The Black Company tbc-1 Read online

  I looked at Raven. What was happening inside his head? His face was a morose blank. It was the face he wore while playing cards.

  I dropped off the log and prowled, following the pattern set by the Limper. There was nothing else to do. I whipped a pine cone at a burl on the log Raven and I had used for cover... And it ducked! I started a headlong charge toward Whisper’s bloody sword before I fully realized what I had seen.

  “What’s wrong?” Soulcatcher asked as I pulled up.

  I improvised. “Pulled muscle, I think. I was going to loosen up with some sprints, but something happened in my leg.” I massaged my right calf. He seemed satisfied. I glanced toward the log, saw nothing.

  But I knew Silent was there. Would be there if he was needed.

  Silent. How the hell had he gotten here? Same way as the rest of us? Did he have tricks that nobody suspected?

  After the appropriate theatrics, I limped over and joined Raven. By gesturing I tried to make him understand that we would have help if push came to shove, but the message did not penetrate. He was too withdrawn.

  It was dark. There was a half moon overhead, poking a few mild silvery bars into the clearing. Catcher remained on the stone pile. Raven and I remained on the log. My behind was aching. My nerves were raw. I was tired and hungry and scared. I had had enough, but did not have the courage to say so.

  Raven shed his funk suddenly. He assayed the situation, asked, “What the hell are we doing?”

  Soulcatcher woke up. “Waiting. Shouldn’t be much longer.”

  “Waiting for what?” I demanded. I can be brave with Raven backing me. Soulcatcher stared my way. I became aware of an unnatural stir in the grove behind me, of Raven coiling himself for action. “Waiting for what?” I repeated weakly.

  “For me, physician.” I felt the speaker’s breath on the back of my neck.

  I jumped halfway to Catcher, and did not stop till I reached Whisper’s blade. Catcher laughed. I wondered if he had noticed that my leg had gotten better. I glanced at the smaller log. Nothing.

  A glorious light poured over the log I had quitted. I did not see Raven. He had vanished. I gripped Whisper’s sword and resolved to lay a good one on Soulcatcher.

  The light floated over the fallen giant, settled in front of Catcher. It was too brilliant to look at long. It illuminated the whole clearing.

  Soulcatcher dropped to one knee. And then I understood.

  The Lady! This fiery glory was the Lady. We had been waiting for the Lady! I stared till my eyes ached. And dropped to one knee myself. I offered Whisper’s sword on my palms, like a knight doing homage to his king. The Lady!

  Was this my reward? To actually meet Her? That something that called to me from Charm twisted, filled me, and for one foolish instant I was totally in love. But I could not see Her. ! wanted to see what She looked like.

  She had that capacity I found so disconcerting in Soulcatcher. “Not this time, Croaker,” she said. “But soon, I think.” She touched my hand. Her fingers burned me like the first sexual touch of my first lover. Remember that racing, stunning, raging instant of excitement?

  “The reward comes later. This time you’ll be permitted to witness a rite unseen for five hundred years.” She moved. “That has to be uncomfortable. Get up.”

  I rose, backed away. Soulcatcher stood in his parade rest stance, watching the light. Its intensity was falling. I could watch without pain. It drifted around the stone pile to our prisoners, waning till I could discern a feminine shape inside.

  The Lady looked at the Limper a long time. The Limper looked back. His face was empty. He was beyond hope or despair.

  The Lady said, “You served me well for a while. And your treachery helped more than it hurt. I am not without mercy.” She flared on one side. A shadow diminished. There stood Raven, arrow across bow. “He’s yours, Raven.”

  I looked at the Limper. He betrayed excitement and a strange hope. Not that he would survive, of course, but that he would die quickly, simply, painlessly.

  Raven said, “No.” Nothing else. Just a flat refusal.

  The Lady mused, “Too bad, Limper.” She arched back and screamed something at the sky.

  Limper flopped violently. The gag flew out of his mouth. His ankle bonds parted. He gained his feet, tried to run, tried to mouth some spell that would protect him. He had gone thirty feet when a thousand fiery snakes streaked out of the night and swarmed him.

