The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company (Chronicles of the Black Company)

by Glen Cook

  I guess Murgen and I got three thousand men together before fate decided it was time to take another bite.

  A big mob of the enemy rushed us. I assumed my pose, with my sword up, beside the standard. I did not have much show left me. If Goblin and One-Eye were alive at all they were too busy covering their own asses.

  It looked like we would drive them off easily. Our line was locked together solidly. They were just a howling mob.

  Then the arrow came out of nowhere and hit me square in the chest and knocked me right off my horse.

  41

  Lady

  It wasn’t always best to be old and wise in the ways of battlefields, Lady thought. She saw what was coming, clearly, long before anybody else did. Briefly, after Murgen skewered the Shadowmaster, she had hopes it would turn, but the advent of the troops from the encampment caused a shift in momentum that could not be reversed.

  Croaker should not have attacked. He should have waited as long as it took, made them come to him, not been so concerned about the Shadowmasters. If he had allowed the new army from the south to come forward and get in the way of the men from the encampment, he could have then hurled his elephants in without risk to his right. But it was too late to weep about might-have-beens. It was time to try rooting out a miracle.

  One Shadowmaster was out and the other was crippled. If only she had a tenth, even a hundredth, of the power she had lost. If only she’d had time to nurture and channel the little bit that had begun coming back to her.

  If only. If only. All life was if only.

  Where was that damned imp of One-Eye’s? It could turn this around. There was nobody on the other side to keep it from going through those men like a scythe, at least for long enough.

  But Frogface was nowhere to be seen. One-Eye and Goblin were working as a team, doing their little bit to stem the tide. Frogface was not with them. They seemed too busy to be curious about that.

  The imp’s absence was too important to be accident or oversight. Why? at this critical juncture?

  No time. No time to brood about it and slither down through all the shadows and try to find the meaning of the imp’s presences and absences, which had been bothering her so long. Only time to realize, with certainty, that the creature had been planted upon One-Eye and wasn’t his to command at all.

  By whom?

  Not the Shadowmasters. The Shadowmasters would have used the imp directly. Not Shifter. He’d had no need. Not the Howler. He would have gotten his revenge.

  What else was loose in the world?

  A crow flapped past. It cawed in a way that made her think it was laughing.

  Croaker and his crows. He had been muttering about crows for a year. And then they had started turning up around him any time anything big happened.

  She glanced at the mound where Croaker and Murgen had set the standard. Croaker had a pair of crows perched on his shoulders. A flock circled above him. He made a dramatic figure there in his Widowmaker disguise, with the doombirds wheeling around him, waving his fiery sword, trying to rally his crumbling legions.

  While the mind pursued one clatch of enemies the body dealt with another. She wielded her weapons with a dancer’s grace and the deadliness of a demigoddess. At first there had been an exhilaration, realizing she was approaching a state she had not achieved in ages, except by the path of its tantric cousin, last night. And then she went over into the perfect calm, the mystic separation of Self and flesh that actually melded into a greater, more illuminated and deadly whole.

  There was no fear in that state, nor any other emotion. It was like being in the deepest meditation, where the Self wandered a field of glimmering insights, yet the flesh performed its deadly tasks with a precision and perfection that left the dead mounded about her and her terrible mount.

  The enemy wrestled with one another to stay away from her. Her allies fought to get into the safety of the vacuum surrounding her. Though the right wing had begun to collapse, one stubborn rock formed.

  The Self reflected on memories of illuminations won during the night from a pair of bodies, sweating, straining together, on her absolute amazement during and after. Her life had been one of absolute self-control. Yet time and again the flesh had gone beyond any hope of control. At her age.

  And she looked at Croaker again, now harried by his enemies.

  And the shadow crept into the killing perfection and showed her why she had denied herself for so long.

  She thought of loss.

  And loss mattered.

  Mattering intruded upon the Self, distracting it. It wanted to take control of the flesh, to force things to transpire according to its desires.

  She started forcing her way toward Croaker, the knot of men around her moving with her. But the enemy could sense that she was no longer the terrible thing she had been, that she was now vulnerable. They pressed in. One by one, her companions fell.

  Then she saw the arrow strike Croaker and drop him at the foot of the standard. She shrieked and spurred her mount over friend and foe alike.

  Her pain, and her rage, only carried her into a mass of enemies who attacked from every direction. She cut some, but others dragged her off her rearing steed and harried the beast away. She fought with skill and desperation against poorly trained opponents, but the ineptness of her enemies was not enough. She heaped bodies, but they drove her down to her knees.…

  A wave of chaos swept over that fight within the battle, men fleeing, men pursuing, and when it passed all that could be seen of her was one arm protruding from a pile of corpses.

  42

  That Stump

  Lying mostly on my back, clinging to the haft of the lance with my left hand, the standard flapping and the Shadowmaster flopping overhead. I don’t think the arrow hit anything vital. But the son of a bitch went through my breastplate and me, too. I think there are a couple inches sticking out in back.

  What the hell happened to the spells protecting me?

  I never been hit this bad before.

  Coupla crows up with the Shadowmaster. Amusing themselves, trying to get his eyes. Four or five prowling around down here, not bothering me. Act like they’re standing guard.

