The Many Deaths of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  “Which argues that the invader alphabet had well-defined phonetic values that at the time must have been more precise than those of the native script. Right?”

  Santaraksita gawked. After a moment he said, “Dorabee, you never cease to amaze me. Absolutely correct.”

  “So have you discovered anything interesting?”

  “The Black Company came off the plain, which was called Glittering Stone even then, and mostly minced around from one small principality to the next, squabbling internally over whether or not they were going to sacrifice themselves to bring on the Year of the Skulls. There was plenty of enthusiasm among the priests attached to the Company but not much among the soldiers. Many of those apparently volunteered as a way to escape something called The Land of Unknown Shadows, not because they wanted to bring on the end of the world.”

  “The Land of Unknown Shadows, eh? Anything else?”

  “I’ve developed some very good information on the price of horseshoe nails four centuries ago and on the scarcity of several medicinal plants that are now found in every herb garden.”

  “Earthshaking stuff. Stay with it, Sri.”

  I meant to tell him he had to evacuate with the rest of us but decided not to upset him right away. He was having a good time. No point making him face a choice between abduction and being put to death just yet.

  Uncle Doj materialized. “Do Trang wants to see you.”

  I followed him to the tiny room the old man had built for himself in a remote corner of the warehouse. On the way, Doj warned me that Do Trang was unable to speak. “He’s already seen Sahra and Tobo. I think he was fond of you, too.”

  “We’re going to get married in the next life. If the Gunni are right.”

  “I am ready to travel.”

  I stopped. “What?”

  “I’m going with you to the Grove of Doom.”

  “You’d better not have some crazy idea about snatching the Key.”

  “I agreed to help. I’ll help. I want to be there to make sure the Deceiver keeps his word. The Deceiver, Miss Sleepy. Deceiver. Also, I agreed to turn over that volume of the Books of the Dead. Its hiding place is on the way.”

  “Very well. The presence of Ash Wand will be a comfort to me and a vexation to my enemies.”

  Doj chuckled. “It will indeed.”

  “We won’t be coming back here.”

  “I know. When we leave, I’ll be carrying everything I wish to retain. You won’t need to pretend with Do Trang. He knows his path. Do him the honor of an honest farewell.”

  I did more. I became all teary for the first time in my adult life. I rested my head on the old man’s chest for a minute and whispered my thanks for his friendship and renewed my promise to see him in the next life. A small heresy but I do not think God has been monitoring me too closely.

  Banh lifted a hand weakly and stroked my hair. And after that I got up and went away somewhere to be alone with my grief for a man who, it seemed, had never been that close, yet who was going to have a major impact on the rest of my life. I understood that after the tears stopped, I would never be quite the same Sleepy again. And that that was one legacy Do Trang wanted to leave behind.

  47

  The biggest problem I expected with the evacuation was one that came up every time the Company picked up and moved out after having been settled in one place for a long time. Roots had to be torn up. Ties had to be severed. Men had to abandon the lives they had created for themselves.

  Some just would not go.

  Some who did go would tell someone where they were headed.

  The nominal strength of the Company was somewhat over two hundred people, a third of whom did not live in Taglios at all but maintained identities at scattered locations where they could aid brothers who were traveling. Overall, it was very much like what the Deceivers used to do. Partly that was intentional, because those people had spent centuries finding the safest ways.

  Early on, couriers went out carrying code words to all our distant brothers to warn them that a time of trouble was coming. Nobody would be told what was happening, only warned that something was and that it was going to be big. Once that code word arrived, it would already be too late to drop out of anything.

  Behind the couriers, eventually, would come the majority of the men, in driblets small enough not to attract attention, disguised a dozen ways, departing Taglios in what I considered their order of plausible risk. The last to leave town would be those with the heaviest entanglements. All the men would pass through a series of checkpoints and assembly points, each time being informed only of an immediate destination. The key hope, though, was that Soulcatcher would not begin to catch on until those who were going to go were well away.

