The Return of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  “I don’t dream that much, boss. When I do, it’s always in real time. Which means only after dark, when they can hide a lot better. And they do have to be hiding if they’re still in this part of the world. I don’t even find campfire traces anymore.”

  “One-Eye would know who was looking and how,” Croaker mused. “Tell you the truth, Murgen, I don’t miss them that much nowadays. It was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself, to split them up. I couldn’t have survived the last couple of years, working twenty-hour days, with them squabbling around me all the time.”

  “You’d think if they’d joined forces there would’ve been forest fires and avalanches to mark the occasion.”

  “We do keep having earthquakes.”

  “I’m worried about them, boss. Because of the spear.”

  “Spear? What spear?”

  “The black spear. I told you I found it. The one One-Eye made while we were in Dejagore. He didn’t take it with him. But he hasn’t come back for it.”

  “And?”

  “He would. Using some sneak spell if he had to. It was important to him. He didn’t brag but he considered it his masterpiece. He wouldn’t just throw it away—no matter how many times he’s been through the Company having to cut and run.”

  “You saying he’s coming back?”

  “I’m saying I think he planned to. He might not have been one hundred percent serious about eloping. Wouldn’t be the first time a man wasn’t completely honest with a woman.”

  Croaker looked at me like he was trying to figure out what was really going on inside my head. Then he shrugged, said, “Could be. You men. Take Sleepy into my shelter. Leave him on the examining table.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “See how bad he’s been treated.”

  Croaker grunted. “You stay out here,” he told Thai Dei, who was standing over his captives with his beer-drinking hand tucked up behind him. “You come with me, Murgen.” Like Thai Dei needed reminding that the Old Man did not want him in his house. “Jamadar Subadir. See that those prisoners are put away properly. And make certain that the rest of our guests haven’t exceeded themselves, too.”

  I said, “The Prince never tried anything.” The Prahbrindrah Drah did not have to suffer the indignity of shackles. Our Taglians would not have tolerated that.

  I spied Uncle Doj watching from some shadows, arms crossed. I wondered why he stayed with us. Narayan Singh? Hardly. His persistence nudged my paranoia level whenever I thought about him.

  Croaker, of course, was more enduringly suspicious than I was.

  We descended into the Old Man’s dugout.

  He told the men carrying Sleepy, “That’s good. The Standardbearer and I will take care of him now. Hold on, Sparkle. I want you to double-check on those men I told to deal with the prisoners. We haven’t given enough consideration to the possibility of treachery amongst our own people.”

  Sparkle asked, “You want I should look for anything in particular?”

  “Just keep your eyes open.” Croaker turned to me. “I agree with you. We need to drown the whole bunch of them.”

  “But Lady has a use for them.”

  “Waste not, want not. She says. I keep reminding myself that she’s supposed to be smarter and more experienced than me. Let’s get him undressed. You start at that end.”

  Sleepy was awake but showed no interest in conversation. Or in anything else. I asked, “Where’s my horse, Sleepy?”

  Croaker chuckled. “Good question, Murgen. You might want to pursue it. Unless you prefer to walk to Khatovar.”

  I asked Sleepy several questions. He answered none of them. His eyes would track me and the Old Man but I could not tell if he understood anything.

  Croaker said, “We could use Smoke to backtrack him and find out where he’s been and how he lost the beast.”

  I grunted. We could have Lady sock the little shit with a knockout spell and make him useful for a while. The hard part would be getting her to agree not to hog him all for herself. “He was wide awake today. Smoke was. You might better make sure she knows.”

  Croaker began poking and prodding Sleepy. “Lot of bruises. Must’ve gotten pounded around good.” Sleepy took it silently, without flinching.

  “If he was in Catcher’s cave … I saw it happen from ten miles away. It was—”

  “I saw enough.” Something was bothering him. He had that air people get when they have something difficult to say and are not morally convinced of their right to say it. Which troubled me. Croaker had no trouble barking at anybody but his old lady. “Been catching up on your Annals, Murgen.”

