The Return of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  It broke, of course. And for a while there was a lot of light down below. But soon the fire burned out.

  Oh, well. It was a certainty that there would be a door to the street below. The stairwell curved down against an exterior wall. I had leaned out a window to make sure before I ever entered it.

  Descending an ancient stair that spirals isn’t easy when there are no handrails and you cannot see what you are doing. Nevertheless, I got to the bottom without breaking any bones, although I did slip a couple of times and endured one long spell of vertigo after passing through the smoke from the burned lamp fuel.

  Eventually the stair ended. I felt around for a door. As I did so I frowned. What was I doing? Took me a moment to reach back into my head and bring up the answer.

  I found the door, felt around for a release. I found an old fashioned wooden latch bar, which was not what I expected at all.

  I yanked, pushed. The door swung outward.

  Wrong answer to your problem, Murgen.

  * * *

  Within that fastness nothing moves, though at times mists of light shimmer as they leak over from beyond the gates of dream. Shadows linger in corners. And way down inside the core of the place, in the feeblest throb of the heart of darkness, there is life of a sort.

  A massive wooden throne stands upon a dais at the heart of a chamber so vast only a sun could light it all. Upon that throne a body sprawls, veiled by shoals of shadow, pinioned by silver knives driven through its feet and hands. Sometimes that body sighs softly in its sleep, impelled by bitter dreams acrawl behind its sightless eyes.

  This is survival of a sort.

  In the night, when the wind no longer licks through its unglazed windows, nor prances along its untenanted halls, nor whispers to its million creeping shadows, that fortress is filled with the silence of stone.

  55

  No will.

  No identity.

  At home in the house of pain.

  56

  There you are! Where have you been? Welcome back to …

  The house of pain?

  57

  The house of pain.

  I went there but do not remember the journey or the visit.

  I was on hands and knees on broken pavement. My palms and knees hurt. I lifted a hand. My palm was torn. Blood oozed from a dozen abrasions. My mind was numb. I raised my other hand, began picking out bits of paving brick.

  Fifty yards away the side of a building glowed olive, pulsating. A circle of masonry blew outward. Shadows sprang out of the darkness. With weapons bare they scrambled through the hole. Shouts and the clang of metal came from inside.

  I got up and wandered in that direction, vaguely interested but not sure why, not even thinking definable thoughts.

  “Hey!” A shadow at that hole stared at me. I did not yell so that must have been the shadow. “That you, Murgen?”

  I kept walking, head spinning. My course curved to the right. I banged into the side of a building. After that I had a sure means of navigation. Like a drunk I steered by keeping one hand on the wall.

  “Here he is!” The shadow pointed at me.

  “Candles?”

  “Yeah. You all right? What did they do to you?”

  I had little pains everywhere. I felt like I had been stabbed and cut and burned. “Who? Nobody did anything?…” Did they? “Where am I? When?”

  “Huh?”

  A man leaned through the side of the building. He wore a scarf wrapped around his face. Only his eyes were visible. He studied me momentarily, popped back inside. Somebody in there yelled.

  People jumped into the street. Some carried bloody weapons. All were masked. A couple grabbed my arms and took off.

  We scurried through darkened streets in a nighted city and no one would answer my panted questions so for a while I had no idea when I was, or where. Then we crossed an open space from which I glimpsed the citadel of Dejagore.

  That answered my most immediate questions.

  But a new crop sprouted. Why were we outside the Company’s part of town? How had I gotten there? Why didn’t I have any memories of this? I recalled sitting with Ky Dam, secretly lusting after his granddaughter.…

  The men accompanying me removed their wraps and masks. They were Company. Plus Uncle Doj and a couple of Nyueng Bao sprites. We ducked into an alleyway that led to Nyueng Bao territory. “Slow down,” I gasped. “What’s going on?”

  “Somebody snatched you,” Candles explained. “At first we thought Mogaba did it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Shadowspinner’s taken his whole army off after Lady. We could walk away if we wanted. We thought he decided to take a hostage.”

