Bleak Seasons (5 page)

The goddamned wind had teeth. We huddled in our blankets, shivering, as
unmotivated as guys get without hanging it up. Weren’t many of us wanted to be
in that haunted grove in the first place.

Yet something I could not quite catch, some elusive emotion deep inside me, told
me this was critical, that this had to be done just right. That more than I
could imagine hinged upon that.

Unseen trees creaked and cracked. The wind groaned and whined. It was easy to
let your imagination get away and brood on the fact that thousands had been
tortured and murdered there. You might hear their moans inside the wind, their
pleas for mercy ignored even now. You might expect to see broken corpses rising
up to demand vengeance on the living.

I faked being a hero. I could not stop shaking, though. I pulled my blanket
tighter. That did not help, either.

“Candyass!” One-Eye sneered. Like the little shit wasn’t about to have a seizure
himself. “That bonehead Goblin don’t quit farting around and get his dead ass
back here I’m gonna go strip him barebutt and nail him to a chunk of ice.”

“That’s creative.”

“Don’t be no wiseass, Kid. I’ll . . . ”

An especially exuberant gust took off with what he would.

It wasn’t just the cold making us shake, though nobody would admit that. It was
the place and the mission and the fact that heavy cloud cover robbed us of even
the meager comradeship of starlight.

It was goddamned dark. And these Stranglers might now be friends with the man
who ran shadows. A little bird said. Actually, a big black bird said.

“We spend too much time in town,” I grumbled. One-Eye didn’t respond. Thai Dei
did, though, with a grunt. But that was a speech for this particular Nyueng Bao.

The wind brought the creak of a stealthy footfall. One-Eye barked, “Goddamnit,

Goblin! Quit stomping around. You want the whole damned world to know we’re
here?” Never mind that Goblin could not be heard five feet away, dancing.

One-Eye refuses to be constrained by mundane reason or consistency.

Goblin drifted into place in front of me, squatted. His little yellow teeth
chattered. “All set,” he murmured. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“We’d better do it, then. Before I break out in a case of common sense.” I
grunted as I rose. My knees crackled. My muscles did not want to stretch any
more. I swore. I was getting too damned old for this shit, though at thirty-four
I was the baby of the bunch. “Move out,” I said, loudly enough to be heard by
most everyone. You couldn’t use hand signals in that darkness.

We were downwind and Goblin had done his stuff. Noise was not a worry.

The men drifted away, mostly so quietly that I had trouble believing I was alone
suddenly except for my bodyguard. We moved, too. Thai Dei covered my back. The
night didn’t bother him. Maybe he has eyes like a cat.

I had plenty of mixed feelings. This was the first time I had run a raid. I was
not sure I was over Dejagore enough to handle it. I shied at shadows and
remained crazy suspicious of everybody outside the Company, for no reason I
could understand. But Croaker insisted, so here I was sneaking around in a dark
and evil forest with icicles hanging off my butt, directing the first purely
Company op in years. Only it wasn’t so purely Company when you considered the
fact that all my guys had bodyguards with them.

I got over the self-confidence hurdle just by getting myself moving. Hell, it
was too late to stop anything.

I stopped worrying about me and went to work worrying about how we would look
after the raid was over. If we blew it we could not blame that on Taglian
treachery or factionalism or incompetence, the usual sand in the machine.

I reached the crest of a low ridge. My hands were frozen but my body was wet
inside my clothing. Light wavered ahead. The Deceivers, those lucky bastards,

had a bonfire to keep them warm. I paused to listen. I heard nothing.

How did the Old Man know the leaders of the Strangler bands would gather for
this particular festival? It was downright spooky the way he knew stuff
sometimes. Maybe Lady was rubbing off. Maybe he had some magical talent he never
mentioned.

I observed, “We’re about to find out if Goblin still has that talent.”

Thai Dei did not spend a precious grunt. Silence was comment enough.

There were supposed to be thirty to forty top Deceivers over there. We hunt them
relentlessly and have done so since Narayan snatched Lady and Croaker’s baby.