  Those who refused to go would be excused—if they remained loyal to the Company interests in the city. It would be useful to have a few agents on hand after the Company appeared to have gone.

  That, too, was something the Deceivers had done for generations.

  There would be flashy smoke shows. The demon Niassi would be much more prevalent, putting a damper on Grey efficiency. The men who stayed—I would not know who they were because I would be among the first to leave—would be expected to undertake what was supposed to look like a series of random assaults, break-ins and acts of vandalism that later would begin to appear to be part of a terror campaign meant to peak during the Druga Pavi. If Soulcatcher took the bait, she would spend her time preparing to ambush us there.

  If not, every hour bought was an hour farther down the road my brothers would be before the Protector realized that we had done the unexpected again. And even then, I expected her to look in the wrong places for a long time.

  48

  My party was the first to leave Taglios. We went the morning Banh Do Trang died. With me went Narayan Singh, Willow Swan, the Radisha Drah, Mother Gota and Uncle Doj, Riverwalker, Iqbal Singh with his wife Suruvhija and two children and baby, and his brother Runmust. In addition, we had several goats with small packs and chickens tied to their backs, two donkeys, one or the other of which Gota rode much of the time, and an ox cart drawn by a beast we strove hard to keep looking sadder and scruffier than it really was. Most everyone adopted some form of disguise. The Shadar trimmed their hair and beards and the whole family adopted Vehdna dress. I stayed Vehdna but became a woman. The Radisha became a man. Uncle Doj and Willow Swan shaved their heads and became Bhodi disciples. Swan darkened himself with stain but there was no way to change his blue eyes. Gota had to do without Nyueng Bao fashions.

  Narayan Singh remained exactly the same, virtually indistinguishable from thousands of others just like him.

  We looked bizarre, but even stranger bands collected to share the rigors of the road. And we would collect together only when we camped. On the road we stretched out over half a mile, one Singh brother out front, the other in back, while River stayed fairly close to me. The brothers carried a pair of devices given them by Goblin and One-Eye. If Narayan, the Radisha or Swan strayed far from a line running between them, choke spells would begin constricting around their throats.

  None of the three had been informed of that. We were all supposed to be friends and allies now. But I believe in trusting some of my friends more than others.

  On the Rock Road that the Captain had had built between Taglios and Jaicur, we did not catch the eye at all. But a crowd like that, with a baby and an ox cart and regular Vehdna prayers and whatnot, is not swift. Nor did the season help. I became thoroughly sick of the rain.

  The last time I traveled down the Rock Road I rode a giant black stallion that covered the distance between Taglios and Ghoja on the River Main in a day and a night without hurrying.

  Four days after leaving the city we were still at least that long from the bridge at Ghoja, which would be our first dangerous bottleneck. In the afternoon Uncle Doj chose to announce that we had come as close as the road would carry us to the place where he had hidden the copy of the Book of the Dead.


  “Aw, darn,” I said. “I was hoping it would be way farther down the road. How are we going to explain having a book if we get stopped?”

  Doj showed me his palms and a big smile. “I’m a priest. A missionary. Blame it on me.” Despite the hardships, he was happy. “Come help me dig it up.”

  “What is this place?” I asked two hours later. We had come into something that might have come from one of Murgen’s old nightmares about Kina. Twenty yards of woods formed a palisade all around it.

  “It’s a graveyard. During the chaos of the first Shadowlander invasion, before the Black Company came, possibly even before you were born, one of the Shadowlander armies used this as a camp, then as a burial ground. They planted the trees to conceal the tombs and monuments from enemy eyes.” Noting my appalled expression, he added, “Down there they have different customs for dealing with the dead.”

  I knew that. I had been there. I had seen it. But never had I seen it so concentrated, nor exuding such an air of depression. “This is grim.”

  “A spell makes it seem that way. They thought they would come back and turn the place into a memorial after they won the war. They wanted to keep people away.”

