Chronicles of the Black Company

  “It’s your show,” I said. “But you won’t be much good if they hit back and you’re too exhausted to think straight.”

  We were communicating on a level outside words. Weariness had us all fragmented and choppy, neither our thoughts nor actions nor speech moving logically or linearly. He nodded curtly. “You’re right.” He surveyed the slope. “Seems to be clicking. I’ll go down to the hospital. Have somebody get me if something happens.”

  The hospital tent was the nearest place out of the sun. It was a bright, clear, intense day, promising to be unseasonably warm. I looked forward to that. I was tired of shivering. “Will do.”

  He was right about things running smoothly. They usually do once the men know what has to be done.

  From the viewpoint of the Limper, who again had the air patrol, the slope must have looked like an overturned anthill. Six hundred Company troops were supervising the efforts of ten times as many men from the city. The road uphill carried so much traffic it was being destroyed. Despite the night’s excitement and their lack of sleep, I found the men in excellent spirits.

  They had been on the march so long, doing nothing else, that they had developed a big store of violent energy. It was pouring out now. They worked with an eagerness which infected the locals. Those seemed pleased to participate in a task which required the concerted efforts of thousands. Some of the more thoughtful mentioned that Juniper had mounted no major communal effort in generations. One man suggested that that was why the city had gone to seed. He believed the Black Company and its attack on the black castle would be great medicine for a moribund body politic.

  That, however, was not a majority opinion. Candy’s prisoners, especially, resented being used as a labor force. They represented a strong potential for trouble.

  I have been told I always look at the dark underbelly of tomorrow. Possibly. You’re less likely to be disappointed that way.

  The excitement I expected did not materialize for days. The castle creatures seemed to have pulled their hole in after them. We eased the pace slightly, ceased working as if everything had to be done before tomorrow.

  The Lieutenant completed the circumvallation, including the back slope, looping around One-Eye’s excavation. He then broke the front wall and began building his ramp. He did not use many mantlets, for he designed it to provide its own shielding. It rose steeply at our end, with steps constructed of stone from demolished buildings. The work crews downtown were now pulling down structures ruined in the fire following Feather’s crash. There were more materials than could be used in the siege. Candy’s outfit was salvaging the best to use in new housing planned for the cleared sites.

  The ramp would rise till it overtopped the castle by twenty feet, then it would descend to the wall. The work went faster than I expected. So did One-Eye’s project. He found a combination of spells which turned stone soft enough to be worked easily. He soon reached a point beneath the castle.

  Then he ran into the material that looked like obsidian. And could go no farther. So he started spreading out.

  The Captain himself came over. I had been wondering what he was doing. I asked.

  “Finding ways to keep people busy,” he said. He shambled around erratically. If we did not pay attention, we found ourselves wandering off after he made some sudden turn and went to inspect something apparently trivial. “Damned Whisper is turning me into a military governor.”

  “Uhm?”

  “What, Croaker?”

  “I’m the Annalist, remember? Got to get this all down somewhere.”

  He frowned, eyeballed a barrel of water set aside for animals. Water was a problem. A lot had to be hauled to augment the little we caught during the occasional shower. “She has me running the city. Doing what the Duke and city fathers should.” He kicked a rock and said nothing more till it stopped rolling. “Guess I’m coping. Isn’t anybody in town who isn’t working. Aren’t getting paid anything but keep, but they’re working. Even got people lined up with projects they want done as long as we’re making people work. The Custodians are driving me crazy. Can’t tell them all their clean-ups may be pointless.”

  I caught an odd note in that. It underscored a feeling I’d had already, that he was depressed about what was happening. “Why’s that?”

  He glanced around. No natives were within earshot. “Just a guess, mind. Nobody’s put it in words. But I think the Lady plans to loot the Catacombs.”

  “People aren’t going to like that.”

  “I know. You know; I know; even Whisper and Limper know. But we don’t give the orders. There’s talk about how the Lady is short of money.”

