Chronicles of the Black Company

  Movement to the west caught my eye. A whole range of ferocious thunderheads was moving toward Harden, rumbling and brawling among themselves. A funnel cloud spun off and streaked toward the sandstorm. The Taken play rough.

  Harden was stubborn. He kept coming through everything.

  “Yo! Croaker!” someone shouted. “Come on.”

  I looked down. The wagons were through the worst. Time to go.

  Out on the flats the thunderheads spun off another funnel cloud. I almost felt sorry for Harden’s men.

  Soon after I rejoined the column the ground shuddered. The bluff I had climbed quivered, groaned, toppled, sprawled across the road. Another little gift for Harden.

  We reached our stopping place shortly before nightfall. Decent country at last! Real trees. A gurgling creek. Those who had any strength left began digging in or cooking. The rest fell in their tracks. The Captain did not press. The best medicine at the moment was the simple freedom to rest.

  I slept like the proverbial log.

  One-Eye wakened me at rooster time. “Let’s get to work,” he said. “The Captain wants a hospital set up.” He made a face. His looks like a prune at the best of times. “We’re supposed to have some help coming up from Charm.”

  I groaned and moaned and cursed and got up. Every muscle was stiff. Every bone ached. “Next time we’re someplace civilized enough to have taverns remind me to drink a toast to eternal peace,” I grumbled. “One-Eye, I’m ready to retire.”

  “So who isn’t? But you’re the Annalist, Croaker. You’re always rubbing our noses in tradition. You know you only got two ways out while we’ve got this commission. Dead or feet first. Shove some chow in your ugly face and let’s get cracking. I got more important things to do than play nursemaid.”

  “Cheerful this morning, aren’t we?”

  “Positively rosy.” He grumped around while I got myself into an approximation of order.

  The camp was coming to life. Men were eating and washing the desert off their bodies. They were cussing and fussing and bitching. Some were even talking to one another. The recovery had begun.

  Sergeants and officers were out surveying the lie of the slope, seeking the most defensible strongpoints. This, then, was the place where the Taken wanted to make a stand.

  It was a good spot. It was that part of the pass which gave the Stair its name, a twelve hundred foot rise overlooking a maze of canyons. The old road wound back and forth across the mountainside in countless switchbacks, so that from a distance it looked like a giant’s lopsided stairway.

  One-Eye and I drafted a dozen men and began moving the wounded to a quiet grove well above the prospective battleground. We spent an hour making them comfortable and getting set for future business.

  “What’s that?” One-Eye suddenly demanded.

  I listened. The din of preparation had died. “Something up,” I said.

  “Genius,” he countered. “Probably the people from Charm.”

  “Let’s take a look.” I tramped out of the grove and down toward the Captain’s headquarters. The newcomers were obvious the moment I left the trees.

  I would guess there were a thousand of them, half soldiers from the Lady’s personal Guard in brilliant uniforms, the rest apparently teamsters. The train of wagons and livestock were more exciting than the reinforcements. “Feast time tonight,” I called to One-Eye, who was following me. He looked the wagons over and smiled. Pure pleasure smiles from him are only slightly more common than the fabled hen’s teeth. They are certainly worth recording in these Annals.

  With the Guards battalion was the Taken called the Hanged Man. He was improbably tall and lean. His head was twisted way over to one side. His neck was swollen and purpled from the bite of a noose. His face was frozen into the bloated expression of one who has been strangled. I expect he had considerable difficulty speaking.

  He was the fifth of the Taken I had seen, following Soulcatcher, the Limper, Shapeshifter, and Whisper. I missed Nightcrawler in Lords, and had not yet seen Stormbringer, despite proximity. The Hanged Man was different. The others usually wore something to conceal head and face. Excepting Whisper, they had spent ages in the ground. The grave had not treated them kindly.

  Soulcatcher and Shapeshifter were there to greet the Hanged Man. The Captain was nearby, back to them, listening to the commander of the Lady’s guardsmen. I eased closer, hoping to eavesdrop.

