The Return of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  The man was not yet ready to sell his soul for a drink of water.

  Soon after I wolfed down one of Mother Gota’s sinkers I felt my strength returning. “Let’s get you cinched up good and tight,” I told my companion. “Wouldn’t want you wandering off and getting hurt.”

  He stared at me in silence while I fixed him up. He didn’t need to speak to let me know what was on his mind. I told him, “This is the risk you took when you signed on with the bad guys.”

  He would not argue but he refused to agree. I was confused. I was the bad guy because I wasn’t blazing hot on the effort to bring Kina back into the world. I patted his head. “You could be right, brother. But I hope not. Here.” I snatched up the cloth and drew it back over him, where it belonged. Then I drank some more water and ate part of a roll and when I got to feeling frisky I decided to return to my apartment. It was subjective as hell but it was an age since I had seen my wife. In reality it could not have been more than a few hours.

  I got lost.

  51

  Of course I got lost. It was inevitable. The future me within me did not recall anything else but it did remember that I was going to get lost, then find my way to someplace I was not trying to go. That much came to me just after I realized that I did not have a clue how to get back to any familiar part of the Palace. I stopped to take stock.

  At that moment I had enough near-current memories of other Murgens from other times that I was ready to trust any memory from any time, though it came with no supporting context whatsoever.

  This memory of getting lost carried flavors of the excitement of unexpected discovery and powerful overtones of pain. An echo told me I did not want to find my way again.

  Somewhere, while still stubbornly trying to get out, I came upon a gloomy hallway that seemed to smell of old magic. A few yards away a shattered door hung precariously upon a single hinge.

  Discovery beckoned.

  I went forward unafraid.

  One look inside told me I had found Smoke’s secret library, the place where the only surviving copies of the first several Annals had been gathered and sealed away so there would be no chance we Black Company types would ever chance upon them.

  I wanted to read them so badly. But I had not come to read. I did not have time to sort the wheat from the chaff of a hundred other books. I had to get back to my family.

  I strove valiantly but could not get there. Head spinning, I tried to retrace my steps. It looked like I would have to wait with Smoke until One-Eye or the Old Man turned up. They could lead me out the easy way—and maybe tell me why I did not want to go, because that part would not come to mind clearly.

  I got back to Smoke easily, with no misturns. I had begun to suspect that there were spells webbed into that part of the Palace, cast so no intruder could find his way around the maze without One-Eye’s blessing. It might be that all paths led to the same destination. Or maybe they all led away if you did not start out with Smoke to begin.

  That would not surprise me, though I had no idea if One-Eye had the skill and power to manage it. Nor would it surprise me to find out that he did not remember casting the spell in the first place, so had made no provision for me to get around it.

  The Deceiver was wiggling when I returned, my step so soft he did not sense my presence immediately. He froze when he did. Give that man credit for determination.

  I settled into the empty chair. I waited. Nobody came. It seemed hours passed but probably it was just a few long minutes. I got up and tramped around, back and forth. I tormented the Strangler some but that just made me feel bad, too. I covered him up and sat down again.

  I stared at Smoke. I thought about the Black Company and its tribulations. I remembered what Smoke could do.

  Why not? Just to kill time? But where to go? What to see? When?

  Why not the great enemy again?

  It was easy this time. Nothing to it. Like closing my eyes and drifting off into a reverie.

  I did not go without some reluctance. I was spending way too much time beyond the normal pale, against my will. Why add to my confusion by going wandering on my own, too?

  With almost a snap and pop I found myself adrift outside fortress Overlook. The mad sorcerer Longshadow stood atop one of his tall towers, amidst reflected light, less than ten feet away. I suffered a mild panic. He was looking right at me.

  Right through me.

  Behind him, stance mocking, was that wretch Narayan Singh, with Croaker’s kid, the mortal flesh of Kina, the Daughter of Night, the One Foretold who would bring on the Deceivers’ Year of the Skulls, which will end with the awakening of their goddess. Singh never let the child out of his sight.