  In all the years we’d been in her service we’d never missed a payday. The Lady played that straight. The troops got paid, be they mercenaries or regulars. I suspect the various outfits could tolerate a few delays. It’s almost a tradition for commanders to screw their troops occasionally.

  Most of us didn’t much care about money, anyway. We tended toward inexpensive and limited tastes. I suppose attitudes would shift if we had to do without, though.

  “Too many men under arms on too many frontiers,” the Captain mused. “Too much expansion too fast for too long. The empire can’t take the strain. The effort in the Barrowland ate up her reserves. And it’s still going. If she whips the Dominator, look for things to change.”

  “Maybe we made a mistake, eh?”

  “Made a lot. Which one are you talking about?”

  “Coming north, over the Sea of Torments.”

  “Yes. I’ve known that for years.”

  “And?”

  “And we can’t get out. Not yet. Someday, maybe, when our orders take us back to the Jewel Cities, or somewhere where we could leave the empire and still find ourselves in a civilized country.” There was an almost bottomless yearning in his voice. “The longer I spend in the north, the less I want to end my days here, Croaker. Put that in your Annals.”

  I had him talking, a rare occurrence. I merely grunted, hoping he would continue filling the silence. He did.

  “We’re running with the darkness, Croaker. I know that don’t make no never-mind, really. Logically. We’re the Black Company. We’re not good or evil. We’re just soldiers with swords for sale. But I’m tired of having our work turned to wicked ends. If this looting thing happens, I may step aside. Raven had the right idea back at Charm. He got the hell out.”

  I then set forth a notion that had been in the back of my mind for years. One I’d never taken seriously, knowing it quixotic. “That doesn’t contribute anything, Captain. We also have the option of going the other way.”

  “Eh?” He came back from whatever faraway place ruled him and really looked at me. “Don’t be silly, Croaker. That’s a fool’s game. The Lady squashes anybody who tries.” He ground a heel into the earth. “Like a bug.”

  “Yeah.” It was a silly idea, on several levels, not the least of which was that the other side could not afford us. I could not picture us in the Rebel role anyway. The majority of Rebels were idiots, fools or ambitious types hoping to grab a chunk of what the Lady had. Darling was the outstanding exception, and she was more symbol than substance, and a secret symbol at that.

  “Eight years since the comet was in the sky,” the Captain said. “You know the legends. She won’t fall till the Great Comet is up there. You want to try surviving twenty-nine years on the run from the Taken? No, Croaker. Even if our hearts were with the White Rose, we couldn’t make that choice. That’s suicide. Getting out of the empire is the way.”

  “She’d come after us.”

  “Why? Why shouldn’t she be satisfied with what she’s had of us these ten years? We’re no threat to her.”

  But we were. We very much were, if only because we knew of the existence of the reincarnation of the White Rose. And I was sure that, once we left the empire, either Silent or I would spill that secret.

  Of course, the Lady did not know that we knew.

  “This chatter is an exe
rcise in futility,” the Captain said. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “As you wish. Tell me what we’re going to do here.”

  “The Lady is coming in tonight. Whisper says we’ll begin the assault as soon as the auspices are right.”

  I glanced at the black castle.

  “No,” he said. “It won’t be easy. It may not be possible, even with the Lady helping.”

  “If she asks about me, tell her I’m dead. Or something,” I said.

  That won a smile. “But, Croaker, she’s your.…”

  “Raven,” I snapped. “I know things about him that could get us all killed. So does Silent. Get him out of Duretile before she gets here. Neither one of us dares face the Eye.”

  “For that, neither do I. Because I know you know something. We’re going to have to take our chances, Croaker.”

  “Right. So don’t put notions into her head.”

  “I expect she’s forgotten you long since, Croaker. You’re just another soldier.”

  Juniper: The Storm

  The Lady hadn’t forgotten me. Not even a little. Shortly after midnight a grim Elmo rousted me out. “Whisper is here. Wants you, Croaker.”

