Chronicles of the Black Company

  “There is no option, Croaker,” Soulcatcher said in a child’s voice. “The Lady chose you.” He tried to soften my disappointment by adding, “She rewards well those who please her. And you have caught her fancy.”

  I damned myself for my earlier romanticism. That Croaker who had come north, so thoroughly bemused by the mysterious Lady, was another man. A stripling, filled with the foolish ignorances of youth. Yeah. Sometimes you lie to yourself just to keep going.

  Catcher told me, “We’re not going it alone this time, Croaker. We’ll have help from Crooked Neck, Shifter, and Stormbringer.”

  Sourly, I remarked, “Takes the whole gang to scrub one bandit, eh?”

  Catcher did not take the bait. He never does. “The carpet is over there. Collect your weapons and join me.” He stalked away.

  I took my ire out on my helpers, completely unfairly. Finally, when One-Eye was ready to blow, Raven remarked, “Don’t be an asshole, Croaker. We’ve got to do it, let’s do it.”

  So I apologized to everyone and marched down to join Soulcatcher.

  Soulcatcher said, “Get aboard,” indicating places. Raven and I assumed the positions we had used before. Catcher handed us lengths of cord. “Tie yourselves securely. This could get rough. I don’t want you falling off. And keep a knife handy so you can cut loose when we go in.”

  My heart fluttered. To tell the truth, I was excited about flying again. Moments from my previous flight haunted me with their joy and beauty. There is a glorious feeling of freedom up there with the cool wind and the eagles.

  Catcher even tied himself. Bad sign. “Ready?” Not awaiting an answer, he started muttering. The carpet rocked gently, floated upward light as down on a breeze.

  We cleared the treetops. Framewood smacked me in the behind. My guts sank. Air whipped around me. My hat blew off. I grabbed and missed. The carpet tilted precariously. I found myself gaping down at an earth receding rapidly. Raven grabbed me. Had we not been tied we both would have gone over the side.

  We drifted out over the canyons, which looked like a crazy maze from above. The Rebel mass looked like army ants on the march.

  I glanced around the sky, which itself is a marvel from that perspective. There were no eagles on the wing. Just vultures. Catcher made a dash through one flight, scattered them.

  Another carpet floated up, passed nearby, drifted away till it became but a distant speck. It carried the Hanged Man and two heavily armed Imperials.

  “Where’s Stormbringer?” I asked.

  Catcher extended an arm. Squinting, I discerned a dot on the blue over the desert.

  We drifted till I began to wonder if anything was going to happen. Studying the Rebel’s progress palled fast. He was making too much headway.

  “Get ready,” Catcher called over his shoulder.

  I gripped my ropes, anticipating something nerve wracking.

  “Now.”

  The bottom fell out. And stayed out. Down, down, and down we plunged. The air screamed. The earth rolled and twisted and hurtled upward. The distant specks that were Stormbringer and the Hanged Man also plummeted. They grew more distinct as we slanted in from three directions.

  We whipped past the level where our brethren were striving to stem the Rebel flood. Down we continued, into a less steep glide, rolling, twisting, fish-tailing to avoid colliding with wildly eroded sandstone towers. Some I could have touched as we hurtled past.

  A small meadow appeared ahead. Our velocity dropped dramatically, till we hovered. “He’s there,” Catcher whispered. We slid forward a few yards, floated just peeping round a pillar of sandstone.

  The once green meadow had been churned by the passage of horses and men. A dozen wagons and their teamsters remained there. Catcher cursed under his breath.

  A shadow flew from between rock spires to our left. Flash! Thunder shook the canyon. Sod hurtled into the air. Men cried out, staggered around, scrambled for their weapons.

  Another shadow whipped through from another direction. I do not know what the Hanged Man did, but the Rebels began clawing their throats, gasping.

  One big man shook the magic and staggered toward a huge black horse tethered to a picket post at the nether end of the meadow. Catcher took our carpet in fast. The earth slammed against its frame. “Off!” he growled as we bounced. He snatched a sword himself.

