The Black Company

Chapter Two Raven

“The crossing from Beryl proves my point,” One-Eye growled over a pewter tankard. “The Black Company doesn’t belong on water. Wench! More ale!” He waved his tankard. The girl could not understand him otherwise. He refused to learn the languages of the north.

“You’re drunk,” I observed.

“How perceptive. Will you take note, gentlemen? The Croaker, our esteemed master of the arts cleric and medical, has had the perspicacity to discover that I am drunk.” He punctuated his speech with belches and mispronunciations. He surveyed his audience with that look of sublime solemnity only a drunk can muster.

The girl brought another pitcher, and a bottle for Silent. He, too, was ready for more of his particular poison. He was drinking a sour Beryl wine perfectly suited to his personality. Money changed hands.

There were seven of us altogether. We were keeping our heads down. The place was full of sailors. We were outsiders, outlanders, the sort picked for pounding when the brawling started. With the exception of One-Eye, we prefer saving our fight for when we are getting paid.

Pawnbroker stuck his ugly face in through the street doorway. His beady little eyes tightened into a squint. He spotted us.

Pawnbroker. He got that name because he loansharks the Company. He doesn’t like it, but says anything is better than the moniker hung on him by his peasant parents: Sugar Beet.

“Hey! It’s the Sweet Beet!” One-Eye roared. “Come on over, Sugar Baby. Drinks on One-Eye. He’s too drunk to know any better.” He was. Sober, One-Eye is tighter than a collar of day-old rawhide.

Pawnbroker winced, looked around furtively. He has that manner. “The Captain wants you guys.”

We exchanged glances. One-Eye settled down. We had not seen much of the Captain lately. He was all the time hanging around with bigwigs from the Imperial Army.

Elmo and the Lieutenant got up. I did too, and started toward Pawnbroker.

The barkeeper bellowed. A serving wench darted to the doorway, blocked it. A huge, dull bull of a man lumbered out of a back room. He carried a prodigious gnarly club in each hogshead hand. He looked confused.

One-Eye snarled. The rest of our crowd rose, ready for anything.

The sailors, smelling a riot, started choosing sides. Mostly against us.

“What the hell is going on?” I shouted.

“Please, sir,” said the girl at the door. “Your friends haven’t paid for their last round.” She sped the barkeeper a vicious look.

“The hell they didn’t.” House policy was payment on delivery. I looked at the Lieutenant. He agreed. I glanced at the barkeep, sensed his greed. He thought we were drunk enough to pay twice.

Elmo said, “One-Eye, you picked this thieves’ den. You straighten them out.”

No sooner said than done. One-Eye squealed like a hog meeting the butcher...

A chimp-sized, four-armed bundle of ugly exploded from beneath our table. It charged the girl at the door, left fang-marks on her thigh. Then it climbed all over the club-wielding mountain of muscle. The man was bleeding in a dozen places before he knew what was happening.

A fruit bowl on a table at the room’s center vanished in a black fog. It reappeared a second later-with venomous snakes boiling over its rim.

The barkeep’s jaw dropped. And scarab beetles poured out of his mouth.

We made our exit during the excitement. One-Eye howled and giggled for blocks.

The Captain stared at us. We leaned on one another before his table. One-Eye still suffered the occasional spate of giggles. Even the Lieutenant could not keep a straight face. “They’re drunk,” the Captain told him.

“We’re drunk,” One-Eye agreed. “We’re palpably, plausibly, pukingly drunk.”

The Lieutenant jabbed him in the kidney.

“Sit down, men. Try to behave while you’re here.”

Here was a posh garden establishment socially miles above our last port of call. Here even the whores had titles. Plantings and tricks of landscaping broke the gardens into areas of semi-seclusion. There were ponds, gazebos, stone walkways, and an overwhelming perfume of flowers in the air.

“A little rich for us,” I remarked.

“What’s the occasion?” the Lieutenant asked. The rest of us jockeyed for seats.

The Captain had staked out a huge stone table. Twenty people could have sat around it. “We’re guests. Act like it.” He toyed with the badge over his heart, identifying him as receiving the protection of Soulcatcher. We each possessed one but seldom wore them. The Captain’s gesture suggested we correct that deficiency.

“We’re guests of the Taken?” I asked. I fought the effects of the ale. This should go into the Annals.

“No. The badges are for the benefit of the house.” He gestured. Everyone visible wore a badge declaring an alignment with one or another of the Taken. I recognized a few. The Howler. Nightcrawler. Stormbringer. The Limper.

“Our host wants to enlist in the Company.”

“He wants to join the Black Company?” One-Eye asked. “What’s wrong with the fool?” It had been years since we had taken a new recruit.

The Captain shrugged, smiled. “Once upon a time a witchdoctor did.”

One-Eye grumbled, “He’s been sorry ever since.”

“Why is he still here?” I asked.

One-Eye did not answer. Nobody leaves the Company, except feet first. The outfit is home.

“What’s he like?” the Lieutenant asked.

The Captain closed his eyes. “Unusual. He could be an asset. I like him. But judge for yourselves. He’s here.” He flicked a finger at a man surveying the gardens.

His clothing was grey, tattered, and patched. He was of modest height, lean, dusky. Darkly handsome. I guessed him to be in his late twenties. Unprepossessing...

Not really. On second glance you noted something striking. An intensity, a lack of expression, something in his stance. He was not intimidated by the gardens.

People looked and wrinkled their noses. They did not see the man, they saw rags. You could feel their revulsion. Bad enough that we had been allowed inside. Now it was ragpickers.

A grandly accoutered attendant went to show him an entrance he’d obviously entered in error.

The man came toward us, passing the attendant as if he did not exist. There was a jerkiness, a stiffness, to his movements which suggested he was recovering from recent wounds. “Captain?”

“Good afternoon. Have a seat.”

A ponderous staff general detached himself from a clutch of senior officers and svelte young women. He took a few steps our way, paused. He was tempted to make his prejudices known.

I recognized him. Lord Jalena. As high as you could get without being one of the Ten Who Were Taken. His face was puffed and red. If the Captain noticed him, he pretended otherwise.

“Gentlemen, this is... Raven. He wants to join us. Raven isn’t his birthname. Doesn’t matter. The rest of you lied too. Introduce yourselves and ask questions.”

There was something odd about this Raven. We were his guests, apparently. His manner was not that of a street beggar, yet he looked like a lot of bad road.

Lord Jalena arrived. His breath came in wheezes. Pigs like him I would love to put through half what they inflict on their troops.

He scowled at the Captain. “Sir,” he said between puffs, “Your connections are such that we can’t deny you, but... The Gardens are for persons of refinement. They have been for two hundred years. We don’t admit...”

The Captain donned a quizzical smile. Mildly, he replied, “I’m a guest, Milord. If you don’t like my company, complain to my host.” He indicated Raven.

Jalena made a half-right turn. “Sir...” His eyes and mouth went round. “You!”

Raven stared at Jalena. Not one muscle twitched. Not an eyelash flickered. The color fled the fat man’s cheeks. He glanced at his own party almost in supplication, looked at Raven again, turned to the Captain. His mouth worked but no words came out.

The Captain reached toward Raven. Raven accepted Soulcatcher’s badge. He pinned it over his heart.

Jalena went paler still. He backed away.

“Seems to know you,” the Captain observed.

“He thought I was dead.”

Jalena rejoined his party. He gabbled and pointed. Pale-faced men looked our way. They argued briefly, then the whole lot fled the garden.