  Bunch showed up a while ago, when some enemy troops came after the standard. Piled all over them till they went away.

  Ah, that damned arrow hurts! Can I get a hand around there and break the shaft? Pull the sucker back out after the head is gone?

  Better not. The shaft might be keeping the bleeding from getting too bad inside. Seen that happen.

  What’s going on? Can’t move enough to look around. Hurts too much. All I can see from here is the plain, covered with bodies. Elephants, horses, some men in white, a lot more not. I think we took a lot of them with us. I think if the formations had just held up we’d have kicked their asses.

  Can’t hear. Total silence. Me? What was that? Silence of stone? Where did I hear that?

  Tired. So damned tired. Want to lay down and sleep. Can’t. The arrow. Probably be too weak soon, though. Thirsty. But not thirsty like with a belly wound, thank the gods. Never wanted to die with a gut wound. Ha. Never wanted to die.

  Keep thinking about sepsis. What if the bowman put garlic or feces on his arrowheads? Blood poisoning. Gangrene. Smell like you’re six days dead when you’re still breathing. Can’t amputate my chest.

  Shame and guilt. Brought the Company to this. Didn’t want to be the last Captain. Guess none of them did. Shouldn’t have fought today. Sure shouldn’t have charged. Thought the illusions and elephants would be enough, though. Came close, too.

  Know what I should have done, now. Stayed up in the hills where they couldn’t see me and let them come to me. Could have sneaked around and used the old Company trickery on them there. Show the standard in one direction and attack from another. But I had to come down here after them.

  Feel like a fool lying here in my underwear and a breastplate. Wonder if it did any damn good for Murgen to put that Widowmaker suit on and g
o try to turn the tide? Mogaba will have his cojones for abandoning the standard.

  But I’m here. Still holding the sucker up.

  Maybe somebody will come before I pass out. Getting so even somebody from the other side would look good. Damned arrow. Finish it off. Get it over.

  Something moving.… Just my damned horse. Having lunch. Turning grass into horse hockey. Just another day in the life for him. Go fetch me a bucket of beer, you bastard. You’re supposed to be so damned intelligent, why can’t you get a dying man a last beer?

  How can the world be so damned quiet and bright and cheerful-looking when so many men just died here? Look at that mess. Right down there, fifty dead guys in a patch of wildflowers. Going to smell the stink for forty miles in a couple days.

  How come this is taking so long? Am I going to be one of those guys who makes a career out of croaking?

  Something out there. Something moving. Way out. Crows circling.… My old friend the stump, crossing the plain of the dead on a holiday stroll. Stepping light, though. In a good mood. What was that before? Not yet time? Crows? This critter Death? I been looking my own death in the eye all the way down here?

  Carrying something. Yeah, a box. About a foot by a foot by a foot. Remember noticing that before but not paying much attention. Never heard of Death carrying a box. Usually a sword or a scythe.

  Whatever the hell it is, it’s here to see me. Headed straight for me. Hang in there, Croaker. Maybe there’s new hope for the dead.

  Geek up on the lance getting all bent out of shape. I don’t think he’s happy about developments.

  Getting closer now. Definitely no walking stump. A people, or something walking on two legs, very short. Funny. Always looked bigger from a distance. Close enough now we ought to be eyeball to eyeball, if I could see any eyes inside that hood. It’s like there’s nothing in there at all.

  Kneeling. Empty hood, yes, inches away. Damned box right beside me.

  Voice like a very slight breath of a breeze in spring willows, soft, gentle, and merry. “Now it’s time, Croaker.” Half a titter, half a chuckle. A glance up at the critter skewered on the lance. “And it’s time for you too, you old bastard.”

  Completely different voice. Not just a different tone or a different inflexion, but an entirely different voice.

  I guess all the other dead ones being alive set me up for it. I recognized her instantly. Almost as if something inside me had been expecting her. I gasped, “You! That can’t be!” I tried to get up. “Soulcatcher!” I don’t know what the hell I thought I was going to do. Run away? How? Where to?

  The pain ripped through me. I sagged.

  “Yes, my love. Me. You went away without finishing it.” Laughter that was a young girl’s giggle. “I have waited a long time, Croaker. But she finally exchanged the magic words with you. Now I avenge myself by taking from her what is more precious than life itself.” Again the giggle, like she was talking about some simple practical joke with no malice in it.

  I had no strength to argue.

  She made a lifting gesture with one gloved hand. “Come along, my sweet.”

  I floated up off the ground. A crow landed on my chest and stared off in the direction I began to move, as though it were in charge of navigation.

  There was a good side. The pain faded.

  I did not see the lance and its burden move, but sensed that it too was in motion. My captor led the way, floating, too. We moved very fast.

  We must have been a sight for anyone watching.

  Darkness nibbled around the edge of consciousness. I fought it, fearing it was the final darkness. I lost.

  43

  Overlook

  Mad laughter rolled out of that high crystal room on top of that tower at Overlook. Somebody was tickled silly about the way things were going up north.

  “That’s three of them down, half a job done. And the hard half at that. Get the other three and it’s all mine.”

