Raker Read online

  Raker

  Glen Cook

  Glen Cook

  Raker

  I

  The wind tumbled and bumbled and howled around Meystrikt. Arctic imps giggled and blew their frigid breath through chinks in the walls of my quarters. My lamplight flickered and danced, barely surviving. When my fingers stiffened, I folded them round the flame and let them toast.

  The wind was a hard blow out of the north, gritty with powder snow. A foot had fallen during the night. More was coming. It would bring more misery with it. I pitied Elmo and his gang. They were out Rebel hunting.

  Meystrikt Fortress. Pearl of the Salient defenses. Frozen in winter. Swampy in spring. An oven in summer. White Rose prophets and Rebel mainforcers were the least of our troubles.

  The Salient is a long arrowhead of flatland pointing south, between mountain ranges. Meystrikt lies at its point. It funnels weather and enemies down onto the stronghold. Our assignment is to hold this anchor of the Lady's northern defenses. Why the Black Company? We are the best. The Rebel infection began seeping through the Salient after the fall of Forsberg. The Limper tried to stop it and failed. The Lady sent us to clean up the Limper's mess. Her only other option was to abandon another province.

  She endured too many retreats before our coming. She meant the Salient to mark their end.

  The gate watch sounded a trumpet. Elmo was coming in.

  There was no rush to greet him. The rules call for casualness, for a pretense that your guts are not churning with dread. Instead, men peeped from hidden places, wondering about brothers who had gone a-hunting. Anybody lost? Anyone bad hurt? You knew them better than kin. You'd fought side by side for years. Not all of them were friends, but they were family. The only family you had.

  In its heyday, three centuries ago, the Company was 6000 strong. The Annals glow with the glory of those years, when our predecessors served the lords of Hellon. Nowadays my pitiful pages emanate bleakness. We number a mere 189. Time and fate have not served us well.

  The gatemen hammered ice off the windlass. Shrieking its protests, the battered portcullus rose. As Company historian, I could go greet Elmo without violating the unwritten rules. Fool that I am, I went out into the wind and chill.

  A sorry lot of shadows loomed through the blowing snow. The ponies were dragging. Their riders slumped over icy manes. Animals and men hunched into themselves, trying to escape the wind's scratching talons. Clouds of breath smoked from mounts and men, and were ripped away. This, in painting form, would have made a snowman shiver.

  Of the whole Company only Raven ever saw snow before this winter. Some welcome to service with the Lady.

  The riders came closer. They looked more like refugees than brothers of the Black Company. Ice-diamonds twinkled in Elmo's mustache. Rags concealed the rest of his face. The others were so bundled I could not tell who was who. Only Silent rode resolutely tall. He peered straight ahead, disdaining that pitiless wind.

  Elmo nodded as he came through the gate. "We'd started to wonder," I said. Wonder means worry. The rules demand a show of indifference.

  "Hard traveling." Elmo does not talk much.

  "How'd it go?"

  "Black Company twenty-three, Rebel zip. No work for you, Croaker, except Jo-Jo has a little frostbite."

  "You get Raker?"

  Raker is an old, old enemy of the Lady, a luminary of the Rebel Circle of Eighteen. His dire prophecies, skilled witchcraft, and battlefield cunning cost the Lady her province of Forsberg. Then he came to the Salient and made a fool of the Limper. Another collapse appeared imminent. At winter's commencement the Lady sent us to replace that nastiest of the Taken. The move sent shock waves through the empire. A mercenary captain had been assigned forces and powers usually reserved for one of the Ten!

  Salient winter being what it was, only a shot at Raker himself made the Captain field this patrol.

  Elmo bared his face and grinned. He was not talking. He'd just have to tell it again for the Captain.

  I considered Silent. No smile on his long, dreary face. He responded with a slight jerk of his head. So. Another victory that amounted to failure. Raker had escaped again. Maybe he would send us scampering after the Limper, squeaking mice who had grown too bold and challenged the cat.

  Still, chopping twenty-three men out of the regional Rebel hierarchy counted for something. Not a bad day's work, in fact. Better than any the Limper turned in.