Raven did not explain. Instead, he said, “Shall we get to business?”

“Care to illuminate what just happened?” The Captain’s voice had a dangerous softness.

“No.”

“Better reconsider. Your presence could endanger the whole Company.”

“It won’t. It’s a personal matter. I won’t bring it with me.”

The Captain thought about it. He is not one to intrude on a man’s past. Not without cause. He decided he had cause. “How can you avoid bringing it? Obviously, you mean something to Lord Jalena.”

“Not to Jalena. To friends of his. It’s old history. I’ll settle it before I join you. Five people have to die to close the book.”

This sounded interesting. Ah, the smell of mystery and dark doings, of skullduggery and revenge. The meat of a good tale. “I’m Croaker. Any special reason for not sharing the story?”

Raven faced me, obviously under rigid self-control. “It’s private, it’s old, and it’s shameful. I don’t want to talk about it.”

One-Eye said, “In that case I can’t vote for acceptance.”

Two men and a woman came down a flagstone pathway, paused overlooking the place where Lord Jalena’s party had been. Latecomers? They were surprised. I watched them talk it over.

Elmo voted with One-Eye. So did the Lieutenant.

“Croaker?” the Captain asked.

I voted aye. I smelled a mystery and did not want it to get away.

The Captain told Raven, “I know part of it. That’s why I’m voting with One-Eye. For the Company’s sake. I’d like to have you. But... Settle it before we leave.”

The latecomers headed our way, noses in the air but determined to learn what had become of their party.

“When are you leaving?” Raven asked. “How long do I have?”

“Tomorrow. Sunrise.”

“What?” I demanded.

“Hold on,” One-Eye said. “How come already?”

Even the Lieutenant, who never questions anything, said, “We were supposed to get a couple weeks.” He had found a lady friend, his first since I had known him.

The Captain shrugged. “They need us up north. The Limper lost the fortress at Deal to a Rebel named Raker.”

The latecomers arrived. One of the men demanded, “What became of the party in the Camellia Grotto?” His voice had a whiny, nasal quality. My hackles rose. It reeked of arrogance and contempt. I hadn’t heard its like since I joined the Black Company. People in Beryl hadn’t used that tone.

They don’t know the Black Company in Opal, I told myself. Not yet, they don’t.

The voice hit Raven like a sledge whack on the back of the head. He stiffened. For a moment his eyes were pure ice. Then a smite crinkled their corners-as evil a smite as I have ever seen.

The Captain whispered, “I know why Jalena suffered his attack of indigestion.”

We sat motionless, frozen by deadly imminence. Raven turned slowly, rising. Those three saw his face.

Whiny-voice choked. His male companion began shaking. The woman opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

Where Raven got the knife I do not know. It went almost too fast to follow. Whiny-voice bled from a cut throat. His friend had steel in his heart. And Raven had the woman’s throat in his left hand.

“No. Please,” she whispered without force. She expected no mercy.

Raven squeezed, forced her to her knees. Her face purpled, bloated. Her tongue rolled out. She seized his wrist, shuddered. He lifted her, stared into her eyes till they rolled up and she sagged. She shuddered again, died.

Raven jerked his hand away. He stared at that rigid, shaking claw. His face was ghastly. He surrendered to the all-over shakes.

“Croaker!” the Captain snapped. “Don’t you claim to be a physician?”

“Yeah.” People were reacting. The whole garden was watching. I checked Whiny-voice. Dead as a stone. So was his sidekick. I turned to the woman.

Raven knelt. He held her left hand. There were tears in his eyes. He removed a gold wedding band, pocketed it. That was all he took, though she sported a fortune in jewelry.

I met his gaze over the body. The ice was in his eyes again. It dared me to voice my guess.

“I don’t want to sound hysterical,” One-Eye growled, “but why don’t we get the hell out of here?”

“Good thinking,” Elmo said, and started heeling and toeing it.

“Get moving!” the Captain snapped at me. He took Raven’s arm. I trailed.

Raven said, “I’ll have my affairs settled by dawn.”

The Captain glanced back. “Yeah,” was all he said.

I thought so too.

But we would leave Opal without him.

The Captain received several nasty messages that night. His only comment was, “Those three must have been part of the in-crowd.”

“They wore the Limper’s badges,” I said. “What’s the story on Raven, anyway? Who is he?”

“Somebody who didn’t get along with the Limper. Who was done dirty and left for dead.”

“Was the woman something he didn’t tell you?”

The Captain shrugged. I took that as an affirmative.

“Bet she was his wife. Maybe she betrayed him.” That kind of thing is common here. Conspiracies and assassinations and naked power-grabs. All the fun of decadence. The Lady does not discourage anything. Maybe the games amuse her.

As we traveled north we moved ever nearer the heart of the empire. Each day took us into emotionally bleaker country. The locals became ever more dour, grim, and sullen. These were not happy lands, despite the season.

The day came when we had to skirt the very soul of the empire, the Tower at Charm, built by the Lady after her resurrection. Hard-eyed cavalrymen escorted us. We got no closer than three miles. Even so, the Tower’s silhouette loomed over the horizon. It is a massive cube of dark stone. It stands at least five hundred feet high.

I studied it all day. What was our mistress like? Would I ever meet her? She intrigued me. That night I wrote an exercise in which I tried to characterize her. It degenerated into a romantic fantasy.

Next afternoon we encountered a pale-faced rider galloping south in search of our Company. His badges proclaimed him a follower of the Limper. Our outriders brought him to the Lieutenant.

“You people are taking your damned sweet time, aren’t you? You’re wanted in Forsberg. Quit shitting around,”

The Lieutenant is a quiet man accustomed to the respect due his rank. He was so startled he said nothing. The courier became more offensive. Then the Lieutenant demanded, “What’s your rank?”

“Corpora! Courier to the Limper. Buddy, you’d better get hauling. He don’t put up with no shit.”

The Lieutenant is the Company disciplinarian. It is a load he takes off the Captain. He is a reasonable, just sort of guy.

“Sergeant!” he snapped at Elmo. “I want you.” He was angry. Usually only the Captain calls Elmo Sergeant.

Elmo was riding with the Captain at the time. He trotted up the column. The Captain tagged along. “Sir?” Elmo asked.

The Lieutenant halted the Company. “Flog some respect into this peasant.”

“Yes sir. Otto. Crispin. Turn a hand here.”

“Twenty strokes should do it.”

“Twenty strokes it is, sir.”

“What the hell do you think you’re pulling? No stinking hiresword is going to...”

The Captain said, “Lieutenant, I think that calls for another ten lashes.”

“Yes sir. Elmo?”

“Thirty it is, sir.” He struck out. The courier flopped out of his saddle. Otto and Crispin picked him up and ran him to a rail fence, draped him over it. Crispin slit the back of his shirt.

Elmo plied the strokes with the Lieutenant’s riding crop. He did not lean into it. There was no rancor in this, just a message to those who thought the Black Company second-class.

I was there with my kit when Elmo finished. “Try to relax, lad. I’m a physician. I’ll clean your back and bandage you.” I patted his cheek. “You took it pretty good for a northerner.”

Elmo gave him a new shirt when I finished. I offered some unsolicited advice on treatment, then suggested, “Report to the Captain as if this hadn’t happened.” I pointed toward the Captain... “Well.”

Friend Raven had rejoined us. He watched from the back of a sweaty, dusty roan.