  Raven and I clambered off and followed Catcher on unsteady legs. The Taken swooped down on the choking teamsters and raged among them, blade throwing gore. Raven and I contributed to the massacre, I hope with less enthusiasm.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Catcher raved at his victims. “He was supposed to be alone.”

  The other carpets returned and settled nearer the fleeing man. The Taken and their henchmen pursued him on wobbly legs. He vaulted onto the horse’s back and parted the picket rope with a vicious swordstroke. I stared. I had not expected Harden to be so intimidating. He was every bit as ugly as the apparition that had appeared during Goblin’s bout with One-Eye.

  Catcher cut down the last Rebel teamster. “Come!” he snapped. We dogged him as he loped toward Harden. I wondered why I did not have sense enough to hang back.

  The Rebel general stopped fleeing. He felled one of the Imperials, who had outdistanced everybody, let out a great bellow of laughter, then howled something unintelligible. The air crackled with the imminence of sorcery.

  Violet light flared around all three Taken, more intense than when it had hit Catcher during the night. It stopped them in their tracks. It was a most puissant sorcery. It occupied them totally. Harden turned his attention to the rest of us.

  The second Imperial reached him. His great sword hammered down, pounding through the soldier’s guard. The horse ambled forward at Harden’s urging, gingerly stepping over the fallen. Harden looked at the Taken and cursed the animal, flailed around with his blade.

  The horse moved no faster. Harden smote its neck savagely, then howled. His hand would not come free of its mane. His cry of rage became one of despair. He turned his blade on the beast, could not harm it, instantly hurled the weapon at the Taken. The violet surrounding them had begun to weaken.

  Raven was two steps from Harden, I three behind him. Stormbringer’s men were as close, approaching from the other side.

  Raven slashed, a strong, upward cutting stroke. His swordtip thumped Harden’s belly—and rebounded. Chain mail? Harden’s big fist lashed out and connected with Raven’s temple. He wobbled a step and sagged.

  Without thought I shifted aim and slashed at Harden’s hand. We both yelled when iron bit bone and scarlet flowed.

  I leapt over Raven, stopped, spun. Stormbringer’s soldiers were hacking at Harden. His mouth was open. His scarred face was contorted as he concentrated on ignoring pain while he used his powers to save himself. The Taken remained out of it for the moment. He faced three ordinary men. But all that did not register till later.

  I could see nothing but Harden’s steed. The animal was melting.… No. Not melting. Changing.

  I giggled. The great Rebel general was astride Shapeshifter’s back.

  My giggles became crazy laughter.

  My little fit cost me my opportunity to participate in the death of a champion. Stormbringer’s two soldiers cut Harden to pieces while Shifter held and stifled him. He was dead meat before I regained my self-control.

  The Hanged Man, too, missed the denouement. He was busy dying, Harden’s great thrown blade buried in his skull. Soulcatcher and Stormbringer moved toward him.

  Shifter completed his change into a great, greasy, stinking, fat, naked creature which, despite standing on its hind legs, seemed no more human than the beast he had portrayed. He kicked Harden’s remains and quaked with mirth, as though his deadly trick had been the finest jest of the century.

  Then he saw the Hanged Man. Shudders ran through his flab. He hastened toward the other Taken, incoherencies frothing his lips.

  Crooked Neck worked the sword loose from his skull. He tried
to say something, had no luck. Stormbringer and Soulcatcher made no move to help.

  I stared at Stormbringer. Such a tiny thing she was. I knelt to test Raven’s pulse. She was no bigger than a child. How could such a small package chain such terrible wrath?

  Shifter shambled toward the tableau, anger knotting the muscles under the fat across his shaggy shoulders. He halted, faced Catcher and Stormbringer from a tense stance. Nothing was said, but it seemed the Hanged Man’s fate was being decided. Shifter wanted to help. The others did not.

  Puzzling. Shifter is Catcher’s ally. Why this sudden conflict?

  Why this daring of the Lady’s wrath? She would not be pleased if the Hanged Man died.

  Raven’s pulse was fluttery when first I touched his throat, but it firmed up. I breathed a little easier.

  Stormbringer’s soldiers eased up toward the Taken, eying Shifter’s gross back.