  They covered his body. They slithered into his mouth and nose, into his eyes and ears. They went in the easy way and came gnawing out through his back and chest and belly. And he screamed. And screamed. And screamed. And the same terrible vitality which had fought off the lethality of Raven’s arrows kept him alive throughout this punishment.

  I heaved up the jerky that had, been my only meal all day.

  The Limper was a long time screaming, and never did die. Eventually, the Lady tired and sent the serpents away. She spun a whispery cocoon around the Limper, shouted another series of syllables. A gigantic luminescent dragonfly dropped from the night, snapped him up, and hummed away toward Charm. The Lady said, “He’ll provide years of entertainment.” She glanced at Soulcatcher, making sure the lesson had not gone over his head.

  Catcher had not moved a muscle. He did not do so now.

  The Lady said, “Croaker, what you are about to witness exists only in a few memories. Even most of my champions have forgotten.”

  What the hell was she talking about?

  She looked down. Whisper cringed. The Lady said, “No, not all that. You’ve been such an outstanding enemy, I’m going to reward you.” Strange laughter. “There is a vacancy among the Taken.”

  So. The blunted arrow, the weird circumstances leading to that moment, came clear. The Lady had decided that Whisper should replace the Limper.

  When? Just when had she made that decision? The Limper had been in bad trouble for a year, suffering one humiliation after another. Had she orchestrated those? I think she had. A clue here, a clue there, a strand of gossip and a stray memory... Catcher had been in on part of it, using us. Maybe he had been in on it as far back as when he had enlisted us. Surely our crossing paths with Raven had been no accident... Ah, she was a cruel, wicked, deceitful, calculating bitch.

  But everyone knew that. That was her story. She had dispossessed her own husband. She had murdered her sister, if Soulcatcher could be believed. So why was I disappointed and surprised?

  I glanced at Catcher. He had not moved, but there was subtle change in his stance. He was dazed by surprise. “Yes,” the Lady told him. “You thought only the Dominator could Take.” Soft laughter. “You were wrong. Pass that along to anyone still thinking about resurrecting my husband.”

  Catcher moved slightly. I could not read the movement’s significance, but the Lady seemed satisfied. She faced Whisper again.

  The Rebel general was more terrified than the Limper had been. She was. about to become the thing she hated most-and she could do nothing.

  The Lady knelt and began whispering to her.

  I watched, and still I do not know what went on. Nor can I describe the Lady, any more than Goblin could, despite having been near her all night. Or maybe for several nights. Time had a surreal quality. We lost some days somewhere. But see her I did, and I witnessed the rite that converted our most dangerous enemy into one of our own.

  I recall one thing with a razor-edged clarity. A huge yellow eye. The same eye that so croggled Goblin. It came and looked into me and Raven and Whisper.

  It did not shatter me the way it had Goblin. Maybe I am less sensitive. Or just more ignorant. But it was bad. Like I said, some days disappeared.

  That eye is not infallible. It does not do well with short term memories. The Lady remained unaware of Silent’s proximity.

  Of the rest of it there are only flickers of recollection, most filled with Whisper’s screams. There was a moment when the clearing filled with dancing devils all glowing with their inner wickedness. They fou
ght for the privilege of mounting Whisper. There was a time when Whisper faced the eye. A time when, I think, Whisper died and was resurrected, died and was resurrected, till she became intimate with death. There were times when she was tortured. And another time with the eye.

  The fragments I retain suggest that she was shattered, slain, revived, and reassembled as a devoted slave. I recall her pledge of fealty to the Lady. Her voice dripped a craven eagerness to please.

  Long after it was over I wakened confused and lost, and terrified. It took a while to reason out. The confusion was part of the Lady’s protective coloration. What I could not remember could not be used against her.

  Some reward.

  She was gone. Likewise Whisper. But Soulcatcher remained, pacing the clearing, muttering in a dozen frantic voices. He fell silent the instant I tried to sit up. He stared, head thrust forward suspiciously.

