was possible for a bird to look puzzled this one did.

  It also smelled. It had lunched in the ruins.

  * * *

  I asked One-Eye, “How much weight should we put on our contract with the Taglians?”

  “Uhn?” He gave me nothing but the puzzled grunt. He wanted me to go away so he could play with his still.

  “I mean are we obligated to keep our part of the bargain until they actually try to screw us?”

  “What’s your problem?” He gestured. There were no snoopy beaks over here.

  “The Old Man’s talking about walking on past Overlook. Forgetting Longshadow and everything else. Leaving them to enjoy each other while we head on south.”

  That idea startled the little wizard. He stopped trying to get rid of me. “He figured out how we could do that?”

  “He thinks maybe. I don’t think he knows for sure. But I do believe he’s willing to test it the hard way.”

  “That’s not good. That could bring on a shitstorm the likes of which … Like nothing we can imagine, probably. Like something out of the myths.”

  “I thought so, too. He could be just shooting his mouth off. But it might be a good idea to remind him that we still haven’t read those three missing volumes of the Annals. I’ve got a feeling we shouldn’t overlook that.”

  One-Eye does not have a quarter of my faith in the Annals, nor a tenth of Croaker’s, but he grimaced. “A good point. I’ll remind him.”

  “Subtly? You hit him with a hammer, he tends to get stubborn.”

  “Subtly? You know me, Kid. I’m slicker than greased owl shit.”

  “I do know you. That’s what scares me.”

  “I don’t know what’s got into your generation. You got no trust. You got no respect.”

  “And not much patience with bullshitters, either,” I admitted. “I’ve got journals to write. Not to mention worries to worry.” And food to eat. I was hungry again. Much as I ate when I was walking the ghost I should have gotten too fat to waddle.

  I joined my in-laws beside their fire. Mother Gota dished me up a bowl of whatever it was she kept simmering in her pot. Nobody said anything. I had not talked to them much lately. They had begun to suspect that I was not real social anymore.

  I wondered why the old woman would not do her cooking inside. Thai Dei and I had set her up a whole private suite in our ever-expanding dugout but she would go inside only when the weather turned foul or it was time to sleep.

  Thai Dei did most of the work on our shelter. There was not much else for him to do. He was not involved in the schemes of his mother and Uncle Doj.

  “Thank you,” I told Mother Gota as I finished. “I needed that.” I could not compliment her on her cooking. If ever she did screw up and make something palatable she would not buy the real thing. She never did claim any culinary skills.

  “You,” she said, initiating conversation, which she did rarely, “Bone Warrior, you are wary of crows? They are significant?” Her Taglian was abominable. I spoke Nyueng Bao much better but she would not do me the courtesy. I suppose that would, somehow, lend legitimacy to my relationship with Sahra.

  I stopped trying to make sense of Mother Gota’s thinking years ago.

  I responded in Nyueng Bao. “They carry messages sometimes. They spy. We know this. Mice and bats do the same. Those who use the a
nimals aren’t our friends.”

  I exceeded myself telling her that much. Croaker would not be pleased. But I was fishing. It would be nice to find out what she knew or suspected. Sometimes she just could not help showing off.

  “I have seen owls in the night, too, Stone Soldier. They do not behave the way owls should.”

  I grunted. That was news. And it told me that if owls were being used and no one else had noticed, then the old woman was a lot sharper than I had suspected.

  “Last night many crows came and went from the shining fortress.”

  I looked at her more closely. Last night. While Thai Dei and I were in town with the lost boys. While she was traipsing through the night with Uncle Doj. She had seen something that I missed. Maybe.

  Crows had been scarce near Overlook lately. Longshadow had taken a dislike to the dark harbingers. His crystal turrets were surrounded with nasty little spells that worked like trapdoor spiders, striking when birds came too close.

  “That’s interesting,” I said. “That might be something new.”

  “There have been crows before. But never so many.”

  “Uhm.” What went on in there last night that Soulcatcher found so interesting? I had seen nothing abnormal today. It might be worth checking.

