Chronicles of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  “Really?” For a moment old grey bear was interested. One-Eye hadn’t bested Goblin in years.

  Goblin’s frog mouth opened in a startled, angry howl. He slapped his bottom with both hands, dancing. “You little snake!” he screamed. “I’ll strangle you! I’ll cut your heart out and eat it! I’ll. … I’ll. …”

  Amazing. Utterly amazing. Goblin never gets mad. He gets even. Then One-Eye will put his twisted mind to work again. If Goblin is even, One-Eye figures he’s behind.

  “Settle that down before it gets out of hand,” the Captain said.

  Elmo and I got between the antagonists. This thing was disturbing. Goblin’s threats were serious. One-Eye had caught him in a bad temper, the first I’d ever seen. “Ease up,” I told One-Eye.

  He stopped. He, too, smelled trouble.

  Several men growled. Some heavy bets were down. Usually, nobody will put a copper on One-Eye. Goblin coming out on top is a sure thing, but this time he looked feeble.

  Goblin did not want to quit. Did not want to play the usual rules, either. He snatched a fallen sword and headed for One-Eye.

  I couldn’t help grinning. That sword was huge and broken, and Goblin was so small, yet so ferocious, that he seemed a caricature, A bloodthirsty caricature. Elmo couldn’t handle him. I signaled for help. Some quick thinker splashed water on Goblin’s back. He whirled, cussing, started a deadly spell.

  Trouble for sure. A dozen men jumped in. Somebody threw another bucket of water. That cooled Goblin’s temper. As we relieved him of the blade, he looked abashed. Defiant, but abashed.

  I led him back to the fire and settled beside him. “What’s the matter? What happened?” I glimpsed the Captain from the corner of my eye. One-Eye stood before him, drained by a heavy-duty dressing down.

  “I don’t know, Croaker.” Goblin slumped, stared into the fire. “Suddenly everything was too much. This ambush tonight. Same old thing. There’s always another province, always more Rebels. They breed like maggots in a cowpie. I’m getting older and older, and I haven’t done anything to make a better world. In fact, if you backed off to look at it, we’ve all made it worse.” He shook his head. “That isn’t right. Not what I want to say. But I don’t know how to say it any better.”

  “Must be an epidemic.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Thinking out loud.” Elmo. Myself. Goblin. A lot of the men, judging by their tenor lately. Something was wrong in the Black Company, I had suspicions, but wasn’t ready to analyze. Too depressing.

  “What we need is a challenge,” I suggested. “We haven’t stretched ourselves since Charm.” Which was a half-truth. An operation which compelled us to become totally involved in staying alive might be a prescription for symptoms, but was no remedy for causes. As a physician, I was not fond of treating symptoms alone. They could recur indefinitely. The disease itself had to be attacked.

  “What we need,” Goblin said in a voice so soft it almost vanished in the crackle of the flames, “is a cause we can believe in.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That, too.”

  From outside came the startled, outraged cries of prisoners discovering that they were to fill the graves they had dug.

  Juniper: Death Pays

  Shed grew increasingly frightened as the days passed. He had to get some money. Krage was spreading the word. He was to be made an example.

  He recognized the tactic. Krage wanted to scare him into signing the Lily over. The place wasn’t much, but it was damned sure worth more than he owed. Krage would resell it for several times his investment. Or turn it into whore cribs. And Marron Shed and his mother would be in the streets, with winter’s deadly laughter howling in their faces.

  Kill somebody, Krage had said. Rob somebody. Shed considered both. He would do anything to keep the Lily and protect his mother.

  If he could just get real customers! He got nothing but one-night chiselers and scroungers. He needed residential regulars. But he could not get those without fixing the place up. And that he couldn’t do without money,

  Asa rolled through the doorway. Pale and frightened, he scuttled to the counter. “Find a wood supply yet?” Shed asked.

  The little man shook his head, slid two gersh across the counter. “Give me a drink.”

  Shed scooped the coins into his box. One did not question money’s provenance. It had no memory. He poured a full measure. Asa reached eagerly.

  “Oh, no,” Shed said. “Tell me about it.”

