Chronicles of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  The carpet was down to thirty feet, swelling rapidly, sending an audible murmur ahead. It must have been traveling a hundred fifty miles an hour.

  Then it was on us, ripping through the rigging, brushing a mast, and spinning on to impact on the sound half a mile away. A gout of spray arose. The carpet skipped like a flat stone, hit again, bounced again, and smashed into the face of a cliff. The spell energies ruling the carpet degenerated in a violet flash.

  And not a word was spoken by any member of the Company. For as that carpet had torn through the rigging, we had glimpsed the face of its rider.

  The Captain.

  Who knows what he was doing? Trying to join us? Probably. I suspect he went to the wall planning to disable the carpet so it could not be used to pursue us. Maybe he planned to throw himself off the wall afterward, to avoid being questioned later. And maybe he had seen the carpet in action often enough to have been tempted by the idea of using it himself.

  No matter. He had succeeded. The carpet would not be used to chase us. He would not be exposed to the Eye.

  But he had failed his personal goal. He had died in the north.

  His flight and death distracted us while the ship moved down the channel till both Juniper and the north ridge dropped behind the headland. The fire over the black castle continued, its terrible flames extinguishing the stars, but it shrank slowly. Oncoming dawn lessened its brilliance. And when one great shriek rolled across the world, announcing someone’s defeat, we were unable to determine who had won.

  For us the answer did not matter. We would be hunted by either the Lady or her long-buried spouse.

  We reached the sea and turned south, with sailors still cursing as they replaced lines torn by the Captain’s passage. We of the Company remained very silent, scattered about the deck, alone with our thoughts. And only then did I begin to worry for comrades left behind.

  We held a long service two days out. We mourned everyone left behind, but the Captain especially. Every survivor took a moment to eulogize him. He had been head of the family, patriarch, father to us all.

  Meadenvil: Pathfinding

  Fair weather and good winds carried us to Meadenvil in good time. The ship’s master was pleased. He had been well-paid beforehand for his trouble, but was eager to shed a manifest of such vile temper. We had not been the best of passengers. One-Eye was terrified of the sea, a grand victim of seasickness, and insisted everyone else be as scared and sick as he. He and Goblin never let up on one another, though the Lieutenant threatened to throw the pair of them to the sharks. The Lieutenant was in such a foul temper himself that they took him half seriously.

  In accordance with the Captain’s wishes, we elected the Lieutenant our commander and Candy to become second. That position should have fallen to Elmo.… We did not call the Lieutenant Captain. That seemed silly with the outfit so diminished. There weren’t enough of us left to make a good street gang.

  Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. Four centuries of brotherhood and tradition reduced to this. A band on the run. It did not make sense. Did not seem right. The great deeds of our forebrethren deserved better of their successors.

  The treasure chest was lost, but the Annals themselves had, somehow, found their way aboard. I expect Silent brought them. For him they were almost as important as for me. The night before we entered Meadenvil harbor, I read to the troops, from the Book of Woeg, which chronicled the Company’s history after its defeat and near destruction in the fighting along the Bake, in Norssele. Only a hundred four men survived that time, and the Company had come back.

  They were not ready for it. The pain was too fresh. I gave it up halfway through.

  Fresh, Meadenvil was refreshing. A real city, not a colorless berg like Juniper. We left the ship with little but our arms and what wealth we’d carried in Juniper. People watched us fearfully, and there was no little trepidation on our part, too, for we were not strong enough to make a show if the local Prince took exception to our presence. The three wizards were our greatest asset. The Lieutenant and Candy had hopes of using them to pull something that would provide the wherewithal to move on, aboard another ship, with further hopes of returning to lands we knew on the southern shore of the Sea of Torments. To do that, though, meant an eventual overland journey at least partly through lands belonging to the Lady. I thought we would be wiser to move down the coast, confuse our trail, and hook on with someone out here, at least till the Lady’s armies closed in. As they would someday.