  Men came for the patrol's ponies. Others set out mulled wine and warm food in the main hall. I stuck with Elmo and Silent. Their tale would get told soon enough.

  After twelve years I am patient with Elmo. He is our finest platoon leader. We like each other. I rate him a close friend.

  II

  Meystrikt's main hall is only slightly less draughty than its quarters. I treated Jo-Jo. The others attacked their meals. Feast complete, Elmo, Silent, One-Eye, and Knuckles convened round a small table. Cards materialized. One-Eye scowled my way. "Going to stand there with your thumb in your butt, Croaker? We need a mark."

  One-Eye is a wizened little black man with a volcanic temper and mouth to watch. He is at least a hundred years old. The Annals mention him throughout the past century. There is no telling when he joined. Seventy years' worth of Annals were lost when the Company's positions were overrun at the Battle of Urban. One-Eye refuses to illuminate the missing years. He says he doesn't believe in history.

  Elmo dealt. Five cards to each player and a hand to an empty chair. "Croaker!" One-Eye snapped. "You going to squat?"

  "Nope. Sooner or later Elmo is going to talk." I tapped my pen against my teeth.

  One-Eye was in rare form. Smoke poured out of his ears. A screaming bat popped out of his mouth. He likes his tricks.

  "He seems annoyed," I observed. The others grinned. Baiting One-Eye is a favorite pastime.

  One-Eye hates field work. And hates missing out even more. Elmo's grins and Silent's benevolent glances convinced him he'd missed something good.

  Elmo redistributed his cards, peered at them from inches away. Silent's eyes glittered. No doubt about it. They had a special surprise.

  Raven took the seat they'd offered me. No one objected. Even One-Eye seldom objects to anything Raven decides to do.

  Raven. Colder than our weather. A dead soul, maybe. He can make a man shudder with a glance. Even the Taken, except the Limper, do not effect me that way. Soulcatcher is warmer.

  The aura of the man cannot be conveyed. He exudes a stench of the grave. Yours, if you cross him.

  He never smiles. Says maybe one word a month more than Silent. Mysterious and spooky. And yet.... And yet there's Darling, his shadow, nine or ten, whom he salvaged from the ruins of a village the Limper burned. Darling loves him. Frail, pale, ethereal, she kept one little hand on his shoulder while he ordered his cards. She smiled for him.

  Raven is an asset in any game including One-Eye. One-Eye cheats. But never when Raven is playing.

  Nobody messes with Raven.

  "She stands in the Tower, gazing northward. Her delicate hands are clasped before Her. A breeze steals softly through Her window. It stirs the midnight silk of Her hair. Tear diamonds sparkle on the gentle curve of Her cheek."

  "Hoo-wee!"

  "Oh, wow!"

  "Author! Author!"

  "May a sow litter in your bedroll, Willie." Those characters got a howl out of my fantasies about the Lady.

  The sketches are a game I play with myself. Hell, for all they know, my inventions might be on the mark. Only the Ten Who Were Taken ever see the Lady. Who knows if She is beautiful, ugly, or what?

  "Tear diamonds sparkling, eh?" One-Eye said. "I like that. Figure she's pining for you, Croaker?"

  "Knock it off. I don't make fun of your games."

  The Lieutenant entered,
seated himself, regarded us with a black scowl. His mission in life is to disapprove.

  His advent meant the Captain was on his way. Elmo folded his hand, composed himself.

  The place fell silent. Men appeared as if by magic. "Bar the damned door!" One-Eye muttered. "They keep stumbling in like this, I'll freeze my ass off. Play the hand out, Elmo."

  The Captain came in. He is short, dark, has hard eyes, and radiates the self-confidence of a man accustomed to instant obedience. He took his usual seat. "Let's hear it, Sergeant." Nobody else calls Elmo "Sergeant."

  The Captain is not one of our more colorful characters. Too quiet. Too serious. Too seldom seen. Nevertheless, he is a competent tactician and brilliant manager of men. He compares commanding the Company to running a zoo. He is the only one of us Raven takes seriously.

  Elmo laid his cards down, tapped their edges into alignment, ordered his thoughts. He is obsessed with brevity and precision.