The messenger took my advice. The Captain said, “Tell the Limper I’m traveling as fast as I can. I won’t push so hard I’ll be in no shape to fight when I get there.”

“Yes sir. I’ll tell him, sir.” Gingerly, the courier mounted his horse. He concealed his feelings well.

Raven observed, “The Limper will cut your heart out for that.”

“The Limper’s displeasure doesn’t concern me. I thought you were going to join us before we left Opal.”

“I was slow closing accounts. One wasn’t in the city at all. Lord Jalena warned the other. It took me three days to find him.”

“The one out of town?” - “I decided to join you instead.”

That was not a satisfactory answer, but the Captain slid around it. “I can’t let you join us while you have outside interests.”

“I let it go. I repaid the most important debt.” He meant the woman. I could taste it.

The Captain eyed him sourly. “All right. Ride with Elmo’s platoon.”

“Thank you. Sir.” That sounded strange. He was not a man accustomed to sirring anyone.

Our northward journey continued, past Elm, into the Salient, past Roses, and northward still, into Forsberg. That one-time kingdom had become a bloody killing-ground.

The city Oar lies in northernmost Forsberg, and in the forests above lies the Barrowland, where the Lady and her lover, the Dominator, were interred four centuries ago. The stubborn necromantic investigations of wizards from Oar had resurrected the Lady and Ten Who Were Taken from their dark, abiding’ dreams. Now their guilt-ridden descendants battled the Lady.

Southern Forsberg remained deceptively peaceful. The peasantry greeted us without enthusiasm, but willingly took our money.

“That’s because seeing the Lady’s soldiers pay is such a novelty,” Raven claimed. “The Taken just grab whatever strikes their fancy.”

The Captain grunted. We would have done so ourselves had we not had instructions to the contrary. Soulcatcher had directed us to be gentlemen. He had given the Captain a plump war chest. The Captain was willing. No point making enemies needlessly.

We had been travelling two months. A thousand miles lay behind us. We were exhausted. The Captain decided to rest us at the edge of the war zone. Maybe he was having second thoughts about serving the Lady.

Anyway, there is no point hunting trouble. Not when not fighting pays the same.

The Captain directed us into a forest. While we pitched camp, he talked with Raven. I watched.

Curious. There was a bond developing there. I could not understand it because I did not know enough about either man. Raven was a new enigma, the Captain an old one.

In all the years I have known the Captain I have learned almost nothing about him. Just a hint here and there, fleshed out by speculation.

He was born in one of the Jewel Cities. He was a professional soldier. Something overturned his personal life. Possibly a woman. He abandoned commission and titles and became a wanderer. Eventually he hooked up with our band of spiritual exiles.

We all have our pasts. I suspect we keep them nebulous not because we are hiding from our yesterdays but because we think we will cut more romantic figures if we roll our eyes and dispense delicate hints about beautiful women forever beyond our reaches. Those men whose stories I have uprooted are running from the law, not a tragic love affair.

The Captain and Raven, though, obviously found one another kindred souls.

The camp was set. The pickets were out. We settled in to rest. Though that was busy country, neither contending force noticed us immediately.

Silent was using his skills to augment the watchfulness of our sentries. He detected spies hidden inside our outer picket line and warned One-Eye. One-Eye reported to the Captain.

The Captain spread a map atop a stump we had turned into a card table, after evicting me, One-Eye, Goblin, and several others. “Where are they?”

“Two here. Two more over there. One here.”

“Somebody go tell the pickets to disappear. We’ll sneak out, Goblin. Where’s Goblin? Tell Goblin to get with the illusions.” The Captain had decided not to start anything. A laudable decision, I thought.

A few minutes later, he asked, “Where’s Raven?”

I said, “I think he went after the spies.”

“What? Is he an idiot?” His face darkened. “What the hell do you want?”

Goblin squeaked like a stomped rat. He squeaks at the best of times. The Captain’s outburst had him sounding like a baby bird. “You called for me.”

The Captain stamped in a circle, growling and scowling. Had he the talent of a Goblin or a One-Eye, smoke would have poured from his ears.

I winked at Goblin, who grinned like a big toad. This shambling little war dance was just a warning not to trifle with him. He shuffled maps. He cast dark looks. He wheeled on me. “I don’t like it. Did you put him up to it?”

“Hell no.” I do not try to create Company history. I just record it.

Then Raven showed up. He dumped a body at the Captain’s feet, proffered a string of grisly trophies.

“What the hell?”

“Thumbs. They count coup in these parts.”

The Captain turned green around the gills. “What’s the body for?”

“Stick his feet in the fire. Leave him. They won’t waste time wondering how we knew they were out there.”

One-Eye, Goblin, and Silent cast a glamour over the Company. We slipped away, slick as a fish through the fingers of a clumsy fisherman. An enemy battalion, which had been sneaking up, never caught a whiff of us. We headed straight north. The Captain planned to find the Limper.

Late that afternoon One-Eye broke into a marching song. Goblin squawked in protest. One-Eye grinned and sang all the louder.

“He’s changing the words!” Goblin squealed.

Men grinned, anticipating. One-Eye and Goblin have been feuding for ages. One-Eye always starts the scraps. Goblin can be as touchy as a fresh burn. Their spats are entertaining.

This time Goblin did not reciprocate. He ignored One-Eye. The little black man got his feelings hurt. He got louder. We expected fireworks. What we got is bored. One-Eye could not get a rise. He started sulking.

A bit later, Goblin told me, “Keep your eyes peeled, Croaker. We’re in strange country. Anything could happen.” He giggled.

A horsefly landed on the haunch of One-Eye’s mount. The animal screamed, reared. Sleepy One-Eye tumbled over its tail. Everybody guffawed. The wizened little wizard came up out of the dust cursing and swatting with his battered old hat. He punched his horse with his free hand, connecting with the beast’s forehead. Then he danced around moaning and blowing on his knuckles.

His reward was a shower of catcalls. Goblin smirked.

Soon One-Eye was dozing again. It’s a trick you learn after enough weary miles on horseback. A bird settled on his shoulder. He snorted, swatted... The bird left a huge, fetid purple deposit. One-Eye howled. He threw things. He shredded his jerkin getting it off.

Again we laughed. And Goblin looked as innocent as a virgin. One-Eye scowled and growled but did not catch on.

He got a glimmer when we crested a hill and beheld a band of monkey-sized pygmies busily kissing an idol reminiscent of a horse’s behind. Every pygmy was a miniature One-Eye.

The little wizard turned a hideous look on Goblin. Goblin responded with an innocent, don’t look at me shrug.

“Point to Goblin,” I judged.

“Better watch yourself, Croaker,” One-Eye growled. “Or you’ll be doing the kissing right here.” He patted his fanny.

“When pigs fly.” He is a more skilled wizard than Goblin or Silent, but not half what he would have us believe. If he could execute half his threats, he would be a peril to the Taken. Silent is more consistent, Goblin more inventive.

One-Eye would lie awake nights thinking of ways to get even for Goblin’s having gotten even. A strange pair. I do not know why they have not killed one another.

Finding the Limper was easier said than done. We trailed him into a forest, where we found abandoned earthworks and a lot of Rebel bodies. Our path tilted downward into a valley of broad meadows parted by a sparkling stream.

“What the hell?” I asked Goblin. “That’s strange.” Wide, low, black humps pimpled the meadows. There were bodies everywhere.

“That’s one reason the Taken are feared. Killing spells. Their heat sucked the ground up.”

I stopped to study a hump.