  Oh-oh.

  “And I hate to say this, but I don’t like them very much.”

  “As I recall, you weren’t going to dictate what I write.”

  “That’s right. I’m not going to now. You got the job. You do it. I’m just saying I don’t like what I’ve been reading. Though you have gotten a lot better in some ways. You seen this man naked before?”

  “No. Why? Should I have?” I had a feeling he was harboring a big beef with my Annals. Since he was one of probably no more than three people who would read them during my lifetime I supposed I could get into closer touch with the needs of my audience. Or at least pretend to. He could not fire me. Unless he wanted the job back himself. The only candidate lay before us, still untrained, unpolished, unclothed and quite probably unsane. “So what am I doing wrong?”

  “You could start by not being so polite. Look at your pal. What’s missing?”

  Sleepy was not a boy.

  I forgot about the Annals. “I’ll be damned.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “Never suspected. I thought he was kind of short and skinny.… But he always was. He was barely out of diapers when he latched on to us in Dejagore. I figured him for maybe thirteen. He wasn’t as sane as he is now. I remember Bucket throwing one of his uncles off the wall for raping him.” I kept right on saying “him” because it was hard to think of Sleepy as anything else despite the lack of evidence right there in front of me.

  “Good soldier?”

  He knew. “The best. Always makes up for his smallness and lack of strength by using his head.” Which was something Croaker particularly appreciated.

  “Then let’s just forget we didn’t see something here. Don’t even let Sleepy know you know.” He resumed his examination.

  It would not be the first time a woman had been with the Company disguised as a man. The Annals recalled several instances where amazing discoveries had been made about one of our forebrethren, usually after they got themselves killed somehow.

  Still … It would be uncomfortable, knowing.

  “What I don’t like about your Annals is that they’re more about you than they are about the Company.”

  “What?” I did not understand.

  “I mean you focus everything on yourself. Except for a few chapters you adapted from Lady’s dispatches or Bucket or One-Eye or somebody, you never report anything that doesn’t involve you or that you didn’t see yourself. You’re too self-absorbed. Why should we give a rat’s ass about your recurring nightmares? And, except for Dejagore, your sense of place is usually pretty weak. If I weren’t here myself I’d have a lot of trouble picturing this whole end of the world.”

  My first reaction, of course, was to defend my babies from the butcher. But I kept my mouth shut. You gain nothing by arguing with your critics. You get more satisfying results teaching pigs to sing. With fewer ulcers.

  You have to trust your own muse. Even if she has a clubfoot and is subject to unpredictable seizures.

  I think the Old Man said something like that himself a time or two over the years.

  I did not mention it.

  “You could work on writing a little more sparely, too.”

  “Sparely?”

  “You tend to go on a lot longer than you need to. At times.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind. You think we ought to put something on her?
”

  It was plain he had plenty more to say about my Annals but was uncomfortable about it. He was willing to accept a change of subject. “Yes. There’s no permanent physical damage. Lady’s got some old things stored in that black chest. They’ll be a little big, probably, but—”

  “Thought we weren’t going to know anything about Sleepy being a girl.”

  “When’s the last time you saw Lady in a dress?”

  “Good point.” I opened the chest. “Though there’s still never any doubt.”

  Croaker grunted. He was studying Sleepy intently, frowning.

  “New wearing off?” I asked.

  He smiled weakly. “Sort of. You’ll understand someday.”

  I picked some things. “Not what I want to hear, boss.” Always way back there, however much I loved my wife, was a niggle when I recalled that she was the daughter of Ky Gota.

  He chuckled. “Get some pants on her before my dearly beloved walks in.”

  We finished just in time, too. Lady arrived in a foul humor. “I found nothing useful. Nothing. How is he?”

  “Beat up, starved and suffering from extended exposure. Otherwise, he’s fine. Physically.”

  “But absent mentally?” Lady stared at the kid. There was nothing in Sleepy’s eyes.

  Croaker grunted. “In a coma with his eyes open.”

