Chronicles of the Black Company Page 7

  The Captain turned to Raven. “You mother-lorn fool. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Wearily, Raven replied, “Probably better than you do, Captain. But I’d do it again.”

  “And you wonder why we dragged our feet taking you on?” He shifted subject. “What are you going to do with these people, noble rescuer?”

  That question had not occurred to Raven. Whatever the upheaval in his life, it had left him living entirely in the present. He was compelled by the past and oblivious to the future. “They’re my responsibility, aren’t they?”

  The Captain gave up trying to catch the Limper. Operating independently now seemed the lesser evil.

  The repercussions began four days later.

  We had just fought our first significant battle, having crushed a Rebel force twice our size. It had not been difficult. They were green, and our wizards helped. Not many escaped.

  The battlefield was ours. The men were looting the dead. Elmo, myself, the Captain, and a few others were standing around feeling smug. One-Eye and Goblin were celebrating in their unique fashion, taunting one another through the mouths of corpses.

  Goblin suddenly stiffened. His eyes rolled up. A whine slipped past his lips, rose in pitch. He crumpled.

  One-Eye reached him a step ahead of me, began slapping his cheeks. His habitual hostility had vanished.

  “Give me some room!” I growled.

  Goblin wakened before I could do more than check his pulse. “Soulcatcher,” he murmured. “Making contact.”

  At that moment I was glad I did not own Goblin’s talents. Having one of the Taken inside my mind seemed a worse violation than rape. “Captain,” I called. “Soulcatcher.” I stayed close.

  The Captain ran over. He never runs unless we are in action. “What is it?”

  Goblin sighed. His eyes opened. “He’s gone now.” His skin and hair were soaked with sweat. He was pale. He started shaking.

  “Gone?” the Captain demanded. “What the hell?”

  We helped Goblin get comfortable. “The Limper went to the Lady instead of coming at us head on. There’s bad blood between him and Soulcatcher. He thinks we came out here to undermine him. He tried to turn the tables. But Soulcatcher is in high favor since Beryl, and the Limper isn’t because of his failures. The Lady told him to leave us alone. Soulcatcher didn’t get the Limper replaced, but he figures he won the round.”

  Goblin paused. One-Eye handed him a long drink. He drained it in an instant. “He says stay out of the Limper’s way. He might try to discredit us somehow, or even steer the Rebel toward us. He says we should recapture the fortress at Deal. That would embarrass the Rebel and the Limper both.”

  Elmo muttered, “He wants flashy, why don’t he have us round up the Circle of Eighteen?” The Circle is the Rebel High Command, eighteen wizards who think that between them they have what it takes to challenge the Lady and the Taken. Raker, the Limper’s nemesis in Forsberg, belonged to the Circle.

  The Captain looked thoughtful. He asked Raven, “You get the feeling there’s politics involved?”

  “The Company is Soulcatcher’s tool. That’s common knowledge. The puzzle is what he plans to do with it.”

  “I got that feeling in Opal.”

  Politics. The Lady’s empire purports to be monolithic. The Ten Who Were Taken expend terrible energies keeping it that way. And spend as much more squabbling among themselves like toddlers fighting over toys, or competing for Mother’s affection.

  “Is that it?” the Captain grumbled.

  “That’s it. He says he’ll keep in touch.”

  So we went and did it. We captured the fortress at Deal, in the dead of night, within howling distance of Oar. They say both Raker and the Limper flew into insane rages. I figure Soulcateher ate that up.

  One-Eye flipped a card into the discard pile. He muttered, “Somebody’s sandbagging.”

  Gobhn snapped the card up, spread four knaves and discarded a queen. He grinned. You knew he was going down next time, holding nothing heavier than a deuce. One-Eye smacked the tabletop, hissed. He hadn’t won a hand since sitting down.

  “Go low, guys,” Elmo warned, ignoring Goblin’s discard. He drew, scrunched his cards around just inches from his face, spread three fours and discarded a deuce. He tapped his remaining pair, grinned at Goblin, said, “That better be an ace, Chubby.”

  Pickles snagged Elmo’s deuce, spread four of a kind, discarded a trey. He plied Goblin with an owl-like stare that dared him to go down. It said an ace would not keep him from getting burned.

