The Return of the Black Company

by Cook, Glen

  Longshadow did something by moving small figurines in a collection on a table, as though making multiple moves in a board game. He said a single word.

  The lights in the surviving tower tops waxed brilliant. Light beams reached out across the night. Like accusing fingers they swung to point in the general area of Croaker’s Old Division. They did not light up the slope nearly as well as they had in former times but I was impressed. They did their jobs without the aid of one human hand.

  The others there were impressed, too. Narayan seemed a little troubled, the Howler suddenly restless. Longshadow did not notice. He moved on to his next step. He said, “The lights are unnecessary to coming events. I just thought it would be amusing if our enemies watched one another scream their lives out.”

  He giggled.

  Howler sat up straight as a spear, suddenly alert. He did not like the way things were going.

  Maybe Longshadow was not as big a fool as everyone thought.

  I spent a moment too long watching the girl for a reaction. Smoke did his she is the darkness reaction and started to back off. I held him. We were about to witness some excitement.

  Longshadow stepped up to the big crystal sphere standing on a pedestal at the center of the chamber. His audience watched carefully, nervously. This was not something he had done in front of witnesses before. I doubted they knew what the sphere was.

  The globe was four feet in diameter. What looked like little tunnels followed wormtracks in to a hollow place at its center. As Longshadow stepped closer shimmering light rippled over its surface, like oil on water but much more intense. Snakes of cold fire wriggled through the channels inside. It was a hell of a show.

  Longshadow raised his spidery hands. Carefully, he removed his gloves and pushed up his sleeves. The skin he revealed seemed both translucent and pus-colored, with speckles of blue beneath, like cheese. He had a fine crop of liver spots. There was almost no flesh on him at all.

  The Shadowmaster rested his hands on the surface of the sphere. The lights inside became excited. The surface shimmer climbed his fingers, covered his hands. His fingers sank into the globe like hot rods slowly melting their way into ice. He grabbed the worms of light and began twisting.

  He began to talk in a conversational sort of voice, of course using a language that nobody recognized—though the Daughter of Night frowned and leaned forward as though she was able to puzzle out a word here and there.

  The Shadowmaster summoned a shadow. I could not see it. It was inside the pedestal supporting the globe. But I felt it. There was not much to it but it was very, very cold.

  The Howler dropped to the floor and leaned closer to watch. Narayan and the Daughter of Night stared, bemused. The kid took a few steps forward. Singh moved closer to the door, for a better angle of view.

  Longshadow spoke for several minutes, his eyes closed tightly. As he finished the brightness inside the globe began to fade. He opened his eyes and stared out southward as he had done ten thousand times before, watching the area illuminated by the mirrors.

  She is the darkness!

  I was not looking at the brat.…

  Not that darkness.

  A very special darkness. A surprise darkness that should not have caught me that far off guard, considering.

  Soulcatcher.

  She stepped in through a door opened by Narayan Singh as though she had been about to knock.

  Longshadow was not ready for this. Not at all. He was surrounded, totally betrayed, before he realized Catcher had arrived.

  I clung there with all the power I had to resist Smoke’s terror. The little shit whined and repeated she is the darkness! like that was some mantra against the fangs of the night.

  “The game ends,” Soulcatcher said in the booming, basso voice of a crier in an amphitheater. Then she giggled like a teenaged girl. “It’s been hard work but worth it. I really like my new house.” Both those sentences arrived in the voice of a little old man who keeps account books.

  Longshadow was caught, trapped, pinned like a butterfly on a collector’s display board. He was surrounded, outnumbered, and did not have a chance even if he was the greatest wizard who ever lived. Which he was not. Even so, he did not surrender.

  He knew his value. His mind was not clouded. She dared not kill him because the Shadowgate would collapse.

  I had to give in to Smoke. I had to get this news back fast.

  I really needed to get it to Lady fastest but there was no way.