  The guardsman was being surly because he had to place himself at the Captain’s disposal. None of the regulars liked taking orders from a come-lately mercenary from overseas.

  I sidled nearer the Taken. And found I could not understand a word of their conversation. They were speaking TelleKurre, which had died with the fall of the Domination.

  A hand touched mine, lightly. Startled, I looked down into the wide brown eyes of Darling, whom I had not seen for days. She made rapid gestures with her fingers. I have been learning her signs. She wanted to show me something.

  She led me to Raven’s tent, which was not far from the Captain’s. She scrambled inside, returned with a wooden doll. Loving craftsmanship had gone into its creation. I could not imagine the hours Raven must have put into it. I could not imagine where he had found them.

  Darling slowed her finger talk so I could follow more easily. I was not yet very facile. She told me Raven made the doll, as I had guessed, and that now he was sewing up a wardrobe. She thought she had a great treasure. Recalling the village where we had found her, I could not doubt that it was the finest toy she had ever possessed.

  Revealing object, when you think about Raven, who comes across so bitter, cold, and silent, whose only use for a knife seems so sinister.

  Darling and I conversed for several minutes. Her thoughts are delightfully straightforward, a refreshing contrast in a world filled with devious, prevaricating, unpredictable, scheming people.

  A hand squeezed my shoulder, halfway between angry and companionable. “The Captain is looking for you, Croaker.” Raven’s dark eyes glinted like obsidian under a quarter moon. He pretended the doll was invisible. He likes to come across hard, I realized.

  “Right,” I said, making manual good-byes. I enjoyed learning from Darling. She enjoyed teaching me. I think it gave her a feeling of worth. The Captain was considering having everyone learn her sign language. It would make a valuable supplement to our traditional but inadequate battle signals.

  The Captain gave me a black look when I arrived, but spared me a lecture. “Your new help and supplies are over yonder. Show them where to go.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The responsibility was getting to him. He hadn’t ever commanded so many men, nor faced conditions so adverse, with orders so impossible, staring at a future so uncertain. From where he stood it looked like we would be sacrificed to buy time.

  We of the Company are not enthusiastic fighters. But the Stair of Tear could not be held by trickery.

  It looked like the end had come.

  No one will sing songs in our memory. We are the last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. Our traditions and memories live only in these Annals. We are our only mourners.

  It is the Company against the world. Thus it has been and ever will be.

  My aid from the Lady consisted of two qualified battlefield surgeons and a dozen trainees of various degrees of skill, along with a brace of wagons brimming with medical supplies. I was grateful. Now I stood a chance of saving a few men.

  I took the newcomers to my grove, explained how I worked, turned them loose on my patients. After making sure they were not complete incompetents, I turned the hospital over and left.

  I was restless. I did not like what was happening to the Company. It had acquired too many new followers and responsibilities. The old intimacy was gone. Time was, I saw every one of the men every day. Now there were some I had not seen since before the debacle at Lords. I did not know if they were dead, alive, or captive. I was almost neurotically anxious that some men had been lost and would be
forgotten.

  The Company is our family. The brotherhood makes it go. These days, with all these new northern faces, the prime force holding the Company together is a desperate effort by the brethren to reachieve the old intimacy. The strain of trying marks every face.

  I went out to one of the forward watchpoints, which overlooked the fall of the brook into the canyons. Way, way down there, below the mist, lay a small, glimmering pool. A thin trickle left it, running toward the Windy Country. It would not complete its journey. I searched the chaotic ranks of sandstone towers and buttes. Thunderheads with lightning swords a flash on their brows grumbled and pounded the badlands, reminding me that trouble was not far away.

  Harden was coming despite Stormbringer’s wrath. He would make contact tomorrow, I guessed. I wondered how much the storms had hurt him. Surely not enough.

  I spied a brown hulk shambling down the switchback road. Shapeshifter, going out to practice his special terrors. He could enter the Rebel camp as one of them, practice poison magics upon their cookpots or fill their drinking water with disease. He could become the shadow in the darkness that all men fear, taking them one at a time, leaving only mangled remains to fill the living with terror. I envied him even while I loathed him.