The blackness could have been drawn with a compass. The boundary was as sharp as a penstroke. Charred skeletons lay within the black. Swordblades and spearheads looked like wax imitations left too long in the sun. I caught One-Eye staring. “When you can do this trick you’ll scare me.”

“If I could do that I’d scare myself.”

I checked another circle. It was a twin of the first.

Raven reined in beside me. “The Limper’s work. I’ve seen it before.”

I sniffed the wind. Maybe I had him in the right mood. “When was that?”

He ignored me.

He would not come out of his shell. Would not say hello half the time, let alone talk about who or what he was.

He is a cold one. The horrors of that valley did not touch him.

“The Limper lost this one,” the Captain decided. “He’s on the run.”

“Do we keep after him?” the Lieutenant asked.

“This is strange country. We’re in more danger operating alone.”

We followed a spoor of violence, a swath of destruction. Ruined fields fell behind us. Burned villages. Slaughtered people and butchered livestock. Poisoned wells. The Limper left nothing but death and desolation.

Our brief was to help hold Forsberg. Joining the Limper was not mandatory. I wanted no part of him. I did not want to be in the same province.

As the devastation grew more recent, Raven showed elation, dismay, introspection easing into determination, and ever more of that rigid self-control he so often hid behind.

When I reflect on my companions’ inner natures I usually wish I controlled one small talent. I wish I could look inside them and unmask the darks and brights that move them. Then I take a quick look into the jungle of my own soul and thank heaven that I cannot. Any man who barely sustains an armistice with himself has no business poking around in an alien soul.

I decided to keep closer watch on our newest brother.

We did not need Doughbelly coming in from the point to tell us we were close. All the forward horizon sprouted tall, leaning trees of smoke. This part of Forsberg was flat and open and marvelously green, and against the turquoise sky those oily pillars were an abomination.

There was not much breeze. The afternoon promised to be scorching.

Doughbelly swung in beside the Lieutenant. Elmo and I stopped swapping tired old lies and listened. Doughbelly indicated a smoke spire. “Still some of the Limper’s men in that village, sir.”

“Talk to them?”

“No sir. Longhead didn’t think you’d want us to. He’s waiting outside town.”

“How many of them?”

“Twenty, twenty-five. Drunk and mean. The officer was worse than the men.”

The Lieutenant glanced over his shoulder. “Ah. Elmo. It’s your lucky day. Take ten men and go with Doughbelly. Scout around.”

“Shit,” Elmo muttered. He is a good man, but muggy spring days make him lazy. “Okay. Otto. Silent. Peewee. Whitey. Billygoat. Raven...”

I coughed discreetly.

“You’re out of your head, Croaker. All right.” He did a quick count on his fingers, called three more names. We formed outside the column. Elmo gave us the once-over to make sure we hadn’t forgotten our heads. “Let’s go.”

We hurried forward. Doughbelly directed us into a wood-lot overlooking the stricken town. Longhead and a man called Jolly waited there. Elmo asked, “Any developments?”

Jolly, who is professionally sarcastic, replied, “The fires are burning down.”

We looked at the village. I saw nothing that did not turn my stomach. Slaughtered livestock. Slaughtered cats and dogs. The small, broken forms of dead children.

“Not the kids too,” I said, without realizing I was speaking. “Not the babies again.”

Elmo looked at me oddly, not because he was unmoved himself but because I was uncharacteristically sympathetic. I have seen a lot of dead men. I did not enlighten him. For me there is a big difference between adults and’ kids. “Elmo, I have to go in there.”

“Don’t be stupid. Croaker. What can you do?”

“If I can save one kid...”

Raven said, “I’ll go with him.” A knife appeared in his hand. He must have learned that trick from a conjurer. He does it when he is nervous or angry.

“Think you can bluff twenty-five men?”

Raven shrugged. “Croaker is right, Elmo, It’s got to be done. Some things you don’t tolerate.”

Elmo surrendered. “We’ll all go. Pray they aren’t so drunk they can’t tell friend from foe.”

Raven started riding.

The village was good-sized. There had been more than two hundred homes before the Limper’s advent. Half were burned or burning. Bodies littered the streets. Flies clustered round their sightless eyes. “Nobody of military age,” I noted.

I dismounted and knelt beside a boy of four or five. His skull had been smashed, but he was breathing. Raven dropped beside me. “Nothing I can do,” I said.

“You can end his ordeal.” There were tears in Raven’s eyes. Tears and anger. “There’s no excuse for this.” He moved to a corpse lying in shadow.

This one was about seventeen. He wore the jacket of a Rebel Mainforcer. He had died fighting. Raven said, “He must have been on leave. One boy to protect them.” He pried a bow from lifeless fingers, bent it. “Good wood. A few thousand of these could rout the Limper.” He slung the bow and appropriated the boy’s arrows.

I examined another two children. They were beyond help. Inside a burned hut I found a grandmother who had died trying to shield an infant. In vain.

Raven exuded disgust. “Creatures like the Limper create two enemies for every one they destroy.”

I became aware of muted weeping, and of cursing and laughter somewhere ahead. “Let’s see what that is.”

Beside the hut we found four dead soldiers. The lad had left his mark. “Good shooting,” Raven observed. “Poor fool.”

“Fool?”

“He should’ve had the sense to run. Might’ve gone easier on everyone.” His intensity startled me. What did he care about a boy from the other side? “Dead heroes don’t get a second chance.”

Aha! He was drawing a parallel with an event in his own mysterious past.

The cursing and weeping resolved into a scene fit to disgust anyone tainted with humanity.

There were a dozen soldiers in the circle, laughing at their own crude jokes. I remembered a bitch dog surrounded by males who, contrary to custom, were not fighting for mounting rights but were taking turns. They might have killed her had I not intervened.

Raven and I mounted up, the better to see.

The victim was a child of nine. Welts covered her. She was terrified, yet making no sound. In a moment I understood. She was a mute.

War is a cruel business prosecuted by cruel men. The gods know the Black Company are no cherubim. But there are limits.

They were making an old man watch. He was the source of both curses and weeping.

Raven put an arrow into a man about to assault the girl.

“Dammit!” Elmo yelled. “Raven!...”

The soldiers turned on us. Weapons appeared. Raven loosed another arrow. It dropped the trooper holding the old man. The Limper’s men lost any inclination to fight. Elmo whispered, “Whitey, go tell the old man to haul ass over here.”

One of the Limper’s men took a like notion. He scampered off. Raven let him run.

The Captain would have his behind on a platter.

He did not seem concerned. “Old timer. Come here. Bring the child. And get some clothes on her.”

Part of me could not help but applaud, but another part called Raven a fool.

Elmo did not have to tell us to watch our backs. We were painfully aware that we were in big trouble. Hurry, Whitey, I thought.

Their messenger reached their commander first. He came tottering up the street. Doughbelly was right. -He was worse than his men.

The old timer and girl clung to Raven’s stirrup. The old man scowled at our badges. Elmo nudged his mount forward, pointed at Raven. I nodded.

The drunken officer stopped in front of Elmo. Dull eyes assayed us. He seemed impressed. We have grown hard in a rough trade, and look it.

“You!” he squealed suddenly, exactly the way Whiny-voice had done in Opal. He stared at Raven. Then he spun, ran.

Raven thundered, “Stand still, Lane! Take it like a man, you gutless thief!” He snatched an arrow from his quiver.

Elmo cut his bowstring.

Lane stopped. His response was not gratitude. He cursed. He enumerated the horrors we could expect at the hand of his patron.