  Longshadow moved slowly to pick up his gloves. As he began to pull one on, Soulcatcher said, “I think not.” Her voice was the velvet tenor of a tombstone salesman. “In fact, it’s time…”

  Longshadow’s right pinky was crooked, as though it had been broken and badly set a long time ago. The nail looked like a bit of rotten, dried out, blackened spinach leaf.

  The Shadowmaster flicked that little finger.

  The nail flew off just as Catcher said, “… time.…”

  I shook my ghostly head. You never see everything.

  In one eyeblink that nail became a shadow filled with hatred for the light.

  Smoke’s wriggling became irresistible.

  64

  I reached for a mug of water even as I sat up. Groggily, it dawned on me that I had been shoved into the cramped little alcove where the Old Man had been keeping Smoke since we sneaked him over from One-Eye’s pesthole. There were voices beyond the ragged hangings concealing me.

  I took a long drink, stirred Smoke’s blankets around so he would be hidden, ran my fingers through my hair, stepped out of hiding.

  The voices stopped instantly. Croaker looked about as angry as he could get. I told him, “It’s that important.” Which left a baffled look on the faces of Swan and Blade. “Good thing they’re handy. You guys go outside for a minute? Take the candle.”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Croaker demanded. He had to make a major effort to keep his voice down.

  “Soulcatcher just took over Overlook.”

  “Huh?”

  “She walked in while Longshadow was cutting the shadows loose. Which he did, by the way. And she and Singh and the kid and Howler all jumped him. You needed to know right now. This changes everything. Lady should hear as soon as possible, too.”

  “Uhn!” Croaker was still angry but I could see the changes taking place behind his eyes, see the focus of his anger shifting like a ship changing course. “The bitch. The deceitful, conniving, treacherous bitch.”

  “Way she talked, she’s planning on moving into Overlook and making it home.”

  “The bitch!”

  “I wish I could tell you more. Smoke refused to stay around where she was at. Think you better tell Lady?”

  “Of course I’d better tell her. Shut up. Let me think.”

  “Hey in there!” Swan yelled from the other side of the hangings keeping the wind out. “You guys better come and see this.”

  “Now what?” Croaker snarled.

  “I’ll check it out. Write them a message they can take to Lady.”

  “Damn it. It may be too late. She was going to try to sneak up on Longshadow herself.”

  Shit. We were in the brown stuff deep. Maybe.

  I made a wobble-legged dash for the open air. I slipped on the steps going up to ground level. The earth was still soggy, even up here on the hillside.

  I did not have to ask Willow what troubled him.

  The biggest fireworks show of all time was going on over by the Shadowgate. Maybe the dustup at Lake Tanji was a match but I got to see that one only from the inside. “Gods damn!” I swore. There were so many fireballs flying around that no expletive could do the event justice.

  I flung myself back down the muddy steps.

  Croaker was wriggling into his Widowmaker costume. I told him, “It’s started at the Shadowgate. You have to see it to believe it. I hope those guys have enough bamboo.”

  “Lady gave them everything she could. It’ll be a matter of number
s. Which we’ve known from the beginning. If we have more fireballs than they throw shadows, we win. If we don’t, we end up sorry. But not for long.”

  “Longshadow didn’t seem to do much. If that tells you anything positive.”

  “It doesn’t. I don’t have any idea what he would or wouldn’t have to do to unleash some or all of the shadows. And there’s no way I can guess how he’d think about it. Except that he wouldn’t want to let go so many that they’d come after him, too. He’d want to be able to control the survivors after he got rid of us.”

  “He doesn’t know that he doesn’t have any more shadowweavers. Singh and Howler have been feeding him very selective information lately. The true extent of what Lady accomplished the other day is a complete mystery to him.”

  “More treachery from our friend Soulcatcher, no doubt.”

  “I’d bet on it.”

  “You need to get back out there. She wouldn’t do just that one thing. It would leave her too vulnerable.”

  “Huh?” My turn to make funny noises.