  “Come on, Shed. I paid you.”

  “Sure. And I’ll deliver when you tell me why you’re so rocky.”

  “Where’s that Raven?”

  “Upstairs. Sleeping.” Raven had been out all night.

  Asa shook a little more. “Give me that, Shed.”

  “Talk.”

  “All right. Krage and Red grabbed me. They wanted to know about Raven.”

  So Shed knew how Asa had come by money. He had tried to sell Raven. “Tell me more.”

  “They just wanted to know about him.”

  “What did they want to know?”

  “If he ever goes out.”

  “Why?”

  Asa stalled. Shed pulled the mug away. “All right. They had two men watching him. They disappeared. Nobody knows anything. Krage is furious.” Shed let him have the wine. He drained it in a single gulp.

  Shed glanced toward the stair, shuddered. Maybe he had underestimated Raven, “What did Krage say about me?”

  “Sure could use another mug, Shed.”

  “I’ll give you a mug. Over the noggin.”

  “I don’t need you, Shed. I made a connection. I can sleep over to Krage’s any time I want.”

  Shed grunted, made a mask of his face. “You win.” He poured wine.

  “He’s going to put you out of business, Shed. Whatever it takes. He’s decided you’re in it with Raven.” Wicked little smile. “Only he can’t figure where you got the guts to buck him.”

  “I’m not. I don’t have anything to do with Raven, Asa, You know that.”

  Asa enjoyed his moment. “I tried to tell Krage, Shed. He didn’t want to hear it.”

  “Drink your wine and get out, Asa.”

  “Shed?” The old whine filled Asa’s voice.

  “You heard me. Out. Back to your new friends. See how long they have a use for you.”

  “Shed! …”

  “They’ll throw you back into the street, Asa. Right beside me and Mom. Git, you bloodsucker.”

  Asa downed his wine and fled, shoulders tight against his neck. He had tasted the truth of Shed’s words. His association with Krage would be fragile and brief.

  Shed tried to warn Raven. Raven ignored him. Shed polished mugs, watched Raven chatter with Darling in the utter silence of sign language, and tried to imagine some way of making a hit in the upper city. Usually he spent these early hours eying Darling and trying to imagine a way to gain access, but lately sheer terror of the street had abolished his customary randiness.

  A cry like that of a hog with a cut throat came from upstairs. “Mother!” Shed took the stairs two steps at a time.

  His mother stood in the doorway of the big bunkroom, panting. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a dead man in there.”

  Shed’s heart fluttered. He pushed into the room. An old man lay in the bottom right bunk inside the door.

  There had been only four bunkroom customers last night. Six gersh a head. The room was six feet wide and twelve long, with twenty-four platforms stacked six high. When the room was full, Shed charged two gersh to sleep leaning on a rope stretched down the middle.

  Shed touched the old-timer. His skin was cold. He had been gone for hours.

  “Who was he?” old June asked.

  “I don’t know.” Shed probed his ragged clothing. He found four gersh and an iron ring. “Damn!” He could not take that. The Custodians would be suspicious if they found nothing. “We’re jinxed. This is our fourth stiff this year.”


  “It’s the customers, son. They have one foot in the Catacombs already.”

  Shed spat. “I’d better send for the Custodians.”

  A voice said, “He’s waited this long, let him wait a little longer.”

  Shed whirled. Raven and Darling stood behind his mother. “What?”

  “He might be the answer to your problems,” Raven said. And immediately Darling began flashing signs so fast Shed could not catch one in twenty. Evidently she was telling Raven not to do something. Raven ignored her.

  Old June snapped, “Shed!” Her voice was heavy with admonition.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll handle it. Go ahead with your work.” June was blind, but when her health permitted, she dumped the slops and handled what passed for maid service—mainly dusting beds between guests to kill fleas and lice. When her health confined her to bed, Shed brought in his cousin Wally, a ne’er-do-well like Asa, but with a wife and kids. Shed used him out of pity for the wife.

  He headed downstairs. Raven followed, still arguing with Darling, Momentarily, Shed wondered if Raven was diddling her. Be a damned waste of fine womanflesh if someone wasn’t.