  Singh was a dangerous tool but Longshadow needed every ally willing to join him.

  Quite a few folks seemed willing to sign on against the Black Company.

  A figure emerged from a hatchway apparently dark only because of the intensity of the light surrounding the mad wizard. This man was tall, ebony, lithe as a panther. No anger touched me because emotions turn pale in Smoke’s domain, although this was Mogaba, the most dangerous of the Shadowlander generals.

  I suspect Longshadow appreciated Mogaba less for his abilities than because he could be trusted. Mogaba has nowhere to run. The Company stands astride every road to safety.

  I cannot understand why Croaker does not hate Mogaba. Hell, he makes excuses for the man, even feels sorry for him. He takes his feud with Blade much more to heart.

  Mogaba said, “Howler brought news. The storm system no longer works.”

  Longshadow grunted. “I saw. My small shadows remain useful. I recall that I predicted they would catch on quickly. Have you any thoughts on how the woman Senjak could regain her powers when, by the nature of these things, she ought to be at the mercy of anyone who knows her True Name?”

  I had a feeling he really wanted to know how Howler could survive a Lady with her powers restored and her old, wicked knowledge intact. Longshadow viewed the world through a lens of paranoia.

  I wondered myself. About Lady’s powers. Croaker guessed it had something to do with crossing the equator. That did not sound plausible. Neither One-Eye nor Goblin would hazard a guess. Lady herself refused to discuss it. I had no idea what she believed. Nobody pressed. That was not something you did if you wanted to stay friendly with somebody like Lady. She can get real unpleasant if she doesn’t like you.

  “No ideas,” Mogaba said. “It isn’t something I understand.” There were many things Mogaba did not understand, including any languages native to that region. He communicated with Longshadow using his improved but still flawed Taglian. “Maybe she changed her name.”

  Could they do that?

  I realized the remark was Mogaba’s attempt at a joke. But Longshadow did mull it over as though it was possible in some subjective fashion.

  The moment passed. Longshadow faced Singh. “Deceiver. Why are you here? What machinations has the Howler involved you in now?”

  Mogaba answered for Narayan. “The Black Company jumped them in their holy grove and killed everyone but him and the girl. Your shadowweavers barely had time to call for Howler before they died. Howler found these two hiding a few miles away and got them out only yards ahead of the pursuit.”

  So. This was only a short while after our raid. And here was a surprise. I believed Narayan had gotten warning from the Shadowmaster. But he had not. So how had he shaken the sleep spell?

  Mention of the shadowweavers rocked Longshadow. I thought he would fly into one of his famed foamy-mouthed rages. Those strange little old men were a resource he dared not squander. It took a lifetime to train them. And we have taken care of a bunch of them over the years.

  Longshadow sucked in a deep breath, held it, restrained his insanity. “My error. I should not have sent them. Have you any idea how our enemies could appear at a time so propitious to their cause?”

  Nobody volunteered the news that we could hover over his shoulder any time the urge h
it.

  Longshadow observed, “This is not good. Each day they develop new resources. Each day ours dwindle.” He glared at Singh. “What are we getting from these Deceivers?”

  Mogaba replied. “They spy. Before long they will undertake selected assassinations. The enemy shows no awareness of that program. If their assassinations succeed the results will be of more value that anything but a decisive encounter on the battlefield.”

  Mogaba invited comment from Singh with his glance but Narayan held his tongue.

  Mogaba said, “Unfortunately, the intelligence the Deceivers gather grows less reliable with each report. The enemy have enjoyed considerable success in their efforts to eliminate the cult.”

  Still no one else spoke.

  Mogaba continued, “Lady and Croaker have become very aggressive against spies. I believe that indicates a major move is imminent.”

  “It’s winter,” Longshadow said. “And my enemies are in no hurry. They are content to nibble me to death. This so-called Liberator will never be satisfied that he has men and weapons enough.”