The Old Man has eliminated mercy from the Company vocabulary. And that fits
Deceiver philosophy perfectly, though I would bet those guys up ahead would not
think that way in a minute.

Goblin still had the knack. The sentries were napping. Still, inevitably, all
did not go as planned.

I was fifty feet from the bonfire, sneaking along beside this especially big,

ugly shelter when somebody went heeling and toeing out its end like all the
devils in Hell were after him. He bent under the weight of a big bundle. That
bundle wriggled and whimpered.

“Narayan Singh!” I knew him instantly. “Stop!”

Right, Murgen. Freeze him with your voice.

The rest of the guys recognized him too. A yell went up. We could not believe
our luck, though I had been warned that the big prize might be there to grab.

Singh was the number one Deceiver, the villain Lady and the Captain want to
spend long years killing, an inch at a time.

The bundle had to be their daughter.

I yelled orders. Instead of responding the men did whatever they thought of.

Mostly they went after Singh. The racket wakened the rest of the Deceivers. The
quickest tried to run.

Luckily, some of the guys stayed on the job.

“You warm now?” Goblin asked. I puffed heartily as I watched Thai Dei shove a
skinny blade into the eye of a sleep befuddled Strangler. Thai Dei doesn’t cut
throats. He doesn’t like the mess.

It was over. “How many did we get? How many got away?” I stared the direction
Singh had fled. The silence there was not promising. The guys would have raised
a real hoorah had they caught him.

Damn! I was excited for a while there. If only I could have dragged him back to
Taglios. If wishes were fishes. “Keep some alive. We’ll want somebody to tell us
bedtime stories. One-Eye. How the hell did Singh all of a sudden know we were
here?”

The runt shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe his goddess goosed him and told him to
haul ass.”

“Give me a break. Kina didn’t have anything to do with it.” But I wasn’t that
sure. Sometimes it is hard to disbelieve.

Thai Dei gestured.

“Right,” I said. “Just what I was thinking myself.”

One-Eye looked puzzled. Goblin grumbled, “What?” My wizards. Right on top of
everything.

“Sometimes I wonder if you guys could find your dicks without a map. The
shelter, old-timers. The shelter. Don’t it seem like that’s an awful lot of
shack for one runt killer and a kid barely tall enough to bite you on the
kneecap? A bit big even for a living saint and the daughter of a goddess?”

One-Eye developed a nasty grin. “Nobody else came out, did they? Yeah. You want
I should start a fire?”

Before I could answer him Goblin squealed. I whirled. A shapeless darkness,

visible only because of the bonfire, reared out of the shelter entrance then I
slammed into the ground, felled by Thai Dei. Fire blasted over my head. Lights
crackled. Balls of flame darted in from all around.

The killing darkness took on a moth-eaten look. Then it came apart.

That darkness was why so many of us had been shivering before the attack. But we
won this round.

I sat up, crooked a finger. “Let’s see what we’ve caught. It ought to be
interesting.” My guys knocked the shelter apart. Sure enough, they turned up a
half dozen wrinkled little old men, brown as chestnuts. “Shadowweavers. Running
with the Stranglers. Now isn’t that interesting?”

The geezers gobbled their willingness to surrender.

We had run into their kind before. They never were big on personal heroics.

A soldier called Wishbone said, “These Shadowlanders are getting good at this ‘I
surrender’ stuff.” He sneered. “Everybody down there must be practicing their
handy Taglian phrases.”

“Except Longshadow,” I reminded. I told Thai Dei, “Thanks.”

He shrugged, a gesture foreign to the Nyueng Bao. The world did touch him
occasionally. “Sahra would expect it.”

And that was very Nyueng Bao. He would blame his actions on his sister’s
expectations rather than on any notion of duty or obligation or even friendship.

“What are we supposed to do with these guys?” Wishbone asked. “We got any use
for them?”

“Save a couple. The oldest and one other. Goblin. You never said how many got
away.”