  Catcher exchanged glances with Stormbringer. The woman nodded. Soul-catcher whirled. The slits in his mask blazed a lava red.

  Suddenly, there was no Catcher. There was a cloud of darkness ten feet high and a dozen across, black as the inside of a coal sack, thicker than the densest fog. The cloud jumped quicker than an adder’s strike. There was one mouselike squeak of surprise, then a sinister, enduring silence. After all the roar and clangor, the quiet was deadly ominous.

  I shook Raven violently. He did not respond.

  Shifter and Stormbringer stood over the Hanged Man, staring at me. I wanted to scream, to run, to crawl into the ground to hide. I was a magic man, able to read their thoughts. I knew too much.

  Terror froze me.

  The coal dust cloud vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Soulcatcher stood between the soldiers. Both toppled slowly, with the majesty of stately old pines.

  I gouged Raven. He groaned. His eyes flickered open and I caught a glimpse of pupil, Dilated. Concussion. Damn it!…

  Catcher looked at his partners in crime. Then, slowly, he turned on me.

  The three Taken closed in. In the background, the Hanged Man went on dying. He was very noisy about it. I did not hear him, though. I rose, knees watery, and faced my doom.

  It’s not supposed to end this way, I thought. This isn’t right.…

  All three stood there and stared.

  I stared back. Nothing else I could do.

  Brave Croaker, Guts enough, at least, to stare Death in the eye.

  You didn’t see a thing, did you?” Catcher asked softly. Cold lizards slithered down my spine. That voice was one that one of the dead soldiers had used while hacking away at Harden.

  I shook my head.

  “You were too busy fighting Harden, then you were occupied with Raven.”

  I nodded weakly. My knee joints were jelly. I would have bolted otherwise. Foolish as that would have been. Catcher said, “Get Raven onto Bringer’s carpet.” He pointed.

  Nudging, whispering, cajoling, I helped Raven walk. He hadn’t the least idea where he was or what he was doing. But he let me steer him.

  I was worried. I could find no obvious damage, yet he was not acting right. “Take him straight to my hospital,” I said. I could not look Stormbringer in the eye, nor did I achieve the inflection I wanted. My words came out sounding like a plea.

  Catcher summoned me to his carpet. I went with all the enthusiasm of a hog to the slaughter chute. He could be playing a game. A fall from his carpet would be a permanent cure for any doubts he harbored about my ability to keep quiet.

  He followed me, tossed his bloody sword aboard, settled himself. The carpet floated upward, crawled toward the great scrap of the Stair.

  I glanced back at the still forms on the meadow, nagged by undirected feelings of shame. That had not been right.… And yet, what could I have done?

  Something golden, something like a pale nebula in the farthest circle of the midnight sky, moved in the shade cast by one of the sandstone towers.

  My heart nearly stopped.

  The Captain sucked the headless and increasingly demoralized Rebel army into a trap. A great slaughter ensued. Lack of numbers and sheer exhaustion kept the Company from hurling the Rebel off the mountain. Nor did the complacency of the Taken help. One fresh battalion, one sorcerous assault, might have given us the day.

  I treated Raven on the run, after placing him aboard the last wagon to head south. He would remain odd and remote for days. Care of Darling fell my way by default. The child was a fine distraction from the depression of yet another retreat.

  Maybe that was the way she had rewarded Raven for his generosity.

  “This is our last withdrawal,” the Captain promised. He would not call it a retreat, but hadn’t the gall to call it an advance to the rear, retrograde action, or any of that gobbledegook. He did not mention the fact that any further withdrawal would come after the end. Charm’s fall would mark the death-date of the Lady’s Empire. In all probability it will terminate these Annals, and scriven the end of Company history.

  Rest in peace, you last of the warrior brotherhoods. You were home and family to me.…

  News came which had not been allowed to reach us at the Stair of Tear. Tidings of other Rebel armies advancing from the north along routes more westerly than our line of retreat. The list of cities lost was long and disheartening, even granting exaggeration by the reporters. Soldiers defeated always overestimate the strength of their foe. That soothes egos suspecting their own inferiority.

