Chronicles of the Black Company

  He looked startled. I told him about the night vision. He took it with a pound of salt till I told him that she had done the same before, during the long retreat and series of encounters that had brought the Rebel main forces to the gates of Charm. He did not want to believe me, but he dared not do otherwise. “Get out there and find that Asa, then,” he said. “Candy, we move on that ship tonight. Croaker, you pass the word. We’re pulling out in four days, whether you guys find Raven or not.”

  I sputtered a protest. The critical thing now was to find Darling. Darling was our hope, I asked, “Why four days?”

  “It took us four days to sail here from Juniper. Good winds and seas all the way. If the Lady left when you turned her down, she couldn’t get here any quicker. So I’ll give you that long. Then we hit the sea. If we have to fight our way out.”

  “All right.” I didn’t like it, but he was the man who made the decisions. We had elected him to do that. “Hagop, find Kingpin. We’re going looking for Asa.”

  Hagop hurried away like his tail was aflame. He brought Kingpin back in minutes, King crabbing because he hadn’t yet eaten, hadn’t yet gotten his eight hours of sleep.

  “Shut up, King. Our ass is in a vise.” I explained, though it wasn’t necessary. “Grab something cold and eat on the run. We’ve got to find Asa.”

  Hagop, Kingpin, One-Eye and I hit the street. As always, we drew a lot of attention from morning marketers, not only because we had come from Juniper, but because One-Eye was an oddity. They’d never seen a black man in Meadenvil. Most people hadn’t heard of blacks.

  Kingpin led us a mile through twisting streets. “I figure he’ll hole up in the same area as before. He knows it. He’s not very bright, either, so it wouldn’t occur to him to move because you guys came to town. Probably just plans to keep his head down till we pull out. He’s got to figure we have to keep moving.”

  His reasoning seemed sound. And so it proved. He interviewed a few people be had met in the course of previous poking around, quickly discovered that Asa was, indeed, hiding out in the area. Nobody was sure where, though.

  “We’ll take care of that in a hurry,” One-Eye said. He parked himself on a doorstep and performed a few cheap magic tricks that were all flash and show. That arrested the attention of the nearest urchins. Meadenvil’s streets are choked with children all the time.

  “Let’s fade,” I told the others. We had to be intimidating to small eyes. We moved up the street and let One-Eye draw his crowd.

  He gave the kids their money’s worth. Of course. And fifteen minutes later he rejoined us, trailed by an entourage of street mites. “Got it,” he said. “My little buddies will show us where.”

  He amazes me sometimes. I would have bet he hated kids. I mean, when he mentions them at all, which is about once a year, it is in the context of whether they are tastier roasted or boiled.

  Asa was holed up in a tenement typical of slums the world over. A real rat-and firetrap. I guess having come into money hadn’t changed his habits. Unlike old Shed, who had gone crazy when he had money to spend.

  There was but one way out, the way we went in. The children followed us. I did not like that, but what could I do?

  We pushed into the room Asa called home. He was lying on a pallet in a corner. Another man, reeking of wine, lay nearby, in a pool of vomit. Asa was curled into a ball, snoring. “Time to get up, sweetheart.” I shook him gently.

  He stiffened under my hand. His eyes popped open. Terror filled them. I pressed down as he tried to jump up. “Caught you again,” I said.

  He gobbled air. No words came out.

  “Take it easy, Asa. Nobody’s going to get hurt. We just want you to show us where Raven went down.” I withdrew my hand.

  He rolled over slowly, watched us like a cat cornered by dogs. “You guys are always saying you just want something.”

  “Be nice, Asa. We don’t want to play rough. But we will if we have to. We have four days before the Lady gets here. We’re going to find Darling before then. You’re going to help. What you do afterward is your own business.”

  One-Eye snorted softly. He had visions of Asa with a cut throat. He figured the little man deserved no better.

  “You just go down the Shaker Road. Turn left on the first farm road past the twelfth milestone. Keep heading east till you get to the place. It’s about seven miles. The road turns into a trail. Don’t worry about that. Just keep going and you’ll get there.” He closed his eyes, rolled over, and pretended to snore.