  The stars twinkled above the campfire. It had burned low while some of us old hands played Tonk. I was a slight winner. I said, “I’m quitting while I’m ahead. Anybody want my place?” I unwound my aching legs and moved away, settled against a log, stared at the sky. The stars seemed merry and friendly.

  The air was cool and fresh and still. The camp was quiet. Crickets and nightbirds sang their soothing songs. The world was at peace. It was hard to believe that this place was soon to become a battlefield. I wriggled till I was comfortable, watched for shooting stars. I was determined to enjoy the moment. It might be the last such I would know.

  The fire spit and crackled. Somebody found ambition enough to add a little wood. It blazed up, sent piney smoke drifting my way, launched shadows which danced over the intent faces of the card players. One-Eye’s lips were taut because he was losing. Goblin’s frog mouth was stretched in an unconscious grin. Silent was a blank, being Silent. Elmo was thinking hard, scowling as he calculated odds. Jolly was more sour than customary. It was good to see Jolly again. I had feared him lost at Lords.

  Only one puny meteor rolled across the sky. I gave it up, closed my eyes, listened to my heartbeat. Harden is coming. Harden is coming, it said. It pounded out a drumbeat, mimicking the tread of advancing legions.

  Raven settled down beside me. “Quiet tonight,” he observed.

  “Calm before the storm,” I replied. “What’s cooking with the high and the mighty?”

  “Lot of argument. The Captain, Catcher, and the new one are letting them yap. Letting them get it out of their systems. Who’s ahead?”

  “Goblin.”

  “One-Eye isn’t dealing from the bottom of the deck?”

  “We never caught him.”

  “I heard that,” One-Lye growled. “One of these days, Raven.…”

  “I know. Zap. I’m a frog prince. Croaker, you been up the hill since it got dark?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Something unusual over in the east. Looks like a comet.”

  My heart did a small flip. I calculated quickly. “You’re probably right. It’s due back.” I rose. He did too. We walked uphill.

  Every major event in the saga of the Lady and her husband has been presaged by a comet. Countless Rebel prophets have predicted that she will fall while a comet is in the sky. But their most dangerous prophecy concerns the child who will be a reincarnation of the White Rose. The Circle is spending a lot of energy trying to locate the kid.

  Raven led me to a height from which we could see the stars lying low in the east. Sure enough, something like a faraway silver spearhead rode the sky there. I stared a long time before observing, “It seems to be pointed at Charm.”

  “I thought so too.” He was silent for a while. “I’m not much on prophecies, Croaker. They sound too much like superstition. But this makes me nervous.”

  “You’ve heard those prophecies all your life. I’d be surprised if they hadn’t touched you.”

  He grunted, not satisfied. “The Hanged Man brought news of the east. Whisper has taken Rust.”

  “Good news, good news,” I said, with considerable sarcasm.

  “She’s taken Rust and surrounded Trinket’s army. We can have the whole east by next summer.”

  We faced the canyon. A few of Harden’s advance units had reached the foot of the switchbacks. Stormbringer had broken off his long assault in order to prepare for Harden’s attempt to break through here.

  “So it comes down to us,” I whispered. “We have to stop them here or the whole thing goes because of a sneak attack through the back way.”

  “Maybe. But don’t count the Lady out even if we fail. The Rebel hasn’t yet faced Her. And they know it to a man. Each mile they move toward the Tower will fill them with greater dread. Terror itself will defeat them unless they find their prophesied child.”

  “Maybe.” We watched the comet. It was far, far away yet, just barely detectable. It would be up there a long time. Great battles would be fought before it departed.

  I made a face. “Maybe you shouldn’t have shown me. Now I’ll dream about the damned thing.”

  Raven flashed a rare grin. “Dream us a victory,” he suggested.

  I did some dreaming aloud. “We’ve got the high ground. Harden has to bring his men up twelve hundred feet of switchback. They’ll be easy meat when they get here.”

  “Whistling in the dark, Croaker. I’m going to turn in. Good luck tomorrow,”

  “Same to you “ I replied. He would be in the thick of it. The Captain had chosen him to command a battalion of veteran regulars. They would be holding one flank, sweeping the road with arrow flights.