  “She’s got to know we can get in and out of there whenever we want. She has to cover her sweet little ass. Go see what she’s up to before she really gets going.”

  “On my way, boss.”

  I drank some sugar water and went out.

  * * *

  Smoke did not want to go back to Overlook. I got my way. I tricked him, sort of, by ducking back to before Catcher pushed her way into his awareness. Then I zipped forward and watched the shadow explode off Longshadow’s pinky.

  It went for Howler. It hit Howler. Howler howled. And fought it off somehow. It darted at Narayan Singh, who shrieked as it struck him. Howler and Catcher together forced the animate darkness away from the Deceiver. Singh lapsed into unconsciousness immediately.

  The shadow was not whipped yet. It struck at the Daughter of Night.

  The instant she screamed the ghostworld began to fill with the stench of Kina. A cyclone of rage roared toward Overlook. Smoke squeaked she is the darkness and away we went, streaking out of there like a shaft from a ballista. We went high and we went north and we went fast. The fireworks at the Shadowgate vanished behind the Dandha Presh. We were north of Dejagore before I could exert any control.

  The ghostworld had become one protracted whimper from my steed. He was fleeing somewhere where he expected to be safe. Somewhere that the deepest part of him recalled from days when he was still an ordinary mortal.

  He had only just begun to respond to directions when we drifted into the Palace.

  The place was a beehive. Priests and Guards and functionaries rushed everywhere. There was excitement out on the city streets, too. Shadar watchmen roamed in packs, making arrests by the score.

  This bore closer examination.

  I checked the prisoners. A few seemed vaguely familiar. I dipped around in time and discovered that they were being collected in the empty Black Company barracks. I found some definitely familiar faces in the crowd there.

  They were all people who had been friendly to the Company.,

  I zipped around for a look at the Radisha, ran back in time to the beginning.… Near as I could tell her adventure had been going on for only a short while, though she had spent hours earlier getting her assets positioned. Actual arrests commenced just about the time Soulcatcher strolled into Longshadow’s chamber at Overlook.

  Sleepy!

  Shit! I sped to Banh Do Trang’s warehouse.

  Sleepy had not been arrested. Not yet. Several Shadar were in the neighborhood. They were looking for Sleepy. Their curses left me no doubt that they were after him specifically. But they could not find his hiding place.

  I went after the kid. I gave it everything I could. If it worked in the swamp it ought to work in the city. I got right down there in his face and screamed. I tried to mess his hair and pull his ears.

  He spooked.

  So he did happen to be out of the way when the watchmen arrived, though he was still close enough to overhear and understand.

  I did not wait around. He had sense enough to saddle up and get out of town and never mind waiting for an answer from Sarie.

  I grabbed Smoke by the ectoplasmic short hairs and headed south. He was not even a little bit eager to go.

  I returned to my flesh. The Old Man was waiting for me. “What’s the word?”

  “Kina was coming. Smoke spooked. He headed north. I just got back. The shit’s flying up there, too.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “The Radisha is rounding up anybody who ever smiled at one of us. She started at almost exactly the same minute that Soulcatcher jumped on Longshadow.”

  He did not ponder that. “We’ve got a problem, then. Get back out there. I want to know if anything else is going wrong.”

  I sucked some sugar water and went.

  What else was going wrong? Right here in Kiaulune the Prahbrindrah Drah was trying to disarm Lady’s troops. She was inside Overlook. She did not know yet. I did not know how to get word to her quickly. I decided to try the same tack I had with Sleepy. Maybe I could startle her into doing something.

  I found her already in the stairwell leading up to Longshadow’s crystal chamber. Several of our best Company brothers were with her.

  I dropped down in front of her and screeched, “Booga! Booga! Booga! Get your ass back outside!”

  She jumped. She squinted into the darkness right about where the eyes of my viewpoint floated. “Murgen?”

  “Get your butt out of here, woman. It’s a trap. And the Prince’s troops are trying to disarm your men.”

