Chronicles of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  “Think they got wind of us?” Pawnbroker asked. He was edgy. Waiting does that.

  “I don’t see how.” Candy arrayed his hand with exaggerated care. A dead giveaway. He had something hot. I reexamined mine. Twenty-one. Probably get burned, but the best way to stop him. … I went down. “Twenty-one.”

  Otto sputtered. “You son-of-a-bitch.” He laid down a hand strong for going low. But it added to twenty-two because of one royal card. Candy had three nines, an ace and a trey. Grinning, I raked it in again.

  “You win this one, we’re going to check your sleeves,” Pawnbroker grumbled. I collected the cards and started shuffling.

  The back door hinges squealed. Everyone froze, stared at the kitchen door. Men stirred beyond it.

  “Madle! Where the hell are you?”

  The tavern-keeper looked at Candy, agonized. Candy cued him. The taverner called, “Out here, Neat.”

  Candy whispered, “Keep playing.” I started dealing,

  A man of forty came from the kitchen. Several others followed. All wore dappled green. They had bows across their backs. Neat said, “They must’ve got the kids. I don’t know how, but. …” He saw something in Madle’s eyes. “What’s the matter?”

  We had Madle sufficiently intimidated. He did not give us away.

  Staring at my cards, I drew my spring tube. My companions did likewise. Pawnbroker discarded the card he had drawn, a deuce. He usually tries to go low. His play betrayed his nervousness.

  Candy snagged the discard and spread an ace-deuce-trey run. He discarded an eight.

  One of Neat’s companions whined, “I told you we shouldn’t send kids.” It sounded like breathing life into an old argument.

  “I don’t need any I-told-you-so,” Neat growled. “Madle, I spread the word for a meeting. We’ll have to scatter the outfit.”

  “We don’t know nothing for sure, Neat,” another green man said. “You know kids.”

  “You’re fooling yourself. The Lady’s hounds are on our trail.”

  The whiner said, “I told you we shouldn’t hit those. …” He fell silent, realizing, a moment too late, that strangers were present, that the regulars all looked ghastly.

  Neat went for his sword.

  There were nine of them, if you counted Madle and some customers who got involved. Candy overturned the card table. We tripped the catches on our spring tubes. Four poisoned darts snapped across the common room. We drew swords.

  It lasted only seconds.

  “Everybody all right?” Candy asked.

  “Got a scratch,” Otto said. I checked it. Nothing to worry about.

  “Back behind the bar, friend,” Candy told Madle, whom he had spared. “The rest of you, get this place straightened up. Pawnbroker, watch them. They even think about getting out of line, kill them.”

  “What do I do with the bodies?”

  “Throw them down the well.”

  I righted the table again, sat down, unfolded a sheet of paper. Sketched upon it was the chain of command of the insurgents in Tally. I blacked out NEAT. It stood at mid-level. “Madle,” I said. “Come here.”

  The barkeep approached with the eagerness of a dog to a whipping.

  “Take it easy. You’ll get through this all right. If you cooperate. Tell me who those men were.”

  He hemmed and hawed. Predictably.

  “Just names,” I said. He looked at the paper, frowning. He could not read. “Madle? Be a tight place to swim, down a well with a bunch of bodies.”

  He gulped, surveyed the room. I glanced at the man near the fireplace. He hadn’t moved during the encounter. Even now he watched with apparent indifference.

  Madle named names.

  Some were on my list and some were not. Those that were not I assumed to be spear carriers. Tally had been well and reliably scouted.

  The last corpse went out. I gave Madle a small gold piece. He goggled. His customers regarded him with unfriendly eyes. I grinned. “For services rendered.”

  Madle blanched, stared at the coin. It was a kiss of death. His patrons would think he had helped set the ambush. “Gotcha,” I whispered. “Want to get out of this alive?”

  He looked at me in fear and hatred. “Who the hell are you guys?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.

  “The Black Company, Madle. The Black Company.”

  I don’t know how he managed, but he went even whiter.

  Juniper: Marron Shed

  The day was cold and grey and damp, still, misty, and sullen. Conversation in the Iron Lily consisted of surly monosyllables uttered before a puny fire.