  “I’m willing to go along with their wishes. This is too creepy for me.”

  “It’s not that bad. Come on. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

  It did, but not a lot longer. It was a matter of pulling the door away from one of the fancier tombs and digging out a bundle wrapped in several layers of oilskins.

  “This is a place worth remembering,” Doj said as we went away. “People around here won’t come near it. People from farther away don’t know about it. It’s a good hideout.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “You’ll love the Grove of Doom, too.”

  “I’ve been there. I didn’t like it, either, but at the time I was too worried about Stranglers to be scared of ghosts or ancient goddesses.”

  “It’s another good place to hide.”

  I am not suspicious by nature the way Soulcatcher is but I am suspicious occasionally. I am particularly suspicious of reticent old Nyueng Bao who suddenly turn chatty and helpful. “The Captain hid out there once,” I said. “He didn’t find the place congenial, either. What’re you up to?”

  “Up to? I don’t understand.”

  “You understand perfectly, old man. Yesterday I was just another jengali, albeit one you had to tolerate. Today, suddenly, I’m getting unsolicited advice. I’m being offered the benefit of your accumulated wisdom, like I’m some kind of apprentice. You want me to take a turn carrying that?” He was, after all, an old man.

  “As the pace and pressures have increased and events have taken unexpected—but usually favorable—twists, I’ve begun reflecting more intently on the wisdom of Hong Tray, on the foresight she showed, even upon her devilish sense of humor, and I believe I’m finally beginning to grasp the full significance of her prophecies.”

  “Or of mass quantities of bullfeathers. Tell it to Sahra and Murgen next time you see them. And put a little honest sentiment into your apologies.”

  My attempt to be unpleasant did not subdue him. That took the arrival of the afternoon rains, a little early, a lot heavy, supported by a truly ferocious fall of hail. Along the road, dashing out from under the trees where we had left our own party, a score of travelers tried to collect the ice before it melted. Taglians never see snow, and rainy-season storms provide the only time they ever see ice—unless they travel far down into what used to be the Shadowlands, to the higher elevations of the Dandha Presh.

  Scavenging hailstones was a young people’s game. The old folks pushed under the trees as far as they could get, wearing their rain gear. The baby would not stop crying. She did not like the thunder. Runmust and Iqbal tried to keep an eye on the children as well as to watch unknown travelers closely. They were convinced that anyone met on the road might be an enemy spy. Which seemed a perfectly sensible attitude to me.

  Riverwalker prowled, cursing the rain. That also seemed a perfectly sensible attitude.

  Uncle Doj did a fine job of not drawing attention to his burden. He settled beside Gota. She began to gripe but without her usual enthusiasm.

  I sat down near the Radisha. We were calling her Tadjik these days. I said, “Have you begun to understand why your brother found life on the road so appealing?”

  “I trust you’re being sarcastic?”

  “Not entirely. What was the worst crisis you faced today? Your feet get wet?”

  She grunted. She got the point.

  “I believe it was the politics he resented. The fact that no matter what he considered doing, there were always a hundred selfish men who wanted to subvert his vision for their own profit.”

  “You knew him?” the Radisha asked.

  “Not well. Not to philosophize with. But he wasn’t a man who kept his views secret.”

  “My brother? Being away must’ve changed him a lot more than I thought it could, then. He never revealed his inner self while he lived in the Palace. That would have been too risky.”

  “His power was more secure out there. He didn’t have to please anyone but the Liberator. His men came to love him. They would’ve followed him anywhere. Which got most of them killed when you turned on the Company.”

  “He’s really alive? You aren’t just manipulating me for your own ends?”

  “Of course I am. Manipulating you, that is. But it is true that he’s alive. All the Captured are. That’s why we left Taglios even though we had your side on the run. We want our brothers out before we do anything more.”

  I heard a whisper. “Sister. Sister.”

  “What?”