  I did not believe Spinner was gone. “Uncle Doj. The last thing I remember was sipping tea with the Speaker.”

  “You began to behave oddly, Stone Soldier.”

  I growled. He did not apologize.

  “The Speaker thought perhaps you had been drinking before you arrived. He instructed Thai Dei to take you home. He was offended. You proved to be such a burden that Thai Dei was unable to defend himself when you were attacked. He was beaten badly but managed to get home with word. Your friends began looking for you as soon as we informed them.” His tone suggested that he wondered why they had bothered. “They seem more skilled than they pretend. They pinpointed you quickly. You were not in the citadel, which is where Mogaba would have confined you.”

  “How did I get clear across town?” I winced. In addition to the other pains I had a hangover-type headache. I had been drugged.

  Nobody had an answer for me.

  “Is this the same night, Uncle?”

  “Yes. But many hours later.”

  “And it definitely wasn’t Mogaba that grabbed me?”

  “No. There were no Nar in that place. In fact, soon after you were taken someone attacked Mogaba, too. They may have planned to murder him.”

  “Jaicuri?” Maybe the locals wanted to get to the heart of the problem.

  “Perhaps.” He did not sound convinced. Maybe he should have taken prisoners.

  “Where’s One-Eye?” Only One-Eye could have ripped that hole in the wall back there.

  Candles told me, “Covering our backtrail.”

  “Good.” I was near normal now. Which meant I was as confused as ever, I guess. Whoever grabbed me had done some slick work to sneak through Nyueng Bao territory unnoticed.

  Uncle Doj divined my thoughts. “We have not determined how the villains managed to ambush you, nor how the others got so close to Mogaba. Those four did pay in blood.”

  “He killed them?”

  “By all reports it was an epic battle, four against one.”

  “Goody for Mogaba. Even he deserves a little happiness in life.” We were approaching the tenement that masqueraded as Company headquarters. I invited everybody in. The boys got a fire going. When One-Eye showed up I suggested he see if he could not scare up some beer, that I had heard there was some floating around and we sure could use a drink.

  Grumbling, One-Eye returned to the night. Before long he and Goblin turned up lugging a barrel. “On me,” I told everybody. One-Eye made a whining noise.

  I stripped down and flopped onto a table. Which is why the fire. To take the edge off the chill. “How do I look, One-Eye?”

  His tone was that of a man responding to a stupid question. “Like a guy that’s been tortured. You don’t know how you ended up in the street?”

  “My guess is they heard you coming and tossed me out to distract you while they got away.”

  “Didn’t work. Roll onto your side.”

  I spotted a face outside the open door. “Come in here. Have a beer with us.”

  The outsider Sindhu joined us. He accepted a mug but appeared to be very uncomfortable.

  I noted how closely Uncle Doj watched him.

  58

  It was still that same adventurous night. I was still disoriented, still hurting and definitely still exhausted but here I was wrapp
ing a rope around me so I could rappel down the outside of the wall. “You sure the Nar can’t see us from the gate tower?”

  “Damn it, Kid, will you just go? You fuss worse than a mother-in-law.”

  One-Eye might know. He has had several.

  I started down. Why did I let Goblin and One-Eye con me into this?

  Two Taglian soldiers were waiting when I reached the crude raft. They helped me board. I asked, “How deep is the water?”

  “Seven feet,” the taller man replied. “We can pole across.”

  The rope stirred. I held it. Soon the outsider Sindhu dropped onto the raft. Mine was the only help he got. The Taglians wouldn’t even acknowledge his existence. I tugged the rope three times hard to let the top end know we were going. “Start poling.”

  The Taglians were volunteers chosen in part because they were well rested. They were quite happy to be leaving the city—and depressed because they would not get to stay gone.

  They considered this crossing an experiment. If we made it over, slipped through the southerners, then got back to Dejagore tomorrow night or the next soon whole fleets would hazard the crossing.

