The Black Company tbc-1 Read online

  “The Captain will look out for her.”

  “I forgot to fix it with somebody for the Annals.”

  “Don’t be so optimistic,” he said sarcastically. I shivered uncontrollably.

  Soulcatcher did something. We started gliding over the treetops. Chill air whispered past us. I glanced over the side. We were a good five stories high and climbing.

  The stars twisted overhead as Catcher changed course. The wind rose till we seemed to be flying into the face of a gale. I leaned farther and farther forward, afraid it would push me off. There was nothing behind me but several hundred feet and an abrupt stop. My fingers ached from gripping my bow.

  I have learned one thing, I told myself. How Catcher manages to show up so fast when he is always so far from the action when we get in touch.

  It was a silent journey. Catcher stayed busy doing whatever it was he did to make his steed fly. Raven closed in on himself. So did I. I was scared silly. My stomach was in revolt. I do not know about Raven.

  The stars began to fade. The eastern horizon lightened. The earth materialized below us. I chanced a look. We were over the Forest of Cloud. A little more light. Catcher grunted, considered the east, then the distances ahead. He seemed to listen for a moment, then nodded.

  The carpet raised its nose. We climbed. The earth rocked and dwindled till it looked like a map. The air became ever more chill. My stomach remained rebellious.

  Way off to our left I glimpsed a black scar on the forest. It was the encampment we had overrun. Then we entered a cloud and Catcher slowed our rush.

  “We’ll drift a while,” he said. “We’re thirty miles south of the Limper.-- He’s riding away from us. We’re overtaking him fast. When we’re almost up to where he might detect me, we’ll go down.” He used the businesslike female voice.

  I started to say something. He snapped, “Be quiet, Croaker. Don’t distract me.”

  We stayed in that cloud, unseen and unable to see, for two hours. Then Catcher said, “Time to go down. Grip the frame members and don’t let go. It may be a little unsettling.”

  The bottom fell out. We went down like a stone dropped from a cliff. The carpet began to rotate slowly, so the forest seemed to turn below us. Then it began to slide back and forth like a feather falling. Each time it tilted my way I thought I would tumble over the side.

  A good scream might have helped, but you could not do that in front of characters like Raven and Soulcatcher.

  The forest kept getting closer. Soon I could distinguish individual trees... when I dared to look. We were going to die. I knew we were going to smash right down through the forest canopy fifty feet into the earth.

  Catcher said something. I did not catch it. He was talking to his carpet anyway. The rocking and spinning gradually stopped. Our descent slowed. The carpet nosed down slightly and began to glide forward. Eventually Catcher took us below treetop level, into the aisle over a river. We, scooted along a dozen feet above the water, with Soulcatcher laughing as birds scattered in panic.

  He brought us to earth in a glen beside the river. “Off and stretch,” he told us. After we had loosened up, he said, “The Limper is four miles north of us. He’s reached the meeting place. You’ll go on from here without me. He’ll detect me if I get any closer. I want your badges. He can detect those too.”

  Raven nodded, surrendered his badge, strung his bow, nocked an arrow, pulled back, relaxed. I did the same. It settled my nerves.

  I was so grateful to be on the ground I could have kissed it.

  “The bole on the big oak.” Raven pointed across the river. He let fly. His shaft struck a few inches off center. I took a deep, relaxing breath, followed suite. My shaft struck an inch nearer center. “Should have bet me that time,” he remarked. To Catcher, “We’re ready.”

  I added, “We’ll need more specific directions.”

  “Follow the river bank. There are plenty of game trails. The going shouldn’t be hard. No need to hurry anyway. Whisper shouldn’t be there for hours yet.”

  “The river heads west,” I observed.

  “It loops back. Follow it for three miles, then turn a point west of north and go straight through the woods.” Catcher crouched and cleared the leaves and twigs off some bare earth, used a stick to sketch a map. “If you reach this bend, you’ve gone too far.”

  Then Catcher froze. For a long minute he listened to something only he could hear. Then he resumed, “The Lady says you’ll know you’re close when you reach’ a grove of huge evergreens. It was the holy place of a people who died out before the Domination. The Limper is waiting at the center of the grove.”