  “Eh?” I hadn’t done anything to arouse her ire. Not for weeks.

  “They want you over to Duretile. She wants you. Whisper is here to take you back.”

  Ever seen a grown man faint? I haven’t. But I came close. I may have come close to having a stroke, too. My blood pressure must have soared. For two minutes I was vertiginous and unable to think. My heart pounded. My guts ached with fear. I knew she was going to drag me in for a session with the Eye, which sees every secret buried in a man’s mind. And yet I could do nothing to evade her. It was too late to run. I wished I had been aboard the ship to Meadenvil with Pawnbroker.

  Like a man walking to the gallows, I went out to Whisper’s carpet, settled myself behind her, and dwindled into my thoughts as we rose and rushed through the chill night toward Duretile.

  As we passed over the Port, Whisper called back, “You must have made quite an impression back when, physician. You were the first person she asked about when she got here.”

  I found enough presence of mind to ask, “Why?”

  “I suspect because she wants her story recorded again. As she did during the battle at Charm.”

  I looked up from my hands, startled. How had she known that? I’d always pictured the Taken and Lady as uncommunicative among themselves.

  What she said was true. During the battle at Charm the Lady had dragged me around with her so the events of the day would be recorded as they happened. And she did not demand special treatment. In fact, she insisted I write stuff as I saw it. There was just the faintest whiff of a hint that she expected to be toppled sometime, and, once she was, expected maltreatment by historians. She wanted a neutral record to exist. I hadn’t thought about that for years. It was one of the more curious anomalies I’d noted about her. She did not care what people thought of her, but was frightened that the record would be bastardized to suit someone else’s ends.

  The tiniest spark of hope rose from that. Maybe she did want a record kept. Maybe I could get through this. If I could remain nimble enough to avoid the Eye.

  The Captain met us when we landed on Duretile’s northern wall. A glance at the carpets there told me all the Taken were on hand. Even Journey, whom I had expected to remain in the Barrowland. But Journey would have a grudge to soothe. Feather had been his wife.

  A second glance told me the Captain was silently apologetic about my situation, that there were things he wanted to say but dared not. I fed him a tiny shrug, hoped we would get a moment later. We did not. Whisper led me from the wall directly into the Lady’s presence.

  She hadn’t changed an iota since I had seen her last. The rest of us had aged terribly, but she remained twenty forever, radiantly gorgeous with stunning black hair and eyes into which a man could fall and die. She was, as always, such a focal point of glamor that she could not be physically described. A detailed description would be pointless anyway, as what I saw was not the true Lady. The Lady who looked like that hadn’t existed for four centuries, if ever.

  She rose and came to greet me, a hand extended. I could not tear my eyes away. She rewarded me with the slightly mocking smile I recalled so well, as though we shared a secret. I touched her hand lightly, and was astonished to find it warm. Away from her, when she vanished from mind except as a distant object of dread, like an earthquake, I could think of her only as cold, dead, and deadly. More on the order of a lethal zombie than a living, breathing, even possibly vulnerable person.

  She smiled a second time and invited me to take a seat. I did so, feeling grotesquely out of place amidst a company which included all but one of the great evils of the world. And the Dominator was there in spirit, casting his cold shadow.

  I was not there to contribute, that became obvious. The Captain and Lieutenant did the talking for the Company. The Duke and Custodian Hargadon were there, too, but contributed little more than I. The Taken carried the discussion, questioning the Captain and Lieutenant. Only once was I addressed, and that by the Captain, who inquired as to my readiness to treat casualties from the fighting.

  The meeting had only one point so far as I was concerned. The assault was set for dawn, day after the one coming up. It would continue till the black castle was destroyed or we lost our capacity to attack.