“Three. That counts Singh but not the kid. But we’re going to get one of them
three back on account of he’s hiding in the bushes right over there.”

“Collect him. I’ll give him to the Old Man.”

Sarky One-Eye cracked, “Give them a little authority, they turn into field
marshals. I remember this kid when he was so green he still had sheep shit
between his toes. He didn’t know what shoes were for.” But the humor wasn’t in
his eye. Every move I made he watched like a hawk. Like a crow, in fact,

although we had no crows hanging around tonight. Whatever experiment Goblin and
One-Eye had going in that area was a complete success during this outing.

Goblin suggested, “Ease up, Murgen. We’ll get the job done. How about some of
you lazy asses toss a couple logs on the fire?” He began to circle the hidden
Deceiver in the direction opposite that taken by One-Eye.

They were right. I get too serious under stress. I was a thousand years old
already. Surviving Dejagore had not been easy. But all the rest of these guys
had come through that, too. They had seen Mogaba’s slaughters of innocents. They
had suffered the pestilences and plagues. They had seen the cannibalism and
human sacrifices, the treacheries and betrayals and all the rest. And they had
come away without letting the nightmares rule them.

I have to get a handle on it. I have to get some emotional distance and
perspective. But there is something going on inside me that is beyond my control
or understanding. Sometimes I feel like there are several of me in there, all
mixed up, sometimes sitting behind the real me watching, watching. There may be
no chance for me to recover complete sanity and stability.

Goblin came strutting back. He and One-Eye accompanied a man who was not much
more than skin and bones. Few Deceivers are in good shape these days. They have
no friends anywhere. They are hunted like vermin. Huge bounties ride on their
shoulders.

Goblin flashed his toadlike grin. “We’ve got us a red-hand man here, Murgen. A
genuine black rumel guy with the red palm. What do you think of that?”

The thought lightened my heart. The prisoner was truly a top Strangler. The red
hand meant that he had been there when Narayan Singh tricked Lady into thinking
she was being inducted into the Strangler cult when in fact the Deceivers were
really consecrating her unborn child as daughter of their goddess Kina.

But Lady had employed a trick of her own, marking every Strangler there with the
red hand that could not be denied later. Nothing they tried would take the color
away, short of amputation. And a one-handed Strangler could not manage the
rumel, the strangling scarf, that was the tool of the Deceivers’ holy trade.

“The Old Man will be pleased.” A red-hand man would know what was going on
inside his cult.

I crowded closer to the fire. Thai Dei, done helping dispose of redundant
shadowweavers, eased in beside me. How much had Dejagore changed him? I could
not imagine him ever being anything but dour, taciturn, remorseless and
pitiless, even as a toddler.

Goblin, I noted, was doing that thing he did lately where he watched me from the
corner of his eye while pretending to do something else. What were he and
One-Eye looking for?

The runt held his hands out. “Fire feels good.”

Paranoia has become our way of life. We have become the new Nyueng Bao. We trust
no one. We let no one outside the Black Company know what we are doing until we
are sure what the response will be. In particular we prefer keeping the
Prahbrindrah Drah and his sister, the Radisha Drah, our employers, way back
there in the deep dark shadows.

They are not to be trusted at all, ever, except to serve their own closest
interests.

I smuggled my prisoners into the city and hid them in a warehouse near the
river, a Company friendly Shadar fish place possessed of a very distinctive air.

My men scattered to their families or someplace where they could drink beer. I
was satisfied. With one quick, nasty stab we had decimated the surviving
Deceiver leadership. We almost got that fiend Narayan Singh. I got within
spitting distance of Croaker’s baby. In all honesty I could report that she
seemed all right.

Thai Dei knocked the prisoners to their knees, wrinkled his nose.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “But this place don’t stink half as bad as your swamp
does.” Taglios claims the river delta but the Nyueng Bao disagree.

Thai Dei grunted. He could take a joke as well as the next guy.

