The Black Company 11 страница

Spooky. I scrunched my head down against my shoulders. Raven flicked a hand. A knife appeared. He began cleaning already immaculate nails.

" The critical development is this: Whisper suborned the Limper after we made a fool of him in the Raker affair. "

I burst out, " That explains what happened in the Salient. We had it sewed up. It fell apart overnight. And he was a pure shit during the battle at Roses. "

Raven agreed. " Roses was his fault. But nobody thought it was treason. After all, he's one of the Ten. "

" Yes, " Catcher said. " It explains many things. But the Salient and Roses are yesterday. Our interest now is tomorrow. It's getting rid of Whisper before she gifts us with another disaster. "

Raven eyed Catcher, eyed me, pursued his needless manicure. I was not taking the Taken at face value either. We lesser mortals are but toys and tools to them. They are the kind of people who dig up the bones of their grandmothers to win points with the Lady,

" This is our edge on Whisper, " Soulcatcher said. " We know she has agreed to meet the Limper tomorrow. ... "

" How? " Raven demanded.

" / don't know. The Lady told me. Limper doesn't know we know about him, but he does know he can't last much longer. He'll probably try to make a deal so the Circle will protect him. He knows if he doesn't, he's dead. What the Lady wants is them to die together so the Circle will suspect she was selling out to the Limper instead of the other way around. "

" It won't wash, " Raven grumbled.

" They'll believe it. "

" So we're going to knock him off, " I said. " Me and Raven. With bows. And how are we supposed to find them? " Catcher would not be there himself, no matter how he talked. Both the Limper and Whisper would sense his presence long before he came within bowshot.

" Limper will be with the forces moving into the forest. Not knowing that he's suspected, he won't hide from the Lady's Eye. He'll expect his movements to be taken as part of the search. The Lady will report his whereabouts to me. I'll put you on his trail. When they meet, you take them out. "

" Sure, " Raven sneered. " Sure. It'll be a turkey shoot. " He threw his knife. It bit deep into a windowsill. He stomped out of the room.

The deal sounded no better to me. I stared at Soulcatcher and debated with myself for about two seconds before I let fear push me in Raven's wake.

My last glimpse of Catcher was of a weary person slumped in unhappiness. I guess it is hard for them to live with their reputations. We all want people to like us.

I was doing one of my little fantasies about the Lady while Raven systematically plunked arrows into a red rag pinned to a straw butt. I had had trouble hitting the butt itself my first round, let alone the rag. It seemed Raven could not miss.

This time I was playing around with her childhood. That is something I like to look at with any villain. What twists and knots went into the thread tying the creature at Charm to the little girl who was? Consider little children. There are not many of them not cute and lovable and precious, sweet as whipped honey and butter. So where do all the wicked people come from? I walk through our barracks and wonder how a giggling, inquisitive toddler could have become a Three Fingers, a Jolly, or a Silent.

Little girls are twice as precious and innocent as little boys. I do not know a culture that does not make them that way.

So where does a Lady come from? Or, for that matter, a Whisper? I was speculating in this latest tale.

Goblin sat down beside me. He read what I had written. " I don't think so, " he said. " I think she made a conscious decision in the beginning. "

I turned toward him slowly, acutely conscious of Soulcatcher standing only a few yards behind me, watching the arrows fly. " I didn't really think it was this way. Goblin. It's a. ... Well, you know. You want to understand, so you put it together some way you can handle. "

" We all do that. In everyday life it's called making excuses. " True, raw motives are too rough to swallow. By the time most people reach my age, they have glossed their motives so often and so well they fall completely out of touch with them.

I became conscious of a shadow across my lap. I glanced up. Soulcatcher extended a hand, inviting me to take my turn with the bow. Raven had recovered his arrows, and was standing by, waiting for me to step to the mark.

My first three shafts plunked into the rag. " How about that? " I said, and turned to take a bow.

Soulcatcher was reading my little fantasy. He raised his gaze to mine. " Really, Croaker! It wasn't like that at all. Didn't you know that she murdered her twin sister when she was fourteen? "

Rats with icy claws scrambled around on my spine. I turned, let a shaft fly. It ripped wide right of the butt. I sprayed a few more around, and did nothing but irritate the pigeons in the background.

Catcher took the bow. " Your nerves are going, Croaker. " In a blur, he snapped three arrows into a circle less than an inch across. " Keep at it. You'll be under more pressure out there. " He handed the bow back. " The secret is concentration. Pretend you're doing surgery. "

Pretend I'm doing surgery. Right. I have managed some fancy emergency work in the middle of battlefields. Right. But this was different.