  I groaned, tried to rise, fell back. I crawled over and propped myself on one of the stones. Catcher brought me a canteen. I drank clumsily. He said, “You can eat after you pull yourself together.”

  Which remark alerted me to ravenous hunger. How long had it been? “What happened?”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Not much. Whisper was Taken?”

  “She’s replacing Limper. The Lady took her to the eastern front. Her knowledge of the other side should shake things loose out there.”

  I tried to shake the cobwebs. “I thought they were shifting to a northern strategy.”

  “They are. And as soon as your Mend recovers, we have to return to Lords.” In a soft, female voice, he admitted, “I didn’t know Whisper as well as I thought.

  She did pass the word when she learned what happened at her camp. For once the Circle responded quickly. They avoided the usual in-fighting. They smell blood. They accepted their losses, and let us divert ourselves while they started their maneuvers. Kept them damned well hidden. Now Harden’s army is headed toward Lords. Our forces are still scattered throughout the forest. She turned the trap around on us.”

  I did not want to hear it. A year of bad news is enough. Why couldn’t one of our coups remain solid? “She sacrificed herself intentionally?”

  “No. She wanted to run us around the woods to buy time for the Circle. She didn’t know the Lady knew about the Limper. I thought I knew her, but I was wrong. We’ll benefit eventually, but there are going to be hard times till Whisper straightens out the east.” I tried to rise, could not.

  “Take it easy,” he suggested. “First time with the Eye is always rough. Think you could eat something now?” “Drag one of those horses over here.” “Better go easy at first.”

  “How bad is it?” I was not quite sure what I was asking. He assumed I meant the strategic situation.

  “Harden’s army is bigger than any we’ve yet faced up here. And it’s only one of the groups that are on the move. If Nightcrawler doesn’t reach Lords first, we’ll lose the city and kingdom. Which might give them the momentum to drive us out of the north entirely. Our forces at Wist, Jane, Wine, and so forth, aren’t up to a major campaign. The north has been a sideshow till now.”

  “But... After all we’ve been through? We’re worse off than when we lost Roses? Damn! That isn’t fair.” I was tired of retreating.

  “Not to worry, Croaker. If Lords goes, we’ll stop them at the Stair of Tear. We’ll hold them there while Whisper runs wild. They can’t ignore her forever. If the east collapses, the rebellion will die. The east is their strength.” He sounded like a man trying to convince himself. He had been through these oscillations before, during the last days of the Domination.

  I buried my head in my hands, muttered, “I thought we had them whipped.” Why the hell had we left Beryl?

  Soulcatcher prodded Raven with a toe. Raven did not stir. “Come on!” Catcher grumbled. “They need me at Lords. Nightcrawler and I may end up trying to hold the city by ourselves.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave us if the situation is so critical?”

  He hemmed and hawed and slid around it, and before he finished I suspected that this one Taken had a sense of honor, a sense of duty toward those who had accepted his protection. He would not admit it, though. Never. That would not fit the image of the Taken.

  I thought about another journey through the sky. I thought hard. I am as lazy as the next guy, but I could not take that. Not now. Not feeling the way I did. “I’d fall off for sure. There’s no point you hanging around. We won’t be ready for days. Hell, we can walk out.” I thought about the forest. Walking did not appeal to me either. “Give us our badges back. So you can locate us again. Then you can pick us up if you get time.”

  He grumbled. We batted it back and forth. I kept on about how shaky I was, about how shaky Raven would be.

  He was anxious to get moving. He let me convince him. He unloaded his carpet-he had gone somewhere while I was unconscious-and climbed aboard. “I’ll see you in a few days.” His carpet rose far faster than it had done with Raven and I aboard. And then it was gone. I dragged myself to the things he had left behind.

  “You bastard.” I chuckled. His protest had been a shuck. He had left food, our own weapons that we had left in Lords, and odds and ends we might need to survive. Not a bad boss, for one of the Taken. “Hey! Silent! Where the hell are you?”