  “Good enough,” Raven said.

  I asked, “You’ll wait here?”

  “Have no fear, Croaker.”

  I took another of my relaxing breaths. “Let’s go, Raven.”

  “One second, Croaker,” Soulcatcher said. He retrieved something from his bundle. It proved to be an arrow. “Use this.”

  I eyed it uncertainly, then placed it in my quiver.

  Raven insisted on leading. I did not argue. I was a city boy before I joined the Company. I cannot become comfortable with forests. Especially not woods the size of the Forest of Cloud. Too much quiet. Too much solitude. Too easy to get lost. For the first two miles I worried more about finding my way back than I did about the coming encounter. I spent a lot of time memorizing landmarks.

  Raven did not speak for an hour. I was busy thinking myself. I did not mind.

  He raised a hand. I stopped. “Far enough, I think,” he said. “We go that way now.”

  “Uhm.”

  “Let’s rest.” He settled on a huge tree root, his back against a trunk. “Awful quiet today, Croaker.”

  “Things on my mind.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “Like what kind of reward we’re set up for?”

  “Among other things.” I drew out the arrow Catcher had given me. “You see this?”

  “A blunt head?” He felt it. “Soft, almost. What the hell?”

  “Exactly. Means I’m not supposed to kill her.”

  There was no question of who would let fly at whom. The Limper was Raven’s all the way.

  “Maybe. But I’m not going to get killed trying to take her alive.”

  “Me either. That’s what’s bothering me. Along with about ten other things, like why the Lady really picked you and me, and why she wants Whisper alive... Oh, the hell with it. It’ll give me ulcers.”

  “Ready?”

  “I guess.”

  We left the riverbank. The going became more difficult, but soon we crossed a low ridgeline and reached the edge of the evergreens. Not much grew beneath them. Very little sunlight leaked through their boughs. Raven paused to urinate. “Won’t be any chance later,” he explained.

  He was right. You do not want that sort of problem when you are in ambush a stone’s throw from an unfriendly Taken.

  I was getting shaky. Raven laid a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll be okay,” he promised. But he did not believe it himself. His hand was shaky too.

  I reached inside my jerkin and touched Goblin’s amulet. It helped.

  Raven raised an eyebrow. I nodded. We resumed walking. I chewed a strip of jerky, which burned off nervous energy. We did not speak again.

  There were ruins among the trees. Raven examined the glyphs incised in the stones. He shrugged. They meant nothing to him.

  Then we came to the big trees, the grandfathers of those through which we had been passing. They towered hundreds of feet high and had trunks as thick as the spans of two men’s arms. Here and there, the sun thrust swords of light down through the boughs. The air was thick with resin smells. The silence was overwhelming. We moved one step at a time, making sure our footfalls sent no warnings ahead.

  My nervousness peaked out, began to fade. It was too late to run, too late to change my mind. My brain ban-celled all-emotion. Usually that only happened when I was forced to treat casualties while people were-killing one
another all around me.

  Raven signaled a halt. I nodded. I had heard it too. A horse snorting. Raven gestured for me to stay put. He eased to our left, keeping low, and disappeared behind a tree about fifty feet away.

  He reappeared in a minute, beckoned. I joined him. He led me to a spot from which I could look into an open area. The Limper and his horse were there.

  The clearing was maybe seventy feet long by fifty wide. A tumble of crumbling stone stood at its center. The Limper sat on one fallen rock and leaned against another. He seemed to be sleeping. One corner of the clearing was occupied by the trunk of a fallen giant that had not been down long. It showed very little weathering.

  Raven tapped the back of my hand, pointed. He wanted to move on.

  I did not like moving now that we had the Limper in sight. Each step meant another chance to alert the Taken to his peril. But Raven was right. The sun was dropping in front of us. The longer we stayed put, the worse the light would become. Eventually, it would be in our eyes.

  We moved with exaggerated care. Of course. One mistake and we were dead. When Raven glanced back I saw sweat on his temples.

  He stopped, pointed, smiled. I crept up beside him. He pointed again.