  The Lady. I kept thinking of the Lady. It was all too likely that her armies now owed allegiance to the Dominator.

  We located both Pawnbroker and Kingpin within hours of going ashore. Pawnbroker had arrived only two days before us, having faced unfavorable seas and winds during his journey. The Lieutenant started on Kingpin immediately.

  “Where the hell you been, boy?” It was a sure thing Kingpin had turned his assignment into an extended vacation. He was that sort. “You were supposed to come back when.…”

  “Couldn’t, sir. We’re witnesses in a murder case. Can’t leave town till after the trial.”

  “Murder case?”

  “Sure. Raven’s dead. Pawn says you know that. Well, we fixed it so that Bullock guy took the rap. Only we’ve got to hang around and get him hanged.”

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “In jail.”

  The Lieutenant reamed him good, cussing and fussing while passersby nervously eyed the hard guys abusing each other in a variety of mystery tongues.

  I suggested, “We ought to get off the street. Keep a low profile. We got trouble enough without attracting attention. Lieutenant, if you don’t mind, I’d like a chat with Kingpin. Maybe these other guys can show you places to hole up. King, come with me. You, too.” I indicated Silent, Goblin and One-Eye.

  “Where we going?” Kingpin asked.

  “You pick it. Someplace where we can talk. Serious like.”

  “Right.” He led the way, setting a brisk pace, wanting to put distance between himself and the Lieutenant. “That really true? What happened up there? The Captain dead and everything?”

  “Too damned true.”

  He shook his head, awed by the idea of the Company having been destroyed. Finally, he asked, “What do you want to know, Croaker?”

  “Just everything you found out since you been here. Especially about Raven. But also about that guy Asa. And the tavern-keeper.”

  “Shed? I saw him the other day. At least I think I did. Didn’t realize it was him till later. He was dressed different. Yeah. Pawn told me he got away. The Asa guy, too. Him I think I know where to find. The Shed guy, though.… Well, if you really want him, you’ll have to start looking where I thought I saw him.”

  “He see you?”

  That idea caught Kingpin by surprise. Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to him to wonder. He isn’t the brightest fellow sometimes. “I don’t think so.”

  We went into a tavern favored by foreign sailors. The customers were a polyglot lot and as ragged as we were. They spoke a dozen languages. We settled in at a table, used the language of the Jewel Cities. Kingpin did not speak it well, but understood it. I doubted that anyone else there could follow our discussion.

  “Raven,” I said. “That’s what I want to know about, Kingpin.”

  He told us a story which matched Asa’s closely, the edges being about as uneven as you would expect from someone who hadn’t been an eyewitness.

  “You still think he faked it?” One-Eye asked.

  “Yeah. It’s half hunch, but I think he did. Maybe when we go look the place over, I’ll change my mind. There a way you guys could tell if he’s in town?”

  They put their heads together, returned a negative opinion. “Not without we had something that belonged to him to start with,” Goblin opined. “We don’t got that.”

  “Kingpin. What about Darling? What about Raven’s ship?”

  “Huh?”

  “What happened to Darling after Rave
n supposedly died? What happened to his ship?”

  “I don’t know about Darling. The ship is tied up down at its dock.”

  We exchanged glances around the table. I said, “That ship gets visited if we have to fight our way aboard. Those papers I told you about. Asa couldn’t account for them. I want them to turn up. They’re the only thing we got that can get the Lady off our back.”

  “If there is a Lady,” One-Eye said. “Won’t be much pumpkin if the Dominator broke through.”

  “Don’t even think that.” For no sound reason I had convinced myself that the Lady had won. Mostly, it was wishful thinking, I’m sure. “Kingpin, we’re going to visit that ship tonight. What about Darling?”

  “Like I said. I don’t know.”

  “You were supposed to look out for her.”

  “Yeah. But she kind of vanished.”

  “Vanished? How?”

  “Not how, Croaker,” One-Eye said, in response to vigorous signing from Silent. “How is irrelevant now. When.”