  He was right about that. Croaker never stopped going after more.

  The Howler joined the group, stifling a scream as he did so. He husked, “The enemy labor battalions have completed the paved road linking Taglios and Stormgard. A similar road is almost complete from Stormgard to Shadowlight.”

  Shadowlight lies near the heart of the most populous and prosperous region of the Shadowlands. Shadowspinner had been overlord there. Nominally, the city and its environs still owed allegiance to Longshadow. Yet our soldiers were building a road in the area untroubled.

  I wondered why. Croaker’s strategic plan did not require it. He had no intention of besieging Shadowlight. That would tie up too many men for far too long.

  Mogaba grumbled, “They press us everywhere. No day passes but that we hear of the fall of another town or village. Many places the locals no longer resist at all. And it would be folly to assume that Croaker and Lady will respect the season.”

  Longshadow turned his dread mask toward Mogaba, who flinched. “Have you done anything to make it difficult to sustain a major campaign, General?”

  An army must live off the land if it ventures far from home. You cannot carry enough food and fodder to sustain it any length of time.

  “Very little.” Mogaba didn’t show an ounce of contrition. “I have my orders. And our enemies know what those orders are.”

  “What?” Now Longshadow was testy.

  “They expect me to sit still.” Mogaba indicated Singh, who nodded agreement reluctantly. “Their strategy assumes that I will defend one fixed point. Because your orders constrain me to do just that they scatter their forces and attack everywhere. Blade cannot blunt their sword alone. The villages will not resist because the people know no help will come. I could defeat the fools in detail, in a short while, if our strategy changed suddenly.”

  I don’t think so, I thought, floating there smug in the knowledge that we had Smoke.

  “No!” Longshadow forced his quaking flesh to face southward. He glared at the plain of glittering stone. “We will discuss military matters in private only, General.”

  Howler delivered a horrible scream edged with mockery. Singh practically dove through the hatchway. His contempt for the Shadowmaster was obvious to everyone but Longshadow himself—though it was likely Longshadow would not have cared. To the Shadowmaster the Strangler was little more than a useful termite. In his mind none of us were much more than pesky insects.

  The child left last. She considered Longshadow coldly. Her eyes seemed as old and wicked as time itself. She was a scary little thing for sure.

  I wondered what the Old Man thought when he saw her. Or if he even dared look.

  Longshadow said, “They don’t think I know what I’m doing.”

  “My soldiers are wasted where they are,” Mogaba replied. “They’re losing what edge they had.”

  “You may be right. But to attack in any direction you will have to leave what protection I am able to afford you. Without my lost comrades I cannot reach nearly as far as once I did. Will you risk their sorcery without mine to support you?”

  Mogaba grunted. He glared at the glittering plain.

  “You believe I am a coward for fearing that, General?”

  “I stipulate the danger. I grant the value of your protection. But there is much that I could do anyway. Blade has been allowed to act on a limited scale and has accomplished great things. For certain he has demonstrated repeatedly how these Taglians will collapse if you attack their weaknesses.”

  “You trust Blade?”

  “More than most. Like me, he has nowhere else to run. But I trust no one completely. Our allies least of all. Neither Howler nor the Deceiver joined us out of love for our cause.”

  “Indeed.” Apparently amused, Longshadow seemed to relax. “I must explain, General.” Mogaba’s surprise told me that this was an extraordinary eventuality. “I do not stay bottled up here because of the plain. I can leave Overlook for short periods. I will if I must. The Shadowgate wards are fresh and strong and reliable and entirely under my control. But if I do venture out I will have to do so by stealth.”

  Mogaba grunted again.

  “The reason I stay here is that there are some less obvious players in this game.”

  Mogaba frowned. Sounded like a crock to me, too.

  “Howler springs from that clan once known as The Ten Who Were Taken.”

  “I know.”

  “Stormshadow matriculated from that slave school as well. Another graduate was Senjak’s sister. They called her Soulcatcher.”