I watched Raven.

He stared at Elmo in cold fury. Elmo faced it without flinching. He was a hard guy himself.

Raven did his knife trick. I tapped his blade with my swordtip. He mouthed one soft curse, glared, relaxed. Elmo said, “You left your old life behind, remember?”

Raven nodded once, sharply. “It’s harder than I thought.” His shoulders sagged. “Run away, Lane. You’re not important enough to kill.”

A clatter rose behind us. The Captain was coming.

That little wart of the Limper’s puffed up and wriggled like a cat about to pounce. Elmo glared at him down the length of his sword. He got the hint.

Raven muttered, “I should know better anyway. He’s only a butt boy.”

I asked a leading question. It drew a blank stare.

The Captain rattled up. “What the hell is going on?”

Elmo began one of his terse reports. Raven interrupted. “Yon sot is one of Zouad’s jackals. I wanted to kill him. Elmo and Croaker stopped me.”

Zouad? Where had I heard that name? Connected with the Limper. Colonel Zouad. The Limper’s number one villain. Political liaison, among other euphemisms. His name had occurred in a few overheard conversations between Raven and the Captain. Zouad was Raven’s intended fifth victim? Then the Limper himself must have been behind Raven’s misfortunes.

Curiouser and curiouser. Also scarier and scarier. The Limper is not anybody to mess with.

The Limper’s man shouted, “I want this man arrested.” The Captain gave him a look. “He murdered two of my men.”

The bodies were there in plain sight. Raven said nothing. Elmo stepped out of character and volunteered, “They were raping the child. Their idea of pacification.”

The Captain stared at his opposite number. The man reddened. Even the blackest villain will feel shame if caught unable to justify himself. The Captain snapped, “Croaker?”

“We found one dead Rebel, Captain. Indications were this sort of thing started before he became a factor.”

He asked the sot, “These people are subjects of the Lady? Under her protection?” The point might be arguable in other courts, but at the moment it told. By his lack of a defense the man confessed a moral guilt.

“You disgust me.” The Captain used his soft, dangerous voice. “Get out of here. Don’t cross my path again. I’ll leave you to my friend’s mercy if you do.” The man stumbled away.

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 mat 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. “Soul-catcher.” 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 Soulcatcher ate that up.

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

Goblin 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,” he 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. “Til 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 tot 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 stable 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?”

Doughbelly 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.”

I exchanged glances with One-Eye, who was putting his broth together using this and that from a black bag of his own. “Looks like Cornie knows our crowd,” I said.

“Know you well enough to know you don’t want nobody getting away with nothing like this.”

I looked at Elmo, Elmo stared at Cornie, There always was some doubt about the stablekeeper. Cornie got nervous. Elmo, like any veteran sergeant, has a baleful stare. Finally, “One-Eye, take this fellow for a walk. Get his story.”

One-Eye had Cornie under hypnosis in seconds. The two of them roamed around chatting like old buddies.

I shifted my attention to Candy. “That man in the shadows. Did he limp?”

“Wasn’t the Limper. Too tall.”

“Even so, the attack would have had the spook’s blessing. Right, Elmo?”

Elmo nodded. “Soulcatcher would get severely pissed if he figured it out. The okay to risk that had to come from the top.”

Something like a sigh came out of Raven. I looked down. His eyes were open a crack. He repeated the sound. I put my ear next to his lips, “Zouad...” he murmured.

Zouad. The infamous Colonel Zouad. The enemy he had renounced. The Limper’s special villain. Raven’s knight-errantry had generated vicious repercussions.

I told Elmo. He did not seem surprised. Maybe the Captain had passed Raven’s history on to his platoon leaders.

One-Eye came back. He said, “Friend Cornie works for the other team.” He grinned a malific grin, the one he practices so he can scare kids and dogs. “Thought you might want to take that into consideration, Elmo.”

“Oh, yes.” Elmo seemed delighted.

I went to work on the man next worse off. More sewing to do. I wondered if I would have enough suture. The patrol was in bad shape. “How long till we get some of that broth, One-Eye?”

“Still got to come up with a chicken.”

Elmo grumbled, “So have somebody go steal one.”

One-Eye said, “The people we want are holed up in a Bleek Street dive. They’ve got some rough friends.”

“What are you going to do, Elmo?” I asked. I was sure he would do something. Raven had put us under obligation by naming Zouad. He thought he was dying. He would not have named the name otherwise. I knew him that well, if I didn’t know anything about his past.

“We’ve got to arrange something for the Colonel.”

“You go looking for trouble, you’re going to find it. Remember who he works for.”

“Bad business, letting somebody get away with hitting the Company, Croaker. Even the Limper.”

“That’s taking pretty high policy on your own shoulders, isn’t it?” I could not disagree, though. A defeat on the battlefield is acceptable. This was not the same. This was empire politics. People should be warned that it could get hairy if they dragged us in. The Limper and Soulcatcher had to be shown. I asked Elmo, “What kind of repercussions do you figure on?”

“One hell of a lot of pissing and moaning. But I don’t reckon there’s much they can do. Hell, Croaker, it ain’t your no nevermind anyway. You get paid to patch guys up.” He stared at Cornie thoughtfully. “I reckon the fewer witnesses left over, the better. The Limpet can’t scream if he can’t prove nothing. One-Eye. You go on talking to your pet Rebel there. I got a nasty little idea shaping up in the back of my head. Maybe he has the key.”

One-Eye finished dishing out his soup. The earliest partakers had more color in their cheeks already. Elmo stopped paring his nails. He skewered the stablekeeper with a hard stare. “Cornie, you ever hear of Colonel Zouad?”

Cornie stiffened. He hesitated just a second too long. “Can’t say as I have.”

“That’s odd. Figured you would have. He’s the one they call the Limper’s left hand. Anyway, I figure the Circle would do most anything to lay hands on him. What do you think?”

“I don’t know nothing about the Circle, Elmo.” He gazed out over the rooftops. “You telling me this fellow over to Bleek is this Zouad?”

Elmo chuckled. “Didn’t say that at all, Cornie. Did I give that impression, Croaker?”

“Hell no. What would Zouad be doing hanging around a crummy whorehouse in Oar? The Limper is up to his butt in trouble over east. He’d want all the help he could get.”

“See, Cornie? But look here. Maybe I do know where the Circle could find the Colonel. Now, him and the Company ain’t no friends. On the other hand, we ain’t friends with the Circle, neither. But that’s business. No hard feelings. So I was thinking. Maybe we could trade a favor for a favor. Maybe some big-time Rebel could drop by that place in Bleek Street and tell the owners he don’t think they ought to be looking out for those guys. You see what I mean? If it was to go that way, Colonel Zouad just might drop into the Circle’s lap.”

Cornie got the look of a man who knows he is trapped.

He had been a good spy when we had had no reason to worry about him. He had been just plain old Cornie, friendly stablekeeper, whom we had tipped a little extra and talked around no more nor less than anyone else outside the Company. He had been under no pressure. He hadn’t had to be anything but himself.

“You got me all wrong, Elmo. Honest. I don’t never get involved in politics. The Lady or the Whites, it’s all the same to me. Horses need feeding and stabling no matter who rides them.”

“Reckon you’re right there, Cornie. Excuse me for being suspicious.” Elmo winked at One-Eye.

“That’s the Amador where those fellows are staying, Elmo. You better go over there before somebody tells them you’re in town. Me, I’d better start getting this place cleaned up.”

