The Return of the Black Company

by Cook, Glen

  73

  I watched Wheezer direct the winkling out of a small shadow that had worked its way up close to the perimeter of One-Eye’s safe zone before going into hiding from the light. Lady had modified One-Eye’s amulets so that they could be used to detect shadows. Our guys were rooting them out with great enthusiasm—particularly considering that most of those guys were exhausted. I said, “I can’t believe that old boy isn’t dead yet.”

  On cue Wheezer tried to hawk up a lung. He was ancient when he joined the Company years ago and was dying of consumption even then. The only thing good that could be said about his situation was that he somehow managed to stay alive.

  Thai Dei grunted. He did not care about Wheezer. Although he was supposedly helping excavate our bunker he spent more attention on his mother, who snored ferociously in the shelter of a tent that had belonged to somebody who had not survived the night. His face was stone. His eyes were ice. If another Nyueng Bao came anywhere near him his hackles rose. He was just waiting for somebody to say something, anything, that he could interpret as an insult so he could spend his embarrassment in a good fight.

  When they dug Gota and One-Eye out not only were they passed out drunk, they were on the same pallet wearing less than their usual apparel.

  So that was his tonk game, eh?

  I worked hard not to crack a smile. Thai Dei might decide I was truly family after all and take it out on me.

  I hoped he would not confront One-Eye. One-Eye would have a murderous hangover when he woke up. One-Eye with a hangover is not somebody to annoy.

  Croaker was sorely exercised, I knew. The little wizard had rendered himself useless at a time when his talents were needed desperately.

  Everywhere you looked people were scurrying to rebuild and to get ready for another night with a leaky Shadowgate. Lady and the Old Man hoped Longshadow would help improve that situation but no good news had been reported yet. They were having trouble getting him out of his shell.

  They had no time to concentrate. Messengers came and went continuously, interrupting constantly.

  “Another dozen shovels full and I think we can get it open,” I told Thai Dei. I had conscripted a door somebody else had stolen from the ruins. I had used it to close off the little workroom I had managed to complete just in time for the earthquake.

  One of Croaker’s guards appeared. “The Captain wishes to see you, Standardbearer.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll be right back, Thai Dei.” I clambered up out of the muddy hole and headed for Croaker’s dugout. I ducked inside. The crowd had thinned out. Amazing. “What you need, boss?” He and Lady had Longshadow stretched out on a table made out of another stolen door. The Shadowmaster was too long for it. His feet hung off.

  Lady had managed to eliminate the sorcerer’s protective shell.

  “Fellow just came in from Blade’s bunch, Murgen. They’ve found Howler. He’s still buried in the snow. They don’t know if he’s unconscious or dead.”

  “He’s been there long enough he should’ve froze to death.” But he was one of the Taken. They did not die easily. Especially not Howler. I glanced at Lady.

  She told me, “I can’t tell from here.”

  Croaker said, “They also caught Cordy Mather and his gang. They asked what to do about them.” He was poking and squeezing Longshadow’s limbs, looking for broken bones, I guess. He told Lady, “This man hasn’t eaten right for a long time.”

  “Maybe he was worried about poison.” She stared down at the Shadowmaster’s mask. She started to reach.

  “You sure you’ve cancelled all of his spells?” the Old Man asked.

  “You can’t ever be sure with somebody you don’t know. Murgen. Did you ever see him with this off?”

  The messenger from Blade pricked up his ears. He was collecting stories to share with the guys.

  “No. How would I manage that? I never saw him before right now.”

  She took the hint.

  Croaker said, “What I want, Murgen, is for you to round up some men, including One-Eye—even if you have to carry him—and go help Blade.” And maybe keep an eye on him, eh, chief? Him and Mather being such good buddies? “Be careful with Howler but bring him in if you can.”

  I grunted unhappily. Lady took hold of Longshadow’s mask.

  The Old Man asked me, “You found out anything more about the planting season around here?”

  I gave him a baffled look. That was an odd shift of subject. But he did that. His mind sometimes ran a dozen directions at once.