He does not look like much. He is a foot shorter than I am. I outweigh him by
eighty pounds. And I am far prettier. He has crudely cropped black hair that
sticks out in unkempt spikes. Skinny, lantern-jawed, taciturn and surly, Thai
Dei is entirely unappetizing. But he does his job.

A Shadar fishmonger brought the Captain to us. Croaker was getting old. We were
going to have to call him Boss or Chief or something. You cannot call the
Captain the Old Man once he’s really old, can you?

He was dressed like a Shadar cavalryman, all turban, beard and plain grey
clothing. He eyed Thai Dei coolly. He did not have a Nyueng Bao bodyguard
himself. He loathed the idea despite his having to disguise himself whenever he
wanted to walk the streets alone. Bodyguards are not traditional. Croaker is
stubborn about Company traditions.

Hell, the Shadowmaster’s officers all employ bodyguards. Some have several. They
could not survive without them.

Thai Dei reflected Croaker’s gaze impassively, unimpressed by the presence of
the great dictator. He might say, “He is one man. I am one man. We begin even.”

Croaker examined my prizes. “Tell it.”

I told it. “But I missed Narayan. I was this close. That bastard has a guardian
angel. There’s no way he should have slipped Goblin’s sleep spell. We chased him
for two days but even Goblin and One-Eye couldn’t hang onto his track forever.”

“He had help. Maybe from his guardian demon. Maybe from his new buddy the
Shadowmaster, too.”

“How come they went back to the grove? How did you know they would be there?”

I thought he would say a big black bird told him.

They are less numerous these days but the crows still follow him everywhere. He
talks to them. Sometimes they talk to him, too. So he says.

“They had to come someday, Murgen. They are slaves to their religion.”

But why this particular Festival of Lights? How did you know?

I did not press. You don’t press Croaker. He has grown cranky and secretive in
his old age. In his own Annals he did not always tell the whole truth about
personal things, his age especially.

He kicked the shadowweaver. “One of Longshadow’s pet spook doctors. You’d think
he wouldn’t have enough left to waste them anymore.”

“I don’t reckon he expected us to jump them.”

Croaker tried to smile. He produced a nasty, sarcastic sneer instead. “He’s got
lots of surprises coming.” He kicked the Deceiver. “Let’s don’t hide them. Let’s
take them to the Palace. What’s the matter?”

Ice had blasted my back, like I was out on the wind of the Grove of Doom again.

I didn’t know why but I had a grim sense of foreboding.

“I don’t know. You’re the boss. Anything special you want in the Annals?”

“You’re the Annalist now, Murgen. You write what you have to write. I can always
bitch.” Unlikely. I send everything over but I don’t think much gets read. He
asked, “What was special about the raid?”

“It was colder than a well digger’s ass out there.”

“And that walking sack of camel snot Narayan Singh got away from us again. So
that’s what you write. Him and his kind are going to get back into our story
before we’re done. When we’re roasting him, I hope. Did you see her? Was she all
right?”

“All I saw really was a bundle that Singh carried. I think it was her.”

“Had to be. He never lets her out of his sight.” He pretended he did not care.

“Bring them to the Palace.” That chill hit me again. “I’ll make sure the guards
know you’re coming.”

Thai Dei and I exchanged looks. This might get tough. People in the streets
would recognize the prisoners. And the prisoners might have friends. And for
sure they did have enemies by the thousand. They might not survive the trip. Or
we might not.

The Old Man said, “Tell your wife I said hello and I hope she likes the new
apartment.”

“Sure.” I shivered. Thai Dei frowned at me.

Croaker produced a sheaf of papers rolled into a tube. “This came in from Lady
while you were gone. It’s for the Annals.”

“Someone must have died.”

He grinned. “Bang it around and fit it in. But don’t polish it so much she gets
all righteous again. I can’t stand it when she flays me with my own arguments.”

“I learned the first time.”

“One-Eye says he thinks he knows where he left his papers from when he thought
he was going to have to keep the Annals.”

“I’ve heard that one before.”

Croaker grinned again, then ducked out.