  "Sergeant?"

  "Silent spotted a picket line south of the farm, Captain. We circled north. Attacked after sunset. They tried to scatter. Silent distracted Raker while we handled the others. Thirty men. We got twenty-three. We yelled a lot about not letting our spy get hurt. We missed Raker."

  Sneaky makes this outfit work. We want the Rebel to believe his ranks are shot with informers. That hamstrings his communications and decision-making, and makes life less chancy for Silent, One-Eye, and Goblin, our clutch of second-rate wizards.

  The planted rumor. The small frame. The touch of bribery or blackmail. Those are our preferred weapons. We opt battle only when we have our opponents mouse-trapped.

  "You returned directly to the fortress?"

  "Yes, sir. After burning the farmhouse and outbuildings. Raker concealed his trail well."

  The Captain considered the smoke-darkened beams overhead. Only One-Eye's snapping of his cards broke the silence. The Captain dropped his gaze. "Then, pray, why are you and Silent grinning like a pair of prize fools?"

  One-Eye muttered, "Proud they came home empty-handed."

  Elmo grinned. "But we didn't."

  Silent dug inside his filthy shirt, produced the small leather bag that always hangs on a thong around his neck. His trick bag. It is filled with noxious oddments like putrefied bat's ears or elixir of nightmare. This time he produced a folded piece of paper. He cast dramatic glances at One-Eye and Goblin, opened the packet fold by fold. Even the Captain left his seat, crowded the table.

  "Behold!" said Elmo.

  * * *

  III

  Tain't nothing but hair." Heads shook. Throats grumbled. Somebody questioned Elmo's grasp on reality. But One-Eye and Goblin had three big coweyes between them. One-Eye chirruped inarticulately. Goblin squeaked a few times, but, then, Goblin always squeaks. "It's really his?" he managed at last. "Really his?"

  Elmo and Silent radiated the smugness of eminently successful conquistadors. "Absodamnlutely," Elmo said. "Right off the top of his bean. We had that old man by the balls and he knew it. He was heeling and toeing it out of there so fast he smacked his noggin on a doorframe. Saw it myself, and so did Silent. Left these on the beam. Whoo, that gaffer can step."

  And Goblin, an octave above his usual rusty-hinge squeal, dancing in his excitement, said, "Gents, we've got him. He's as good as hanging on a meathook right now. The big one." He meowed at One-Eye. "What do you think of that, you sorry little spook?"

  A herd of minuscule lightning bugs poured out of One-Eye's nostrils. Good soldiers all, they fell into formation, spelling out the words Goblin is a Poof. Their little wings hummed the words for the benefit of the illiterate.

  There is no truth to that canard. Goblin is thoroughly heterosexual. One-Eye is a provocateur. In Goblin he has met his match, and for years they have pursued a hapless duel.

  Goblin made a gesture. A great shadow-figure, like Soulcatcher but tall enough to brush the ceiling beams, bent and skewered One-Eye with an accusing finger. A sourceless voice whispered, "It was you that corrupted the lad, sodder."

  One-Eye snorted, shook his head, shook his head and snorted. His eye glazed. Goblin giggled, stifled himself, giggled again. He spun away, danced a wild victory jig in front of the fireplace.

  Our less intuitive brethren grumbled. A couple hairs. Big deal. With those and two bits silver you could get rolled by the village whores.

  "Gentlemen!" The Captain understood.

  The shadow-show ceased. The Captain considered his wizards. He thought. He paced. He nodded to himself. Finally, he asked, "One-Eye. Are they enough?"

  One-Eye chuckled, an astonishingly deep sound for so small a man. "One hair, sir, or one nail paring, is enough. Sir, we have him."

  Goblin continued his weird dance. Silent kept grinning. Raving lunatics, the lot of them.

  The Captain thought some more. "We can't handle this ourselves." He circled the hall, his pace portentous. "We have to bring in one of the Taken."

  Our most precious secret is the fact that we possess three sorcerers. They aren't great, but they make us effective where the odds look improbably long. The enemy can't find out. He would squander his resources, squash us like bugs.

