The Return of the Black Company (93 page)

“The man is driving me bugfuck. What do you want?” More than Rudy was making me cranky. Sleepy was getting worse. Thai Dei was being a pain in the ass because I had not bothered to visit Uncle Doj while we were across the valley.

“Hey, Murgen, it’s all right to be scared. But you don’t need to make everybody else miserable because you are.”

I started to bark but realized that would not change the fact that he was right. I grabbed up a stone and threw it as far as I could, as if the fear would fly away with it. The rock clattered around amongst some boulders. Half a dozen crows flapped into the air, cursing in their native tongue. “Shit.”

“Not a good sign,” Bucket agreed. “We haven’t seen any of those for a while. Want we should take them out?”

“They weren’t close enough to hear anything. But have somebody check the area.” I considered the sun. There were a few hours of daylight left. I had time to start the recon that needed doing before we took a bigger gang up the mountain.

Bucket sent men to the crow site. One held up what might have been a ground squirrel when it was alive. He held his nose with his free hand. Bucket told me, “Maybe they weren’t spying at all.”

“All things are possible,” I said. “But some are more likely than others. Thai Dei. I know you got some pretty determined ideas about what you owe me but you really don’t need to take risks just because I do.”

The Nyueng Bao squatted not far away, sword sheathed across his back, waiting, a ragged little man who did not look dangerous at all. He looked me in the eye, grunted his go-ahead-and-explain grunt.

“I’m going through the Shadowgate. Wait! It’s all right. I’ve got the key. The Lance. As long as I’ve got that I should be all right.” If Croaker really had guessed correctly.

I would have felt more confident had I had a chance to study those earliest Annals.

Thai Dei climbed to his feet wearily, like his knees hurt him. He sighed, made a “let’s go” gesture.

“Look,” I said, “you don’t have to.”

He gestured again.

I would get nowhere arguing. Thai Dei was two steps beyond being stubborn. All Nyueng Bao are at least one step beyond. My wife …

I grabbed the shaft of the standard, started kicking rocks away from its base. It had stood undisturbed, right there, for half a year, becoming a fixture nobody much noticed anymore.

“Wait,” Bucket said. “Use your noggin, Murgen. You can’t just tighten your jaw and go charging up there. Take some bamboo. Take a canteen. Take a loaf of bread and some jerky. And let me set some guys up to cover your ass.”

“All right. You’re right.” This business had me more rattled and scared than I realized.

I let Bucket take over. He did not have to go through the Shadowgate so he could remain calm and rational.

The Standardbearer is always the first guy into any Company scrape.

*   *   *

I was as far uphill as any of us had gone. The standard shivered in my hands. I leaned on it and stared at the ruins, trying to pick the path I wanted to follow. Bucket stood a few paces behind me, relaying instructions to Rudy. Rudy was posting observers. I did not want to be out of sight for an instant, ever. If the boogies got me the rest needed to know how, when, why and where.

“Anytime you’re ready,” I growled. I had a feeling I was not going to get less frightened for a while.

“You’re set,” Bucket yelled. “Tie a rope to your ass and go be a hero.”

Be a hero. Not something I ever wanted. I gave him the high sign with both hands, grabbed the standard before it could topple. “See you in hell, mudsucker.” I headed up the hill.

Thai Dei shouldered a bundle of bamboo and followed. He did a better job of hiding his fear but he let them tie a rope to his belt, too. In case he had to be hauled back through the gate.

The standard almost hummed in my hands.

I knew the precise instant when I crossed over. It felt like I had fallen into a cold pond that was nothing but surface. The chill ran over me, then was behind me, yet I was in a place where it was cold all the time. You might be able to fry eggs on the rocks but it was cold.

I took only a few steps. I paused. I waited. Minutes passed. The cold did not go away. I stared up the slope. And, gradually, the road became more clear, a thin black line like polished coal meandering up the hill like the trail of a snake just barely not drunk enough to wander off into the barren wilds. I waited some more. Nothing jumped out at me. No shadows came to wriggle up my legs.

The standard seemed very much at home. It seemed to pull me uphill.

“You all got a good fix on me?” I yelled at Bucket.