  The Radisha had not spoken. She eyed me inquisitively. “I didn’t say it.”

  I glanced around apprehensively, saw nothing. “Must just be the rain in the leaves.”

  “Uhm.” The Radisha was not convinced, either.

  Hard to believe. I really missed Goblin and One-Eye.

  I found Uncle Doj again. “Lady insisted that you’re a minor wizard. If you have any talent at all, please use it to see if we’re being watched or followed.” Once Soulcatcher started looking for us outside Taglios, it should not take long for her crows and shadows to find us.

  Uncle Doj grunted noncommittally.

  49

  Real fear found us the morning after next, just when it seemed we had every reason to be positive. We had made good time the day before, there were no crows around yet, and it looked like we would reach the Grove of Doom before the afternoon rains, which meant we could complete our business there and get clear before night fell. I was happy.

  A band of horsemen appeared on the road south of us, headed our way. As they drew nearer, it became evident that they were uniformly clad. “What should we do?” River asked.

  “Just hope they aren’t looking for us. Keep moving.” They showed no interest in travelers ahead of us, though they forced everyone off the road. They were not galloping but were not dawdling, either.

  Uncle Doj drifted nearer the donkey not carrying Gota. Ash Wand lay hidden amidst the clutter of tent and tent poles that formed that animal’s burden. Several precious fireball projectors were among the bamboo tent poles, too.

  We had very few of those left now. We would have no more until we fetched Lady out of the ground. Goblin and One-Eye could not create them themselves—though Goblin admitted privately that the opposite would have been the case even just ten years ago.

  They were too old for almost anything that required flexible thought and, especially, physical dexterity. The mist projector was, in all probability, the last great contribution they would make. And most of the nonmagical construction on that had been accomplished using Tobo’s young hands.

  I caught a glint of polished steel from the horsemen. “Left side of the road,” I told River. “I want everybody over there when we have to get out of their way.”

  But I spoke too late. Point-man Iqbal had al
ready jumped off to the right. “I hope he has sense enough to get back across after they pass by.”

  “He isn’t stupid, Sleepy.”

  “He’s out here with us, isn’t he?”

  “That’s a fact.”

  The band of horsemen turned out to be what I expected: the forerunners of a much larger troop which, in turn, proved to be the vanguard of the Third Territorial Division of the Taglian Army.

  The Third Territorial Division was the Great General’s personal formation. Which meant that God had chosen to bring us face-to-face with Mogaba.

  I tried not to worry about what sort of practical joke God was contemplating. Only He knows His own heart. I just made sure my whole crowd was on the left side of the road. I got us loosened up even more. Then I worried about which of us might be recognizable by Mogaba or any veterans who had been around long enough to recall the Kiaulune and Shadowmaster wars.

  None of us were memorable. Few of us went back far enough to have crossed paths with the Great General. That is, except Uncle Doj, Mother Gota, Willow Swan … right! And Narayan Singh! Narayan had been a close ally of the Great General in the days before the last Shadowmaster war. Those two had had their wicked heads together innumerable times.

  “I will need to alter my appearance.”

  “What?” The skinny little Deceiver had materialized beside me, startling me. If he could sneak up like that …

  “This will be the Great General, Mogaba. Not so? And he might recognize me even though it has been years since last we stood face-to-face.”

  “You astonish me,” I admitted.

  “I do what the goddess desires.”

  “Of course.” There is no God but God. Yet every day I had to deal with a goddess whose impact on my life was more tangible. There were times when I had to struggle hard not to think. In Forgiveness He is Like the Earth. “Suppose you just borrow some clothing and get rid of your turban?” Though doing nothing struck me as the perfect solution with him. As noted before, Narayan Singh resembled the majority of the poor male Gunni population. I thought Mogaba would have trouble recognizing him even if they had been lovers. Unless Narayan gave himself away. And how could he do that? He was the Master Deceiver, the living saint of the cult.