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 Shape-shifter’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, eyeing Shifter’s gross back.
Catcher exchanged glances with Stormbringer. The woman nodded. Soulcatcher 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.
Changer 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 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 fail 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 las
t 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.
Chapter Six
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 Lieutenant 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 campfollowers. 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 chilly 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.
Women paraded toward the spring. There would be a flow all day, unless we interrupted. They had no water source inside the wall.
My stomach sank. Our infiltrators had started uphill. “Stand ready,” the Lieutenant said.
“Loosen up,” I suggested. Exercise helps dissipate nervous energy.
No matter how long you soldier, fear always swells as combat nears. There is always the dread that the numbers will catch up- One-Eye enters every action sure the fates have checked his name off their list.
The infiltrators exchanged falsetto greetings with the townswomen. They arrived at the gate undiscovered. It was guarded by a single militiaman, a cobbler busy hammering brass nails into the heel of a boot. His halberd was ten feet away.
Goblin scampered back outside. He clapped his hands overhead. A crack reverberated across the countryside. His arms fell level with his shoulders, palms up. A rainbow arced between his. hands.
“Always has to ham it up,” One-Eye grumbled. Goblin did a jig.
The patrol swept forward. The women at the spring screamed and scattered. Wolves jumping into a sheepfold, I thought. We ran hard. My pack hammered my kidneys. After two hundred yards I was stumbling over my bow. Younger men began passing me.
I reached the gate unable to whip a grandmother. Lucky for me, the grandmas were goofing off. The men swept through the town. There was no resistance.
We who were to tackle Feather and Journey hastened to the tiny citadel. That was no better defended. The Lieutenant and I followed One-Eye, Silent, and Goblin inside.
We encountered no resistance below the top level. There, incredibly, the newlyweds were still entangled in sleep. One-Eye brushed their guards aside with a terrifying illusion. Goblin and Silent shattered the door to the lovenest.
We stormed inside. Even sleepy, baffled, and frightened, they were feisty. They bruised several of us good before we got gags into their mouths and bonds onto their wrists.
The Lieutenant told them, “We’re supposed to bring you back alive. That don’t mean we can’t hurt you some. Come quiet, do what you’re told, and you’ll be all right.” I halfway expected him to sneer, twirl the end of his mustache, and punctuate with evil laughter. He was clowning, assuming the villain’s role the Rebel insists we play.
Feather and Journey would give us all the trouble they could. They knew the Lady hadn’t sent us to bring them round for tea.
Halfway back to friendly territory. On our bellies on a hilltop, studying an enemy encampment. “Big,” I said. “Twenty-five, thirty thousand men.” It was one of six such camps on an arc bending north and west of Charm.
“They sit on their hands much longer, they’re in trouble,” the Lieutenant said.
They should have attacked immediately after the Stair of Tear. But the loss of Harden, Sidle, Moth, and Linger had set lesser captains to squabbling over supreme command. The Rebel offensive had stalled. The Lady had regained her balance.
Her patrols-in-force now harassed Rebel foragers, exterminated collaborators, scouted, destroyed everything the enemy might find useful. Despite vastly superior numbers, the Rebel’s stance was becoming defensive. Every day in camp sapped his psychological momentum.
Two months ago our morale was lower than a snake’s butt. Now it was on the rebound. If we made it back it would soar. Our coup would stun the Rebel movement.
If we made it back.
We lay motionless upon steep lichened limestone and dead leaves. The creek below chuckled at our predicament. Shadows of naked trees stippled us. Low-grade spells by One-Eye and his cohorts further camouflaged us. The smell of fear and of sweaty horses taunted my nostrils. From the road above came the voices of Rebel cavalrymen. I could not understand their tongue. They were arguing, though.
Scattered with undisturbed leaves and twigs, the road had looked unpatrolled. Weariness had overcome our caution. We had decided to follow it. Then we had rounded a turn and found ourselves facing a Rebel patrol across the meadowed valley into which the creek below flowed.
They were cursing our disappearance. Several dismounted and urinated down the bank...
Feather started thrashing.
Damn! I screamed inside. Damn! Damn! I knew it!
The Rebels yammered and lined the edge of the road.
I smacked the woman’s temple. Goblin clipped her from the other side. Quick-thinking Silent wove nets of spell with tentacle-limber fingers dancing close to his chest.
A ragged bush shivered. A fat old badger waddle-ran down the bank and crossed the creek, vanishing into a dense stand of poplars.
Cursing, the Rebels threw rocks. They clattered like dropped stoneware as they skipped off boulders in the streambed. The soldiers stamped around telling one another we had to be nearby. We could not have gotten much farther on foot. Logic might undo the best efforts of our wizards.
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