Bleak Seasons (13 page)

Croaker did warn me. Be precise, he said. He warned me several times, in fact.

I was ripped this way and dragged that, to and through the place of blood and
burning, papers browning, blackening, curling in such slow motion. Blood pooled
deep where I lay in my own vomit. The slap of running feet was like the slow
booming footfalls of giants.

I heard screams that had no end.

Croaker warned me. I was thoughtless. What he did not tell me, or maybe he did
not understand, was that the concept “home” could in one man’s mind become
defined by emotional pain.

Torn. Shredded. Smoke took me to Taglios only for that minute in the real now
that is like the end of all time. I reeled and flung away from there with such
revulsion that I threw myself and the hateful shreds and a disoriented Smoke all
the way to Hell.

He had no will and no identity so he could not and did not laugh as I floated
down into the lake of pain.

Hell has a name. Its name is Dejagore. But Dejagore is only Hell’s lesser face.

From the greater Hell I escaped. One more time.

No identity and no will.

The wind blows but nothing moves in the place of glittering stone. Night falls.

The wind dies. The plain yields up its heat as shadows waken. Moonlight settles
upon the silence of stone.

The plain runs east and west, north and south, without discernible bounds,

viewed from within. Though its ends be uncertain it has a definite center. That
is an epic structure built of the same stone as the pillars and plain.

Within that fastness nothing moves, either, though at times mists of light
shimmer as they leak over from beyond the gates of dream. Shadows linger in
corners. And way down inside the core of the place, in the feeblest throb of the
heart of darkness, there is life of a sort.

No will. No identity. Now no Smoke.

Now just pain. So much Smoke drifted away. Now just slavery to the memories.

Now at home in the house of pain.

There you are! So here we are again. You were missed . . . faceless thing that,

nevertheless, seems to be smiling, pleased with itself.

It has been a night full of adventures. Has it not? And the fun continues. Look.

There. The Black Company and their auxiliaries have begun making life especially
unpleasant for Shadowlanders so bold as to have taken up residence inside
Dejagore’s wall.

See how they use the doppelgangers and imaginary soldiers to lure the
southerners into deadly traps, to get them to betray themselves.

Oh. And come back to the wall. This is a small thing but it could become the
stuff of epics.

The fighting has all shifted to the east side of the city. Hardly anybody is
over there now. A few men to watch from the ramparts is all. And some
unenthusiastic Shadowlander scouts down there in the darkness, not really paying
attention. Otherwise how could they miss this spidery little figure rappelling
down the outside of the wall?

Why on earth would a two-hundred-year-old, fourth-rate sorcerer want to climb
down a rope to go where very unfriendly little brown men might decide to dance
on his head?

The wounded stallion of mysterious sorcerous breed has stopped screaming. At
last. It is dead. Green misty stuff still rises from its death wound. The wound
still glows at its edges.

Out there? Yes. Look at them. Two very devils they are, aren’t they, cloaked in
their pink mists? They don’t seem to be coming to devour the city, though, do
they?

What is that? The Shadowlanders out there are scattering like the fox is in the
henhouse. Their cries are filled with pure terror. Amongst them something dark
moves swiftly. Look. It pulled a man down there. Didn’t it?

There is so little light now that the focus of battle has shifted. The old man
is as black as the heart of the night itself. Think any mortal eye will notice
him sneaking around among the dead? Where is he headed? Shadowspinner’s dead
horse?

Who would expect that? It’s the act of a madman.

The creeping darkness is moving toward the dead horse, too. See how its eyes
flash red when the fires in the city flare up. Look at that fool, running toward
it instead of away. There go his guts. Stupidity can be fatal.

The little black man has vanished because he has stopped moving. There he is. He
heard something. There he goes, trotting toward the dead stallion. He wants his
spear back. And maybe that does make some crazy sense. He worked hard making it.

He has stopped again, eye huge as he sniffs the night and catches an
almost-forgotten odor. At the same moment the deadly darkness catches wind of
him.

A pantherine roar of triumph stills hearts all across the plain. The darkness
begins moving faster and faster.

The little black man grabs his spear and runs for the wall. Will he make it? Can
two stubby, ancient legs carry him there fast enough to escape the death racing
toward him? The thing is huge. And it is filled with joy. The little man reaches
the rope. But he is still eighty feet down from safety. And he is old and
winded. He whirls. His timing is perfect. The head of his spear reaches out just
as the monster leaps. The beast twists in the air, evading the killing thrust
but taking a cruel wound from its snout back through its left ear. It howls.