  If we got back. If Shadowspinner’s men did not intercept us. If we found Lady at all, which the soldiers did not know to be part of the mission.…

  One-Eye and Goblin browbeat me into looking for Lady. Never mind them injuries, Kid. They ain’t shit. Sindhu was along because Ky Dam thought it was a good idea to get him out of Dejagore. Sindhu’s opinion had not been asked. The Taglians were supposed to guard me and provide strong backs. Uncle Doj had wanted to come but had failed to convince the Speaker.

  The crossing was uneventful. Once we stepped ashore I retrieved a tiny green wooden box from my pocket and released the moth inside. It would fly back to Goblin, its arrival announcing my safe arrival.

  I had several more boxes, each a different color and each containing a moth to be released in a particular circumstance.

  As we started to move up a ravine Sindhu quietly volunteered to take the point. “I am experienced at this sort of thing,” he told me. And I believed him within minutes. He moved very slowly, very carefully, making no sound.

  I did all right but not as well. The two Taglians might as well have worn cowbells.

  We had not gone far before Sindhu hissed a warning. We froze while grumbling Shadowlanders filed across our track twenty yards uphill. I caught only enough conversation to understand that they prefered a warm blanket to a night patrol through the hills. Surprise. You would think things would be different in somebody else’s army.

  We encountered another patrol an hour later. It, too, passed without detecting our presence.

  We were past the ridgeline when dawn began creeping in from the east, extending visibility to the point where it was too dangerous to keep moving. Sindhu told me, “We must find a place of concealment.”

  Standard procedure in unfriendly territory. And it was no problem. The ravines out there were choked with brush. A man could disappear underneath easily as long as he remembered not to wear his orange nightshirt.

  We disappeared. I started snoring seconds after we went to ground. And I did not go anywhere else, or anywhen.

  * * *

  The smell of smoke wakened me. I sat up. Sindhu rose at almost the same instant. I found a crow studying me from so close I had to cross my eyes to focus on him. The Taglian who was supposed to be keeping watch was sleeping. So much for well-rested. I said nothing. Neither did Sindhu.

  In moments my fears were confirmed.

  A southern voice called out. Another answered. Crows laughed. Sindhu whispered, “They know we are here?” It sounded like he had trouble believing that.

  I lifted a finger, requesting silence. I listened, picked out a few words. “They know somebody is here. They don’t know who. They’re unhappy because they can’t just kill us. The Shadowmaster wants prisoners.”

  “They aren’t trying to lure us out?”

  “They don’t know any of us can understand some of their dialect.” The albino crow in front of me cawed and flapped its way up out of the brush. About twenty others joined it.

  “If we cannot evade them we must surrender. We must not fight.” Sindhu was an unhappy young man.

  I agreed. I was an unhappy young man myself. The Taglian soldiers were two more unhappy young men.

  We evaded nothing and no one. The crows found our efforts amusing.

  59

  Time had no meaning. The Shadowmaster’s camp lay somewhere north of Dejagore. We four were among the earliest prisoners taken but more soon joined us in our pen. Lots of Mogaba’s guys wanted to leave town.

  He would have less trouble feeding the ones who stayed behind.

  One-Eye and Goblin seemed to hold our part of town together. Nobody I knew became a prisoner.

  I did not send any more moths so they knew I had found trouble instead of Lady.

  Even our guards had no notion how Spinner meant to use us. We were happier not knowing, probably.

  I spent uncounted days in total misery. Piglets in a feed lot live better than we did. More and more prisoners arrived. The food was inadequate. After a few meals everybody got the runs. There were no sewage provisions, not even a simple slit trench. They would not let us dig our own. Maybe they did not want us getting too comfortable.

  In fact our life was not much worse than that of the Shadowlander private soldiers. They had nothing anymore and could expect only nothing. They indulged in a ferocious desertion rate despite the Shadowmaster’s reputation. They hated Shadowspinner for putting them into such an awful state. They took their anger out on us.

  I do not know how long we were there. I lost track. I was busy trying to die from dysentery. I noticed only that there was a sudden absence of crows one day. I was so used to having crows around that anymore I noticed them only when they were not there.

