Shadows Linger




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Chapter Ten:
TALLY TURNAROUND


Tome was typical of towns we had garrisoned recently. Small,
dirty, boring. One wondered why the Lady bothered. What use were
these remote provinces? Did she insist they bend the knee merely to
puff her ego? There was nothing here worth having, unless it was
power over the natives.

Even they viewed their country with a certain contempt.

The presence of the Black Company strained the resources of the
area. Within a week the Captain started talking about shifting a
company to Heart and billeting smaller units in the villages. Our
patrols seldom encountered the Rebel, even when our wizards helped
hunt. The engagement at Madle’s had all but eliminated the
infestation.

The Lady’s spies told us the few committed Rebels left had
fled into Tambor, an even bleaker kingdom to the northeast. I
supposed Tambor would be our next mission.

I was scribbling away at these Annals one day, when I decided I
needed an estimate of the mileage we’d covered in our
progression eastward. I was appalled to learn the truth. Tome was
two thousand miles east of Charm! Far beyond the bounds of the
empire as it had existed six years ago. The great bloody conquests
of the Taken Whisper had established a border arc just this side of
the Plain of Fear. I ran down the line of city-states forming that
forgotten frontier. Frost and Ade, Thud and Barns, and Rust, where
the Rebel had defied the Lady successfully for years. Huge cities
all, formidable, and the last such we had seen.

I still shuddered, recalling the Plain of Fear.

We crossed it under the aegis of Whisper and Feather, two of the
Taken, the Lady’s black apprentices, both sorceresses orders
of magnitude above our three puny wizards. Even so, and traveling
with entire armies of the Lady’s regulars, we suffered there.
It is a hostile, bitter land where none of the normal rules apply.
Rocks speak and whales fly. Coral grows in the desert. Trees walk.
And the inhabitants are the strangest of
all . . . But that is neither here nor there.
Just a nightmare from the past. A nightmare that haunts me still,
when the screams of Cougar and Fleet come echoing down the
corridors of time, and once again I can do nothing to save
them.

“What’s the trouble?” Elmo asked, slipping the
map from beneath my fingers, cocking his head sideways. “Look
like you saw a ghost.”

“Just remembering the Plain of Fear.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, buck up. Have a beer.” He slapped
my back. “Hey! Kingpin! Where the hell you been?” He
charged away, in pursuit of the Company’s leading
malingerer.

One-Eye arrived a moment later, startling me. “How’s
Goblin?” he asked softly. There had been no intercourse
between them since Madle’s. He eyed the map. “The Empty
Hills? Interesting name.”

“Also called the Hollow Hills. He’s all right. Why
don’t you check him out?”

“What the hell for? He was the one who acted the ass. Can’t take a little
joke . . . ”

“Your jokes get a bit rough, One-Eye.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Tell you what. You come with me.”

“Got to prepare my reading.” One night a month the
Captain expects me to exhort the troops with a reading from the
Annals. So we’ll know where we came from, so we’ll
recall our ancestors in the outfit. Once that meant a lot. The
Black Company. Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. All
brethren. Tight. Great esprit. Us against the world, and let the
world watch out. But the something that had manifested itself in
Goblin’s behavior, in the low-grade depression of Elmo and
others, was affecting everybody. The pieces were coming
unglued.

I had to pick a good reading. From a time when the Company had
its back against the wall and survived only by clinging to its
traditional virtues. There have been many such moments in four
hundred years. I wanted one recorded by one of the more inspired
Annalists, one with the fire of a White Rose revivalist speaking to
potential recruits. Maybe I needed a series, one that I could read
several nights running.

“Crap,” One-Eye said. “You know those books by
heart. Always got your nose in them. Anyway, you could fake the
whole thing and nobody would know the difference.”

“Probably. And nobody would care if I did. It’s
going sour, old-timer. Right. Let’s go see Goblin.”

Maybe the Annals needed a rereading on a different level. Maybe
I was treating symptoms. The Annals have a certain mystic quality,
for me. Maybe I could identify the disease by immersing myself,
hunting something between the lines.

Goblin and Silent were playing no-hands mumbletypeg. I’ll
say this for our three spook-pushers: They aren’t great, but
they keep their talents polished. Goblin was ahead on points. He
was in a good mood. He even nodded to One-Eye.

So. It was over. The stopper could be put into the bottle.
One-Eye just had to say the right thing.

To my amazement, he even apologized. By sign, Silent suggested
we get out and let them conclude their peace in private. Each had
an overabundance of pride.

We stepped outside. As we often did when no one could intercept
our signs, we discussed old times. He, too, was privy to the secret
for which the Lady would obliterate nations.

Half a dozen others suspected once, and had forgotten. We knew,
and would never forget. Those others, if put to the question, would
leave the Lady with serious doubts.

We two, never. We knew the identity of the Lady’s most
potent enemy—and for six years we had done nothing to apprise her
of the fact that that enemy even existed as more than a Rebel
fantasy.

The Rebel tends to a streak of superstition. He loves prophets
and prophecies and grand, dramatic foretellings of victories to
come. It was pursuit of a prophecy which led him into the trap at
Charm, nearly causing his extinction. He regained his balance
afterward by convincing himself that he was the victim of false
prophets and prophecies, laid upon him by villains trickier than
he. In that conviction he could go on, and believe more impossible
things.

