The Return of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  I began to worry. They belonged to a hardy people accustomed to surviving cruel disasters. They should show some signs of recovery.

  I assembled the brains of the outfit: Cletus, Loftus, Longinus, Goblin and One-Eye, Otto and Hagop. “I got some questions, troops.”

  “He got to be here?” Goblin meant Thai Dei.

  “He’s all right. Ignore him.”

  “What kind of questions?” One-Eye demanded.

  “So far we haven’t had any major health problems in the Company. But there’s cholera and typhoid out there, not to mention plenty of the old-fashioned drizzling shits. We all right?”

  Goblin muttered something and passed gas loudly.

  “Barbarian,” One-Eye sneered. “We’re all right because we follow Croaker’s health rules like they was religious laws. Only we can’t make the rules stick much longer. We’re almost out of fuel. And these Nyueng Bao. They don’t like to bother boiling water and keeping clean and not shitting where they live. We got them going along right now but it ain’t going to last.”

  “It’s been overcast and nasty for a few days, I hear. Are we collecting any rainwater?”

  “Plenty for us,” Loftus told me. “But not enough for us and them, let alone getting any put back into the cisterns.”

  “I was afraid of that. About the fuel, I mean. You guys know any way to fix rice or beans so you can digest them without cooking them?”

  Nobody knew. Longinus suggested, “Maybe soaking them a long time in water might help. My mother did that.”

  “Damn. I really want us to get through this. But how?”

  Goblin seemed to develop a small secret smile at that. Like he had a definite idea. He exchanged glances with One-Eye.

  “You guys got something?”

  “Not yet,” Goblin told me. “There’s an experiment we still have to try.”

  “Get on with it.”

  “After the meeting. We need you to help.”

  “Wonderful. All right. Can anyone tell me what the rest of the city thinks about our disappearance?”

  Hagop coughed, clearing his throat. He did not say much ordinarily so everybody paused to listen. “I been doing watches in the lookouts. Sometimes you can hear talk. I don’t think we done our reputation any good. Also, I don’t think we fooled anybody. They don’t talk about us much but nobody figures we just cut out. They think we found some way to dig a hole and fill it up with wine, women and food and pulled it in after us and we ain’t coming back out again till the rest of them are good and dead.”

  “Guys, I tried to get the wine, women and banquets but all I could come up with was the hole.”

  Out of nowhere, Otto said, “The water’s going down.”

  “What?”

  “It is, Murgen. It’s down five feet already.”

  “Would flooding the city make that much difference? No? Why’s that?”

  Goblin and One-Eye exchanged significant looks.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “After we do our experiment.”

  “All right. The rest of you guys. You know the problems. Go see if there’s anything we can do about them.”

  75

  “Talk to me,” I told the runt wizards.

  Goblin said, “We think something was done to you when you were out there.” He jerked his head shoreward.

  “What? Get serious! I…”

  “We are. You were gone a long time. And you changed. How many disappearing spells have you had since you got back?”

  I gave it an honest think. “Only one. Maybe. When I was kidnapped. I don’t remember anything about it. I’m sure they drugged me. I was drinking tea with the Speaker, then I was in that street where you found me. I have no idea how I got there. I have vague recollections of smelling smoke and going out a door which put me somewhere that I did not expect to be when I got to the other side. I vaguely remember thinking something about being in the house of pain.”

  “They tortured you.”

  “They did.” I still had the nicks and bruises to prove it. I had no idea what I might have been asked, if anything. I did suspect that Sindhu’s pals were behind my abduction and the attempt on Mogaba.

  If so, their life sure took an unpleasant turn when the Black Company found them.

  “We’ve been watching you,” Goblin said. “And you have been behaving pretty strange sometimes. What we want to do is put you to sleep and see if we can’t reach the part of you that was there when things happened.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “You don’t have to. You just have to cooperate.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “We’re sure.”

  He did not sound sure.