  I wished Raven were there. His presence made One-Eye too nervous to cheat. But Raven was on turnip patrol, which is what we called the weekly mission to Oar to purchase supplies. Pickles had his chair.

  Pickles is Company quartermaster. He usually went on turnip patrol. He begged off this one because of stomach troubles.

  “Looks like everybody was sandbagging,” I said, and glared at a hopeless hand. Pair of sevens, pair of eights, and a nine to go with one of the eights, but no run. Almost everything I could use was in the discard pile. I drew. Sumbitch. Another nine, and it gave me a run. I spread it, dumped the off seven, and prayed. Prayer was all that could help.

  One-Eye ignored my seven. He drew. “Damn!” He dumped a six on the bottom of my straight and discarded a six. “The moment of truth, Porkchop,” he told Goblin. “You going to try Pickles?” And, “These Forsbergers are crazy. I’ve never seen anything like them.”

  We had been in the fortress a month. It was a little big for us, but I liked it. “I could get to like them,” I said. “If they could just learn to like me.” We had beaten off four counterattacks already. “Shit or get off the pot, Goblin. You know you got me and Elmo licked.”

  Pickles ticked the corner of his card with his thumbnail, stared at Goblin. He said, “They’ve got a whole Rebel mythos up here. Prophets and false prophets. Prophetic dreams. Sendings from the gods. Even a prophecy that a child somewhere around here is a reincarnation of the White Rose.”

  “If the kid’s already here, how come he’s not pounding on us?” Elmo asked.

  “They haven’t found him yet. Or her. They have a whole tribe of people out looking.”

  Goblin chickened. He drew, sputtered, discarded a king. Elmo drew and discarded another king. Pickles looked at Goblin. He smiled a small smile, took a card, did not bother looking at it. He tossed a five onto the six One-Eye had dumped on my run and flipped his draw into the discard pile.

  “A five?” Goblin squeaked. “You were holding a five? I don’t believe it. He had a five.” He slapped his ace onto the tabletop. “He had a damned five.”

  “Temper, temper,” Elmo admonished. “You’re the guy who’s always telling One-Eye to simmer down, remember?”

  “He bluffed me with a damned five?”

  Pickles wore that little smile as he stacked his winnings. He was pleased with himself. He had pulled a good bluff. I would have bet he was holding an ace myself.

  One-Eye shoved the cards to Goblin. “Deal.”

  “Oh, come on. He was holding a five, and I got to deal too?”

  “It’s your turn. Shut up and shuffle.”

  I asked Pickles, “Where’d you hear that reincarnation stuff?”

  “Flick.” Flick was the old man Raven had saved. Pickles had overcome the old man’s defenses. They were getting thick.

  The girl went by the name Darling. She had taken a big shine to Raven. She followed him around, and drove the rest of us crazy sometimes. I was glad Raven had gone to town. We would not see much of Darling till he got back.

  Goblin dealt. I checked my cards. The proverbial hand so bad it could not make a foot. Damned near one of Elmo’s fabled Pismo straights, or no two cards of the same suit.

  Goblin looked his over. His eyes got big. He slapped them down face upward. “Tonk! Goddammed tonk. Fifty!” He had dealt himself five royal cards, an automatic win demanding a double payoff.

  “The only way
he can win is deal them to himself,” One-Eye grumped.

  Goblin chortled, “You ain’t winning even when you deal, Maggot Lips.”

  Elmo started shuffling.

  The next hand went the distance. Pickles fed us snippets of the reincarnation story between plays.

  Darling wandered by, her round, freckled face blank, her eyes empty. I tried imagining her in the White Rose role. I could not. She did not fit.

  Pickles dealt. Elmo tried to go down with eighteen. One-Eye burned him. He held seventeen after his draw. I raked the cards in, started shuffling.

  “Come on, Croaker,” One-Eye taunted. “Let’s don’t fool around. I’m on a streak. One in a row. Deal me them aces and deuces.” Fifteen and under is an automatic win, same as forty-nine and fifty.