The funny thing was, he lied to himself with the truth. I was,
perhaps, the only person outside the Lady’s inner circle who
knew he had been guided into the jaws of death. Only, the enemy who
had done the guiding was not the Lady, as he believed.

That enemy was an evil greater still, the Dominator, the
Lady’s one-time spouse, whom she had betrayed and left buried
but alive in a grave in the Great Forest north of a far city called
Oar. From that grave he had reached out, subtly, and twisted the
minds of men high in Rebel circles, bending them to his will,
hoping to use them to drag the Lady down and bring about his own
resurrection. He failed, though he had help from several of the
original Taken in his scheme.

If he knew of my existence, I must be high on his list. He lay
up there still, scheming, maybe hating me, for I helped betray the
Taken helping him . . . Scary, that. The Lady
was medicine bad enough. The Dominator, though, was the body of
which her evil was but a shadow. Or so the legend goes. I sometimes
wonder why, if that is true, she walks the earth and he lies
restless in the grave.

I have done a good deal of research since discovering the power
of the thing in the north, probing little-known histories. Scaring
myself each time. The Domination, an era when the Dominator
actually ruled, smelled like an era of hell on earth. It seemed a
miracle that the White Rose had put him down. A pity she could not
have destroyed him. And all his minions, including the Lady. The
world would not be in the straits it is today. I wonder when the
honeymoon will end. The Lady hasn’t been that terrible. When
will she relax, and give the darkness within her free rein,
reviving the terror of the past?

I also wonder about the villainies attributed to the Domination.
History, inevitably, is recorded by self-serving victors.

A scream came from Goblin’s quarters. Silent and I stared
at one another a moment, then rushed inside.

I honestly expected one of them to be bleeding his life out on
the floor. I did not expect to find Goblin having a fit while
One-Eye desperately strove to keep him from hurting himself.
“Somebody made contact,” One-Eye gasped. “Help
me. It’s strong.”

I gaped. Contact. We hadn’t had a direct communication
since the desperately swift campaigns when the Rebel was closing in
on Charm, years ago. Since then, the Lady and Taken have been
content to communicate through messengers.

The fit lasted only seconds. That was customary. Then Goblin
relaxed, whimpering. It would be several minutes before he
recovered enough to relay the message. We three looked at one
another with card-playing faces, frightened inside. I said,
“Somebody ought to tell the Captain.”

“Yeah,” One-Eye said. He made no move to go. Neither
did Silent.

“All right. I’m elected.” I went. I found the
Captain doing what he does best. He had his feet up on his
worktable, was snoring. I wakened him, told him.

He sighed. “Find the Lieutenant.” He went to his map
cases. I asked a couple questions he ignored, took the hint and got
out.

He had expected something like this? There was a crisis in the
area? How could Charm have heard first?

Silly, worrying before I heard what Goblin had to say.

The Lieutenant seemed no more surprised than the Captain.
“Something up?” I asked.

“Maybe. A courier letter came after you and Candy left for
Tally. Said we might be called west. This could be it.”

“West? Really?”

“Yeah.” Such dense sarcasm he put into the word!

Stupid. If we chose Charm as the customary demarcation point
between east and west, Tally lay two thousand plus miles away.
Three months’ travel under perfect conditions. The country
between was anything but perfect. In places roads just didn’t
exist. I thought six months sounded too optimistic. But I was
worrying before the fact again. I had to wait and see.

It turned out to be something even the Captain and Lieutenant
hadn’t anticipated. We waited in trepidation while Goblin
pulled himself together. The Captain had his map case open,
sketching a tentative route to Frost. He grumbled because all
westbound traffic had to cross the Plain of Fear. Goblin cleared
his throat.

Tension mounted. He did not lift his eyes. The news had to be
unpleasant. He squeaked, “We’ve been recalled. That was
the Lady. She seemed disturbed. The first leg goes to Frost. One of
the Taken will meet us there. He’ll take us on to the
Barrowland.” The others frowned, exchanged puzzled looks. I
muttered, “Shit. Holy Shit.”

“What is it, Croaker?” the Captain asked.

They didn’t know. They paid no attention to historical
things. “That’s where the Dominator is buried. Where
they all were buried, back when. It’s in the forest north of
Oar.” We’d been to Oar seven years ago. It was not a
friendly city.

“Oar!” the Captain yelled. “Oar! That’s
twenty-five hundred miles!”

“Add another hundred or two to the Barrowland.”

He stared at the maps. “Great. Just great. That means not
just the Plain of Fear but the Empty Hills and the Windy Country
too. Just fandamntastic great. I suppose we’ve got to get
there next week?”

Goblin shook his head. “She didn’t seem rushed,
Captain. Just upset and wanting us headed the right way.”

“She give you any whys or wherefores?”

Goblin smirked. Did the Lady ever? Hell, no.

“Just like that,” the Captain muttered. “Out
of the blue. Orders to hike halfway around the world. I love
it.” He told the Lieutenant to begin preparations for
movement.

It was bad news, mad news, insanity squared, but not as bad as
he made out. He had been preparing since receiving the courier
letter. It wasn’t that hard to get rolling. The trouble was,
nobody wanted to roll.

The west was far nicer than anything we’d known out here,
but not so great anybody wanted to walk that far.

Surely she could have summoned a closer unit?

We are the victims of our own competence. She always wants us
where the going threatens to become toughest. She knows we will do
the best job.

Damn and double damn.



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