Green mist boils off its redly-glowing wound. The beast loses all interest in
the old man, who begins his long climb to the ramparts. That bizarrely carved
spear is slung across his back now, held there by a mundane length of cotton
string.

No one notices. No one cares. The fighting has gone elsewhere.

At times they are running, sometimes just slinking away through the shadows
before death overhauls them.

Look there. Shadowspinner, the king enemy himself, all but crippled, paying no
attention to anyone or anything but those two pink-limned archetypes come out of
the hills to devour him.

And Mogaba? Watch him be the master tactician. Watch him be the ultimate warrior
exploiting the enemy’s every weakness now that there is no chance to accomplish
the deviltry that moved him earlier in the evening. See that? No southerner,

however great his reputation, dares come near Mogaba. Even their great heroes
are like novice children when he steps forward himself.

He is way bigger than life, this Mogaba.

He is the triumphant centerpiece of his own imagined saga.

Something has gone out of the southerners.

They wanted to conquer. They knew they had to conquer because their master
Shadowspinner would not tolerate anything less. He has a particular lack of
understanding when it comes to failure. His followers are established solidly
inside the city. Mild stubbornness will give them success.

But they are on the run.

Something has grabbed hold of them and convinced them that it is not possible
for even their souls to survive if they stay inside Dejagore.

The southerners seem to have just closed their eyes and shoved their heads into
a beehive, don’t they? What? Why so reluctant? Come see. This is amusing.

Everywhere you look the southerners are falling back. Some—

“You all right, Murgen?” I shook my head. I felt like a kid who had spun around
about twenty times, intentionally trying to make himself dizzy before jumping
into some silly competition.

I was in an alley. Runt boy Goblin was beside me, looking extremely concerned.

“I’m fine,” I told him.

Then I fell to my knees, stuck my hands out to grab the alley walls so I would
not spin around anymore. I insisted, “I’m all right.”

“Of course you are. Candles. Keep an eye on this dork. He tries to take over,

get deaf. He’s got too tender a heart.”

I tried not to let my ego become engaged. Maybe I was too tender, too much a
sucker. The world sure isn’t kind to the man who tries to be gentle and
thoughtful.

Its spin slowed down till I no longer had to hold on. A scuffle broke out behind
us. Someone cursed in a nasal, liquid tongue. Somebody else growled, “This
asshole is fast!”

“Whoa whoa whoa!” I yelled. “Let the man alone! Let him come up here.”

Candles didn’t knock me over the head or contradict me. The short, wide Nyueng
Bao guy who had shown me to Ky Dam’s hideout marched up to me. The fingers of
his right hand rubbed his right cheek. He seemed utterly astonished that
somebody had laid a hand on him. His ego suffered again when he spoke in Nyueng
Bao and I said, “Sorry, old-timer. No speakee. Gonna got to be Taglian or
Groghor with me.” In Groghor, which my maternal grandmother spoke because
Grandpa captured her from those people, I asked, “What’s happening?” I knew
maybe twenty words in Groghor, but that was twenty more than anyone else within
seven thousand miles.

“The Speaker sends me to lead you to where the invader is most vulnerable. We
have watched closely and know.”

“Thank you. We appreciate it. Lead on.” Shifting languages, I observed,

“Marvellous how these guys suddenly talk the lingo when they want something.”

Candles grunted.

Goblin, who had sneaked forward for a look around, returned just in time to
offer me directions to the same weak point the Nyueng Bao had in mind. The squat
man seemed a little surprised we could find our butts with our hands, maybe even
a touch disgruntled.

“You got a name, short and wide?” I asked. “If you don’t have one you prefer I
guarantee you these guys will hang one on you and I promise you won’t like it.”

“Hear hear,” Goblin agreed, chuckling.

“I am Doj. All Nyueng Bao call me Uncle Doj.”

“All right, Uncle. You going up there with us? Or did you just come over to
direct traffic?” Already Goblin was whispering instructions to the guys creeping
up behind us. No doubt he had left a few soft spells of sleepiness or confusion
amongst the southerners as he was scouting.

Little discussion was needed. We would drive into their soft spot, kill anything
that moved, split them in half, butcher anybody who didn’t run away, then we
would back away before Mogaba began feeling too confident.

“I will accompany you although that stretches the Speaker’s instructions to
extremes. You Bone Warriors surprise us continually. I wish to watch you at your
work.”

I never considered killing people to be my profession but did not care to argue.

“You speak Taglian very well, Uncle.”

He smiled. “I am forgetful, though, Stone Soldier. I may not remember a word
after tonight.” Unless the Speaker jogged his memory, I supposed.