The grand old excuse. Yes, but... . This is different.

I calmed down enough to hit the butt with the rest of my shafts. After recovering them, I stood aside for Raven.

Goblin handed me my writing materials. Irritably, I crumpled my little fable.

" Need something for your nerves? " Goblin asked.

" Yeah. The iron filings or whatever it is Raven eats. " My self-esteem was pretty shaky.

" Try this. " Goblin offered me a little six-pointed silver star hanging on a neck chain. At its center was a medusa head in jet.

" An amulet? "

" Yes. We thought you might need it tomorrow. "

" Tomorrow? " Nobody was supposed to know what was happening.

" We have eyes, Croaker. This is the Company. Maybe we don't know what, but we can tell when something is going on. "

" Yeah. I suppose so. Thanks, Goblin. "

" Me and One-Eye and Silent, we all worked on it. "

" Thanks. What about Raven? " When somebody makes a gesture like that, I feel more comfortable shifting the subject.

" Raven doesn't need one. Raven is his own amulet. Sit down. Let's talk. "

" I can't tell you about it. "

" I know. I thought you wanted to know about the Tower. " He had not talked about his visit yet. I had given up on him.

" All right. Tell me. " I stared at Raven. Arrow after arrow skewered the rag.

" Aren't you going to write it down? "

" Oh. Yeah. " I readied pen and paper. The men are tremendously impressed by the fact that I keep these Annals. Their only immortality will be here. " Glad I didn't bet him. "

" Bet who? "

" Raven wanted to make a wager on our marksmanship. "

Goblin snorted. " You're getting too smart to get hooked by a sucker bet? Get your pen ready. " He launched his story.

He did not add much to rumors I had picked up here and there. He described the place he had gone as a big, drafty box of a room, gloomy and dusty. About what I expected of the Tower. Or of any castle.

" What did she look like? " That was the most intriguing part of the puzzle. I had a mental picture of a dark haired, ageless beauty with a sexual presence that hit mere mortals with the impact of a mace. Soulcatcher said she was beautiful, but I had no independent corroboration.

" I don't know. I don't remember. "

" What do you mean, you don't remember? How can you not remember? "

" Don't get all excited, Croaker. I can't remember. She was there in front of me, then. ,... hen all I could see was that giant yellow eye that kept getting bigger and bigger and stared right through me, looking at every secret I ever had. That's all I remember. I still have nightmares about that eye. "

I sighed, exasperated. " I guess I should've expected that. You know, she could come walking by right now and nobody would know it was her. "

" I expect that's the way she wants it, Croaker. If it does all fall apart, the way it looked before you found those papers, she can just walk away. Only the Ten could identify her, and she would make sure of them somehow. "

I doubt it would be that simple. People like the Lady have trouble assuming a lesser role. Deposed princes keep acting like princes.

" Thanks for taking the trouble to tell me about it, Goblin. "

" No trouble. I didn't have anything to tell. Only reason I put it off was it upset me so much. "

Raven finished retrieving his arrows. He came over and told Goblin, " Why don't you go put a bug in One-Eye's bedroll, or something? We've got work to do. " He was nervous about my erratic marksmanship.

We had to depend on one another. If either missed, chances were we would die before a second shaft could be sped. I did not want to think about that.

But thinking about it improved my concentration. I got most of my arrows into the rag this time.

It was a pain in the ass damned thing to have to do, night before whatever faced Raven and I, but the Captain refused to part with a tradition three centuries old. He also refused to entertain protests about our having been drafted by Soulcatcher, or demands for the additional knowledge he obviously commanded. I mean, I understood what Catcher wanted done and why, I just could not make sense of why he wanted Raven and I to do it. Having the Captain back him only made it more confusing.

" Why, Croaker? " he finally demanded. " Because I gave you an order, that's why. Now get out there and do your reading. "

Once each month, in the evening, the entire Company assembles so the Annalist can read from his predecessors. The readings are supposed to put the men in touch with the outfit's history and traditions, which stretch back centuries and thousands of miles.

I placed my selection on a crude lectern and went with the usual formula. " Good evening, brothers. A reading from the Annals of the Black Company, last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. Tonight I'm reading from the Book of Kette, set down early in the Company's second century by Annalists Lees, Agrip, Holm, and Straw. The Company was in service to the Paingod of Cho'n Delor at that time. That was when the Company really was black.