“We’re in no hurry, Cornie. But you go ahead with whatever you’ve got to do.”

Cornie eyed us. He went a few steps toward what was left of his stable. He looked us over. Elmo considered him blandly. One-Eye lifted his horse’s left foreleg to check its hoof. Cornie ducked into the ruin. “One-Eye?” Elmo asked.

“Right on out the back. Heeling and toeing.”

Elmo grinned. “Keep your eye on him. Croaker, take notes. I want to know who he tells. And who they tell. We gave him something that ought to spread like the clap.”

“Zouad was a dead man from the minute Raven named his name,” I told One-Eye. “Maybe from the minute he did whatever it was back when.”

One-Eye grunted, discarded. Candy picked up and spread. One-Eye cursed. “I can’t play with these guys, Croaker. They don’t play right,”

Elmo galloped up the street, dismounted. “They’re moving in on that whorehouse. Got something for me, One-Eye?”

The list was disappointing. I gave it to Elmo. He cursed, spat, cursed again. He kicked the planks we were using as a card table. “Pay attention to your damned jobs.”

One-Eye controlled his temper. “They’re not making mistakes, Elmo. They’re covering their asses. Comic has been around us too long to trust.”

Elmo stomped around and breathed fire.- “All right. Backup plan number one. We watch Zouad. See where they take him after they grab him. We’ll rescue him when he’s about ready to croak, wipe out any Rebels around the place, then hunt down anybody who checked in there.”

I observed, “You’re determined to show a profit, aren’t you?”

“Damned straight. How’s Raven?”

“Looks like he’ll pull through. The infection is under control, and One-Eye says he’s started to heal.”

“Uhn. One-Eye, I want Rebel names. Lots of names.”

“Yes sir, boss, sir.” One-Eye produced an exaggerated salute. It became an obscene gesture when Elmo turned away.

“Push those planks together, Doughbelly,” I suggested. “Your deal, One-Eye.”

He did not respond. He did not bitch or gripe or threaten to turn me into a newt. He just stood there, numb as death, eye barely cracked.

“Elmo!”

Elmo got in front of him and stared from six inches away. He snapped his fingers under One-Eye’s nose. One-Eye did not respond. “What do you think, Croaker?”

“Something is happening at that whorehouse,”

One-Eye did not move a muscle for ten minutes. Then the eye opened, unglazed, and he relaxed like a wet rag. Elmo demanded, “What the hell happened?”

“Give him a minute, will you?” I snapped.

One-Eye collected himself. “The Rebel got Zouad, but not before he contacted the Limper.”

“Uhm?”

“The spook is coming to help him.”

Elmo turned a pale shade of grey. “Here? To Oar?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, shit.”

Indeed. The Limper was the nastiest of the Taken. “Think fast, Elmo. He’ll trace our part in it... Cornie is the cutout link.”

“One-Eye, you find that old shit. Whitey. Still. Pokey. Got a job for you.” He gave instructions. Pokey grinned and stroked his dagger. Bloodthirsty bastard.

I cannot adequately portray the unease One-Eye’s news generated. We knew the Limper only through stories, but those stories were always grim. We were scared. Soul-catcher’s patronage was no real protection against another of the Taken.

Elmo punched me. “He’s doing it again.”

Sure enough. One-Eye was stiff. But this time he went beyond rigidity. He toppled, began thrashing and foaming at the mouth.

“Hold him!” I ordered. “Elmo, give me that baton of yours.” A half dozen men piled on One-Eye. Small though he was, he gave them a ride.

“What for?” Elmo asked.

“I’ll put it in his mouth so he doesn’t chew his tongue.” One-Eye matte the weirdest sounds I’ve ever heard, and I have heard plenty on battlefields. Wounded men make noises you would swear could not come from a human throat.

The seizure lasted only seconds. After one final, violent surge, One-Eye lapsed into a peaceful slumber.

“Okay, Croaker. What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know. The falling sickness?”

“Give him some of his own soup,” somebody suggested. “Serve him right.” A tin cup appeared. We forced its contents down his throat.

His eye clicked open. “What are you trying to do? Poison me? Feh! What was that? Boiled sewage?”

“Your soup,” I told him.

Elmo jumped in. “What happened?”

One-Eye spat. He grabbed a nearby wineskin, sucked a mouthful, gargled, spat again. “Soulcatcher happened, that’s what. Whew! I feel for Goblin now.”

My heart started skipping every third beat. A nest of hornets swarmed in my gut. First the Limper, now Soulcatcher.

“So what did the spook want?” Elmo demanded. He was nervous too. He is not usually impatient.

“He wanted to know what the hell is going on. He heard the Limper was all excited. He checked with Goblin. All Goblin knew was that we headed here. So he climbed into my head.”

“And was amazed at all the wide open space. Now he knows everything you know, eh?”

“Yes.” Obviously, One-Eye did not like the idea.

Elmo waited several seconds. “Well?”

“Well what?” One-Eye covered his grin by pulling on the wineskin.

“Dammit, what did he say?”

One-Eye chuckled. “He approves of what we’re doing. But he thinks we’re showing all the finesse of a bull in rut. So we’re getting a little help.”

“What kind of help?” Elmo sounded like he knew things were out of control, but could not see where.

“He’s sending somebody.”

Elmo relaxed. So did I. As long as the spook himself stayed away. “How soon?” I wondered aloud.

“Maybe sooner than we’d like,” Elmo muttered. “Lay off the wine, One-Eye. You still got to watch Zouad.”

One-Eye grumbled. He went into that semi-trance that means he is looking around somewhere else. He was gone a long time.

“So!” Elmo growled when One-Eye came out of it. He kept looking around like he expected Soulcatcher to pop out of thin air.

“So take it easy. They’ve got him tucked away in a secret sub-basement about a mile south of here.”

Elmo was as restless as a little boy with a desperate need to pee. “What’s the matter with you?” I asked.

“A bad feeling. Just a bad, bad feeling, Croaker.” His roving gaze came to rest. His eyes got big. “I was right. Oh, damn, I was right.”

It looked as tall as a house and half as wide. It wore scarlet bleached by time, moth-eaten, and tattered. It came up the street in a sort of shamble, now fast, now slow. Wild, stringy grey hair tangled around its head. Its bramble patch of a beard was so thick and matted with filth that its face was all but invisible. One pallid, liver-spotted hand clutched a pole of a staff that was a thing of beauty defiled by its bearer’s touch. It was an immensely elongated female body, perfect in every detail.

Someone whispered, “They say that was a real woman back during the Domination. They say she cheated on him.”

You could not blame the woman. Not if you gave Shifter a good look.

Shapeshifter is Soulcatcher’s closest ally among the Ten Who Were Taken. His enmity for the Limper is more virulent than our patron’s. The Limper was the third corner in the triangle explaining Shifter’s staff.

He stopped a few feet away. His eyes burned with an insane fire that made them impossible to meet. I cannot recall what color they were. Chronologically, he was the first great wizard-king seduced, suborned, and enslaved by the Dominator and his Lady.

Shaking, One-Eye stepped out front. “I’m the wizard,” he said.

“Catcher told me.” Shifter’s voice was resonant and deep and big for even a man of his size, “Developments?”

“I’ve traced Zouad. Nothing else.”

Shifter scanned us again. Some folks were doing a fade. He smiled behind his facial brush.

Down at the bend in the street civilians were gathering to gape. Oar had not yet seen any of the Lady’s champions. This was the city’s lucky day. Two of the maddest were in town.