  “All right. When, Kingpin?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody’s seen her since the night before Raven died.”

  “Bingo,” Goblin said in a soft, awed voice. “Damn your eyes, Croaker, your instincts were right.”

  “What?” Kingpin asked.

  “There’s no way she would have disappeared beforehand unless she knew something was going to happen.”

  “Kingpin,” I said, “did you go look at the place they were staying? Inside, I mean.”

  “Yeah. Somebody got there before me.”

  “What?”

  “The place was cleaned out. I asked the innkeeper. He said they didn’t move out. They was paid up for another month. That sounded to me like somebody knew about Raven getting croaked and decided to clean his place out. I figured it was that Asa. He disappeared right after.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “What? I figured you guys didn’t want Bullock back in Juniper, so we got him charged with Raven’s murder. There was plenty of witnesses besides us saw them fighting. Enough to maybe convince a court we really saw what we said.”

  “You do anything to trace Darling?”

  Kingpin had nothing to say. He stared at his hands. The rest of us exchanged irritated glances. Goblin muttered, “I told Elmo it was dumb to send him.”

  I guess it was. In minutes we had come up with several loose ends overlooked by Kingpin.

  “How come you’re so damned worried about it, anyway, Croaker?” Kingpin demanded. “I mean, it all looks like a big so-what to me.”

  “Look, King. Like it or not, when the Taken turned on us, we got pushed over to the other side. We’re White Rose now. Whether we want it or not. They’re going to come after us. The only thing the Rebel has going is the White Rose. Right?”

  “If there is a White Rose.”

  “There is. Darling is the White Rose.”

  “Come on. Croaker. She’s a deaf-mute.”

  One-Eye observed, “She’s also a magical null-point.”

  “Eh?”

  “Magic won’t work around her. We noticed that clean back at Charm. And if she follows true for her sort, the null will get stronger as she gets older.”

  I recalled noting oddities about Darling during the battle of Charm, but hadn’t made anything of it then. “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you. Some people are negatives. Instead of having a talent for sorcery, they go the other way. It won’t work around them. And when you think about it, that’s the only way the White Rose makes sense. How could a deaf and dumb kid grow up to challenge the Lady or Dominator on their own ground? I’ll bet the original White Rose didn’t.”

  I didn’t know. There had been nothing in the histories about her powers or their noteworthy absence. “This makes it more important to find her.”

  One-Eye nodded.

  Kingpin looked baffled. It was easy to fuddle King, I decided. I explained. “If magic won’t work around her, we’ve got to find her and stay close. Then the Taken won’t be able to hurt us.”

  One-Eye said, “Don’t forget that they have whole armies they can send after us.”

  “If they want us that bad Oh my.”

  “What?”

  “Elmo. If he didn’t get killed. He knows enough to put the whole empire on our trail. Maybe not so much for us as in hopes we’ll lead them to Darling.”

  “What’re we going to do?”

  “Why’re you looking at me?”

  “You’re the one seems to know what’s going on, Croaker.”

  “Okay. I guess. First we find out about Raven and Darling. Especially Darling. And we ought to catch Shed and Asa again, in case they know something useful. We got to move fast and get out of town before the empire closes in. Without upsetting the locals. We better have a sit-down with the Lieutenant. Get everything on the table for everybody, then decide exactly what we’ll do.”

  Meadenvil: The Ship

  Ours, apparently, was the last ship out of Juniper. We kept waiting for a later vessel to bring news. None came. The crew of our vessel did us no favor, either. They yammered all over town. We were buried by nosy locals, people concerned about relatives in Juniper, and the city government, concerned that a group of tough refugees might cause trouble. Candy and the Lieutenant dealt with all that. The struggle for survival devolved on the rest of us.

  The three wizards, Otto, Kingpin and Pawnbroker, and I stole through the shadowed Meadenvii waterfront district after midnight. There were strong police patrols to dodge. We evaded them with help from One-Eye, Goblin and Silent. Goblin was especially useful. He possessed a spell capable of putting men to sleep.