" The reading is from Annalist Straw. It concerns the Company's role in events surrounding the fall of Cho'n Delor. " I began to read, reflecting privately that the Company has served many losing causes.

The Cho'n Delor era bore many resemblances to our own, though then, standing more than six thousand strong, the Company was in a better position to shape its own destiny.

I lost track entirely. Old Straw was hell with a pen. I read for three hours, raving like a mad prophet, and held them spellbound. They gave me an ovation when I finished. I retreated from the lectern feeling as though my life had been fulfilled.

The physical and mental price of my histrionics caught up as I entered my barracks. Being a semi-officer, I rated a small cubicle of my own. I staggered right to it.

Raven was waiting. He sat on my bunk doing something artistic with an arrow. Its shaft had a band of silver around it. He seemed to be engraving something. Had I not been exhausted, I might have been curious.

" You were superb, " Raven told me. " Even I felt it. "

" Eh? "

" You made me understand what it meant to be a brother of the Black Company back then. "

" What it still means to some. "

" Yes. And more. You reached them where they lived. "

" Yeah. Sure. What're you doing? "

" Fixing an arrow for the Limper. With his true name on it. Catcher gave it to me. "

" Oh. " Exhaustion kept me from pursuing the matter. " What did you want? "

" You made me feel something for the first time since my wife and her lovers tried to murder me and steal my rights and titles, " He rose, closed one eye, looked down the length of his arrow. " Thanks, Croaker. For a while I felt human again. " He stalked out.

I collapsed on the bunk and closed my eyes, recalling Raven strangling his wife, taking her wedding ring, and saying not a word. He had revealed more in that one rapid-fire sentence than since the day we had met. Strange.

I fell asleep reflecting that he had evened scores with everyone but the ultimate source of his despair. The Limper had been untouchable because he was one of the Lady's own. But no more.

Raven would be looking forward to tomorrow. I wondered what he would dream tonight. And if he would have much purpose left if the Limper died. A man cannot survive on hatred alone. Would he bother trying to survive what was coming?

Maybe that was what he wanted to say.

I was scared. A man thinking that way could get a little flashy, a little dangerous to those around him.

A hand closed on my shoulder. " Time, Croaker. " The Captain himself was doing the wakeup calls.

" Yeah. I'm awake. " I had not slept well.

" Catcher is ready to go. "

It was still dark out. " Time? "

" Almost four. He wants to be gone before first light. "

" Oh. "

" Croaker? Be careful out there. I want you back. "

" Sure, Captain. You know I don't take chances. Captain? Why me and Raven, anyway? " Maybe he would tell me now.

" He says the Lady calls it a reward. "

" No shit? Some reward. " I felt around for my boots as he moved to the door. " Captain? Thanks. "

" Sure. " He knew I meant thanks for caring.

Raven stuck his head in as I was lacing my jerkin. " Ready? "

" One minute. Cold out there? "

" Nippy. "

" Take a coat? "

" Wouldn't hurt. Mail shirt? " He touched my chest.

" Yeah. " I pulled my coat on, picked up the bow I was taking, bounced it on my palm. For an instant Goblin's amulet lay cool on my breastbone. I hoped it would work.

Raven cracked a smile. " Me too. "

I grinned back. " Let's go get them. "

Soulcatcher was waiting on the court where we had practiced our archery. He was limned by light from the company mess. The bakers were hard at work already. Catcher stood at a stiff parade rest, a bundle under his left arm. He stared toward the Forest of Cloud. He wore only leathers and morion. Unlike some of the Taken, he seldom carries weapons. He prefers relying on his thaumaturgic skills.

He was talking to himself. Weird stuff. " Want to see him go down. Been waiting four hundred years. "

" We can't get that close. He'll smell us coming. "

" Put aside all Power. "

" Oh! That's too risky! " A whole chorus of voices got into the act. It got really spooky when two of them talked at once.

Raven and I exchanged glances. He shrugged. Catcher did not faze him. But, then, he grew up in the Lady's dominions. He has seen all the Taken. Soulcatcher is supposedly one of the least bizarre.

We listened for a few minutes. It did not get any saner out. Finally, Raven growled, " Lord? We're ready. " He sounded a little shaky.

I was beyond speech myself. All I could think of was a bow, an arrow, and a job I was expected to do. I rehearsed the draw, release, and flight of my shaft over and over again. Unconsciously, I rubbed Goblin's gift. I would catch myself doing that often.

