Glen Cook - Black Company 1-2 - Shadows Linger

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Cook - BC 02 - Shadows Linger

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Shadows Linger

Glen Cook

The Second Chronicle of the Black Company

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

Chapter One:

JUNIPER

All men are born condemned, so the wise say. All suckle the breast of Death.

All bow before that Silent Monarch. That Lord in Shadow lifts a finger. A

feather flutters to the earth. There is no reason in His song. The good go

young. The wicked prosper. He is king of the Chaos Lords, His breath stills

all souls.

We found a city dedicated to His worship, long ago, but so old now it has lost

that dedication. The dark majesty of his godhead has frayed, been forgotten by

all but those who stand in his shadow. But Juniper faced a more immediate

fear, a specter from yesteryear leaking into the present upon a height

overlooking the city. And because of that the Black Company went there, to

that strange city far beyond the bounds of the Lady's empire. . . . But this

is not the beginning. In the beginning we were far away. Only two old friends

and a handful of men we would meet later stood nose-to-nose with the shadow.

Chapter Two:

TALLY ROADSIDE

The children's heads popped from the weeds like groundhog heads. They watched

the approaching soldiers. The boy whispered, "Must be a thousand of them." The

column stretched back and back. The dust it raised drifted up the face of a

far hill. The creak and jangle of harness grew ever louder.

The day was hot. The children were sweating. Their thoughts lingered on a

nearby brook and a dip in a pool they had found there. But they had been set

to watch the road. Rumor said the Lady meant to break the renascent Rebel

movement in Tally province.

And here her soldiers came. Closer now. Grim, hard-looking men. Veterans.

Easily old enough to have helped create the disaster which had befallen the

Rebel six years ago, claiming, among a quarter million men, their father.

"It's them!" the boy gasped. Fear and awe filled his voice. Grudging

admiration edged it. "That's the Black Company."

The girl was no student of the enemy. "How do you know?"

The boy indicated a bear of a man on a big roan. He had silvery hair. His

bearing said he was accustomed to command. "That's the one they call the

Captain. The little black one beside him would be the wizard called One-Eye.

See his hat?

That's how you tell. The ones behind them must be Elmo and the Lieutenant."

"Are any of the Taken with them?" The girl rose higher, for a better look.

"Where are the other famous ones?" She was the younger. The boy, at ten,

already considered himself a soldier of the White Rose. He yanked his sister

down. "Stupid! Want them to see you?" "So what if they do?" The boy sneered.

She had believed their uncle Neat when he had said that the enemy would not

harm children. The boy hated his uncle. The man had no guts.

Nobody pledged to the White Rose had any guts. They just played at fighting

the Lady. The most daring thing they did was ambush the occasional courier. At

least the enemy had courage. They had seen what they had been sent to see. He

touched the girl's wrist. "Let's go." They scurried through the weeds, toward

the wooded creek bank.

A shadow lay upon their path. They looked up and went pale. Three horsemen

stared down at them. The boy gaped. Nobody could have slipped up unheard.

"Goblin!" The small, frog-faced man in the middle grinned. "At your service,

laddy-boy."

The boy was terrified, but his mind remained functional. He shouted, "Run!" If

one of them could escape. . . .

Goblin made a circular gesture. Pale pink fire tangled his fingers. He made a

throwing motion. The boy fell, fighting invisible bonds like a fly caught in a

spider's web. His sister whimpered a dozen feet away.

"Pick them up," Goblin told his companions. "They should tell an interesting

tale."

Chapter Three:

JUNIPER: THE IRON LILY

The Lily stands on Floral Lane in the heart of the Buskin, Juniper's worst

slum, where the taste of death floats on every tongue and men value life less

than they do an hour of warmth or a decent meal. Its front sags against its

neighbor to the right, clinging for support like one of its own drunken

patrons. Its rear cants in the opposite direction. Its bare wood siding sports

leprous patches of grey rot. Its windows are boarded with scraps and chinked

with rags. Its roof boasts gaps through which the wind howls and bites when it

blows off the Wolander Mountains. There, even on a summer's day, the glaciers

twinkle like distant veins of silver.

Sea winds are little better. They bring a chill damp which gnaws the bones and

sends ice floes scampering across the harbor.