  Then the drizzle came, drawing the curtains of the world in tight. Brown and grey shapes hunched dispiritedly along the grubby, muddy street. It was a day ripped full-grown from the womb of despair. Inside the Lily, Marron Shed looked up from his mug-wiping. Keeping the dust off, he called it. Nobody was using his shoddy stoneware because nobody was buying his cheap, sour wine. Nobody could afford it.

  The Lily stood on the south side of Floral Lane. Shed’s counter faced the doorway, twenty feet deep into the shadows of the common room. A herd of tiny tables, each with its brood of rickety stools, presented a perilous maze for the customer coming out of sunlight. A half-dozen roughly cut support pillars formed additional obstacles. The ceiling beams were too low for a tall man. The boards of the floor were cracked and warped and creaky, and anything spilled ran downhill.

  The walls were decorated with old-time odds and ends and curios left by customers which had no meaning for anyone entering today. Marron Shed was too lazy to dust them or take them down.

  The common room L-ed around the end of his counter, past the fireplace, near which the best tables stood. Beyond the fireplace, in the deepest shadows, a yard from the kitchen door, lay the base of the stair to the rooming floors.

  Into that darksome labyrinth came a small, weasely man. He carried a bundle of wood scraps. “Shed? Can I?”

  “Hell. Why not, Asa? We’ll all benefit.” The fire had dwindled to a bank of grey ash.

  Asa scuttled to the fireplace. The group there parted surlily. Asa settled beside Shed’s mother. Old June was blind. She could not tell who he was. He placed his bundle before him and started stirring the coals.

  “Nothing down to the docks today?” Shed asked.

  Asa shook his head. “Nothing came in. Nothing going out. They only had five jobs. Unloading wagons. People were fighting over them.”

  Shed nodded. Asa was no fighter. Asa was not fond of honest labor, either. “Darling, one draft for Asa.” Shed gestured as he spoke. His serving girl picked up the battered mug and took it to the fire.

  Shed did not like the little man. He was a sneak, a thief, a liar, a mooch, the sort who would sell his sister for a couple of copper gersh. He was a whiner and complainer and coward. But he had become a project for Shed, who could have used a little charity himself. Asa was one of the homeless Shed let sleep on the common room floor whenever they brought wood for the fire. Letting the homeless have the floor did not put money into the coin box, but it did assure some warmth for June’s arthritic bones.

  Finding free wood in Juniper in winter was harder than finding work. Shed was amused by Asa’s determination to avoid honest employment.

  The fire’s crackle killed the stillness. Shed put his grimy rag aside. He stood behind his mother, hands to the heat. His fingernails began aching. He hadn’t realized how cold he was.

  It was going to be a long, cold winter. “Asa, do you have a regular wood source?” Shed could not afford fuel. Nowadays firewood was barged down the Port from far upstream. It was expensive. In his youth. …

  “No.” Asa stared into the flames. Piney smells spread through the Lily. Shed worried about his chimney. Another pine scrap winter, and he hadn’t had the chimney swept. A chimney fire could destroy him.

  Things had to turn around soon. He was over the edge, in debt to his ears. He was desperate.

  “Shed.”

  He looked to hi
s tables, to his only real paying customer. “Raven?”

  “Refill, if you please.”

  Shed looked for Darling. She had disappeared. He cursed softly. No point yelling. The girl was deaf, needed signs to communicate. An asset, he had thought when Raven had suggested he hire her. Countless secrets were whispered in the Lily. He had thought more whisperers might come if they could speak without fear of being overheard.

  Shed bobbed his head, captured Raven’s mug. He disliked Raven, partially because Raven was successful at Asa’s game. Raven had no visible means of support, yet always had money. Another reason was because Raven was younger, tougher and healthier than the run of the Lily’s customers. He was an anomaly. The Lily was on the downhill end of the Buskin, close to the waterfront. It drew all the drunkards, the worn-out whores, the dopers, the derelicts and human flotsam who eddied into that last backwater before the darkness overhauled them. Shed sometimes agonized, fearing his precious Lily was but a final way station.