Soulcatcher shuddered like a wet dog, drew himself together. Without looking at us, he gestured, said, " Come, " and started walking.

Raven turned. He yelled, " Darling, you get back in there like I told you. Go on now. "

" How is she supposed to hear you? " I asked, looking back at the child watching from a shadowed doorway.

" She won't. But the Captain will. Go on now. " He gestured violently. The Captain appeared momentarily. Darling vanished. We followed Soulcatcher. Raven muttered to himself. He worried about the child.

Soulcatcher set a brisk pace, out of the compound, out of Lords itself, across fields, never looking back. He led us to a large woodlot several bowshots from the wall, to a glade at the lot's heart. There, on the bank of a creek, lay a ragged carpet stretched on a crude wooden frame about a foot high and six feet by eight. Soulcatcher said something. The carpet twitched, wriggled a little, stretched itself taut.

" Raven, you sit here. " Catcher indicated the right-hand corner nearest us. " Croaker, over here. " He indicated the left corner.

Raven placed a foot on the carpet gingerly, seemed surprised that the works did not collapse.

" Sit down. " Soulcatcher placed him just so, with his legs crossed and his weapons lying beside him near the carpet's edge. He did the same with me. I was surprised to find the carpet rigid. Ft was like sitting on a tabletop. " It's imperative that you don't move around, " Catcher said, wriggling himself into position ahead of us, centered a foot forward of the carpet's midline. " If we don't stay balanced, we fall off. Understand? "

I did not, but I agreed with Raven when he said yes.

" Ready? "

Raven said yes again. I guess he knew what was happening- I was taken by surprise.

Soulcatcher laid his hands out palms upward beside him, said a few strange words, raised his hands slowly. I gasped, leaned. The ground was receding.

" Sit still! " Raven snarled. " You trying to kill us? "

The ground was only six feet down. Then. I straightened up and went rigid. But I did turn my head enough to check a movement in the brush.

Yes. Darling. With mouth an O of amazement. I faced forward, gripped my bow so tightly I thought I would crush handprints into it. I wished I dared finger my amulet. " Raven, did you make arrangements for Darling? In case, you know... . "

" The Captain will look out for her. "

" I forgot to fix it with somebody for the Annals. "

" Don't be so optimistic, " he said sarcastically. I shivered uncontrollably.

Soulcatcher did something. We started gliding over the treetops. Chill air whispered past us. I glanced over the side. We were a good five stories high and climbing.

The stars twisted overhead as Catcher changed course. The wind rose till we seemed to be flying into the face of a gale. I leaned farther and farther forward, afraid it would push me off. There was nothing behind me but several hundred feet and an abrupt stop. My fingers ached from gripping my bow.

I have learned one thing, I told myself. How Catcher manages to show up so fast when he is always so far from the action when we get in touch.

It was a silent journey. Catcher stayed busy doing whatever it was he did to make his steed fly. Raven closed in on himself. So did I. I was scared silly. My stomach was in revolt. I do not know about Raven.

The stars began to fade. The eastern horizon lightened. The earth materialized below us. I chanced a look. We were over the Forest of Cloud. A little more light. Catcher grunted, considered the east, then the distances ahead. He seemed to listen for a moment, then nodded.

The carpet raised its nose. We climbed. The earth rocked and dwindled till it looked like a map. The air became ever more chill. My stomach remained rebellious.

Way off to our left I glimpsed a black scar on the forest. It was the encampment we had overrun. Then we entered a cloud and Catcher slowed our rush.

" We'll drift a while, " he said. " We're thirty miles south of the Limper. —He's riding away from us. We're overtaking him fast. When we're almost up to where he might detect me, we'll go down. " He used the businesslike female voice.

I started to say something. He snapped, " Be quiet, Croaker. Don't distract me. "

We stayed in that cloud, unseen and unable to see, for two hours. Then Catcher said, " Time to go down. Grip the frame members and don't let go. It may be a little unsettling. "

The bottom fell out. We went down like a stone dropped from a cliff. The carpet began to rotate slowly, so the forest seemed to turn below us. Then it began to slide back and forth like a feather falling. Each time it tilted my way I thought I would tumble over the side.

A good scream might have helped, but you could not do that in front of characters like Raven and Soulcatcher.

The forest kept getting closer. Soon I could distinguish individual trees... when I dared to look. We were going to die. I knew we were going to smash right down through the forest canopy fifty feet into the earth.