  “Speaking of sleepers,” I said, “our favorite fireman was wide awake today. And the way he looked at me, he’s all home in here.”

  I swear Sleepy’s cheek twitched. But maybe it was just a trick of the lamp.

  “Not good,” Lady said. “And I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home.”

  “What’re we going to do with Sleepy?”

  The Captain had an answer all set. “You’re going to take him with you. And get to work teaching him your trade.” For an instant a shadow crossed his face, as though all thoughts of the future brought despair.

  “I can’t—” Move a girl into my bunker?

  “Yes you can.” Because Sleepy was just one of the guys. Wasn’t he? “And keep me posted on his progress.”

  Lady comes home and he starts to give me the rush. How do you figure that? “Get your ass up,” I told Sleepy. “We’re going over to my house. We’re gonna figure out what you did with my horse.”

  Sleepy did not respond.

  Thai Dei and I ended up lugging him across on a litter, along with the treasures we had exhumed. I would like Sleepy a whole lot less before we got to the other side.

  As we passed the prison kennel the shapeshifter began to rumble and growl. She roared a leopardlike challenge as we drew abreast. “Ah, go fuck yourself,” I said. Sleepy was getting heavy already.

  The big cat howled and tried to push her claws between the cruel spears confining her. “I think maybe she could use a few drinks,” I told Thai Dei.

  “Perhaps she is coming into her season.”

  92

  The stars were out. The campfire was low. Thai Dei and I and some of my pals were mellow on One-Eye’s beer and filled to the nostrils with roast pig. I flipped a bone into the fire. It began to crackle. “This is living,” Bucket rumbled, punctuating with a belch.

  “If you like to camp out,” I said. “The weather’s right. Me, you give me my druthers, I’d be living like we did in Taglios. Without all the work.”

  “What work? I never seen you lift a finger.”

  “I had to keep Sarie smiling.”

  “Rub it in, shithead.”

  Rudy asked, “That guy snore like that all the time?”

  He meant Thai Dei, who was splashed against the outside wall of our bunker, snorting and roaring, out cold. He had put away a lot, for him. The other Nyueng Bao were shunning him.

  “Only when he’s had a good time.”

  “First time, huh?”

  “That I know about. But I wasn’t there the night he got married.”

  Somebody said, “You got the Old Man’s ear. Whyn’t you whisper some sweet nothings about us heading on up the mountain?”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “’Cause when we get to Khatovar all the travelling and fighting and shit will be over.” Pause. “Won’t it?”

  I did not know. “I don’t have a clue. You go twenty feet on up the hill and you’ve gotten to the limit of what I know.”

  “I thought everything was in them old books.”

  Everything was. But I did not have the right old books. I glanced at Thai Dei. It was starting to look like he had the right idea. “I’ve had all the fun I can stand, guys.” I unfolded sore knees, got up, headed for bed. As I stepped over Thai Dei I said, “Don’t wake me up for anything less than a shadow break out. And make sure you leave some pig for Uncle.”

  It was a good thing the bunker roof was low enough to make me get down on my hands and knees inside. I did not have as far to fall.

  I tripped over Sleepy first, then over One-Eye’s spear, which I had no idea why we had brought along but we had and which I had left lying in the middle of the rock floor.

  I fell onto my pallet without crippling myself.

  * * *

  I know I went dreamwalking but do not remember where I went. I have vague recollections of Sarie and a trivial brush with a Soulcatcher as eager to avoid me as I was to avoid her. I woke up with a headache, a big thirst, a desperate need to hit the latrine and a very short temper.

  “Oh, cut the bullshit, you old fraud,” I told Uncle Doj after I slithered out of the shack. He was giving an indifferent Thai Dei Nyueng Bao hell, using all the buzzwords that get trotted out when somebody cuts loose and makes an ass of himself. “Damn, it’s bright out here. Thai Dei, get your ass up. Drink some water. Shit.” I put away some water myself. I was a little green. If it did not rain soon I would have to have some more carried up.