  “I believe we’ve met.”

  “Yes. She embarrassed you at Stormgard.” Actually, that was Lady that time. Wasn’t it?

  Mogaba nodded. I was surprised. Time seemed to have given him the ability to manage his temper.

  “Some years ago circumstances deceived Howler and I. We took Soulcatcher prisoner under the impression that we had captured her sister. She was masquerading as Senjak at the time so the mistake was more her fault than ours. She escaped during some confusion that arose later. Although we did not treat her severely she bears us a unreasonable ill will. She has done us mischief before now and awaits the opportunity to do us major harm.”

  “You think if you left Overlook she might invite herself inside and forget to leave the door unlocked?”

  “Exactly.”

  Ha! Imagine hijacking that incredible fortress.

  Mogaba sighed. “So whether I like it or not it will have to be decided on the Plain of Charandaprash.”

  “Yes. Will you win?”

  “Yes.” Mogaba never did lack confidence. “As long as Croaker remains the man I knew, scarred by that streak of softness.”

  “If?”

  “He hides behind a hundred masks. His soft streak may be another of those.”

  “So this man concerns you despite your desire to discount him.”

  “We continue to play to his strengths, not to attack his weaknesses. We allow him time to think, to plan, to maneuver, so he does not need to be subtle. His forces advance everywhere. Along the frontier the people are more afraid of the Black Company than of you. For pure viciousness there is nothing to match his war against Singh’s kind. The Croaker I remember would have taken prisoners. He would have pardoned Stranglers willing to abandon their religion.”

  Right, I thought sarcastically. Then I reconsidered. Mogaba might be correct. Croaker had been forgiving, once upon a time.

  “Maybe Senjak wants the example made.”

  “Possibly. She is that hard. But her influence doesn’t explain Croaker’s having spent seven thousand lives trying to get Blade.”

  What? This was news.

  “Blade deserted him.”

  “I deserted him. And I was Company. Blade was only an adventurer, not a brother. He hasn’t come after me that way. With Blade he’s fighting a personal war.”

  The falling out with Bla
de and Blade’s subsequent flight and defection baffled a lot of people, especially his buddies Cordy and Willow. And my name can go to the top of the list. Whispers were that Croaker stumbled onto something real going on between Lady and Blade. Whatever, it was certain that he was as obsessive about Blade as he was about Narayan Singh.

  Lady did not interfere in Croaker’s vendetta. Neither did she help.

  “That troubles you?”

  “Croaker confuses me. In some ways he has become dangerously unpredictable. At the same time he becomes more and more the high priest of the Black Company legend, admitting no other gods before his precious Annals.”

  That was not true. Croaker grew less interested all the time. But allow Mogaba his hyperbole. He wanted to sell something.

  Mogaba continued, “I fear he may become so skewed he’ll attack in a way so novel we won’t recognize it until it’s too late.”

  “As long as he comes. Only disaster awaits him.”

  “He’ll come. But is the overall outcome so certain?” I got the feeling both men nurtured major doubts, but each mostly about the other.

  “You circle back upon my constraints. Desist. You fear him?”

  “I dread him. More than I dread Lady. Lady is straightforward in her enmity. She comes right at you with everything she has. Croaker is determined to flim-flam you into looking somewhere else while he sticks a knife in your back. He will come at you with everything he has, too, but how will he use it? He is not a man of honor.”

  Mogaba didn’t really mean that Croaker was dishonorable but that he was not a gentleman in the sense that meant so much to Mogaba—who could not be considered a cavalier himself anymore.

  Mogaba continued, “He is no longer sane. I do not believe he is sure what he is doing himself. These days he has to face much for which there is no precedent in his Annals.”

  Wrong again, chappie. After four hundred years there is a precedent for everything in the Annals somewhere. The trick is knowing how to look.

  “He has limits, General.”

  “Of course. Those Taglians are factious and divisive.”