  How could a dead man with four gersh get him out from under Krage? Answer: He could not. Not legitimately.

  Raven settled onto his usual stool. He scattered a handful of copper. “Wine. Buy yourself a mug, too.”

  Shed collected the coins, deposited them in his box. Its contents were pitiful. He wasn’t making expenses. He was doomed. His debt to Krage could miraculously be discharged and still he’d be doomed.

  He deposited a mug before Raven, seated himself on a stool. He felt old beyond his years, and infinitely weary. “Tell me.”

  “The old man. Who was he? Who were his people?”

  Shed shrugged. “Just somebody who wanted to get out of the cold. The Buskin is full of them.”

  “So it is.”

  Shed shuddered at Raven’s tone. “Are you proposing what I think?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know. What use is a corpse? I mean, even the Custodians only stuff them in the Catacombs.”

  “Suppose there was a buyer?”

  “I’ve been supposing that.”

  “And?”

  “What would I have to do?” His voice barely carried across the table. He could imagine no more disgusting crime. Even the least of the city’s dead were honored above the living. A corpse was a holy object. The Enclosure was Juniper’s epicenter.

  “Very little. Late tonight, have the body at the back door. You could do that?”

  Shed nodded weakly.

  “Good. Finish your wine.”

  Shed downed it in a gulp. He drew another mug, polished his stoneware industriously. It was a bad dream. It would go away.

  * * *

  The corpse seemed almost weightless, but Shed had difficulty negotiating the stairs. He had drunk too much. He eased through the shadowed common, stepping with exaggerated care. The people clustered near the fireplace looked demonic in the sullen red of the last coals.

  One of the old man’s feet toppled a pot as Shed entered the kitchen. He froze. Nothing happened. His heartbeat gradually slowed. He kept reminding himself that he was doing this so his mother would not have to freeze on winter streets.

  He thumped the door with his knee. It swung inward immediately. A shadow hissed, “Hurry up,” and seized the old man’s feet, helped Shed heave it into a wagon.

  Panting, terrified, Shed croaked, “What now?”

  “Go to bed. You get your share in the morning.”

  Shed’s relieved sigh nearly became tears. “How much?” he gasped.

  “A third.”

  “Only a third?”

  “I’m taking all the risk. You’re safe already.”

  “All right. How much would it be?”

  “The market varies.” Raven turned away. Shed closed the door, leaned against it with closed eyes. What had he done?

  He built up the fire and went to bed, lay listening to his mother’s snores. Had she guessed? Maybe she wouldn’t. The Custodians often waited for night. He would tell her she had slept through everything.

  He could not sleep. Who knew about the death? If word got out, people would wonder. They would begin to suspect the unsuspectable.

  What if Raven got caught? Would the Inquisitors make him talk? Bullock could make a stone sing.

  He watched his mother all next morning. She did not speak except in monosyllables, but that was her custom.

  Raven appeared shortly after noon. “Tea and a bowl of porridge, Shed.” When he paid, he did not shove copper across the counter.

  Shed’s eye widened. Ten silver leva lay before him. Ten? For one dead old man? That was a third? And Raven had done this before? He must be rich. Shed’s palms grew moist. His mind howled after potential crimes,

  “Shed?” Raven said softly when he delivered the tea and porridge. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t think what you’re thinking. You would end up in the wagon.”

  Darling scowled at them from the kitchen doorway. For a moment Raven seemed embarrassed.

  * * *

  Shed slunk into the hostel where Krage held court. From the outside the place was as crummy as the Lily. Timidly, he looked for Count, tried to ignore Asa. Count would not torment him for fun. “Count, I need to see Krage.”

  Count opened big brown cow eyes. “Why?”

  “I brought him some money. On account.”

  Count heaved himself upright. “All right. Wait here.” He stalked off.

  Asa sidled up. “Where’d you get the money, Shed?”

  “Where do you get yours, Asa?” Asa did not answer. “It isn’t polite to ask. Mind your own business or stay away from me.”

  “Shed, I thought we were friends.”