  Another fallen tree lay ahead. This one was about four feet in diameter. It looked perfect for our purpose. It was big enough to hide us, low enough to let fly over. We found a spot providing a clean aisle of fire to the heart of the clearing.

  The light was good, too. Several spears broke through the canopy and illuminated most of the clearing. There was a little haze in the air, pollen perhaps, which made the beams stand out. I studied the clearing for several minutes, imprinting it on my mind. Then I sat behind the log and pretended I was a rock. Raven took the watch.

  It seemed weeks passed before anything happened.

  Raven tapped my shoulder. I looked up. He made a walking motion with two fingers. The Limper was up and prowling. I rose carefully, watched.

  The Limper circled the pile of stones a few times, bad leg dragging, then sat down again. He picked up a twig and broke it into small pieces, tossing each at some target only he could see. When the twig was gone, he scooped up a handful of small cones and threw them lazily. Portrait of a man killing time.

  I wondered why he had come on horseback. He could get places fast when he wanted. I supposed because he had been close by. Then I worried that some of his troops might show up.

  He got up and walked around again, collecting cones and chucking them at the fallen behemoth across the clearing. Damned, but I wished we could take him then, and have done.

  The Limper’s mount’s head jerked up. The animal whickered. Raven and I sank down, crushed ourselves into the shadows and needles beneath our trunk. A crackling tension radiated from the clearing.

  A moment later I heard hooves crunching needles. I held my breath. From the corner of my eye I caught flickers of a white horse moving among the trees. Whisper? Would she see us?

  Yes and no. Thank whatever gods there are, yes and no. She passed within fifty feet without noticing us.

  The Limper called something. Whisper replied in a melodious voice that did not at all fit the wide, hard, homely woman I had seen pass. She sounded seventeen and gorgeous, looked forty-five and like she had been around the world three times.

  Raven prodded me gently.

  I rose about as fast as a flower blooms, scared they would hear my sinews crackle. We peeped over the fallen tree. Whisper dismounted and took one of the Limper’s hands in both of hers.

  The situation could not have been more perfect. We were in shadow, they were fixed in a shaft of sunlight. Golden dust sparkled around them. And they were restricting one another by holding hands.

  It had to be now. We both knew it, both bent our bows. We both had additional arrows gripped against our weapons, ready to be snapped to our strings. “Now,” Raven said.

  My nerves did not bother me till my arrow was in the air. Then I went cold and shaky.

  Raven’s shaft went in under the Limper’s left arm. The Taken made a sound like a rat getting stomped. He arched away from Whisper.

  My shaft smashed against Whisper’s temple. She was wearing a leather helmet, but I was confident the impact would down her. She spun away from the Limper.

  Raven sped a second arrow, I fumbled mine. I dropped my bow and vaulted over the log. Raven’s third arrow whistled past me.

  Whisper was on her knees when I arrived. I kicked her in the head, whirled to face the Limper. Raven’s arrows had struck home, but even Catcher’s special shaft had not ended the Taken’s story. He was trying to growl out a spell through a throat filled with blood. I kicked him too.

  Then Raven was there with me. I spun back to Whisper.

  That bitch was as tough as her reputation. Woozy as she was, she was trying to get up, trying to draw her sword, trying to mouth a spell. I scrambled her brains again, got rid of her blade. “I didn’t bring any cord,” I gasped. “You bring any cord, Raven?”

  “No.” He just stood there staring at the Limper. The Taken’s battered leather mask had slipped sideways. He was trying to straighten it so he could see who we were.

  “How the hell am I going to tie her up?”

  “Better worry about gagging her first.” Raven helped the Limper with his mask, smiling that incredibly cruel smile he gets when he is about to cut a special throat.

  I yanked out my knife and hacked at Whisper’s clothing. She fought me. I had to keep knocking her down. Finally, I had strips of rag to bind her and to stuff into her mouth. I dragged her over to the pile of stones, propped her up, turned to see what Raven was doing.

  He had ripped the Limper’s mask away, exposing the desolation of the Taken’s face.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. He was binding the Limper. I wondered why he was bothering.