  Maybe I was being worked. Maybe Uncle Doj and Mother Gota were bound to start checking out the oddities they had noticed about my behavior in recent months. Maybe they were getting ready to do whatever Croaker suspected they were going to do. If he did anything more than just suspect.

  He suspected everybody of something.

  “The one who flies went out last night, Soldier of Darkness.”

  “Ah.” She was trying to manipulate me. She knew I hated those enigmatic titles first employed by her father, Ky Dam. The old Speaker never explained them and Mother Gota would not waddle where her dad had refused to tread. “That is interesting.” There had been no aerial sightings of the Howler for a while. He liked to use spells of concealment when he was aloft, though.

  She wanted me to ask questions so she could toy with me and frustrate me. The information she had given was all I was going to get. Right now.

  I refused to play her game. I turned to Thai Dei. “Did I just get promoted to honorary member of the tribe?”

  He shrugged. He seemed mildly surprised that his mother had told me anything at all.

  I did not rush right over to visit Smoke. If that was what the old woman wanted I meant to disappoint her in a big way. I tended to chores, helped Thai Dei work on our dugout, ate again, drank plenty, worked on the Annals for a while. I could change nothing that had happened during the night. And whatever that was, it had not been so earthshaking that it was an immediate threat.

  One-Eye actually made it easy. Shortly after sundown he came over with a clay pot. “Soup’s ready,” he said. He sloshed the pot’s contents. The stink of a really bad beverage quickly filled my dugout.

  “All right!” I got up and followed him into the darkness.

  53

  “That was a stroke of luck, you showing up just then,” I told One-Eye. “I needed to get away.” I relayed what Mother Gota had told me.

  “How would she know that?”

  I told him about spotting her and Uncle Doj during the night. “Maybe they spotted me, too.”

  “Thai Dei could’ve told them.”

  “I guess.”

  “You think it’s important?”

  “They make a special point of making sure I know, I’d better check it out. I didn’t notice anything when I did my routine snooping.”

  One-Eye grunted. He looked thoughtful. “Goes to show you. No matter how well set up we are we’re going to miss stuff because we don’t know what to watch for.”

  Which was true. Things could be right there in the open and even with the advantage Smoke gave me I could miss them if I did not know to look.

  There just was not enough time to look everywhere all the time.

  I suggested, “Why don’t you take some of your magic potion over to my in-laws? Screw up their thinking for a while.”

  “Thought they didn’t touch the stuff.”

  “They’re not supposed to. But I’ve seen Thai Dei take a tummy-warmer a time or three, to be sociable, and his mother would’ve developed a taste for it if Uncle Doj hadn’t been there most of the time we were in Taglios. She’d sneak a few pints whenever he was away. She hasn’t had a chance since we’ve been on the road.”

  “Very interesting.” The little black man started rustling around. “Tell you what. I’ll just go over there and keep them company while you’re out. I’ll tell them you’re working.”

  He left before I finished my preparations. He lugged a slimy old wooden bucket with him. I muttered, “I got to get him to talk to Swan.” Willow Swan made bad beer, too, but he did know a little about the brewer’s art. Compared to One-Eye’s product Willow’s was ambrosia.

  There was very nearly a warmth to Smoke when I took hold of him, as though some part of him sensed that he was no longer alone and was pleased. I took him directly to Overlook, sliding backward in time as we went, avoiding the ruins where the fires burned so I would not see myself. I had to shuffle forward and backward to find Mother Gota’s crows. They were visible only briefly and were never obvious. They streaked in from the north, high above the fortress, then plummeted into Overlook like falling stones. There were no more than a dozen so any message they carried, either direction, would be severely limited. I expected greater numbers from what my mother-in-law had said.

  I followed the last one down. The flock did not go near Longshadow’s glowing towertop, where the Shadowmaster labored late over some esoteric text. They plunged into the darkness of a courtyard and entered the fortress through a door standing just a crack ajar. They muttered among themselves, uncomfortable with where they were. A sharp cry, broken off, nearly spooked them.