Shifter’s gaze touched me. For an instant I felt his cold contempt. I was a sour stench in his nostrils.

He found what he was looking for. Raven. He moved forward. We dodged the way small males duck the dominant baboon at the zoo. He stared at Raven for several minutes, then his vast shoulders hunched in a shrug. He placed the toes of his staff on Raven’s chest.

I gasped. Raven’s color improved dramatically. He stopped sweating. His features relaxed as the pain faded. His wounds formed angry red scar tissue which faded to the white of old scars in minutes. We gathered in a tighter and tighter circle, awed by the show.

Pokey came trotting up the street. “Hey, Elmo. We did it. What’s going on?” He got a look at Shifter, squeaked like a caught mouse.

Elmo had himself together again. “Where’s Whitey and Still?”

“Getting rid of the body.”

“Body?” Shifter asked. Elmo explained. Shifter grunted. “This Cornie will become the basis of our plan. You” He speared One-Eye with a sausage-sized finger. “Where are those men?”

Predictably, One-Eye located them in a tavern. “You.” Shifter indicated Pokey. “Tell them to bring the body back here.”

Pokey got grey around the edges. You could see the protests piling up inside him. But he nodded, gulped some air, and trotted off. Nobody argues with tile Taken.

I checked Raven’s pulse. It was strong. He looked perfectly healthy. As diffidently as I could, I asked, “Could you do that for the others? While we’re waiting?”

He gave me a look I thought would curdle my blood. But he did it.

“What happened? What are you doing here?” Raven frowned up at me. Then it came back to him. He sat up. “Zouad...” He looked around.

“You’ve been out for two days. They carved you up like a goose. We didn’t think you’d make it.”

He felt his wounds. “What’s going on, Croaker? I ought to be dead.”

“Soulcatcher sent a friend. Shifter. He fixed you up.” He had fixed everybody. It was hard to stay terrified of a guy who would do that for your outfit.

Raven surged to his feet, wobbled dizzily. “That damned Cornie. He set it up.” A knife appeared in his hand. “Damn. I’m weak as a kitten.”

I had wondered how Cornie could know so much about the attackers. “That isn’t Cornie there, Raven. Cornie is dead. That’s Shifter practicing to be Cornie.” He did not need practice. He was Cornie enough to fool Cornie’s mother.

Raven settled back beside me. “What’s going on?” I brought him up to date. “Shifter wants to go in using Cornie as credentials. They probably trust him now.” “I’ll be right behind him.” “He might not like that.”

“I don’t care what he likes. Zouad isn’t getting out of it this time. The debt is too big.” His face softened and saddened. “How’s Darling? She hear about Flick yet?”

“I don’t think so. Nobody’s been back to Deal. Elmo figures he can do whatever he wants here as long as he don’t have to face the Captain till it’s over.” “Good. I won’t have to argue it with him.”

“Shifter isn’t the only Taken in town,” I reminded him. Shifter had said he sensed the Limper. Raven shrugged. The Limper did not matter to him.

The Cornie simulacrum came toward us. We rose. I was shaky, but did note that Raven grew a shade paler. Good. He wasn’t a cold stone all the time.

“You will accompany me,” he told Raven. He eyed me. “And you. And the sergeant.”

“They know Elmo,” I protested. And he grinned.

“You will appear to be Rebels. Only one of the Circle would detect the deception. None of them are in Oar. The Rebel here is independently minded. We will take advantage of his failure to summon support.” The Rebel is as plagued by personality politics as is our side.

Shifter beckoned One-Eye. “Status of Colonel Zouad?”

“He hasn’t cracked.”

“He’s tough,” Raven said, begrudging the compliment.

“You getting any names?” Elmo asked me.

I had a nice list. Elmo was pleased.

“We’d better go,” Shifter said. “Before Limper strikes.”

One-Eye gave us the passwords. Scared, convinced I was not ready for this, more convinced that I did not dare contest Shifter’s selections, I trudged along in the Taken’s wake.

I don’t know when it happened. I just glanced up and found myself walking with strangers. I gobbled at Shifter’s back.

Raven laughed. I understood then. Shifter had cast his glamour over us. We now appeared to be captains of the Rebel persuasion. “Who are we?” I asked.

Shifter indicated Raven. “Harden, of the Circle. Raker’s brother-in-law. They hate one another the way Catcher and Limper hate one another.” Next, Elmo. “Field Major Reef, Harden’s chief of staff. You, Harden’s nephew, Motrin Hanin, as vicious an assassin as ever lived.”

We had heard of none of them, but Shifter assured us their presence would not be questioned. Harden was in and out of Forsberg all the time, making life tough for his wife’s brother.

Right, I thought. Fine and dandy. And what about the Limper? What do we do if he shows up?

The people at the place where they were holding Zouad were more embarrassed than curious when Cornie announced Harden. They had not deferred to the Circle. They did not ask questions. Apparently the real Harden possessed a vile, volatile, unpredictable temper.

“Show them the prisoner,” Shifter said.

One Rebel gave Shifter a look that said, “Just you wait, Cornie.”

The place was packed with Rebels. I could almost hear Elmo thinking out his plan of attack.

They took us down into a basement, through a cleverly concealed doorway, and down deeper still, into a room with earthen walls and ceiling supported by beams and timbers. The decor came straight out of a fiend’s imagination.

Torture chambers exist, of course, but the mass of men never see them, so they never really believe in them. I’d never seen one before.

I surveyed the instruments, looked at Zouad there strapped into a huge, bizarre chair, and wondered why the Lady was considered such a villain. These people said they were the good guys, fighting for the right, liberty, and the dignity of the human spirit, but in method they were no better than the Limper.

Shifter whispered to Raven. Raven nodded. I wondered how we would get our cues. Shifter had not rehearsed us much. These people would expect us to act like Harden and his cutthroats.

We seated ourselves and observed the interrogation. Our presence inspired the questioners. I closed my eyes. Raven and Elmo were less disturbed.

After a few minutes “Harden” ordered Major Reef to go handle some piece of business. I do not recall the excuse. I was distracted. Its purpose was to put Elmo back on the street so he could start the roundup.

Shifter was winging it. We were supposed to sit tight till he cued us. I gathered we would make our move when Elmo closed in and panic started seeping down from above. Meantime, we would watch Colonel Zouad’s demolition.

The Colonel was not that impressive, but then the torturers had had him a while. I expect anyone would look hollow and shrunken after enduring their mercies.

We sat like three idols. I sent mental hurryups to Elmo. I had been trained ’to take pleasure in the healing, not the breaking, of human flesh.

Even Raven seemed unhappy. Doubtless he had fantasized torments for Zouad, but when it came to the actuality his basic decency triumphed. His style was to stick a knife in a man and have done.

The earth lurched as if stomped by a huge boot. Soil fell from the walls and overhead. The air filled with dust. “Earthquake!” somebody yelled, and the Rebels all scrambled for the stair. Shifter sat still and smiled.

The earth shuddered again. I fought the instinct of the herd and remained seated. Shifter was not worried. Why should I be?

He pointed at Zouad. Raven nodded, rose, went over. The Colonel was conscious and lucid and frightened by the quaking. He looked grateful when Raven started unbuckling him.

The great foot stamped again. Earth fell. In one corner a supporting upright toppled. A trickle of loose soil began running into the basement. The other beams groaned and shifted. I barely controlled myself.