  He continued, “We’ve got to get crops planted if we mean to stay here. That or pull a Mogaba and start eating each other.”

  Lady pulled the Shadowmaster’s mask away.

  Longshadow arced as though stabbed. His eyes opened. But he could do nothing else. He had been constrained and silenced by a master.

  I asked, “Why don’t we move into his place? There’re supplies in there. Some. And Overlook is sure a whole hell of a lot drier inside than here. I don’t recognize him.” The Shadowmaster’s face was gaunt and oriental but pale as lard. There were just a few teeth in his open mouth, supporting Croaker’s assessment of his diet. He looked like a guy who had suffered repeated bouts with rickets or scurvy or something like that.

  “Neither do I,” Lady said. She sounded badly disappointed. I do believe she really expected him to be one of the Taken, or at least someone she had encountered in the past.

  I asked, “Is this a problem?”

  “I was hoping for a break. Something to make life easier.”

  “You picked the wrong husband. Boss, can I get out there and back before dark?”

  The messenger nodded. “Easy. It’s only four miles. There’s road most of the way and it’s still in good shape.”

  Smoke groaned again. There was a taint of fear there this time. Lady frowned his way. He was a problem she wished she had time to explore.

  “Get a move on,” Croaker told me. “It’ll get dark eventually.”

  Darkness always comes. “I love walking in the rain.” I beckoned the messenger, went back outside. A walk in the rain would not be that awful. I could not get any more wet.

  I told Thai Dei, “The Captain wants us to go collect some prisoners.”

  74

  There are disadvantages to traveling wet. You get a lot of chafing, for example. By the time I caught up with Blade I had blisters on my feet and a raw spot inside my right thigh that burned awfully. And I still had to go back the other way.

  Thai Dei was no happier than I was. None of the guys tagging along were cheerful. They had to take turns carrying One-Eye. The runt’s most ambitious effort yet had been to roll onto his side to puke over the edge of his litter.

  I had had a notion about sneaking on up to peek into Soulcatcher’s ravine. It was a notion that died stillborn about the time we left the road for the forest. A few hundred yards of slip-sliding around in the mud and pine needles and, in the shady places, snow, on steepening hillsides, quickly convinced me that this was no day to demonstrate individual initiative.

  One thing I could be sure of. Soulcatcher would be around later.

  I flopped down beside Blade. “Have a good trip down?” I asked Mather. “Sorry we couldn’t reserve better weather for you.”

  Blade chuckled. So did Willow Swan, who observed, “This is about as good as it gets, Cordy. We did save the best for you.”

  “I knew you were my pals.”

  I asked, “Where’s our boy Howler?” None of this country looked the same as it had during the night, from the air.

  Swan pointed uphill, southward, toward where some tall evergreens held on to a thick clot of shadow. “Buried in some snow up there.”

  The guys with me dropped One-Eye’s litter. The little wizard moaned but did not yet have enough ambition to curse or threaten anyone.

  I asked, “What did you guys do to convince Lady she could let you run around loose?”

  Blade chuckled. “She convinced him. By point
ing out that anybody who doesn’t stay close and friendly won’t have any protection from the shadows.”

  I grunted. “It’s a realization that’s going around as people begin to examine their consciences.” It was the kind of question that has led many men to select options for which they may be excoriated later, by people with full bellies sitting in front of cozy fires. “Anybody got any grease? Even anything that will pass for grease?”

  My old pal Thai Dei was lugging a glob of lard. In case we had to do some cooking. Nyueng Bao never ceased to amaze. Though their religion had to be an offshoot of the Gunni, somehow they did eat meat and, unlike the Vehdna, that did include pork. The swamp did not allow them to become too picky. Thai Dei must have lugged that lard for years, using it over and over.… No matter. Lard was exactly what I needed.

  I dropped my trousers, treated the insides of my thighs to a generous spread. “This’ll keep me going for a while.”