  * * *

  I awakened on my own pallet. Not refreshed. Someone was wiping my hot face with a cold, wet cloth. I opened my eyes. In the light of one tiny candle Sahra looked more lovely than ever. She looked better than imagination. She continued to wipe my face.

  I had another hangover-type headache. What had they done? I ought at least to get the enjoyment that came before the pain.

  To Tan began to fuss. He slept in a basket of evil-smelling rags beneath my writing table. I reached over and took his hand. He stopped crying, content to have human contact. He did not cry for his mother much anymore.

  I raised my other hand to take Sahra’s. She pushed it back gently. She never spoke. I never did hear her speak, not even to her own children.

  I looked around. Thai Dei was gone. Anymore it seemed I had a better chance of shaking my shadow. Thai Dei was there even in the dark.

  I started to sit up. Sahra held me down with two fingers. I was too weak to do anything. And my head felt like it doubled in size just rising that foot.

  Sahra offered me a hand-carved wooden cup filled with something that smelled so foul my eyes watered. Nyueng Bao swamp medicine. I drank. It tasted worse than it smelled.

  She continued to mop my face. I shivered and shook. The pain went away. I began to relax, to feel both energetic and positive. That was good stuff. Maybe they made it smell and taste bad so people would not take it all the time.

  We stared at one another a long time, saying nothing but reaching a decision our conscious minds did not entirely recognize at the moment. Hong Tray drifted across my thoughts with a smile and an admonition.

  This time I managed a smile when I sat up. Unchallenged. “I have work to do.”

  Sahra shook her head. She fished under the table for To Tan, dug him out of his basket. He was in desperate need of changing. Sahra tugged my finger.

  “I haven’t done this in twenty years.” Not since I was a kid myself and had baby brothers and sisters and cousins to change. “Stop wiggling, you little turd. You ought to know the drill by now.” To Tan looked back at me with serious big eyes, not understanding my words but catching my tone.

  We got him cleaned up and clothed again, in rags that would have embarrassed a beggar. I told Sahra, “I’ll go kill somebody, get him something better to wear.”

  She laid a hand lightly on my forearm, restraining me.

  “That was a joke, hon. You hang around with me, you’re going to hear some dark stuff. I don’t mean it literally. I’m going to work now.”

  I moved into the passageway slowly, my legs watery. Sahra followed, To Tan straddling her left hip. We ran into Bucket right away, looking groggy as he headed for his own pallet. I asked, “You seen Goblin and One-Eye?”

  “They went upstairs with their magic junk. To the big lookout.”

  “Thanks.”

  Before we walked five feet, Bucket called, “Longo tell you the water is coming up in the catacombs?”

  I sighed and shook my head, listened to the half-hearted rumble of my stomach, wondered if anybody had found a way to get some food cooked, wound my way through the maze to the ladders that would take me up to Goblin and One-Eye.

  The light of day might do me good. If I had the strength to climb that far. I had not seen the sun for a lo
ng time.

  76

  I would not see the sun for a while longer.

  Sahra handed To Tan up through the trapdoor. He was asleep again. I guess you do sleep a lot when you are a baby starving to death.

  It was daytime but a driving rain was falling. Hagop sat astride a chair turned backwards, forearms on the chair’s back, staring into the rain morosely. “How long has this been going on?” I asked.

  “Day or three.”

  “We getting any fresh water out of it?”

  “About as much as we can being as we’re hiding out.”

  “What’re those two doing?” Goblin and One-Eye were on the floor in the middle of the room, crosslegged, farthest from the moisture blowing inside. They did not look up.

  “Wizard stuff. Don’t bother them. They’ll bite your leg off.”

  One-Eye grumbled, “And somebody’s gonna lose a set of ears if he don’t stop yakking.”

  Hagop and I each spent one of our diminishing supply of single-finger salutes. One-Eye did not acknowledge the accolade.

  The lookout had a window facing each direction. I went to the biggest.