  “Standardbearer.”

  “Uh?” I found myself surrounded by Isi and Ochiba. “You guys pop out of the ground or something?”

  “We’ve been waiting,” Isi said.

  “Your people are stubborn about protecting your rest,” Ochiba added.

  Their manner was disturbing, somehow. “Good for them. What’s up?” Obviously, they had not trekked over for the exercise.

  Isi had more of the Jewel Cities dialect than Ochiba but even he did not speak it well. Still, he got the message through. “The Captain and Lieutenant want you should know that prisoner Smoke is perished.”

  “Perished? Perished like in dead?”

  “As a stone,” Ochiba managed.

  I recalled some pretty frisky stones, met long before these stiffnecks joined the gang. I did not mention them. Nobody cares about the Plain of Fear nowadays.

  “Murdered,” Isi added, because he thought I had missed the point.

  My mouth hung open. Finally, I said, “Come on over here where we can talk.” I grabbed a crow killer and led them across the slope far enough that no one could eavesdrop. “Let’s have some details.” The weapon proved needless. The black birds were not out.

  “His throat was cut,” Isi said.

  How could that happen? “How could that happen? Somebody would have to climb over Singh and Longshadow and Howler … he wasn’t out of the kennel somewhere, was he?” I would have been even more shocked if he had been killed in Croaker’s dugout.

  “He was imprisoned.”

  “I presume we don’t have whoever did it.” My first suspect in any sneak killing would be Narayan Singh or some tag-end member of his brotherhood. But the Deceivers did not spill blood. Narayan certainly would not, even in self-defense.

  “No.”

  “Do we know who did it?”

  “No.”

  “I’m coming over.” I headed back into camp, “Shiner! Rudy! Spiff! Kloo! Bucket!” I bellowed and my officers and sergeants reacted like they thought we were about to suffer an unexpected visit from Mogaba and the entire Taglian army. I was loud. My hangover etched my entire universe in uncompromising blacks and whites.
<
br />   “Sorry,” I said, not meaning it. “It’s not as bad as I sound. A minor emergency across the way. I’m going over. Raise the state of alert a notch. Tell them to drop the tonk games till they get their gear in shape.” I drank another pint of water, then donated an equal quantity to the earth spirits. “Ochiba. Isi. Let’s go.”

  Thai Dei shook the embrace of gravity, grabbed a bamboo pole he used as a staff. He stumbled after me, stubbornly keeping pace.

  Thai Dei defined who and what he was against a bevy of inflexible standards that ignored his own desires, his likes and dislikes, and his pain.

  Uncle Doj cancelled the Mother Gota show, straightened his apparel, touched the hilt of Ash Wand to make sure the sword had not deserted him, then trudged along after us. That morning he looked very tired and very old.

  * * *

  “There was no need for you to come over,” Croaker grumbled. He looked old and tired himself this morning. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I knew Smoke better than anybody. I thought maybe—”

  “Wasting time. Unless you were so close you can raise his ghost.”

  I wondered. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Sure it does. Somebody doesn’t want us to spy on them.”

  I started to protest that Smoke was a big secret, thought better of that. The Old Man did not want a debate. Instead, I asked, “What did the others have to say?”

  Questions would have been asked, perhaps with great vigor.

  “Nobody saw nothing. Nobody knows nothing. But I think Howler has an idea. And I think he’s scared somebody might find out and come after him.”

  “Then the smart thing to do would be for him to tell us what he knows.” Torture would not get it out of the little shit. He was older than Lady and had been screaming in pain before she met him.

  “So Lady told him. He’s considering the angles.”

  “This might be a chance to get him on our side.”

  “Like I said, Murgen. You didn’t need to come over. We’re almost as smart as you. Just takes us a little longer to work these things out.”

  “No doubt. Did you hear Bowalk carrying on last night?”

  “The changer? No. What’re you talking about?”

  “She went bugfuck when Thai Dei and I went past the cage last night.” I told him.