  I dreamed, but my dreams were not what I expected. A wavering golden thing came, hovered above me, glowing like shoals of faraway stars. I was not sure whether I was asleep or awake, and still have not satisfied myself either way. I will call it dream because it sits more comfortably that way. I do not like to think the Lady had taken that much interest in me.

  It was my own fault. All those romances I wrote about her had gone to seed on the fertile stable floor of my imagination. Such presumption, my dreams. The Lady Herself send Her spirit to comfort one silly, war-weary, quietly frightened soldier? In the name of heaven, why?

  That glow came and hovered above me, and sent reassurances overtoned by harmonics of amusement. Fear not, my faithful. The Stair of Tear is not the Lock of the Empire. It can be broken without harm. Whatever happens, my faithful will remain safe. The Stair is but a milemark along the Rebel’s road to destruction.

  There was more, all of a puzzlingly personal nature. My wildest fantasies were being reflected back upon me. At the end, for just an instant, a face peeked from the golden glow. It was the most beautiful female face I have ever seen, though I cannot now recall it.

  Next morning I told One-Eye about the dream as I hounded my hospital into life. He looked at me and shrugged. “Too much imagination, Croaker.” He was preoccupied, anxious to complete his medical chores and get gone. He hated the work.

  My work caught up, I meandered toward the main encampment. My head was stuffy and my mood sour. The cool, dry mountain air was not as invigorating as it should have been.

  I found the temper of the men as sour as my own. Below, Harden’s forces were moving.

  Part of winning is a downdeep certainty that, no matter how bad things look, a road to victory will open. The Company carried that conviction through the debacle at Lords. We’d always found a way to bloody the Rebel’s nose, even while the Lady’s armies were in retreat. Now, though.… The conviction has begun to waver.

  Forsberg, Roses, Lords, and a dozen lesser defeats. Part of losing is the converse of winning. We were haunted by a secret fear that, despite th
e obvious advantages of terrain and backing by the Taken, something would go wrong.

  Maybe they cooked it up themselves. Maybe the Captain was behind it, or even Soulcatcher. Possibly it came about naturally, as these things once did.…

  One-Eye had trooped downhill behind me, sour, surly, grumbling to himself, and spoiling for a row. His path crossed Goblin’s.

  Slugabed Goblin had just dragged out of his bedroll. He had a bowl of water and was washing up. He is a fastidious little wart. One-Eye spotted him and saw a chance to punish somebody with his foul mood. He muttered a string of strange words and went into a curious little fling that looked half ballet and half primitive war dance.

  Goblin’s water changed.

  I smelled it from twenty feet away. It had turned a malignant brown. Sickening green gobs floated on its surface. It even felt foul.

  Goblin rose with magnificent dignity, turned. He looked an evilly grinning One-Eye in the eye for several seconds. Then he bowed. When his head came up he wore a huge frog smile. He opened his mouth and let fly the most godawful, earthshaking howl I have ever heard.

  They were off, and damned be the fool who got in their way. Shadows scattered around One-Eye, wriggling across the earth like a thousand hasty serpents. Ghosts danced, crawling from under rocks, jumping down from trees, hopping out of bushes. The latter squealed and howled and giggled and chased One-Eye’s shadow snakes.

  The ghosts stood two feet tall and very much resembled half-pint One-Eyes with double-ugly faces and behinds like those of female baboons in season. What they did with captured shadow snakes, taste forbids me tell.

  One-Eye, foiled, leapt into the air. He cursed, shrieked, foamed at the mouth. To us old hands, who had witnessed these hatter-mad battles before, it was obvious that Goblin had been laying in the weeds, waiting for One-Eye to start something.

  This was one time when One-Eye had more than a lone bolt to shoot.

  He banished the snakes. The rocks, bushes, and trees that had belched Goblin’s critters now disgorged gigantic, glossy-green dung beetles. The big bugs jumped Goblin’s elves, rolled them right up, and began tumble-bugging them toward the edge of the cliff.