  “The place is a hole in the bottom of the ship of empire,” the Lady said. “It has to be plugged or we all drown.” She entertained no protests from the Duke or Hargadon, both of whom regretted asking her for help. The Duke was now impotent within his own domain, and Hargadon little better. The Custodian suspected he would be out of work entirely, once the threat of the castle ended. Few of the Company and none of the Taken had been at any pains to conceal their disdain for Juniper’s odd religion. Having spent a lot of time among the people, I could say they took it only as seriously as the Inquisitors, Custodians and a few fanatics made them.

  I hoped she went slow if she intended changes, though. Like so slow the Company would be headed elsewhere before she started. You mess with people’s religion and you mess with fire. Even people who don’t much give a damn. Religion is something that gets hammered in early, and never really goes away. And has powers to move which go beyond anything rational.

  Morning after the day coming up. Total war. All-out effort to eradicate the black castle. Every resource of the Lady, Taken, Company and Juniper to be bent to that end, for as long as it took.

  Morning after the day coming up. But it did not work that way. Nobody told the Dominator he was supposed to wait.

  He got in the first strike six hours before jump-off, while most of the troops and all the civilian laborers were asleep. While the only Taken patrolling was Journey, who was the least of the Lady’s henchmen.

  It began when one of those bladder-like things bounced over the wall and filled the gap remaining in the Lieutenant’s ramp. At least a hundred creatures stormed out of the castle and crossed.

  Journey was alert. He had sensed a strangeness in the castle and was watching for trouble. He came down fast and drenched those attackers with the dust that melted.

  Bam! Bam-bam-bam! The castle hit him the way it had hit his one-time wife. He fishtailed through the air, evading the worst, but caught the edge of every crack, and went down smouldering, his carpet destroyed.

  The banging wakened me. It wakened the entire camp, for it started the same time as the alarms and drowned them entirely.

  I charged out of the hospital, saw the castle creatures boiling down the steps of the Lieutenant’s ramp. Journey hadn’t stopped more than a handful. They were enveloped by that protective glow One-Eye had encountered once before. They spread out, sprinting through a storm of missiles from the men who had the watch. A few more fell, but not many. They began extinguishing lights, I suppose because their eyes were more suited to darkness than ours.

 
Men were running everywhere, dragging their clothing on as they rushed toward or away from the enemy. The laborers panicked and greatly hampered the Company’s response. Many were killed by our men, vexed at finding them in the way.

  The Lieutenant charged through the chaos bellowing orders. First he got his batteries of heavy weapons manned and trained on the steps. He sent messengers everywhere, ordering every ballista, catapult, mangonel and trebuchet moved to a position where it could fire on the ramp. That baffled me only till the first castle creature headed home with a body under each arm. A storm of missiles hit him, tore the bodies to shreds, battered him to a pulp, and nearly buried him.

  The Lieutenant had trebuchets throw cannisters of oil which smashed on the steps and caught fire when flaming balls were thrown after them. He kept the oil and fire flying. The castle creatures would not run through the flames.

  So much for my thinking the Lieutenant was wasting time building useless engines.

  The man knew his job. He was good. His preparation and quick response were more valuable than anything done by the Lady or Taken that night. He held the line in the critical minutes.

  A mad battle began the moment the creatures realized they were cut off. They promptly attacked, trying to reach the engines. The Lieutenant signaled his under-officers and brought the bulk of his available manpower to bear. He had to. Those creatures were more than a match for any two soldiers, and they benefited from the protective glow as well.

  Here, there, a brave citizen of Juniper grabbed a fallen weapon and jumped into the struggle. Most paid the ultimate price, but their sacrifice helped keep the enemy away from the engines.

  It was obvious to everyone that if the creatures escaped with many bodies, our cause was lost. We’d soon be face-to-face with their master himself.

  The ball pairs began coming over from Duretile, splashing the night with terrible color. Then Taken dropped from the night, Limper and Whisper each depositing an egg which hatched the fire that fed on the stuff of the castle. Limper dodged several attacks from the castle, swooped around, brought his carpet to ground near my hospital, where we were swamped by customers already. I had to retreat there to do the job for which I was paid. I kept the uphill tent flaps open so I could watch.