Catcher said something. I did not catch it. He was talking to his carpet anyway. The rocking and spinning gradually stopped. Our descent slowed. The carpet nosed down slightly and began to glide forward. Eventually Catcher took us below treetop level, into the aisle over a river. We, scooted along a dozen feet above the water, with Soulcatcher laughing as birds scattered in panic.

He brought us to earth in a glen beside the river. " Off and stretch, " he told us. After we had loosened up, he said, " The Limper is four miles north of us. He's reached the meeting place. You'll go on from here without me. He'll detect me if I get any closer. I want your badges. He can detect those too. "

Raven nodded, surrendered his badge, strung his bow, nocked an arrow, pulled back, relaxed. I did the same. It settled my nerves.

I was so grateful to be on the ground I could have kissed it.

" The bole on the big oak. " Raven pointed across the river. He let fly. His shaft struck a few inches off center. I took a deep, relaxing breath, followed suite. My shaft struck an inch nearer center. " Should have bet me that time, " he remarked. To Catcher, " We're ready. "

I added, " We'll need more specific directions. "

" Follow the river bank. There are plenty of game trails. The going shouldn't be hard. No need to hurry anyway. Whisper shouldn't be there for hours yet. "

" The river heads west, " I observed.

" It loops back. Follow it for three miles, then turn a point west of north and go straight through the woods. " Catcher crouched and cleared the leaves and twigs off some bare earth, used a stick to sketch a map. " If you reach this bend, you've gone too far. "

Then Catcher froze. For a long minute he listened to something only he could hear. Then he resumed, " The Lady says you'll know you're close when you reach' a grove of huge evergreens. It was the holy place of a people who died out before the Domination. The Limper is waiting at the center of the grove. "

" Good enough, " Raven said.

I asked, " You'll wait here? "

" Have no fear, Croaker. "

I took another of my relaxing breaths. " Let's go, Raven. "

" One second, Croaker, " Soulcatcher said. He retrieved something from his bundle. It proved to be an arrow. " Use this. "

I eyed it uncertainly, then placed it in my quiver.

Raven insisted on leading. I did not argue. I was a city boy before I joined the Company. I cannot become comfortable with forests. Especially not woods the size of the Forest of Cloud. Too much quiet. Too much solitude. Too easy to get lost. For the first two miles I worried more about finding my way back than I did about the coming encounter. I spent a lot of time memorizing landmarks.

Raven did not speak for an hour. I was busy thinking myself. I did not mind.

He raised a hand. I stopped. " Far enough, I think, " he said. " We go that way now. "

" Uhm. "

" Let's rest. " He settled on a huge tree root, his back against a trunk. " Awful quiet today, Croaker. "

" Things on my mind. "

" Yeah. " He smiled. " Like what kind of reward we're set up for? "

" Among other things. " I drew out the arrow Catcher had given me. " You see this? "

" A blunt head? " He felt it. " Soft, almost. What the hell? "

" Exactly. Means I'm not supposed to kill her. "

There was no question of who would let fly at whom. The Limper was Raven's all the way.

" Maybe. But I'm not going to get killed trying to take her alive. "

" Me either. That's what's bothering me. Along with about ten other things, like why the Lady really picked you and me, and why she wants Whisper alive... . Oh, the hell with it. It'll give me ulcers. "

" Ready? "

" I guess. "

We left the riverbank. The going became more difficult, but soon we crossed a low ridgeline and reached the edge of the evergreens. Not much grew beneath them. Very little sunlight leaked through their boughs. Raven paused to urinate. " Won't be any chance later, " he explained.

He was right. You do not want that sort of problem when you are in ambush a stone's throw from an unfriendly Taken.

I was getting shaky. Raven laid a hand on my shoulder. " We'll be okay, " he promised. But he did not believe it himself. His hand was shaky too.

I reached inside my jerkin and touched Goblin's amulet. It helped.

Raven raised an eyebrow. I nodded. We resumed walking. I chewed a strip of jerky, which burned off nervous energy. We did not speak again.

There were ruins among the trees. Raven examined the glyphs incised in the stones. He shrugged. They meant nothing to him.

Then we came to the big trees, the grandfathers of those through which we had been passing. They towered hundreds of feet high and had trunks as thick as the spans of two men's arms. Here and there, the sun thrust swords of light down through the boughs. The air was thick with resin smells. The silence was overwhelming. We moved one step at a time, making sure our footfalls sent no warnings ahead.

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