  She turned and barked orders.

  Damn! She was a whole lot more sensitive than the others.

  I whipped out of there. The stink of Kina had begun to fill the stairwell.

  A dark nimbus clutched itself to Longshadow’s crystal tower. Kina had little strength she could project into this world but it was all focused now. I made Smoke move higher so I could look down into the chamber.

  The Daughter of Night had recovered from the attack of the shadow. She used the strength lent her by her goddess to drive the thing back at the Shadowmaster.

  Longshadow, of course, had been completely mad from the beginning, as paranoid as they come. He never trusted Howler. About all he and the little stinker had in common was their hatred of the Company. Mutual hatred for somebody else never has been sound grounds for a marriage.

  The Shadowmaster had planned for a moment like this—though he had not anticipated Soulcatcher being there to help the turncoat, nor had he expected the Strangler and his brat to contribute distractions of their own. Nevertheless, he had been thorough. He had overengineered by a large factor. It might be enough. If they had underestimated him.

  The towertop chamber became a bizarre pot filled with growls and shrieks, bits of smoke that came and went too fast for the eye to track, changing colors, knives of pure energy that slashed stone and crystal and ricocheted off stubborn protective spells and never considered the loyalty of anyone who got in the way.

  Soulcatcher cried out like a child suddenly injured. She dropped to one knee, whimpering, but did not abandon the fight. Howler howled. The Daughter of Night babbled passages from the first Book of the Dead. The stench of Kina was awful in the ghostworld but the child had not finished copying the book before Howler stole it. She could not bring Kina all the way home without all of it.

  Longshadow edged toward the doorway. It looked like he might actually get out. Presumably once he did the chamber would implode or in some other fashion destroy everybody still inside. That was the sort of trap I would have set.

  They called Singh a living saint. He was, supposedly, the best of his kind of his generation. A dubious distinction in most of our eyes, but every man should be lucky enough to discover the one thing he can do better than anyone else alive.

  The Shadowmaster thought no more of Narayan than he did of a mouse. The Deceiver was just there.

  He was there one moment and here the next
. His strangling cloth encircled the Shadowmaster’s throat like black lightning.

  A black rumel man becomes a master Strangler in part by mastering his own fear and excitement in times of stress. Narayan Singh had that knack though he had had little opportunity to exercise it recently. He had done so now. He remained calm enough not to break the Shadowmaster’s neck. He understood the cost.

  Strangulation is a slow process. Its victim seldom cooperates. Singh shouted, “I need armholders!” At first he said that in Deceiver cant. Only the child understood. She did not have the strength to restrain the Shadowmaster.

  She told Soulcatcher, “You! Take his right arm and pull. You. The smelly one. Take hold of his left arm. Now. In the name of my mother.”

  Catcher snapped, “In the name of your real mother, who happens to be my pain-in-the-ass sister, you’re going to get a paddling as soon as we finish with this piece of shit.” The voice she used was a dead ringer for that of somebody I used to know who had been a devout believer in not sparing the rod.

  Longshadow was one stubborn fish. He thrashed a lot longer than I thought any human could without air. The kid told the others, “Make sure you don’t kill him.”

  “Go teach your grandma to suck eggs, brat.” This time Catcher’s voice was identical to Goblin’s. I felt a sudden fear for the little wizard.

  Longshadow collapsed. “Tie him and gag him and put him in that chair of his,” Catcher told Howler. “Fix him good. Then look around for any more surprises he may have here.” The shadow had vanished, either out the cracked door, into hiding or destroyed.

  Howler, panting, asked, “And what’ll you be doing, O mighty one?”

  “Setting the pecking order straight.” She grabbed the Daughter of Night, dropped to one knee, bent the struggling child over the other, mouthed a spell that flung Narayan Singh across the room hard enough to knock him cold, then yanked the kid’s pants down and proceeded to apply a well-deserved tanning.