  I faded in and out. I suffered a bunch of my spells. They were more frequent now and left me emotionally drained. The shits left me physically drained.

  If I could only get some sleep …

  Sindhu wakened me. I recoiled from his touch. It was astonishingly cold and seemed vaguely reptilian. I was the only man in the pen he knew so he wanted to be my pal. I was willing to do without a friend. He offered me a cup of water. It was a rather nice tin cup. Where did he get that? “Drink,” he said. “It’s clean water.” All around us prisoners lay in the mud twitching endlessly in haunted sleep. Some cried out. Sindhu continued, “Something is going to happen.”

  “What?”

  “I felt the breath of the goddess.”

  For an instant I smelled something that was not the stink of vomit or unwashed bodies or dead men or pools of liquid shit, too.

  “Ah,” Sindhu whispered. “It’s happening now.” I looked where he pointed.

  The happening something was going on inside the big tent belonging to the Shadowmaster. Lights of strange color flickered and flared. “Maybe he’s getting something special ready for somebody.” Maybe he had Lady spotted.

  Sindhu snorted. He seemed to thrive in these conditions.

  The something went on a long time but attracted no attention. I became suspicious. I had Goblin’s ward against sleep spells set on me. Oh…? I dragged myself to the compound fence. When nobody smashed me back with the butt of a spear I was sure. The camp was under an enchantment.

  Sindhu’s water gave me strength quickly and started my brain perking. It occurred to me that if no one was inclined to stop me this might be the perfect time to take leave of the Shadowmaster’s hospitality. I started worming my way between the fence rails.

  My stomach rumbled in protest. I ignored it. Sindhu grabbed my arm. His grip was iron. He said, “Wait.”

  I waited. What the hell? That was one of my favorite arms. I didn’t want to deprive myself of its company.

  The moon began to rise, a big old squashed orange egg in the east. Sindhu continued to restrain me and continued to stare at the big te
nt.

  A shriek drifted down from high above.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered. “Not him.”

  Sindhu cursed, too. He was so startled that he let me go. He glared upward.

  “That’s the Howler,” I told him. “Really bad news. Shadowspinner could take advanced cruelty lessons from him.”

  The side of Spinner’s tent opened. Out rushed a bunch of people carrying what proved to be human body parts. I recognized some of them. The people, that is. Who could mistake Willow Swan with his wild yellow mane? Or Lady, who carried a severed head by its mangy hair? And Blade was only a step behind her, his ebony skin shiny in the moonlight. I did not recognize any of the others.

  The sleep spell on the camp, laid rather poorly, unravelled. Southerners jumped up to ask what was happening. Metal clanged and jingled as weapons and mail were located.

  One of Lady’s companions, a huge Shadar, started bellowing something about bowing down to the true Daughter of Night.

  Sindhu chuckled. Nothing bothered him, it seemed. He could take anything.

  He was not holding on to me but I no longer had the strength or inclination to go anywhere.

  60

  They pulled it off, Lady and her damnfool gang. Audacity pays. They slipped into the camp, murdered Shadowspinner, and when they got caught they convinced the southerners that it was all fated and they should not go doing anything because of that. I could not be much of a witness to their mass conversion. My bowels overruled my desire to observe. I spent most of my time making a worse mess of myself.

  At some point our former guards decided to bring us to Lady’s attention in an effort to curry favor.

  Blade recognized us as they brought us out of the pen.

  Blade looks like he might have been born Nar. Like them he is tall, black and muscular, without an ounce of fat on him. He says little but has a strong presence. His background is shadowy. He ran with Willow Swan and Cordy Mather, who saved him from crocodiles several thousand miles north of Taglios. What everyone knew for sure, what Blade made no effort to hide, was that he hated priests, singly, collectively, and without any prejudice whatsoever where belief system was concerned. Once I thought he was an atheist who hated the whole idea of gods and religion, but after further exposure I decided it was only the retailers of religion he detested. That suggested sharp incidents in his past.