  One-Eye began thrashing on his litter, fighting his blanket and complaining about being wet. His problem was trivial. It was not raining anymore.

  He threw up over the side again, hacking and gagging, then settled down to sleep.

  “That looks pretty raw already,” Swan told me.

  “Kiss it better,” Mather suggested.

  “Some reunion. Our old pal Cordy got above himself since he’s been hobnobbing with the Woman—”

  I said, “Let’s go do our wizard mining.”

  Blade said, “I really don’t want to do this.”

  “No shit. Me neither. Tell you what. Why don’t we let Swan and Mather get him? We’ll stay right here so somebody can get word back to camp in case anything goes wrong.”

  Mather said, “This guy is definitely starting to sound like an officer. You get a couple field promotions during the campaign?”

  “I’m a god.” I let Thai Dei help me up. He had not sprawled on the ground. His muscles were still loose. He started heading the direction Swan had indicated earlier.

  Blade asked, “What about your pet?” He chucked a pinecone at One-Eye. One-Eye barely twitched.

  “He’s got liabilities enough.” Let sleeping sorcerers lie.

  One-Eye sat up. He slurred, “I heard that, Kid.” Then he collapsed again.

  I said, “I think I’ll leave him here and take the other one back on the stretcher.” An idea which proved popular immediately. Not even One-Eye came out against it. He was busy snoring again.

  There was no evidence that Howler had moved an inch since his fall. There was just the hole where he had gone into the snow and at its bottom, about eight feet deep, a bundle of dark rags. A light dust of loose snow had blown in on top of him.

  “Hey! Lookit here!” a soldier called from maybe thirty feet away, up the slope past Howler.

  “What you got?” I asked. I was not walking ten feet if I did not have to.

  “Looks like a dead wolf.”

  I worked my way up there. “Sumbitch, guys! He found a dead wolf.” I knelt. “Looks like it got caught by a shadow.” Evidence on the slope suggested that it had been sneaking toward Howler when bad luck got in its way. Then it had tried to run. It had not been alone, of course, but the tracks indicated a very small pack.

  “I didn’t know they had wolves down here,” somebody said.

  “Now you do.” The death of the wolf did not seem critical. Except to tell us that a shadow had been around here last night and might still be hiding somewhere nearby. “Be careful if you’re anywhere that’s dark.”

  I went back down to check Howler. He had not moved. Of course.

  “He alive?” Swan asked.

  Blade suggested, “Get a long stick and poke him.”

  I said, “Let’s dig him out.”

  “That smart?”

  “He won’t do anything till we get him out of the hole.” I would not have in his position. Always let some other fool do the work if he insists.

  The snow was old snow. Its surface had melted and refrozen numerous times. It was hard and heavy. Luckily, Howler was not really eight feet under. He had passed through eight feet of snow but that snow lay on a steep hillside and was only about four feet thick going in at the most direct angle.

  I had a notion. “Don’t scatter that stuff too far. We might want to use some.”

  “There ain’t exactly a shortage,” Swan grumbled.

  Thai Dei, I noted, never offered to help. He stood back with his hand on his sword, alert, one eye cocked toward One-Eye. Perhaps his impulses were evil.

  His vigilance proved unnecessary. As the more daring men brushed snow off Howler one of them announced, “He’s froze solid.”

  A huge sigh of relief ripped through the crowd.

  “Excellent!” I observed. “Here’s what we’ll do, then.”

  An hour later we had the little wizard tied to a carrying pole, packed inside a layer of snow six inches thick. “Just to keep him from spoiling on the way,” I told the guys, some of whom had had to give up ragged bits of clothing to help keep the snow around Howler. They all whined and groaned and groused and wanted to know why we could not just pack him in with the other one.

  They were going to break One-Eye’s heart. They did not love him anymore.

  75

  “Use this salve,” Croaker told me. “And try to keep it as clean and dry as you can.”

  “I was walking bowlegged before we got back.” I scowled at One-Eye, who was seated on the floor near Croaker’s fire, not saying a word. He looked like he wished we would let him fall asleep for a year, so the pain would go away. He was still in such bad shape that he did not have energy enough to complain.