  “I tried to be friends, Asa. I even let you have a place to sleep. And as soon as you hooked up with Krage. …”

  A shadow crossed Asa’s face. “I’m sorry, Shed. You know me. I don’t think so fast. I do dumb things.”

  Shed snorted. So Asa had come to the inevitable conclusion: Krage would dump him once he settled with Raven.

  Shed was tempted to betray Raven. The man had to have a fortune hidden. But he was afraid of a thousand things, and his guest stood at the top of the list.

  Asa said, “I found a way to get deadwood from the Enclosure.” His face brightened in pathetic appeal. “Mostly pine, but it’s wood.”

  “The Enclosure?”

  “It’s not illegal, Shed. It keeps the Enclosure cleaned up.”

  Shed scowled righteously.

  “Shed, it’s less wrong than going through somebody’s. …”

  Shed controlled his anger. He needed allies inside the enemy camp. “Firewood could be like money, Asa. No provenance.”

  Asa smiled fawningly. “Thanks, Shed.”

  Count called, “Shed.”

  Shed shook as he crossed the room. Krage’s men smirked.

  This wouldn’t work. Krage wouldn’t listen. He was going to throw his money away.

  “Count says you’ve got something to give me on account,” Krage said.

  “Uhm.” Krage’s den could have been ripped whole from a mansion high up the wall of the valley. Shed was stunned.

  “Stop gawking and get on with it. You’d better not give me a handful of copper and beg for an extension, either. Picked a warm doorway yet? Your payments are a joke, Shed.”

  “No joke, Mr. Krage. Honest. I can pay over half of it.”

  Krage’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting.” Shed laid nine silver leva before him. “Very interesting.” He fixed Shed with a penetrating stare.

  Shed stammered, “That’s over half, counting interest. I hoped maybe seeing as how that would put me ahead. …”

  “Quiet.” Shed shut up. “You think I should forget what happened?”

  “That wasn’t my fault, Mr. Krage. I didn’t tell him to
. … You don’t know what Raven is like.”

  “Shut up.” Krage stared at the coins. “Maybe something can be arranged. I know you didn’t put him up to it. You don’t have the guts.”

  Shed stared at the floor, unable to deny his cowardice.

  “Okay, Shed. You’re a regular client. Back to the regular schedule.” He eyed the money. “You’re ahead three weeks, looks like.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Krage. Really. You don’t know how much this means. …”

  “Shut up. I know exactly what it means. Get out. Start getting another payment together. This is your last reprieve.”

  “Yes, sir,” Shed retreated. Count opened the door.

  “Shed! I may want something sometime. A favor for a favor. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. Go.”

  Shed left, a sinking feeling replacing relief. Krage would make him help get Raven. He almost wept as he tramped homeward. It never got any better. He was always in a trap.

  Tally Turnaround

  Tome was typical of towns we had garrisoned recently. Small, dirty, boring. One wondered why the Lady bothered. What use were these remote provinces? Did she insist they bend the knee merely to puff her ego? There was nothing here worth having, unless it was power over the natives.

  Even they viewed their country with a certain contempt.

  The presence of the Black Company strained the resources of the area. Within a week the Captain started talking about shifting a company to Heart and billeting smaller units in the villages. Our patrols seldom encountered the Rebel, even when our wizards helped hunt. The engagement at Madle’s had all but eliminated the infestation.

  The Lady’s spies told us the few committed Rebels left had fled into Tambor, an even bleaker kingdom to the northeast. I supposed Tambor would be our next mission,

  I was scribbling away at these Annals one day, when I decided I needed an estimate of the mileage we’d covered in our progression eastward. I was appalled to learn the truth. Tome was two thousand miles east of Charm! Far beyond the bounds of the empire as it had existed six years ago. The great bloody conquests of the Taken Whisper had established a border arc just this side of the Plain of Fear. I ran down the line of city-states forming that forgotten frontier. Frost and Ade, Thud and Barns, and Rust, where the Rebel had defied the Lady successfully for years. Huge cities all, formidable, and the last such we had seen. I still shuddered, recalling the Plain of Fear.