“Got ahold of the rope, too, buddy.” Bucket’s reply and laugh sounded like they had come to me through a long metal tunnel.

“I got a rope for you, Bucket.” I took another three steps. Thai Dei dragged after me. The man lacked enthusiasm.

Nothing happened. I took a few more steps. The road up the hill gleamed like polished darkness, calling me onward. The fear began to drain away. Fast.

Thai Dei said something but I did not catch it.

The rope tautening stopped me.

I had moved farther uphill without realizing it. I had reached the end of my tether. Bucket gave me a tug. “Far enough for now, Murgen.”

Yeah. I was way past where I had intended to go. But there was nothing to be afraid of—Bucket gave me another tug, with greater vigor.

I backed downhill reluctantly. Thai Dei said something again. I looked back. Then I understood what he wanted.

He pointed northward.

The world looked kind of shimmery, as though we were seeing it through a curtain of heat.

“Let’s go, Murgen!” Bucket yelled. “We want you back and the gateway sealed up before it gets dark.” He gave my tether another yank.

The man was getting nervous.

Still reluctant, I stepped across the boundary. This time was like stepping into summer out of winter.

Thai Dei sighed. He was pleased. The hill held no attraction for him.

My world had changed. Just the slightest. I could still see the penstroke of polished darkness meandering down what once had been a road. Dirt and fallen stone concealed most of it but adequate evidence remained if one but had the eye.

I felt I was a different man after having crossed that line.

“You all right?” Rudy asked. “You look strange.”

“It’s strange over there. The same but different.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t explain. That’s the way it feels. You’ll understand once you go up there.”

Bucket joined us, wrapping rope into a coil. “You all right? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“It’s just weird over there.”

“Weird? How? You didn’t do anything that strange. Except kind of forget yourself. And your sidekick didn’t do that. He just stood there and shivered.”

“That’s part of it. It feels cold. Only not physically cold. More like the cold Blade would claim you’ll find in a priest’s heart.”

I must have looked puzzled. Bucket said, “You’re telling me you had to be there to understand.”

I told Thai Dei, “The man acts as dumb as a stump but he’ll fool you sometimes. You got it exactly, Bucket. Get some fresh dust up here. And make sure those ropes are all taut and the shadowtraps are all set. I want a full complement of—”

“Calm down,” Rudy told me. “You set it all up before. Remember?” Soldiers were at work making sure of our protection already. My fuss was a waste of worry.

“Tell you straight up, that was scary. It’s gonna take me a while to wind down. You got a messenger ready to go? I’ll jot a report for the Old Man. Then I’m going to crawl into my bunker and get intimately acquainted with my last jug of One-Eye’s medicine.” I had one jug of the little wizard’s most potent distillate squirreled away for use in a medical emergency.

This seemed like an emergency to me.

97

One-Eye’s elixir did not kill the fear, it only pushed it away briefly.

The fear was amazing. It was not the sort that paralyzes, nor was it strong enough to impair my thinking, but it was there all the time, unfocused, not growing numb the way an ongoing battlefield fear will eventually if nobody pops up to wale away at you with a piece of nicked-up iron. I did not like it. It abraded my temper.

I glared at Sleepy. “You ever going to be good for anything but turning food into shit?”

Sleepy just sat there in the gathering darkness, on what used to be Mother Gota’s pallet, staring into infinity. Not only was he not coming back from whatever fairy kingdom had captured his mind, he could hardly move anymore. He did very little of anything. When he did it seemed to hurt him a great deal. If he kept on without exercising he was going to have to hope one of his Company brothers liked him enough to carry him.

I liked him better than anybody but Bucket, but I did not like him that much. See you when we get back, little guy.

We are not a march-or-die outfit. Not quite. We
try
to take care of our own. But there is an underlying assumption that our own will try to manage for themselves first. There are plenty of precedents for ending the misery of a brother who becomes too great a burden or risk to the rest of the Company.

Sleepy did not respond. He never did. I rolled onto my pallet. I tried not to think about having to go up the mountain again tomorrow. The heebie-jeebies got worse if I did.