  Mother Gota was more resilient. Her youth, I suppose. She and Uncle Doj had been working on the family dugout when Thai Dei and I returned from our adventure. Nobody, including Uncle Doj, had anything to say. I ignored his long absence. I had no time for Nyueng Bao mystery games. I left them stirring the mud in an effort to get a shelter up before night fell again.

  Lady had Howler on the door table, examining him. She concluded, “He should recover.”

  I asked, “You get issued nine lives when you get Taken? That little shit is starting to look stubborner than the Limper was.” We killed that asshole half a dozen times. We thought. And he just kept coming back.

  Lady said, “No. But anybody who has the drive to become a wizard of his level is the sort who wastes no opportunity to further prepare for any imaginable possibility.”

  I asked the Old Man, “What’s it look like out there?” There had been dramatic changes in the few hours I was away. Besides the passage of the rain. Most of the survivors had been collected either in the vicinity of the headquarters group or directly below the Shadowgate. A lot of manhours had gone into locating every surviving piece of workable bamboo. Lady’s reloading factory was hard at work, too, but the effort there was little more than symbolic of the leadership’s commitment to continue the struggle.

  “Looks better than I thought it would. Lady got Longshadow stabilized. That should mean we’re back to the slow leakage we had before he got hurt. If he mends all right we’ll have him shut it down in a couple of days.”

  “We going to be able to control him?”

  “Oh yeah. You’ve seen statues of dead generals that had more freedom of action than she’s left him.”

  Lady looked up from her work. She wore the tiniest of smiles but it betrayed the confident amusement of an old, old evil. She is the darkness. Smoke was for sure right about that.

  I said, “Wouldn’t we be better off if we moved into Overlook?”

  “Maybe. And we might do that. Once we get straightened out and know where everybody is. And figure out where, for right now, their loyalties lie.”

  “Speaking of which. Uncle Doj is back. He’s out there helping my mother-in-law and acting like he was never gone.”

  “I heard.”

  “I’m wondering how he managed to survive. Especially last night.”

  Lady looked at me l
ike I had sparked a surprise thought. She said, “Watch Howler. Call me if he moves. I’ll be right outside.” She hurried out the doorway.

  I looked at Croaker. He shrugged. “I don’t ask anymore.”

  “She looks pretty ragged.”

  “Don’t we all? But maybe we’ll get to rest up now. If we get the Shadowgate under control there won’t be anybody to aggravate us for a long time. If ever.”

  Mogaba was out there. But he had no patron anymore. That meant that nobody could cover his ass magically. He would have to back off. And the Prahbrindrah Drah might not live long enough to become a problem. He had to evade both shadows and Goblin to reach friendly territory. And even so-called friendly territory would not be very friendly if he could not pull together a band big enough to look out for itself. Peasants are notoriously cruel to fleeing soldiers when they catch them at a disadvantage. Possibly that is because soldiers are so cruel to peasants when the advantage lies in their hands, though many from the hyperrefined warrior classes have insisted it springs from the beastly nature of the peasantry.

  “Can you get over to the Shadowgate?”

  “Me? Now?”

  “You. Now. Before dark. Carrying the standard. To test my theory about what it is. And to help cover the troops there if I’m right.”

  “I can try. But I’m in pretty lousy shape.”

  “You could ride.”

  That was asking for another set of galled spots entirely but he was right.

  With a slightly nasty smile he observed, “You could have your understudy do it for you—if you had one.”

  So he knew Sleepy was missing. I needed to check on the kid first chance I got.

  Lady pushed back inside. She was not a big woman but she had a big presence. I was always surprised when I saw her after a separation because I always remembered her about a foot taller. She told me, “Your friend Doj isn’t just a priest from some obscure cult. He’s a sorcerer. Very minor. Less than One-Eye in ability. But he’s carrying something—an amulet, an artifact, what exactly I couldn’t determine—that protects him from shadows.”