  “Oh. Sorry. I caught myself taking this Rebel superstition seriously”

  Pickles observed, “It’s a persuasive sort of nonsense. It hangs together in a certain elegant illusion of hope.” I frowned his way. His smile was almost shy, “It’s hard to lose when you know fate is on your side. The Rebel knows. Anyway, that’s what Raven says.” Our grand old man was getting close to Raven.

  “Then we’ll have to change their thinking.”

  “Can’t. Whip them a hundred times and they’ll keep on coming. And because of that they’ll fulfill their own prophecy.”

  Elmo grunted, “Then we have to do more than whip them. We have to humiliate them.” We meant everybody on the Lady’s side.

  I flipped an eight into another of the countless discard piles which have become the milemarks of my life. “This is getting old.” I was restless. I felt an undirected urge to be doing something. Anything.

  Elmo shrugged. “Playing passes the time.”

  “This is the life, all right,” Goblin said. “Sit around and wait. How much of that have we done over the years?”

  “I haven’t kept track,” I grumbled. “More of that than anything else.”

  “Hark!” Elmo said. “I hear a little voice. It says my flock are bored. Pickles. Break out the archery butts and.…” His suggestion died under an avalanche of groans.

  Rigorous physical training is Elmo’s prescription for ennui. A dash through his diabolical obstacle course kills or cures.

  Pickles extended his protest beyond the obligatory groan. “I’m gonna have wagons to unload, Elmo. Those guys should be back any time. You want these clowns to exercise, give them to me.”

  Elmo and I exchanged glances. Goblin and One-Eye looked alert. Not back yet? They should have been in before noon. I figured they were sleeping it off. Turnip patrol always came back wasted.

  “I figured they were in,” Elmo said.

  Goblin flipped his hand at the discard pile. His cards danced for a moment, suspended by his trickery. He wanted us to know he was letting us off. “I better check this out.”

  One-Eye’s cards slithered across the table, humping like inchworms. “I’ll look into it, Chubby.”

  “I called it first, Toad Breath.”

  “I got seniority.”

  “Both of you do it,” Elmo suggested. He turned to me. “I’ll put a patrol together. You tell the Lieutenant.” He tossed his cards in, started calling names. He headed for the stables.

  Hooves pounded the dust beneath a continuous, grumbling drumbeat. We rode swiftly but warily. One-Eye watched for trouble, but performing sorceries on horseback is difficult.

  Still, he caught a whiff in time. Elmo fluttered hand signals. We split into two groups, ploughed into the tall roadside weeds. The Rebel popped up and found us at his throat. He never had a chance. We were travelling again in minutes.

  One-Eye told me, “I hope nobody over there starts wondering why we always know what they’re going to try.”

  “Let them think they’re up to their asses in spies.”

  “How did a spy get the word to Deal so fast? Our luck looks too good to be true. The Captain should get Soulcatcher to pull us out while we still have some value.”

  He had a point. Once our secret got out, the Rebel would neutralize our wizards with his own. Our luck would take a header.

  The walls of Oar hove into view. I started getting the queasy regrets. The Lieutenant hadn’t really approved this adventure. The Captain himself would ream me royal. His cussing would scorch the hair off my chin. I would be old before the restrictions ran out. So long madonnas of the streetside!

  I was supposed to know better. I was halfway an officer.

  The prospect of careers cleaning the Company stables and heads did not intimidate Elmo or his corporals. Forward! they seemed to be thinking. Onward, for the glory of the band. Yech!

  They were not stupid, just willing to pay the price of disobedience.

  That idiot One-Eye actually started singing as we entered Oar. The song was his own wild, nonsensical composition sung in a voice utterly incapable of carrying a tune.

  “Can it, One-Eye,” Elmo snarled. “You’re attracting attention.”

  His order was pointless. We were too obviously who we were, and just as obviously were in vile temper. This was no turnip patrol. We were looking for trouble.

  One-Eye whooped his way into a new song. “Can the racket!” Elmo thundered. “Get on your goddamned job.”

  We turned a corner, A black fog formed around our horses’ fetlocks as we did. Moist black noses poked up and out and sniffed the fetid evening air. They wrinkled. Maybe they had become as countrified as I. Out came almond eyes glowing like the lamps of Hell. A susurrus of fear swept the pedestrians watching from the streetsides.