  This rain was not what we called a gullywasher back home but it was strong and steady. I could barely sense the vague loom of the surrounding hills. Nearer at hand I could make out the surface of the water. It was down despite the rain. It was a grey that spoke of sickness.

  I saw a Jaicuri raft out there, so loaded with people that it was awash. Men using short boards as paddles labored carefully to drive it toward shore.

  I made the rounds of the other windows, studied the city. I was pleased to see our Taglians at their posts the way they had been taught.

  “They’ve been doing it by the numbers,” Hagop agreed. “And that gets them left alone.”

  “By Mogaba?”

  “By everybody. The fighting is almost constant.”

  The streets and alleys were now canals. I saw bodies floating everywhere. The stench was overwhelming. The water level, though, was lower than I had expected. I could see the citadel from the east window. There were Nar up top there, ignoring the weather. They moved around the parapet, studying our part of town.

  Hagop noticed me watching them. “They’re worried about us. They think we might come sort them out sometime.”

  “Sure we will.”

  “They’re superstitious about guys like Goblin and One-Eye.”

  “Which shows you how dangerous a little ignorance can be.”

  “I heard that,” One-Eye grumbled. He and Goblin could have been playing some obscure dice game for all I could tell. I liked it better when they conjured big lights that went around smashing things and burning them up. Destruction I can understand.

  Sahra seemed tired of lugging To Tan so I took him. She offered a grateful smile. It lit up the lookout.

  One-Eye and Goblin paused to exchange glances amongst themselves and with Hagop.

  “What are you guys doing?” I demanded.

  “We found out we were right.”

  “Yeah? That might be a first. You were right about what?”

  “About your head having been tampered with.”

  I shuddered to a sudden chill. That is not something anyone welcomes. “Who did it? How?”

  “How we haven’t been able to figure out for sure. It might have been managed several ways. Who and what are more interesting, anyway.”

  “So give.”

  “Who was Lady. And what was knowledge of the fact that she is out there.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a little hard to tell from here, especially when we got tourists and their girlfriends traipsing through the workplace, but it looks like Lady and the Taglians are in charge out there. Their camp is on the other side of the hills, up the north road. The southerners we see patrolling are auxiliaries who report back to Lady.”

  “Run through that again.”

  Goblin did so.

  I said, “You guys go ahead. I’m just going to sit over here in the corner and think.”

  77

  Uncle Doj and Thai Dei were back from wherever they had gone. They scowled at Sahra and me when we returned but neither said a word. Hong Tray still had her hold on the Kys. Thai Dei took his son. The little guy brightened immediately.

  Uncle Doj told me, “My people are not mushrooms, Standardbearer. They cannot endure this much longer. You Stone Soldiers have been generous to a fault and have given no provocation but even so there will be trouble eventually. A wounded animal will strike out at even the most loving master.”

  “We’ll be out of here sooner than I planned.” I was not in a good mood. I wanted to drag Lady across my lap and paddle her. “I’ve already given orders to start the process.”

  “You sound angry.”

  “I am angry.” Lady used me in a political game with Mogaba with never a thought for the Company’s welfare. She was no more real Company than he was.

  Longo leaned in the doorway. “You get the word about the catacombs flooding, Murgen?”

  “Bucket told me. How soon is it going to be a problem?”

  “Four or five days. Maybe more. Unless the leak gets a lot worse.”

  “We’ll be gone. Your brothers and One-Eye are up in the big lookout. Go find out what’s up.”

  Longo shrugged and went, grumbling about the climb.

  I asked, “Who speaks for the Nyueng Bao now?”

  “We have not yet chosen,” Uncle Doj replied.

  “Could you? Quickly? A Taglian general name of Lanore Bonharj—the guy who’s in charge of the freed slaves and friendly Taglians and Jaicuri right now—is going to come by. We’ll need somebody from Nyueng Bao to join us in planning our evacuation.” He started to say something. I rolled on. “It seems that the Shadowmaster isn’t a problem anymore, only nobody bothered to tell us. Our own so-called friends have been jobbing us for political reasons. We could leave any time—I don’t know for how long now.”