  Raven did not belong. He could afford better. Shed wished he dared throw the man out. Raven made his skin crawl, sitting at his corner table, dead eyes hammering iron spikes of suspicion into anyone who entered the tavern, cleaning his nails endlessly with a knife honed razor-sharp, speaking a few cold, toneless words whenever anyone took a notion to drag Darling upstairs . … That baffled Shed. Though there was no obvious connection, Raven protected the girl as though she were his virgin daughter. What the hell was a tavern slut for, anyway?

  Shed shuddered, pushed it out of mind. He needed Raven. Needed every paying guest he could get. He was surviving on prayers.

  He delivered the wine. Raven dropped three coins into his palm. One was a silver leva. “Sir?”

  “Get some decent firewood in here, Shed. If I wanted to freeze, I’d stay outside.”

  “Yes, sir!” Shed went to the door, peeked into the street. Latham’s wood yard was just a block away.

  The drizzle had become an icy rain. The mucky lane was crusting. “Going to snow before dark,” he informed no one in particular.

  “In or out,” Raven growled. “Don’t waste what warmth there is.”

  Shed slid outside. He hoped he could reach Latham’s before the cold began to ache.

  Shapes loomed out of the icefall. One was a giant. Both hunched forward, rags around their necks to prevent ice from sliding down their backs.

  Shed charged back into the Lily. “I’ll go out the back way.” He signed, “Darling, I’m going out. You haven’t seen me since this morning.”

  “Krage?” the girl signed.

  “Krage,” Shed admitted. He dashed into the kitchen, snagged his ragged coat off its hook, wriggled into it. He fumbled the door latch twice before he got it loose.

  An evil grin with three teeth absent greeted him as he leaned into the cold. Foul breath assaulted his nostrils. A filthy finger gouged his chest. “Going somewhere, Shed?”

  “Hi, Red. Just going to see Latham about firewood.”

  “No, you’re not.” The finger pushed. Shed fell back till he was in the common room.

  Sweating, he asked, “Cup of wine?”

  “That’s neighborly of you, Shed. Make it three.”

  “Three?” Shed’s voice squeaked.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know Krage is on his way.”

  “I didn’t,” Shed lied.

  Red’s snaggle-toothed smirk said he knew Shed was lying.

  Tally Mix-Up

  You try your damnedest, but something always goes wrong. That’s life. If you’re smart, you plan for it.

  Somehow, somebody got away from Madle’s, along about the twenty-fifth Rebel who stumbled into our web, when it really looked like Neat had done us a big favor, summoning the local hierarchy to a conference. Looking backward, it is hard to fix blame. We all did our jobs. But there are limits to how alert you stay under extended stress. The man who disappeared probably spent hours plotting his break. We did not notice his absence for a long time.

  Candy figured it out. He threw his cards in at the tail of a hand, said, “We’re minus a body, troops. One of those pig farmers. The little guy who looked like a pig.”

  I could see the table from the corner of my eye. I grunted. “You’re right. Damn. Should have taken a head count after each trip to the well.”

  The table was behind Pawnbroker. He did not turn around. He waited a hand, then ambled to Madle’s counter and bought a crock of beer. While his rambling distracted the locals, I made rapid signs with my fingers, in deaf-speech. “Better be ready for a raid. They know who we are. I shot my mouth off.”

  The Rebel would want us bad. The Black Company has earned a widespread reputation as a successful eradicator of the Rebel pestilence, wherever it appears. Though we are not as vicious as reputed, news of our coming strikes terror wherever we go. The Rebel often goes to ground, abandoning his operations, where we appear.

  Yet here were four of us, separated from our companions, evidently unaware that we were at risk. They would try. The question at hand was how hard.

  We did have cards up our sleeves. We never play fair if we can avoid it. The Company philosophy is to maximize effectiveness while minimizing risk.

  The tall, dark man rose, left his shadow, stalked toward the stair to the sleeping rooms. Candy snapped, “Watch him, Otto.” Otto hurried after him, looking feeble in the man’s wake. The locals watched, wondering.

  Pawnbroker used signs to ask, “What now?”