The shaggy arms of the Wolanders reach seaward, flanking the River Port,

forming cupped hands which hold the city and harbor. The city straddles the

river, creeping up the heights on both sides.

Wealth rises in Juniper, scrambling up and away from the river. The people of

the Buskin, when they lift their eyes from their misery, see the homes of the

wealthy above, noses in the air, watching one another across the valley.

Higher still, crowning the ridges, are two castles. On the southern height

stands Duretile, hereditary bastion of the Dukes of Juniper. Duretile is in

scandalous disrepair. Most every structure in Juniper is.

Below Duretile lies the devotional heart of Juniper, the Enclosure, beneath

which lie the Catacombs. There half a hundred generations rest, awaiting the

Day of Passage, guarded by the Custodians of the Dead. On the north ridge

stands an incomplete fortress called, simply, the black castle. Its

architecture is alien. Grotesque monsters leer from its battlements. Serpents

writhe in frozen agonies upon its walls. There are no joints in the obsidian-

like material. And the place is growing.

The people of Juniper ignore the castle's existence, its growth. They do not

want to know what is happening up there. Seldom do they have time to pause in

their struggle for survival to lift their eyes that high.

Chapter Four:

TALLY AMBUSH

I drew a seven, spread, discarded a trey, and stared at a lone ace. To my

left, Pawnbroker muttered, "That did it. He's down to a rock."

I eyed him curiously. "What makes you say that?"

He drew, cursed, discarded. "You get a face like a corpse when you've got it

cold, Croaker. Even your eyes."

Candy drew, cursed, discarded a five. "He's right, Croaker. You get so

unreadable you're readable. Come on, Otto."

Otto stared at his hand, then at the pile, as though he could conjure victory

from the jaws of defeat. He drew. "Shit." He discarded his draw, a royal card.

I showed them my ace and raked in my winnings.

Candy stared over my shoulder while Otto gathered the cards. His eyes were

hard and cold. "What?" I asked.

"Our host is working up his courage. Looking for a way to get out and warn

them."

I turned. So did the others. One by one the tavern-keeper and his customers

dropped their gazes and shrank into themselves. All but the tall, dark man

seated alone in shadows near the fireplace. He winked and lifted a mug, as if

in salute. I scowled. His response was a smile.

Otto dealt.

"One hundred ninety-three," I said.

Candy frowned. "Damn you, Croaker," he said, without emotion. I had been

counting hands. They were perfect ticks of the clocks of our lives as brothers

of the Black Company. I had played over ten thousand hands since the battle at

Charm. Only the gods themselves know how many I played before I started

keeping track.

"Think they got wind of us?" Pawnbroker asked. He was edgy. Waiting does that.

"I don't see how." Candy arrayed his hand with exaggerated care. A dead

giveaway. He had something hot. I reexamined mine. Twenty-one. Probably get

burned, but the best way to stop him. . . . I went down. "Twenty-one."

Otto sputtered. "You son-of-a-bitch." He laid down a hand strong for going

low. But it added to twenty-two because of one royal card. Candy had three

nines, an ace and a trey. Grinning, I raked it in again.

"You win this one, we're going to check your sleeves," Pawnbroker grumbled. I

collected the cards and started shuffling.

The back door hinges squealed. Everyone froze, stared at the kitchen door. Men

stirred beyond it.

"Madle! Where the hell are you?"

The tavern-keeper looked at Candy, agonized. Candy cued him. The taverner

called, "Out here, Neat."

Candy whispered, "Keep playing." I started dealing.

A man of forty came from the kitchen. Several others followed. All wore

dappled green. They had bows across their backs. Neat said, "They must've got

the kids. I don't know how, but. . . ."He saw something in Madle's eyes.

"What's the matter?"

We had Madle sufficiently intimidated. He did not give us away.

Staring at my cards, I drew my spring tube. My companions did likewise.

Pawnbroker discarded the card he had drawn, a deuce. He usually tries to go

low. His play betrayed his nervousness.

Candy snagged the discard and spread an ace-deuce-trey run. He discarded an

eight.

One of Neat's companions whined, "I told you we shouldn't send kids." It

sounded like breathing life into an old argument.

"I don't need any I-told-you-so," Neat growled. "Madle, I spread the word for

a meeting. We'll have to scatter the outfit."

"We don't know nothing for sure, Neat," another green man said. "You know

kids."