  “There she is,” Kingpin whispered, indicating Raven’s ship. Earlier I’d tried to find out how her docking fees were being paid. I’d had no luck.

  She was a fine, big ship with a look of newness the darkness could not conceal. Only the normal lights burned aboard her; bow, stern masthead, port and starboard, and one at the head of the gangway, where a single bored sailor stood watch.

  “One-Eye?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t tell.”

  I polled the others. Neither Silent nor Goblin detected anything remarkable, either.

  “Okay, Goblin. Do your stuff. That’ll be the acid test, won’t it?”

  He nodded. If Darling was aboard, his spell would not affect the watch.

  Now that everyone had accepted my suspicions about Raven being alive, I’d begun to question them. I could see no sense in his not having slipped away by now, taking his very expensive ship somewhere far away. Perhaps out to the islands.

  Those islands intrigued me. I thought we might grab a ship and head out there. Had to take someone who knew the way, though. The islands were a long way out and there was no regular commerce. No way to get there by guesswork.

  “Okay,” Goblin said. “He’s out.”

  The sailor on the quarterdeck had slumped onto a handy stool. He had his arms folded on the rail and his forehead on his arms.

  “No Darling,” I said.

  “No Darling.”

  “Anybody else around?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s go, then. Keep low, move fast, all that.”

  We crossed the pier and scampered up the gangway. The sailor stirred. Goblin touched him and he went out like the dead. Goblin hustled forward, then aft, to the men on the rat guards. He returned nodding, “Another eight men below, all asleep. I’ll put them under. You go ahead.”

  We started with the biggest cabin, assuming it would be the owner’s. It was. It sat in the stern, where the master’s cabin usually is, and was split into sections. I found things in one indicating that it had been occupied by Darling. On Raven’s side we found soiled clothing discarded some time ago. There was enough dust to indicate that no one had visited the cabin for weeks.

  We did not find the papers I sought.

  We did find money. Quite a substantial amount. It was cunningly hidden,
but One-Eye’s sense for those things is infallible. Out came a chest brimming with silver.

  “I don’t reckon Raven is going to need that if he’s dead,” One-Eye said. “And if he ain’t—well, tough. His old buddies are in need.”

  The coins were odd. After studying them, I recognized what that oddness was. They were the same as the coins Shed had received at the black castle. “Sniff these things,” I told One-Eye. “They’re black castle. See if there’s anything wrong with them.”

  “Nope. Good as gold.” He chuckled.

  “Uhm.” I hadn’t any scruples about lifting the money. Raven had obtained it by foul means. That put it up for grabs. It had no provenance, as they say in Juniper. “Gather round here. I got an idea.” I backed up to the stern lights, where I could watch the dock through the glass window.

  They crowded in on me and the chest. “What?” Goblin demanded.

  “Why settle for the money? Why not take the whole damned ship? If Raven’s dead, or even faking he’s dead, what’s he going to say about it? We could make it our headquarters.”

  Goblin liked the idea. So One-Eye didn’t. The more so because ships had to do with water. “What about the crew?” he asked. “What about the harbormaster and his people? They’d get the law down on us.”

  “Maybe. But I think we can handle it. We move in and lock the crew up, there’s nobody to complain. Nobody complains, why should the harbormaster be interested?”

  “The whole crew ain’t aboard. Some’s out on the town.”

  “We grab them when they come back. Hell, man, what better way to be ready to move out in a hurry? And what better place to wait for Raven to turn up?”

  One-Eye gave up objecting. He is essentially lazy. Too, there was a gleam in his eye which said he was thinking ahead of me. “Better talk to the Lieutenant,” he said. “He knows ships.”

  Goblin knew One-Eye well. “Don’t look at me if you’re thinking about going pirate. I’ve had all the adventure I want. I want to go home.”

  They got into it, and got loud about it, and had to be shut up.