  Up they sprang, a dozen, a score, five score phantoms born in that snakepit One-Eye calls a mind. They streaked ahead, weasely, toothy, sinuous black things that darted at the people of Oar. Terror outpaced them. In minutes we shared the streets with no one but ghosts.

  This was my first visit to Oar. I looked it over like I had just come in on the pumpkin wagon.

  “Well, look here,” Elmo said as we turned into the street where the turnip patrol usually quartered. “Here’s old Cornie.” I knew the name, though not the man. Cornie kept the stable where the patrol always stayed.

  An old man rose from his seat beside a watering trough. “Heared you was coming,” he said. “Done all what I could, Elmo. Couldn’t get them no doctor, though.”

  “We brought our own.” Though Cornie was old and had to hustle to keep pace, Elmo did not slow down.

  I sniffed the air. It held a taint of old smoke.

  Cornie dashed ahead, around an angle in the street. Weasel things flashed around his legs like surf foaming around a boulder on the shore. We followed, and found the source of the smoke smell.

  Someone had fired Cornie’s stable, then jumped our guys as they ran out. The villains. Wisps of smoke still rose. The street in front of the stable was filled with casualties. The least injured were standing guard, rerouting traffic.

  Candy, who commanded the patrol, limped toward us. “Where do I start?” I asked.

  He pointed. “Those are the worst. Better begin with Raven, if he’s still alive.”

  My heart jumped. Raven? He seemed so invulnerable.

  One-Eye scattered his pets. No Rebel would sneak up on us now. I followed Candy to where Raven lay. The man was unconscious. His face was paper-white. “He the worst?”

  “The only one I thought wouldn’t make it.”

  “You did all right. Did the tourniquets the way I taught you, didn’t you?” I looked Candy over. “You should be lying down yourself.” Back to Raven. He had close to thirty cuts on his face side, some of them deep. I threaded my needle.

  Elmo joined us after a quick look around the perimeter. “Bad?” he asked.

  “Can’t tell for sure. He’s full of holes. Lost a lot of blood. Better have One-Eye make up some of his broth.” One-Eye makes an herb and chicken soup that will bring new hope to the dead. He is my only assistant.

  Elmo asked, “How did it happen, Candy?”

  “They fired the stab
le and jumped us when we ran out.”

  “I can see that.”

  Cornie muttered, “The filthy murderers.” I got the feeling he was mourning his stable more than the patrol, though.

  Elmo made a face like a man chewing on a green persimmon, “And no dead? Raven is the worst? That’s hard to believe.”

  “One dead,” Candy corrected. “The old guy. Raven’s sidekick. From that village.”

  “Flick,” Elmo growled. Flick was not supposed to have left the fortress at Deal. The Captain did not trust him. But Elmo overlooked that breach of regulations. “We’re going to make somebody sorry they started this,” he said. There wasn’t a bit of emotion in his voice. He might have been quoting the wholesale price of yams.

  I wondered how Pickles would take the news. He was fond of Flick. Darling would be shattered. Flick was her grandfather.

  “They were only after Raven,” Cornie said. “That’s why he got cut so bad.”

  And Candy, “Flick threw himself in their way.” He gestured. “All the rest of this is because we wouldn’t stand back.”

  Elmo asked the question puzzling me. “Why would the Rebel be that hot to get Raven?”

  Dough belly was hanging around waiting for me to get to the gash in his left forearm. He said, “It wasn’t Rebels, Elmo. It was that dumbshit captain from where we picked up Flick and Darling.”

  I swore.

  “You stick to your needlepoint, Croaker,” Elmo said. “You sure, Doughbelly?”

  “Sure I’m sure. Ask Jolly. He seen him too. The rest was just street thugs. We whipped them good once we got going.” He pointed. Near the unburned side of the stable were a dozen bodies stacked like cordwood. Flick was the only one I recognized. The others wore ragged local costume.

  Candy said, “I saw him too, Elmo. And he wasn’t top dog. There was another guy hanging around back in the shadows. He cleared out when we started winning.”

  Cornie had been hanging around, looking watchful and staying quiet. He volunteered, “I know where they went. Place over to Bleek Street.”