  “We wait,” Candy said aloud, and with signs added, “Do what we were sent to do.”

  “Not much fun, being live bait,” Pawnbroker signed back. He studied the stair nervously. “Set Otto up with a hand,” he suggested.

  I looked at Candy. He nodded. “Why not? Give him about seventeen.” Otto would go down first time around every time if he had less than twenty. It was a good percentage bet.

  I quick figured the cards in my head, and grinned. I could give him seventeen and have enough low cards left to give each of us a hand that would burn him. “Give me those cards.”

  I hurried through the deck, building hands. “There.” Nobody had higher than a five. But Otto’s hand had higher cards than the others.

  Candy grinned. “Yeah.”

  Otto did not come back. Pawnbroker said, “I’m going up to check.”

  “All right,” Candy replied. He went and got himself a beer. I eyed the locals. They were getting ideas. I stared at one and shook my head.

  Pawnbroker and Otto returned a minute later, preceded by the dark man, who returned to his shadow. Pawnbroker and Otto looked relieved. They settled down to play.

  Otto asked, “Who dealt?”

  “Candy did,” I said. “Your go.”

  He went down. “Seventeen.”

  “Heh-heh-heh,” I replied. “Burned you. Fifteen.”

  And Pawnbroker said, “Got you both. Fourteen.”

  And Candy, “Fourteen, You’re hurting, Otto.”

  He just sat there, numbed, for several seconds. Then he caught on. “You bastards! You stacked it! You don’t think I’m going to pay off. …”

  “Settle down. Joke, son,” Candy said. “Joke. It was your deal anyhow,” The cards went around and the darkness came. No more insurgents appeared. The locals grew ever more restless. Some worried about their families, about being late. As everywhere else, most Tallylanders are concerned only with their own lives. They don’t care whether the White Rose or the Lady is ascendant.

  The minority of Rebel sympathizers worried about when the blow might fall. They were afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.

  We pretended ignorance of the situation.

  Candy signed, “Which ones are dangerous?”

  We conferred, selected three men who might become trouble. Candy had Otto bind them to their chairs.

  It dawned on the locals that we knew what to expect, that we were prepared. Not looking forward, but prepared.

  The raiders waited till midnight. They were more cautious
than the Rebel we encountered ordinarily. Maybe our reputation was too strong. …

  They burst in in a rush. We discharged our spring tubes and began swinging swords, retreating to a corner away from the fireplace. The tall man watched indifferently.

  There were a lot of Rebels. Far more than we had expected. They kept storming inside, crowding up, getting into one another’s ways, climbing over the corpses of their comrades. “Some trap,” I gasped. “Must be a hundred of them.”

  “Yeah,” Candy said. “It don’t look good.” He kicked at a man’s groin, cut him when he covered up.

  The place was wall-to-wall insurgents, and from the noise there were a hell of a lot more outside. Somebody didn’t want us getting away.

  Well, that was the plan.

  My nostrils flared. There was an odor in the air, just the faintest off-key touch, subtle under the stink of fear and sweat. “Cover up!” I yelled, and whipped a wad of damp wool from my belt pouch. It stunk worse than a squashed skunk. My companions followed suit.

  Somewhere a man screamed. Then another. Voices rose in a hellish chorus. Our enemies surged around, baffled, panicky. Faces twisted in agony. Men fell down in writhing heaps, clawing their noses and throats. I was careful to keep my face in the wool.

  The tall, thin man came out of his shadows. Calmly, he began despatching guerrillas with a fourteen-inch, silvery blade. He spared those customers we had not bound to their chairs.

  He signed, “It’s safe to breathe now,”

  “Watch the door,” Candy told me. He knew I had an aversion to this kind of slaughter. “Otto, you take the kitchen. Me and Pawnbroker will help Silent.”

  The Rebel outside tried to get us by speeding arrows through the doorway. He had no luck. Then he tried firing the place. Madle suffered paroxysms of rage. Silent, one of the three wizards of the Company, who had been sent into Tally weeks earlier, used his powers to squelch the fire. Angrily, the Rebel prepared for a siege.