  Silent drifted into the clearing. He looked at me, at Raven, at the supplies, and did not say anything. Of course not. He is Silent.

  He looked ragged around the edges. “Not enough sleep?” I asked. He nodded. “You see what happened here?” He nodded again. “I hope you remember it better than I do.” He shook his head. Damn. So it will go into the Annals unclear.

  It is a weird way to hold a conversation, one man talking and the other head-shaking. Getting information across can be incredibly difficult. I should study the communicative gestures Raven has learned from Darling. Silent is her second best friend. It would be interesting just to eavesdrop on their conversations.

  “Let’s see what we can do for Raven,” I suggested.

  Raven was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. He did not come out of it for hours. I used the interim to interrogate Silent.

  The Captain had sent him. He had come on horseback. He was, in fact, on his way before Raven and I were summoned for our interview with Soulcatcher. He had ridden hard, day and night. He had reached the clearing only a short while before I spotted him.

  I asked how he had known where to go, granting that the Captain would have nursed enough information from Catcher to get him started-a move which fit the Captain’s style. Silent admitted he had not known where he was headed, except generally, till we had reached the area. Then he had tracked us through the amulet Goblin had given me.

  Crafty little Goblin. He had not betrayed a hint. Good thing, too. The eye would have found the knowledge. “You think you could have done something if we’d really needed help?” I asked.

  Silent smiled, shrugged, stalked over to the stone pile and seated himself. He was done with the question game. Of all the Company he is the least concerned about the image he will present in the Annals. He does not care-whether people like or hate him, does not care where he has been or where he is going. Sometimes I wonder if he cares whether he lives or dies, wonder what makes him stay. He must have some attachment to the Company.

  Raven finally came around. We nursed him and fed him and, finally, bedraggled, we rounded up Whisper’s and the Limper’s horses and headed for Lords. We traveled without enthusiasm, knowing we were headed for another battlefield, another land of standing dead men.

  We could not get close. Harden’s Rebels had the city besieged, circumvallated and bottled in a double fosse. A grim black cloud concealed the city itself. Cruel lightning rambled its edges, dueling the might of the Eighteen. Harden had not come alone.

  The Circle seemed determined to avenge Whisper.

  “Catcher and Nightcrawler are playing rough,” Raven observed, after one particularly violent e
xchange. “I suggest we drift south and wait. If they abandon Lords, we’ll join back up when they run toward the Windy Country.” His face twisted horribly. He did not relish that prospect. He knew the Windy Country.

  So south we scooted, and joined up with other stragglers. We spent twelve days in hiding, waiting. Raven organized the stragglers into the semblance of a military unit. I passed the time writing and thinking about Whisper, wondering how much she would influence the eastern situation.

  The rare glimpses I got of Lords convinced me that she was our side’s last real hope.

  Rumor had the Rebel applying just as much pressure elsewhere. The Lady supposedly had to transfer The Hanged Man and Bonegnasher from the east to stiffen resistance. One rumor had Shapeshifter slain in the fighting at Rye.

  I worried about the Company. Our brethren had gotten into Lords before Harden’s arrival.

  Not a man falls without my telling his tale. How can I do that from twenty miles away? How many details will be lost in the oral histories I will have to collect after the fact? How many men will fall without their deaths being observed at all?

  But mostly I spend my time thinking about the Limper and the Lady. And agonizing.

  I do not think that I will be writing any more cute, romantic fantasies about our employer. I have been too close to her. I am not in love now.

  I am a haunted man. I am haunted by the Limper’s screams. I am haunted by the Lady’s laughter. I am haunted by my suspicion that we are furthering the cause of something that deserves to be scrubbed from the face of the earth. I am haunted by the conviction that those bent upon the Lady’s eradication are little better than she.

  I am haunted by the clear knowledge that, in the end, evil always triumphs.

  Oh, my. Trouble. There is a nasty black cloud crawling over the hills to the northeast. Everybody is running around, grabbing weapons and saddling horses. Raven is yelling at me to get my butt moving...

  Chapter Five