  One of the Taken. Cold stole in and froze us into statues. One of the Lady's shadow disciples.... one of those dark lords here? No....

  "Not the Limper. He's got a hard-on for us."

  "Shifter gives me the creeps." "Nightcrawler is worse." One-Eye said, "We can handle it, Captain."

  "And Raker's cousins would be on you like flies on a horseapple. No."

  "Soulcatcher," the Lieutenant suggested. "He is our patron, more or less."

  The suggestion carried. Soulcatcher is a known quantity. He recruited us into the Lady's service. We don his death's-head badges when it serves the Captain's purpose.

  The Captain said, "Contact him, One-Eye. Be ready to move when he gets here."

  One-Eye nodded, grinned. He was in love. Already tricky, nasty plots were afoot in his twisted mind.

  It should have been Silent's game, really. The Captain gave it to One-Eye because he cannot come to grips with Silent's refusal to talk. That scares him for some reason.

  Silent did not protest.

  Some of our native servants are spies. We know who they are, thanks to One-Eye and Goblin. One, who knew nothing about the hair, was allowed to flee with news that we were setting up an espionage headquarters in the free city Roses.

  When you have the smaller battalions you learn guile.

  IV

  The Ten Who Were Taken. Four centuries ago a sorcerer consummate and cruel established suzerainty over an empire unrivaled before or since. He is remembered only as The Dominator, his era as The Domination, and his empire as either The Dominion or The Domination. His chief ally was his lover, the woman known then and now as the Lady, or Dark Lady. Their true names they obscured with admirable cunning and caution.

  Their slaves-worshippers-captains, the Ten, were drawn from among the greatest of their vanquished and seduced opponents. They, too, obscured their true names during the long-ago wars of liberation. They became Nightcrawler, Stormbringer, the Howler, and so on. In the end, the Dominator was surrounded in the northern forests and overwhelmed. He and his champions were buried alive in a barrow complex subsequently guarded by every spell of confinement known.

  Before he fell, the Dominator prophesied his own resurrection.

  Centuries slid away. Some tinkering fool cracked the spells. That which had slept awakened. Graves opened. The Taken arose. The Lady rose with them - but the Dominator did not. She had tricked him at their fall, and placed herself supreme.

  So. A new empire came into being. In time, Soulcatcher enlisted the Black Company to fight the Lady's battles.

  Every ruler makes enemies. The Lady is no exception. Her greatest are the Sons of the White Rose, or White Prophets, who claim spiritual and philosophical descent from the White Rose, the she-general who brought the Dominion down. We call them Rebels. Their high command is the Circle o
f Eighteen. They are powerful wizards who steal into the empire masterminding rebellion. The empire is fraying round its edges. The Lady's armies have been losing battles even when commanded by the Taken. The future looks grim. The Rebel grows stronger daily.

  If one chooses sides on emotion, then the Rebel is the guy to go with. He is fighting for everything men claim to honor: freedom, independence, truth, the right.... All the subjective illusions, all the eternal trigger-words. We are minions of the villains of the piece. We confess the illusion and deny the substance.

  There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies.

  We abjure labels. We are the Black Company. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities are irrelevant.

  Soulcatcher hired us on open-end contract. We will serve the Lady till She falls.

  V

  One-Eye contacted Soulcatcher. He said he'd come. Goblin said the old spook howled with glee. He smelled a chance to raise his stock and scuttle that of the Limper. The Ten squabble and backbite worse than spoiled children.

  Winter relaxed its siege briefly. The men and native staff began clearing Meystrikt's courtyards. One of the natives disappeared. In the main hall, One-Eye and Silent looked smug over their cards. The Rebel was being told what they wanted him to hear.

  "What's happening on the wall?" I asked. Elmo had rigged block and tackle and was working a crenel stone loose. "What're you going to do with that block?"

  "A little sculpture. Croaker. I've taken up a new hobby."

  "So don't tell me. See if I care."

  "Take that attitude if you want. I was going to ask if you could go after Raker with us. So you could put it in the Annals right."

  "With a word about One-Eye's genius?"

  "Credit where credit is due, Croaker."