"You're fooling yourself. The Lady's hounds are on our trail."

The whiner said, "I told you we shouldn't hit those. ..." He fell silent,

realizing, a moment too late, that strangers were present, that the regulars

all looked ghastly.

Neat went for his sword.

There were nine of them, if you counted Madle and some customers who got

involved. Candy overturned the card table. We tripped the catches on our

spring tubes. Four poisoned darts snapped across the common room. We drew

swords.

It lasted only seconds.

"Everybody all right?" Candy asked.

"Got a scratch," Otto said. I checked it. Nothing to worry about.

"Back behind the bar, friend," Candy told Madle, whom he had spared. "The rest

of you, get this place straightened up. Pawnbroker, watch them. They even

think about getting out of line, kill them."

"What do I do with the bodies?"

"Throw them down the well."

I righted the table again, sat down, unfolded a sheet of paper. Sketched upon

it was the chain of command of the insurgents in Tally. I blacked out NEAT. It

stood at mid-level. "Madle," I said. "Come here."

The barkeep approached with the eagerness of a dog to a whipping.

"Take it easy. You'll get through this all right. If you cooperate. Tell me

who those men were."

He hemmed and hawed. Predictably.

"Just names," I said. He looked at the paper, frowning. He could not read.

"Madle? Be a tight place to swim, down a well with a bunch of bodies."

He gulped, surveyed the room. I glanced at the man near the fireplace. He

hadn't moved during the encounter. Even now he watched with apparent

indifference.

Madle named names.

Some were on my list and some were not. Those that were not I assumed to be

spear carriers. Tally had been well and reliably scouted.

The last corpse went out. I gave Madle a small gold piece. He goggled. His

customers regarded him with unfriendly eyes. I grinned. "For services

rendered."

Madle blanched, stared at the coin. It was a kiss of death. His patrons would

think he had helped set the ambush. "Gotcha," I whispered. "Want to get out of

this alive?"

He looked at me in fear and hatred. "Who the hell are you guys?" he demanded

in a harsh whisper.

"The Black Company, Madle. The Black Company."

I don't know how he managed, but he went even whiter.

Chapter Five:

JUNIPER: MARRON SHED

The day was cold and grey and damp, still, misty, and sullen. Conversation in

the Iron Lily consisted of surly monosyllables uttered before a puny fire.

Then the drizzle came, drawing the curtains of the world in tight. Brown and

grey shapes hunched dispiritedly along the grubby, muddy street. It was a day

ripped full-grown from the womb of despair. Inside the Lily, Marron Shed

looked up from his mug-wiping. Keeping the dust off, he called it. Nobody was

using his shoddy stoneware because nobody was buying his cheap, sour wine.

Nobody could afford it.

The Lily stood on the south side of Floral Lane. Shed's counter faced the

doorway, twenty feet deep into the shadows of the common room. A herd of tiny

tables, each with its brood of rickety stools, presented a perilous maze for

the customer coming out of sunlight. A half-dozen roughly cut support pillars

formed additional obstacles. The ceiling beams were too low for a tall man.

The boards of the floor were cracked and warped and creaky, and anything

spilled ran downhill.

The walls were decorated with old-time odds and ends and curios left by

customers which had no meaning for anyone entering today. Marron Shed was too

lazy to dust them or take them down.

The common room Led around the end of his counter, past the fireplace, near

which the best tables stood. Beyond the fireplace, in the deepest shadows, a

yard from the kitchen door, lay the base of the stair to the rooming floors.

Into that darksome labyrinth came a small, weasely man. He carried a bundle of

wood scraps. "Shed? Can I?"

"Hell. Why not, Asa? We'll all benefit." The fire had dwindled to a bank of

grey ash.

Asa scuttled to the fireplace. The group there parted surlily. Asa settled

beside Shed's mother. Old June was blind. She could not tell who he was. He

placed his bundle before him and started stirring the coals.

"Nothing down to the docks today?" Shed asked.

Asa shook his head. "Nothing came in. Nothing going out. They only had five

jobs. Unloading wagons. People were fighting over them."

Shed nodded. Asa was no fighter. Asa was not fond of honest labor, either.

"Darling, one draft for Asa." Shed gestured as he spoke. His serving girl

picked up the battered mug and took it to the fire.