  I indicated Hagop and Kingpin. “Get him up.”

  “Hey!” Asa yelped. “I told you. What more do you want?”

  “I want you to come along. Just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  “In case you’re lying and I want to lay hands on you fast.”

  One-Eye added, “We don’t believe Raven died.”

  “I saw him.”

  “You saw something,” I countered. “I don’t think it was Raven. Let’s go.” We grabbed his arms. I told Hagop to see about rounding up horses and provisions. I sent Kingpin to tell the Lieutenant we wouldn’t be back till tomorrow, Hagop I gave a fistful of silver from Raven’s chest. Asa’s eyes widened slightly. He recognized the mintage, if not the immediate source.

  “You guys can’t push me around here,” he said. “You’re not anything more than I am. We go out in the street, all I have to do is yell and.…”

  “And you’ll wish you hadn’t,” One-Eye said. He did something with his hands. A soft violet glow webbed his fingers, coalesced into something serpentlike that slithered over and under his digits. “This little fellow here can crawl into your ear and eat out your eyes from behind. You can’t yell loud enough or fast enough to keep me from siccing him on you.”

  Asa gulped and became amenable.

  “All I want is for you to show me the place,” I said. “Quickly. I don’t have much time.”

  Asa surrendered. He expected the worst of us, of course. He had spent too much time in the company of villains nastier than us.

  Hagop had the horses within half an hour. It took Kingpin another half-hour to rejoin us. Being Kingpin, he dawdled, and when he appeared, One-Eye gave him such a look he blanched and half drew his sword.

  “Let’s get moving,” I growled. I did not like the way the Company was turning upon itself, like a wounded animal snapping at its own flank. I set a stiff pace, hoping to keep everybody too tired and busy to fuss.

  Asa’s directions proved sound and were easily followed. I was pleased, and when he saw that, he asked permission to turn back.

  “How come you’re so anxious to stay away from this place? What’s out there that’s got you scared?”

  It took a little pressure, with One-Eye conjuring his violet snake again, to loosen Asa’s jaw.

  “I came out here right after I got back from Juniper. Because you guys didn’t believe me about Raven. I thought maybe you were right and he’d fooled me somehow. So I wanted to see how he maybe did it. And.…”

  “And?”

  He checked us over, estimating our mood. “There’s another of those places out there. It wasn’t there when he died. But it is now.”

  “Places?” I asked. “What kind of places?”

  “Like the black castle. There’s one right where he died. Out in the middle of the clearing.”

  “Tricky.” One-Eye snarled. “Trying to send us into that. I’m going to cut this guy, Croaker.”

  “No, you’re not. You let him be.” Over the next mile I questioned Asa closely. He told me nothing more of importance.

  Hagop was riding point, being a superb scout. He threw up a hand. I joined him. He indicated droppings in the trail. “We’re following somebody. Not far behind.” He swung down, poked the droppings with a stick, duckwalked up the trail a way. “He was riding something big. Mule or plowhorse.”

  “Asa!”

  “Eh?” the little man squeaked.

  “What’s up ahead? Where is th
is guy headed?”

  “Nothing’s up there. That I know of. Maybe it’s a hunter. They sell a lot of game in the markets.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Sure,” One-Eye said, sarcastic, playing with his violet snake.

  “How about you put a little silence on the situation, One-Eye? No! I mean so nobody can hear us coming. Asa. How far to go?”

  “Couple miles, anyway. Why don’t you guys let me head back now? I can still get to town before dark.”

  “Nope. You go where we go.” I glanced at One-Eye. He was doing as I had requested. We would be able to hear one another talk. That was all. “Saddle up, Hagop. He’s only one guy.”

  “But which guy, eh, Croaker? Suppose it’s one of them creepy things? I mean, if that place in Juniper had a whole battalion that came out of nowhere, why shouldn’t this place have some?”

  Asa made sounds that indicated he had been having similar thoughts. Which explained why he was anxious to get back to town.

  “You see anything when you were there, Asa?”

  “No. But I seen where the grass was trampled like something was coming and going.”