  Walking with Elmo, down the long, gentle south slope, toward the fertile farmlands north of Charm, I suggested, “Sometime when there aren’t any Taken around, how about you hint to the Captain that it might be wise if he started disassociating the Company from Soulcatcher.”

  He looked at me oddly. My old comrades had been doing that lately. Since Harden’s fall I had been moody, dour, and uncommunicative. Not that I was a bonfire at the best of times, mind. The pressure was crushing my spirit. I denied myself my usual outlet, the Annals, for fear Soulcatcher would somehow detect what I had written.

  “It might be better if we weren’t too closely identified with him,” I added.

  “What happened out there?” By then everyone knew the basic tale. Harden slain. The Hanged Man fallen. Raven and I the only soldiers who got out alive. Everybody had an insatiable thirst for details.

  “I can’t tell you. But you tell him. When none of the Taken are around.”

  Elmo did his sums and came to the conclusion not far off the mark. “All right, Croaker. Will do. Take care.”

  Take care I would. If Fate let me.

  That was the day we received word of new victories in the east. The Rebel redoubts were collapsing as fast as the Lady’s armies could march.

  It was also the day we heard that all four northern and western Rebel armies had halted to rest, recruit, and refit for an assault on Charm. Nothing stood between them and the Tower. Nothing, that is, but the Black Company and its accumulation of beaten men.

  The great comet is in the sky, that evil harbinger of all great shifts of fortune.

  The end is near.

  We are retreating still, toward our final appointment with Destiny.

  I must record one final incident in the tale of the encounter with Harden. It took place three days north of the Tower, and consisted of another dream like the one I suffered at the head of the Stair. The same golden dream, which might have been no dream at all, promised me, “My faithful need have no fear.” Once again it allowed me a glimpse of that heart-stopping face. And then it was gone, and the fear returned, not lessened in the least.

  The days passed. The miles wore away. The great ugly block of the Tower hove over the horizon. And the comet grew ever more brilliant in the nighttime sky.

  Lady

  The land slowly became silvery green. Dawn scattered feathers of crimson upon the walled town. Golden flashes freckled its battlements where the sun touched dew. The mists began to slide into the hollows. Trumpets sounded the morning watch.

  The Lieut
enant shaded his eyes, squinted. He grunted disgustedly, glanced at One-Eye. The little black man nodded. “Time, Goblin,” the Lieutenant said over his shoulder.

  Men stirred back in the woods. Goblin knelt beside me, peered out at the farmland. He and four other men were clad as poor townswomen, with their heads wrapped in shawls. They carried pottery jars swinging from wooden yokes, had their weapons hidden inside their clothing.

  “Go. The gate is open, “ the Lieutenant said. They moved out, following the edge of the wood downhill.

  “Damn, it’s good to be doing this kind of thing again,” I said.

  The Lieutenant grinned. He had smiled seldom since we had left Beryl.

  Below, the five fake women slipped through shadow toward the spring beside the road to town. Already a few townswomen were headed down to draw water.

  We expected little trouble getting to the gatekeepers. The town was filled with strangers, refugees and Rebel camp followers. The garrison was small and lax. The Rebel had no cause to suppose the Lady would strike this far from Charm. The town had no significance in the grand struggle.

  Except that two of the Eighteen, privy to Rebel strategies, were quartered there.

  We had lurked in those woods three days, watching. Feather and Journey, recently promoted to the Circle, were honeymooning there before moving south to join the assault on Charm.

  Three days. Three days of no fires during the chill nights, of dried food at every meal. Three days of misery. And our spirits were their highest in years. “I think we’ll pull it off,” I opined.

  The Lieutenant gestured. Several men stole after the disguised.

  One-Eye remarked, “Whoever thought this up knew what he was doing.” He was excited.

  We all were. It was a chance to do that at which we are best. For fifty days we had done plain physical labor, preparing Charm for the Rebel onslaught, and for fifty nights we had agonized about the coming battle.

  Another five men slipped downhill.

  “Bunch of women coming out now,” One-Eye said. Tension mounted.