  A voice whispered. I could see nothing but the vaguest shape in the darkness but recognized the Howler’s aborted cry. I did not understand a word he said. I did not understand the crows, who took turns making noises that might have constituted a message. For me the critical piece of information was not included in the body of the message but in the existence of the message.

  Soulcatcher and Howler were communicating.

  I ran back in time another hour. Howler did nothing but sit there and wait. I jumped forward, planning to bracket him till I found something else interesting.

  I had to advance only a few minutes beyond the arrival of the crows.

  They stayed only briefly. Then Howler rustled back into the darkness. I drifted along behind him, tracking him by ear and by smell. Even in the ghostworld Howler had an air about him.

  He stayed in darkness, away from routes Longshadow might use, till he reached a particular door. He knocked, which surprised me. Howler was the kind of guy who just invited himself in.

  Narayan Singh opened the door a crack. Howler fought down a shriek. He was developing a talent for silence. Singh stepped back and allowed him to enter. Howler slipped in like a diminutive Deceiver on a deadly skulk. “It’s time,” he whispered.

  Time for what?

  Singh knew. He went to the Daughter of Night immediately. The kid was hunched up in front of a small fire, fanatically transcribing that first Book of the Dead. Looked to me like she was almost done. But who knew how long a book it was?

  Singh seemed unsure how to approach the girl. He seemed unsure about a lot lately. He was close to superfluous and knew it.

  Lady always would have a use for him, though.

  He got the girl’s attention. Gods, she was getting spooky! There was an aura about her, something you might call a glow of darkness. In that light her eyes seemed to shimmer like those of a big cat stealing toward your dying campfire. You were drowsing and she was hungry.

  “It’s time,” Narayan told her, his whisper barely strong enough to stir the air.

  The child nodded curtly. She made a tiny gest
ure. Narayan bowed, backed away.

  There was no doubt who was in charge here, who ruled and who obeyed. Nor any doubt that she was herself controlled by a determined power. She extended her writing hand to Narayan for help rising. It was a claw she could not relax. Her legs were too stiff to unfold on their own. For a moment I pitied her, forgetting she was no true child.

  Howler returned to the corridor. He drifted along ahead of Singh and the girl, scouting. Those two insisted on a lamp, which troubled Howler deeply. He muttered and fussed the whole time they were doing their sneak.

  By a tortuous route that avoided Longshadow, the garrison and the enclave still held by Lady’s soldiers, Howler led them to an unguarded piece of wall overlooking Kiaulune. Fires were burning down there. I was down there with Thai Dei, cold and disappointed with myself for having been dumb enough to insist on the eyewitness view.

  I did not tag along in real time. I skipped forward, compressing events. Howler’s destination was a small carpet concealed atop a domeless tower otherwise not in use. It was a new carpet, smaller than those we had seen before, black as the night around us. More evidence that you cannot know everything that is happening unless you want to spend every minute watching. I had not seen Howler working on this carpet.

  With no words exchanged the three lifted it, walked to the edge of the parapet, lockstepped right off into space. They clambered aboard as they fell. Narayan moaned softly, eyes closed. The Daughter of Night was not impressed.

  Howler took control in time not to smear them all over the rocks and wreckage below. He began sliding gently along just a few feet above the ground, trying to keep solid objects between himself and Overlook.

  I took a quick look at Longshadow.

  The Shadowmaster was restless. He had left his studies to stare vaguely toward Kiaulune. He sensed that something was happening but could not determine what.

  Howler was playing around behind his ally’s back.

  I almost lost the little shit. I had to go back to the moment I left him to pick him up again. Soon afterward he drifted past a band of Mogaba’s guerrillas in the ruins. The guerrillas did not see him but sensed him and panicked, thinking one of the Shadowmaster’s pets was on the prowl. The racket they made drew the attention of nearby Taglians. The soldiers saw something shadowy drifting through the darkness. They wasted no time getting off a volley of fireballs.