Shed did not like the little man. He was a sneak, a thief, a liar, a mooch,

the sort who would sell his sister for a couple of copper gersh. He was a

whiner and complainer and coward. But he had become a project for Shed, who

could have used a little charity himself. Asa was one of the homeless Shed let

sleep on the common room floor whenever they brought wood for the fire.

Letting the homeless have the floor did not put money into the coin box, but

it did assure some warmth for June's arthritic bones.

Finding free wood in Juniper in winter was harder than finding work. Shed was

amused by Asa's determination to avoid honest employment.

The fire's crackle killed the stillness. Shed put his grimy rag aside. He

stood behind his mother, hands to the heat. His fingernails began aching. He

hadn't realized how cold he was.

It was going to be a long, cold winter. "Asa, do you have a regular wood

source?" Shed could not afford fuel. Nowadays firewood was barged down the

Port from far upstream. It was expensive. In his youth. . . .

"No." Asa stared into the flames. Piney smells spread through the Lily. Shed

worried about his chimney. Another pine scrap winter, and he hadn't had the

chimney swept. A chimney fire could destroy him.

Things had to turn around soon. He was over the edge, in debt to his ears. He

was desperate.

"Shed."

He looked to his tables, to his only real paying customer.

"Raven?"

"Refill, if you please."

Shed looked for Darling. She had disappeared. He cursed softly. No point

yelling. The girl was deaf, needed signs to communicate. An asset, he had

thought when Raven had suggested he hire her. Countless secrets were whispered

in the Lily. He had thought more whisperers might come if they could speak

without fear of being overheard.

Shed bobbed his head, captured Raven's mug. He disliked Raven, partially

because Raven was successful at Asa's game. Raven had no visible means of

support, yet always had money. Another reason was because Raven was younger,

tougher and healthier than the run of the Lily's customers. He was an anomaly.

The Lily was on the downhill end of the Buskin, close to the waterfront. It

drew all the drunkards, the worn-out whores, the dopers, the derelicts and

human flotsam who eddied into that last backwater before the darkness

overhauled them. Shed sometimes agonized, fearing his precious Lily was but a

final way station.

Raven did not belong. He could afford better. Shed wished he dared throw the

man out. Raven made his skin crawl, sitting at his corner table, dead eyes

hammering iron spikes of suspicion into anyone who entered the tavern,

cleaning his nails endlessly with a knife honed razor-sharp, speaking a few

cold, toneless words whenever anyone took a notion to drag Darling upstairs. .

. . That baffled Shed. Though there was no obvious connection, Raven protected

the girl as though she were his virgin daughter. What the hell was a tavern

slut for, anyway? Shed shuddered, pushed it out of mind. He needed Raven.

Needed every paying guest he could get. He was surviving on prayers.

He delivered the wine. Raven dropped three coins into his palm. One was a

silver leva. "Sir?"

"Get some decent firewood in here, Shed. If I wanted to freeze, I'd stay

outside."

"Yes, sir!" Shed went to the door, peeked into the street. Latham's wood yard

was just a block away.

The drizzle had become an icy rain. The mucky lane was crusting. "Going to

snow before dark," he informed no one in particular.

"In or out," Raven growled. "Don't waste what warmth there is."

Shed slid outside. He hoped he could reach Latham's before the cold began to

ache.

Shapes loomed out of the icefall. One was a giant. Both hunched forward, rags

around their necks to prevent ice from sliding down their backs.

Shed charged back into the Lily. "I'll go out the back way." He signed,

"Darling, I'm going out. You haven't seen me since this morning."

"Krage?" the girl signed.

"Krage," Shed admitted. He dashed into the kitchen, snagged his ragged coat

off its hook, wriggled into it. He fumbled the door latch twice before he got

it loose. An evil grin with three teeth absent greeted him as he leaned into

the cold. Foul breath assaulted his nostrils. A filthy finger gouged his

chest. "Going somewhere, Shed?"

"Hi, Red. Just going to see Latham about firewood."

"No, you're not." The finger pushed. Shed fell back till he was in the common

room.

Sweating, he asked, "Cup of wine?"

"That's neighborly of you, Shed. Make it three."

"Three?" Shed's voice squeaked.

"Don't tell me you didn't know Krage is on his way."

"I didn't," Shed lied.