  “You pay attention when we get there, One-Eye. I don’t want no surprises,”

  Twenty minutes later Asa told me, “Almost there. Maybe two hundred yards up the creek. Can I stay here?”

  “Quit asking stupid questions.” I glanced at Hagop, who pointed out tracks. Somebody was ahead of us still. “Dismount. And stow the chatter. Finger talk from here on in. You, Asa, don’t open your mouth for nothing. Understand?”

  We dismounted, drew our weapons, went forward under cover of One-Eye’s spell. Hagop and I reached the clearing first. I grinned, waved One-Eye forward, pointed. He grinned too. I waited a couple of minutes, for the right time, then strode out, stepped up behind the man, and grabbed his shoulder. “Marron Shed.”

  He shrieked and tried to pull a knife, tried to run at the same time. Kingpin and Hagop headed him off and herded him back. By that time I was kneeling where he had knelt, examining the scatter of bones.

  Meadenvil: The Clearing

  I looked up at Shed. He looked resigned. “Caught up faster than you expected, eh?”

  He babbled. I could make little sense of what he said because he was talking about several things at once. Raven. Black castle creatures. His chance to make a new life. What-not.

  “Calm down and be quiet, Shed. We’re on your side.” I explained the situation, telling him we had four days to find Darling. He found it difficult to believe that the girl who had worked in the Iron Lily could be the Rebel’s White Rose. I did not argue, just presented the facts. “Four days, Shed. Then the Lady and Taken could be here. And I guarantee you she’ll be looking for you, too. By now they know we faked your death. By now they’ve probably questioned enough people to have an idea what was going on. We’re fighting for our lives. Shed.” I looked at the big black lump and said to no one in particular, “And that thing don’t help one damned bit.”

  I looked at the bones again. “Hagop, see what you can make of this. One-Eye, you and Asa go over exactly what he saw that day. Walk through it. Kingpin, you play Raven for them. Shed, come here with me.”

  I was pleased. Both Asa and Shed did as they were told. Shed, though shaken by our return to the stage of his life, did not seem likely to panic. I watched him as Hagop examined the ground inch by inch. Shed seemed to have grown, to have found something in himself that had not had a chance in the sterile soil of Juniper.

  He whispered, “Look, Croaker. I don’t know about that stuff about the Lady coming and how you got to find Darling. I don’t much care.” He indicated the black lump. “What’re you going to do about that?”

  “Good question.” He did not have to explain what it meant. It meant the Dominator had not endured final defeat in Juniper. He had hedged his bet beforehand. He had another gateway growing here, and growing fast. Asa was right to be afraid of castle creatures. The Dominator knew he had to hurry—though I doubted he had expected to be found out so soon. “There isn’t much we can do, when you get down to it.”

  “You got to do something. Look, I know. I dealt with those things. What they did to me and Raven and Juniper.… Hell, Croaker, you can’t let that happen again here.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want to do something. I said I can’t. You don’t ask a man with a penknife to chop down a forest and build a city. He doesn’t have the tools.”

  “Who does?”

  “The Lady.”

  “Then.…”

  “I have my limits, friend. I’m not going to get myself killed for Meadenvil. I’m not going to get my outfit scrubbed for people I don’t know. Maybe we owe a moral debt. But I don’t think it’s that big.”

  He grunted, understanding without accepting. I was surprised. Without his having said as much, I sensed that he had launched a crusade. A grand villain trying to buy redemption. I did not begrudge him in the least. But he could do it without the Company and me.

  I watched One-Eye and Asa walk Kingpin through everything Raven had done the day he died. From where I sat I could see no flaw in Asa’s story. I hoped One-Eye had a better view. He, if anyone, could find the angle. He was as good at stage magic as at true wizardry.

  I recalled that Raven had been pretty good with tricks. His biggie had been making knives appear out of thin air. But he had had other tricks with which he had entertained Darling.

  Hagop said, “Look here, Croaker.”

  I looked. I did not see anything abnormal. “What?”

  “Going through the grass toward the lump. It’s almost gone now, but it’s there. Like a trail.” He held blades of grass parted.