  I put all the blame for our ignorance on Goblin and One-Eye. You can blame a wizard for anything and people will believe you.

  Sahra tried to make a meal from what we had. I touched her hand as she passed. She smiled. I told her, “This should be the last time we’ll need to do this.”

  I hoped.

  I was wrong.

  Everything takes time.

  * * *

  Lanore Bonharj followed me down into the warrens. He was both amazed and appalled. He was high-caste Gunni. It was bad up top but this squalor down below was beyond his imagination. We talked. Uncle Doj spoke for the Nyueng Bao. Bargains were struck, agreements agreed, plans quickly laid. Preparations began in earnest.

  78

  In the dark of night, in the rain, the Black Company stole forth, crossed a rickety makeshift bridge to stairs to the battlements, joined the Taglians of the al-Khul company. With Goblin at the point we sneaked along the wall, seized the North Gate and barbican from the Nar and their Taglians. Goblin’s sleep spell made that easy. Nobody got hurt. In our gang.

  Before the last body splashed into the water outside Goblin and I and the Company cadre headed back to grab the West Gate and its barbican.

  With the gates in our hands we could proceed unobserved by Mogaba’s men.

  Loftus and his brothers got to work inside the central of the three towers between the gates. While the wall itself was stone with a rubble fill the towers were not solid. They had to be hollow to allow crossbowmen inside to pepper the wall faces with missiles. The boys got to work opening a hole to the outside from the floor nearest the present water level.

  The Nyueng Bao brought our remaining food stores to the surface. The women would use the last of the Taglians’ fuel to cook for everyone. I wanted everybody to build strength. A lot of us were little more than stick figures now.

  When the sun rose next morning the Nar atop the citadel saw nothing they had not seen the day before, except less rain. They got no signals from the north or west barbicans but did not seem con
cerned.

  “Aren’t many crows around anymore,” Goblin noted as daylight began to fade.

  “Maybe we ate them all.”

  Night returned. Everybody went back to work. The hammering and pounding and the collapse of masonry into water had to be audible all over town but nobody could see what we were doing and nothing was evident when the sun rose except that several derelict buildings were missing.

  The lake continued its slow fall. The weather continued damp.

  The rafts the carpenters were building floated outside, against the wall. Everything capable of offering flotation went into their construction. Even the occasional empty beer barrel.

  That afternoon we acquired some useful lumber when Mogaba sent three rafts to the North Gate to find out why his signals were not being answered.

  We could not keep the ambush from being seen from the citadel. Mogaba wasted no more men or materials.

  * * *

  Loftus and his brothers said the best raft would be built long and thin so more people could paddle against less front-end water resistance. Working in three feet of water the three brothers and a few skilled Taglians assembled one raft after another, each able to carry ten or more adults. By using everything they could find they built forty-one craft. They guessed that fleet could carry seven hundred people, more than five hundred of whom could be put ashore while the rest brought the rafts back, reloaded them and got under way again before dawn.

  So about twelve hundred could get away overnight. Enough to establish a modestly solid beachhead on what we did not know for certain would be a friendly shore.

  Problem. The numbers we needed to move undetected were greater than I had guessed. I had my forty Old Crew, more than six hundred Nyueng Bao, and a whole lot more Taglians, freed slaves and Jaicuri volunteers than I had thought.

  Lanore Bonharj wanted to move nearly a thousand men and dependents. There was no way to get everyone out in one night.

  “Here’s what you do,” One-Eye said. “You only take one load across the first night. Draw lots for the spots. That way we don’t get people climbing over each other and nobody getting out in the panic. Figure the draw so a representative percentage goes from each group. Then nobody bitches. Dump the five hundred and some with orders to build a camp. Have the rafts come back and tie up, then finish up with two trips next night.”