Red's snaggle-toothed smirk said he knew Shed was lying.

Chapter Six:

TALLY MIX-UP

You try your damnedest, but something always goes wrong. That's life. If

you're smart, you plan for it.

Somehow, somebody got away from Madle's, along about the twenty-fifth Rebel

who stumbled into our web, when it really looked like Neat had done us a big

favor, summoning the local hierarchy to a conference. Looking backward, it is

hard to fix blame. We all did our jobs. But there are limits to how alert you

stay under extended stress. The man who disappeared probably spent hours

plotting his break. We did not notice his absence for a long time.

Candy figured it out. He threw his cards in at the tail of a hand, said,

"We're minus a body, troops. One of those pig farmers. The little guy who

looked like a pig."

I could see the table from the corner of my eye. I grunted. "You're right.

Damn. Should have taken a head count after each trip to the well."

The table was behind Pawnbroker. He did not turn around. He waited a hand,

then ambled to Madle's counter and bought a crock of beer. While his rambling

distracted the locals, I made rapid signs with my fingers, in deaf-speech.

"Better be ready for a raid. They know who we are. I shot my mouth off."

The Rebel would want us bad. The Black Company has earned a widespread

reputation as a successful eradicator of the Rebel pestilence, wherever it

appears. Though we are not as vicious as reputed, news of our coming strikes

terror wherever we go. The Rebel often goes to ground, abandoning his

operations, where we appear.

Yet here were four of us, separated from our companions, evidently unaware

that we were at risk. They would try. The question at hand was how hard.

We did have cards up our sleeves. We never play fair if we can avoid it. The

Company philosophy is to maximize effectiveness while minimizing risk.

The tall, dark man rose, left his shadow, stalked toward the stair to the

sleeping rooms. Candy snapped, "Watch him, Otto." Otto hurried after him,

looking feeble in the man's wake. The locals watched, wondering.

Pawnbroker used signs to ask, "What now?"

"We wait," Candy said aloud, and with signs added, "Do what we were sent to

do."

"Not much fun, being live bait," Pawnbroker signed back. He studied the stair

nervously. "Set Otto up with a hand," he suggested.

I looked at Candy. He nodded. "Why not? Give him about seventeen." Otto would

go down first time around every time if he had less than twenty. It was a good

percentage bet.

I quick figured the cards in my head, and grinned. I could give him seventeen

and have enough low cards left to give each of us a hand that would burn him.

"Give me those cards."

I hurried through the deck, building hands. "There." Nobody had higher than a

five. But Otto's hand had higher cards than the others.

Candy grinned. "Yeah."

Otto did not come back. Pawnbroker said, "I'm going up to check."

"All right," Candy replied. He went and got himself a beer. I eyed the locals.

They were getting ideas. I stared at one and shook my head.

Pawnbroker and Otto returned a minute later, preceded by the dark man, who

returned to his shadow. Pawnbroker and Otto looked relieved. They settled down

to play.

Otto asked, "Who dealt?"

"Candy did," I said. "Your go."

He went down. "Seventeen."

"Heh-heh-heh," I replied. "Burned you. Fifteen."

And Pawnbroker said, "Got you both. Fourteen."

And Candy, "Fourteen. You're hurting, Otto."

He just sat there, numbed, for several seconds. Then he caught on. "You

bastards! You stacked it! You don't think I'm going to pay off. ..."

"Settle down. Joke, son," Candy said.

"Joke. It was your deal anyhow."

The cards went around and the darkness came. No more insurgents appeared. The

locals grew ever more restless. Some worried about their families, about being

late. As everywhere else, most Tallylanders are concerned only with their own

lives. They don't care whether the White Rose or the Lady is ascendant.

The minority of Rebel sympathizers worried about when the blow might fall.

They were afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.

We pretended ignorance of the situation.

Candy signed, "Which ones are dangerous?"

We conferred, selected three men who might become trouble. Candy had Otto bind

them to their chairs. It dawned on the locals that we knew what to expect,

that we were prepared. Not looking forward, but prepared. The raiders waited

till midnight. They were more cautious than the Rebel we encountered

ordinarily. Maybe our reputation was too strong. . . .

They burst in in a rush. We discharged our spring tubes and began swinging

swords, retreating to a corner away from the fireplace. The tall man watched

indifferently.

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