Sometime during the tremor Raven stopped being Harden. Shifter stopped being Cornie. Zouad looked them over and caught on. His face hardened, went pale. As if he had more to fear from Raven and Shapeshifter than from the Rebel.

“Yeah,” Raven said. “It’s payoff time.”

The earth bucked. Overhead there was a remote rumble of falling masonry. Lamps toppled and went out. The dust made the air almost unbreathable. And Rebels came tumbling back down the stair, looking over their shoulders.

“Limper is here,” Shifter said. He did not seem displeased. He rose and faced the stair. He was Cornie again, and Raven was Harden once more.

Rebels piled into the room. I lost track of Raven in the press and poor light. Somebody sealed the door up top. The Rebels got quiet as mice. You could almost hear hearts hammering as they watched the stair and wondered if the secret entrance were well enough hidden.

Despite several yards of intervening earth, I heard something moving through the basement above. Drag-thump.

Drag-thump. The rhythm of a crippled man walking. My gaze, too, locked on the secret door.

The earth shook its most violent yet. The doorway exploded inward. The far end of the sub-basement caved in. Men screamed as the earth swallowed them. The human herd shoved this way and that in search of an escape that did not exist. Only Shifter and I were not caught up in it. We watched from an island of calm.

All the lamps had died. The only light came from the gap at the head of the stair, sliding around a silhouette which, at that moment, seemed vile just in its stance. I had cold, clammy skin and violent shakes. It was not just because I had heard so much about the Limper. He exuded something that made me feel like an arachnophobe might if you dropped a big hairy spider into his lap.

I glanced at Shifter. He was Cornie, just another of the Rebel crew. Did he have some special reason for not wanting to be recognized by the Limper?

He did something with his hands.

A blinding light filled the pit. I could not see. I heard beams creaking and giving way. This time I did not hesitate. I joined the rush to the stair.

I suppose the Limper was more startled than anyone else. He had not expected any serious opposition. Shifter’s trick caught him off guard. The rush swept over him before he could protect himself.

Shifter and I were the last up the stair. I skipped over the Limper, a small man in brown who did not look terrible at all as he writhed on the floor. I looked for the stair to the street level. Shifter grabbed my arm. His grip was undeniable. “Help me,” He planted a boot against the Limper’s ribs, started rolling him through the entrance to the sub-basement.

Down below, men groaned and cried out for help. Sections of floor on our level were sagging, collapsing. More

in fear that I would be trapped if we did not hurry than out of any desire to inconvenience the Limper, I helped Shifter dump the Taken into the pit.

Shifter grinned, gave me a thumbs up. He did something with his fingers. The collapse accelerated. He seized my arm and headed for the stairs. We piled into the street amidst the grandest uproar in Oar’s recent history.

The foxes were in the henhouse. Men were running hither and yon yelling incoherently. Elmo and the Company were all around them, driving them inward, cutting them down. The Rebels were too confused to defend themselves.

Had it not been for Shifter, I suppose, I would not have survived that. He did something that turned the points of arrows and swords. Cunning beast that I am, I stayed in his shadow till we were safely behind Company lines.

It was a great victory for the Lady. It exceeded Elmo’s wildest hopes. Before the dust settled the purge had taken virtually every committed Rebel in Oar. Shifter stayed in the thick of it. He gave us invaluable assistance and had a grand time smashing things up. He was as happy as a child starting fires.

Then he disappeared as utterly as if he had never existed. And we, so exhausted we were crawling around like lizards, assembled outside Comic’s stable. Elmo took the roll.

All accounted for but one. “Where’s Raven?” Elmo asked.

I told him, “I think he got buried when that house fell in. Him and Zouad both.”

One-Eye observed, “Kind of fitting. Ironic but fitting. Hate to see him go, though. He played a mean game of Tonk.”

“The Limper is down there too?” Elmo asked.

I grinned. “I helped bury him,”

“And Shifter is gone.”

I had begun to sense a disturbing pattern. I wanted to know if it was just my imagination. I brought it up while the men were getting ready to return to Deal. “You know, the only people who saw Shifter were on our side. The Rebel and the Limper saw a lot of us. Especially of you, Elmo. And me and Raven. Cornie will turn up dead. I have a feeling Shifter’s finesse didn’t have much to do with getting Zouad or wiping out the local Rebel hierarchy. I think we were put on the spot where the Limper is concerned. Very craftily.”

Elmo likes to come across as a big, dumb country boy turned soldier, but he is sharp. He not only saw what I meant, he immediately connected it with the broader picture of politicking among the Taken. “We’ve got to get the hell away from here before the Limper digs his way out. And I don’t mean just away from Oar. I mean Forsberg. Soulcatcher has put us on the board as his frontline pawns. We’re liable to get caught between a rock and a hard place.” He chewed his lip for a second, then started acting like a sergeant, bellowing at anybody not moving fast enough to suit him.

He was in a near panic, but was a soldier to the bone. Our departure was no rout. We went out escorting the provision wagons Candy’s patrol had come to collect. He told me, “I’ll go crazy after we get back. I’ll go out and chew down a tree, or something.” And after a few miles, thoughtfully, “Been trying to decide who ought to break the news to Darling. Croaker, you just volunteered. You’ve got the right touch.”

So I had me something to keep my mind occupied during the ride. Damn that Elmo!

The great brouhaha in Oar was not the end of it. Ripples spread. Consequences piled up. Fate shoved its badfinger in.

Raker launched a major offensive while the Limper was digging his way out of the rubble. He did so unaware that his enemy was absent from the field, but the effect was the same. The Limper’s army collapsed. Our victory went for naught. Rebel bands whooped through Oar, hunting the Lady’s agents.

We, thanks to Soulcatcher’s foresight, were moving south when the collapse came, so we avoided becoming involved. We went into garrison at Elm credited with several dramatic victories, and the Limper fled into the Salient with the remnants of his force, branded as an incompetent. He knew who had done him in, but there wasn’t anything he could do. His relationship with the Lady was too precarious. He dared do nothing but remain her faithful lapdog. He would have to come up with some outstanding victories before he thought about settling with us or Soulcatcher.

I did not feel that comforted. The worm has a way of turning, given time.

Raker was so enthusiastic over his success that he did not slow down after he conquered Forsberg. He turned southward. Soulcatcher ordered us out of Elm only a week after we had settled in.

Did the Captain get upset about what had happened? Was he displeased because so many of his men had gone off on their own, exceeding or stretching his instructions? Let’s just say the extra duty assignments were enough to break the back of an ox. Let’s say the madonnas of the night in Elm were severely disappointed in the Black Company. I do not want to think about it. The man is a diabolic genius.

The platoons were on review. The wagons were loaded and ready to roll. The Captain and-Lieutenant were conferring with their sergeants. One-Eye and Goblin were playing some sort of game with little shadow creatures making war in the comers of the compound. Most of us were watching and betting this way or that depending on shifts of fortune. The gateman shouted, “Rider coming in.”

Nobody paid any attention. Messengers came and went all day.

The gate swung inward. And Darling began clapping her hands. She ran toward the gateway.

Through it, looking as rough as the day we had met him, rode our Raven. He scooped up Darling and gave her a big hug, perched her astride his mount before him, and reported to the Captain. I heard him say that all his debts were paid, and that he no longer had any interests outside the Company.

The Captain stared at him a long time, then nodded and told him to take his place in ranks.

He had used us, and while doing so had found himself a new home. He was welcome to the family.

We rode out, bound for a new garrison in the Salient.