Uncle Doj did a great deal more than watch us hack and stab southerners. He
turned into a one-man cyclone flailing around with a lightning sword. He was as
sudden as the lightning but as graceful as a dancer. Each time he moved another
Shadowlander fell.

“Damn,” I told Goblin a while later. “Remind me not to get into a quarrel with
that character.”

“I’ll remind you to bring a crossbow and let him have it in the back from thirty
feet is what I’ll do. After I put a deafness and a stupidity spell on him to
even things up a little.”

“Don’t be surprised if it’s me distracting you someday when One-Eye sneaks up
and offers you a cactus suppository.”

“Speaking of the runt. Tell me. Who’s being conspicuously absent without leave
lately?”

I sent messages to the various units suggesting that we had done our part to
relieve Mogaba’s troops. We should all go back to our part of town, patch
ourselves up, take naps, like that. I told the Nyueng Bao elder, “Uncle Doj,

please inform the Speaker that the Black Company extends its gratitude and
friendship. Tell him he is free to call upon that at any time. We will extend
ourselves as much as possible.”

The short, wide man bowed far enough that his movement had to mean something. I
bowed back, almost as deeply. That must have been the right move because he
smiled slightly, bowed shallowly for himself, hustled off.

“Runs like a duck,” Candles observed.

“I’m glad that duck was on our side, though.”

“You can say that again.”

“I’m glad that duck . . . Argh!” Candles had me by the throat.

“Somebody help me shut him up.”

That was just the start of what became a wild night of blowing off tensions. I
got no chance to participate myself but I heard it was a banner night for the
Jaicuri whores.

“Where the hell have you been?” I snarled at One-Eye. “The Company just fought
through its nastiest episode in, oh, just days, and you were obviously absent
every stinking second.” Not that his presence would have made any difference.

One-Eye grinned. My displeasure did not bother him a bit. He had outlived or
outstubborned a parade of snotnoses like me. “Shit, Kid, I had to get my
Shadowmaster sticker back, didn’t I? I’ve got a lot of work in that thing . . .

What’s the matter?”

“Huh?” For a moment I saw a little black louse scuttling across a grey landscape
from a height unattainable anywhere in Dejagore, even atop the citadel, where
Old Crew guys were not welcome anymore. “Never mind, runt. I’d like to kick your
ass but it wouldn’t do any good now. So you were out there. What became of
Widowmaker and Lifetaker?” While I was arranging a quieter life for our leader
those two vanished without a trace.

I wondered how Mogaba would write all this if he was keeping the Annals.

“One-Eye?”

“What?” Now he sounded irritated.

“You want to answer me? What happened to Widowmaker and Lifetaker?”

“You know something, Kid? I don’t have the faintest freaking idea. And I don’t
care. I only had one thing on my mind. I wanted my spear back so I could use it
next time that sucker ain’t looking. Then I had to worry about dodging a gang of
raggedyass Shadowlanders who tried to jump me. They went away somewhere. All
right?”

And none of us could fathom that. Because they vanished just when the
Shadowlander confidence was rockiest. Shadowspinner had his tail between his
legs and his boys could have been broken.

I grumbled, “If that was the Old Man and Lady they would’ve kept coming till
they broke the whole show wide open. Wouldn’t they?”

I glared at an albino crow perched not twenty feet away. Its head was cocked. It
stared at me with malign intelligence.

There were a lot of crows tonight.

Other agendas were being pursued. I was just one pawn caught up in tides of
intrigue. But if we were careful the Company need not get swept away.

Mogaba and the Nar and their Taglian troops stayed busy for days. Maybe the
Shadowmasters decided to make Mogaba pay for his failure to fulfill his end of
the implicit bargain.

Which was just one more example of the way people down here go bugfuck when they
are involved with the Black Company.

It could make a guy nervous if he thought about everybody within a thousand
miles seeming to wish he’d never been born.

My guys enjoyed Mogaba’s situation. And he could not squawk about their
attitudes. We gave him exactly what he asked. We saved his ass and set him up so
all he had to do was chase a few Shadowlanders out of town.

I had to see him almost every day at staff meetings. Again and again we showed
ourselves to the soldiers, pretending to be brothers marching shoulder to
shoulder against our evil foe.

Not once was anybody fooled except maybe Mogaba.

I never took it personal. I took a stance I believed the Annalists of the past
would approve, just picturing Mogaba as not one of us.

We are the Black Company. We have no friends. All others are the enemy, or at
best not to be trusted. That relationship with the world does not require hatred
or any other emotion. It requires wariness.

Perhaps our refusal to remonstrate, or even to acknowledge Mogaba’s treachery,