*   *   *

I felt Soulcatcher somewhere nearby. The darkness was total, though. I could not find her. Maybe it was my good fortune that she was not interested in finding me. Though she did not seem interested in anything at the moment.

I was ghostwalking. I knew it. But in total darkness there were no landmarks. I could not find my way anywhere.

I drifted.

Only gradually did I become aware that I was not alone.

Somebody was watching me. Or something was.

The scrutiny of that other intensified as I became more aware of it. The darkness around me remained total but in some other way I began to fathom it.

Red eyes, yellow fangs, skin so much blacker than the darkness that it seemed to gleam negatively … Kina. Destroyer. Queen of Deception. Mother … Not exactly evil incarnate—the Shadowlanders insist that one of her avatars is creative—but for goddamn sure she was a power big enough to scare the shit out of me if she took an interest.

She had. Her crimson eyes bored a hole right through my ghostly soul. Her great ugly face shriveled in upon itself like a skinned apple drying out, then in upon itself some more, till there was nothing left but a ruby point. That point began to move. At the same time I had a growing feeling that someone was trying to warn me about something.

Kina? Trying to communicate? With me? But she had her own agents in the world.

Or did she?

Narayan Singh was a prisoner. The Daughter of Night was a prisoner, or maybe dead. There had been no sign of her lately. And Lady had declared her independence long ago. Now she was just a mystic parasite.

Maybe I was the only one out there in the world that the goddess could touch.

I followed the red dot. It led me to the plain of old bones. I spread my wings and braked, settled onto a branch in a leafless tree. Incompletely decomposed corpses lay strewn amongst the bones this time. I took wing again and glided close above them. Scarab beetles scattered, frightened by my shadow. Never before had I seen anything but a few crows out there.

A tower of darkness loomed on the horizon, a tall black thunderstorm filled with muttering blood-colored lightnings. I flapped heavy wings, headed that way. It seemed like the right thing to do.

For a moment the cloud revealed an evil vampire face and lots of arms. Those reached out to welcome me.

After a moment of disorientation I was gliding above a land where only a few sparks of light marked human habitation. I tilted my head. I had very good eyes—even in the dark. But I did not recognize where I was until I dropped low enough to make out Overlook’s battlements masking the stars south of me.

I could not have been more than a hundred feet off the unseen ground when the earth began to boil and spawn a thousand minnows of light. The air slammed against me, flipped me over on my back. Then came the roar.

I was really there. I was no imaginary crow. I was the white beast itself.

I righted myself just in time to see a spray of fireballs headed my way. I dodged them.

I was back in the middle of last night.

I got down low where rocks and whatnot would protect me from the growing storm of fireballs. I did not forget what they could do to stone—if they were the new jumped-up variety. And I had several opportunities to see what they could do, up close, like I was some poor sucker on the wrong side of the Company. Every time I found a nice perch,
zow!
Crackling bacon.

The people I saw were all running with tremendous enthusiasm. Most were not fast enough or had gotten too late a start. Some never got up out of the underground at all. Smothering earth did the job on them.

The movement of colorfully glittering steel caught my eye.

Somebody was headed the wrong way.

Uncle Doj had run toward the disaster as soon as it started happening. The old boy had made good time if what I saw was him. Maybe he was more spry than he pretended. I flapped upward, glided toward the reflections off Ash Wand.

A crow is damned ungainly when he is first getting himself airborne.

It was Uncle. And he was not eager to enjoy my company. Ash Wand snapped like a lightning stroke. Doj had more reach than I recalled from our drills. He almost got me. The crow’s reflexes saved me. It dodged before the thought even occurred to me.

I got behind him, let the fires show where he was, stayed out of reach. When he found a place from which to watch and knelt there, I found myself a modestly prominent stone and perched, cursing the human plague that had devoured all the trees and other high places hereabouts. I watched the watcher.

Uncle was there just long enough to catch his breath and demonstrate his own fantastic reflexes by dodging a few fireballs before the earth opened and a pillar of dark green light emerged. Fireballs slid off it. Its color was so deep I doubted anyone much farther away could see it. It moved straight toward me. Which meant it would pass right by Uncle Doj.