  More insane mirth.

  The Shadowmaster gazed out at the brilliant expanse of whiteness. “Is it time to release you from your prison, my beauties of the night? Time to let you run free in the world again? No, no. Not just this moment. Not till this island of safety is invulnerable.”

  44

  Glittering Stone

  The plain is filled with the silence of stone. Nothing lives there. But in the deep hours of the night shadows flutter among the pillars and perch atop the columns with darkness wrapped about them like cloaks of concealment.

  Such nights are not for the unwary stranger. Such nights the silence of stone is sometimes broken by screams. Then the shadows feast, though never do they sate the raging hunger.

  For the shadows the hunt is ever poorer. Sometimes months pass before an unwise adventurer stumbles into the place of glittering stone. The hunger worsens with the years and the shadows eye the forbidden lands beyond. But they cannot go, and they cannot starve to death, much as they might wish to die. They cannot die, for they are the undead, bound by the silence of stone.

  It is immortality of a sort.

  Dreams of Steel

  For Keith, because I like his style

  1

  Many months have passed. Much has happened and much has slipped from my memory. Insignificant details have stuck with me while important things have gotten away. Some things I know only from third parties and more I can only guess. How often have my witnesses perjured themselves?

  It did not occur to me, till this time of enforced inactivity befell me, that an important tradition was being overlooked, that no one was recording the deeds of the Company. I dithered then. It seemed a presumption for me to take up the pen. I have no training. I am no historian nor even much of a writer. Certainly I don’t have Croaker’s eye or ear or wit.

  So I shall confine myself to reporting facts as I recall them. I hope the tale is not too much colored by my own presence within it, nor by what it has done to me.

  With that apologia, herewith, this addition to the Annals of the Black Company, in the tradition of Annalists before me, the Book of Lady.

  —Lady, Annalist, Captain

  2

  The elevation was not good. The distance was extreme. But Willow Swan knew what he was seeing. “They’re getting their butts kicked.”

  Armies contended before the city Dejagore, at the center of a circular, hill-encompassed plain. Swan and three companions watched.

  Blade grunted agreement. Cordy Mather, Swan’s oldest friend, said nothing. He just tried to kick the stuffing out of a rock.

  The army they favored was losing.

  Swan and Mather were whites, blond and brunette, hailing from Roses, a city seven thousand miles north of the killing ground. Blade was a black giant of uncertain origins, a dangerous man with little to say. Swan and Mather had rescued him from crocodiles a few years earlier. He had stuck. The three were a team.

  Swan cursed softly, steadily, as the battle situation worsened.

  The fourth man did not belong. The team would not have had him if he volunteered. People called him Smoke. Officially, he was the fire marshall of Taglios, the city-nation whose army was losing. In reality he was the Taglian court wizard. He was a nut-brown little man whose very existence annoyed Swan.

  “That’s your army out there, Smoke,” Willow growled. “It goes down, you go down. Bet the Shadowmasters would love to lay hands on you.” Sorceries yowled and barked on the battlefield. “Maybe make marmalade out of you. Unless you’ve cut a deal already.”

  “Ease up, Willow,” Mather said. “He’s doing something.”

  Swan looked at the butternut-colored runt. “Sure enough. But what?”

  Smoke had his eyes closed. He mumbled and muttered. Sometimes his voice crackled and sizzled like bacon in an overheated pan.

  “He ain’t doing nothing to help the Black Company. You quit talking to yourself, you old buzzard. We got a problem. Our guys are getting whipped. You want to try to turn that around? Before I turn you over my k
nee?”

  The old man opened his eyes. He stared across the plain. His expression was not pleasant. Swan doubted that the little geek’s eyes were good enough to make out details. But you never knew with Smoke. With him everything was mask and pretense.

  “Don’t be a moron, Swan. I’m one man, too little and too old. There are Shadowmasters down there. They can stomp me like a roach.”

  Swan fussed and grumbled. People he knew were dying.

  Smoke snapped, “All I can do—all any of us can do—is attract attention. Do you really want the Shadowmasters to notice you?”

  “They’re just the Black Company, eh? They took their pay, they take their chances? Even if forty thousand Taglians go down with them?”

  Smoke’s lips shrank into a mean little prune.

  On the plain a human tide washed around a mound where the Black Company standard had been planted for a last stand. The tide swept on toward the hills.

  “You wouldn’t be happy about the way things are going, would you?” Swan’s voice was dangerous, no longer carping. Smoke was a political animal, worse than a crocodile. Crocs might eat their young but their treacheries were predictable.

  Though irked, Smoke replied in a voice almost tender. “They have accomplished more than we dreamed.”

  The plain was dense with the dead and dying, man and beast. Mad war elephants careened around, respecting no allegiance. Only one Taglian legion had maintained its integrity. It had fought its way to a city gate and was covering the flight of other Taglians. Flames rose beyond the city from a military encampment. The Company had scored that much success against the apparent victors.

  Smoke said, “They’ve lost a battle but they saved Taglios. They slew one of the Shadowmasters. They’ve made it impossible for the others to attack Taglios. Those will spend their remaining troops recapturing Dejagore.”