  “Got to thinking maybe I don’t have the talent to handle this.” He dropped into a squat and patted the Limper’s cheek. The Limper radiated hatred. “You know me, Croaker. I’m an old softy. I’d just kill him and be satisfied. But he deserves a harder death. Catcher has more experience in these things.” He chuckled wickedly.

  The Limper strained against his bonds. Despite the three arrows, he seemed normally strong. Even vigorous. The shafts certainly did not inconvenience him.

  Raven patted his cheek again. “Hey, old buddy. Word of warning, one friend to another... Wasn’t that what you told me about an hour before Morningstar and her friends ambushed me in that place you sent me? Word of warning? Yeah. Look out for Soulcatcher. He got a hold of your true name. Character like that, there’s no telling what he might do.”

  I said, “Take it easy on the gloating, Raven. Watch him. He’s doing something with his fingers.” He was wriggling them rhythmically.

  “Aye!” Raven shouted, laughing. He grabbed the sword I had taken from Whisper and chopped fingers off each of the Limper’s hands.

  Raven rides me for not telling the whole truth in these Annals. Someday maybe he will look at this and be sorry. But, honestly, he was not nice people that day.

  I had a similar problem with Whisper. I chose a different solution. I cut off her hair and used it to tangle her fingers together.

  Raven tormented the Limper till I could stand no more. “Raven, that’s really enough. Why don’t you back off and keep them covered?” He had been given no specific instructions about what to do after we captured Whisper, but I figured the Lady would tell Catcher and he would drop in. We just had to keep things under control till he arrived.

  Soulcatcher’s magic carpet dropped from the sky half an hour after I chased Raven away from the Limper. It settled a few feet from our captives. Catcher stepped off, stretched looked down at Whisper. He sighed, observed, “Not a pretty sight, Whisper,” in that businesslike female voice. “But then you never were. Yes. My friend Croaker found the buried packets.”

  Whisper’s hard, cold eyes sought me. They were informed with a savage impact. Rather th
an face that, I moved. I did not correct Soulcatcher.

  He turned to the Limper, shook his head sadly. “No. It’s not personal. You used up your credit. She ordered this.”

  The Limper went rigid.

  Soulcatcher asked Raven, “Why didn’t you kill him?”

  Raven sat on the trunk of the larger fallen tree, bow across his lap, staring at the earth. He did not reply. I said, “He figured you could think of something better.”

  Catcher laughed. “I thought about it corning over here. Nothing seemed adequate. I’m taking Raven’s way out. I told Shifter. He’s on his way.” He looked down at the Limper. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” To me, “You’d think a man this old would have garnered some wisdom along the way.” He turned to Raven. “Raven, he was the Lady’s reward to you.”

  Raven grunted. “I appreciate it.”

  I had figured that out already. But I was supposed to get something out of this too, and I had not seen anything remotely fulfilling any dream of mine.

  Soulcatcher did his mindreading trick. “Yours has changed, I think. It hasn’t been delivered yet. Make yourself comfortable, Croaker. We’ll be here a long time.”

  I went and sat beside Raven. We did not talk. There was nothing I wanted to say, and he was lost somewhere inside himself. Like I said, a man cannot live on hatred alone.

  Soulcatcher double-checked our captives’ bonds, dragged his carpet rack into the shadows, then perched himself on the stone pile.

  Shapeshifter arrived twenty minutes later, as huge, ugly, dirty, and stinking as ever. He looked the Limper over, conferred with Catcher, growled at the Limper for half a minute, then remounted his flying carpet and soared away. Catcher explained, “He’s passing it on too. Nobody wants the final responsibility.”

  “Who could he pass it to?” I wondered. The Limper had no heavy enemies left.

  Catcher shrugged and returned to the stone pile. He muttered in a dozen voices, drawing into himself, almost shrinking. I think he was as happy to be there as was I.

  Time trudged on. The slant of the bars of sunlight gi ever steeper. One after another winked out. I began to wonder if Raven’s suspicions had not been correct. We would be easy pickings after dark. The Taken do not need the sun to see.