  It took me a while to see it. Just the faintest hint of a sheen, like an old snail track. A closer scrutiny showed that it should have started roughly where the corpse’s heart would have lain. It took a little work to figure, because scavengers had torn the remains.

  I examined a fleshless hand. Rings remained on the fingers. Various metal accoutrements and several knives also lay around.

  One-Eye worked Kingpin over to the bones. “Well?” I asked.

  “It’s possible. With a little misdirection and stage magic. I couldn’t tell you how he did it. If he did.”

  “We got a body,” I said, indicating the bones.

  “That’s him,” Asa insisted. “Look. He’s still wearing his rings. And that’s his belt buckle and sword and knives.” But a shadow of doubt lingered in his voice. He was coming around to my way.

  And I still wondered why the nice new ship had not been claimed.

  “Hagop. Hunt around for signs somebody went off in another direction. Asa. You said you lit out as soon as you saw what was happening?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So. Let’s quit worrying about that and try to figure what happened here. Just to look at it, this dead man had something that became that.” I indicated the lump. I was surprised I had so little trouble ignoring it. I guess you can get used to anything. I’d paraded around the big one in Juniper till I’d lost that cold dread that had moved me for a while. I mean, if men can get used to slaughterhouses, or my business—soldier or surgeon—they can get used to anything.

  “Asa, you hung around with Raven. Shed, he lived at your place for a couple years, and you were his partner. What did he bring from Juniper that could have come to life and become that?”

  They shook their heads and stared at the bones. I told them, “Think harder. Shed, it had to be something he had when you knew him. He stopped going up the hill a long time before he headed south.”

  A minute or two passed. Hagop had begun working his way along the edge of the clearing. I had little hope he would find traces this long after the fact. I was no woodsman, but I knew Raven.

  Asa suddenly gasped.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Everything is here. You know, all the metal. Even his buttons and stuff. But one thing.”

  “Well?”

  ??
?This necklace he wore. I only seen it a couple times.… What’s the matter, Shed?”

  I turned. Shed was gripping his chest over his heart. His face was marble white. He gobbled for words that would not come. He started trying to rip his shirt.

  I thought he was having an attack. But as I reached him, to help, he opened his shirt and grabbed something he was wearing around his neck. Something on a chain. He tried to get it off by main force. The chain would not break.

  I forced him to take it off over his head, pried it out of stiff fingers, held it out to Asa.

  Asa looked a little pale. “Yeah. That’s it.”

  “Silver,” One-Eye said, and looked at Hagop meaningfully.

  He would think that way. And he might be right. “Hagop! Come here.”

  One-Eye took the thing, held it to the light. “Some craftsmanship,” he mused.… Then flung it down and dived like a frog off his lily pad. As he arced through the air, he barked like a jackal.

  Light flashed. I whirled. Two castle creatures stood at the side of the black lump, frozen in midstep, in the act of rushing us. Shed cursed. Asa shrieked. Kingpin zipped past me and drove his blade deep into a chest. I did the same, so rattled I did not recall the difficulty I’d had during our previous encounter.

  We both hit the same one. We both yanked out weapons free. “The neck,” I gasped. “Go for the vein in the neck.”

  One-Eye was up again, ready for action. He told me later he had glimpsed motion in the corner of his eye, jumped just in time to evade something thrown. They had known who to take first. Who was most potent.

  Hagop came up from behind as the things started moving, added his blade to the contest. As did Shed, to my surprise. He jumped in with a knife about a foot long, got low, went for a hamstring.

  It was brief. One-Eye had given us the moment we needed. They were stubborn about it, but they died. The last to go looked up at Shed, smiled, and said, “Marron Shed. You will be remembered.”

  Shed started shaking.

  Asa said, “He knew you, Shed.”

  “He’s the one I delivered bodies to. Every time but one.”

  “Wait a minute,” I countered. “Only one creature got away at Juniper. Don’t seem likely it would be the one who knew you.…” I stopped. I had noticed something disturbing. The two creatures were identical. Even to a scar across the chest when I peeled back their dark clothing. The creature the Lieutenant and I had hauled down the hill, after having slain it before the castle gate, had had such a scar.