The Black Company

Tom-Tom came by. “What are you doing out here, Croaker?”

“Filling in.”

“You look like death on a stick. Get some rest.”

“You don’t look good yourself, runt.”

He shrugged. “How’s Mercy?”

“Not out of the woods yet.” I had little hope for him, really. I pointed. “You know anything about that out there?” An isolated scream echoed in the distance. It had a quality which set it aside from other recent screams. Those had been filled with pain, rage, and fear. This one was redolent of something darker.

He hemmed and hawed in that way he and his brother One-Eye have. If you don’t know, they figure it’s a secret worth keeping. Wizards! “There’s a rumor that the mutineers broke the seals on the tomb of the forvalaka while they were plundering the Necropolitan Hill.”

“Uh? Those things are loose?”

“The Syndic thinks so. The Captain don’t take it

seriously.”

I didn’t either, though Tom-Tom looked concerned. “They looked tough. The ones who were here the other

day.”

“Ought to have recruited them,” he said, with an undertone of sadness. He and One-Eye have been with the Company a long time. They have seen much of its decline.

“Why were they here?”

He shrugged. “Get some rest. Croaker. Don’t kill yourself. Won’t make a bit of difference in the end.” He ambled away, lost in the wilderness of his thoughts.

I lifted an eyebrow. He was way down. I turned back to the fires and lights and disturbing absence of racket. My eyes kept crossing, my vision clouding. Tom-Tom was right. I needed sleep.

From the darkness came another of those strange, hopeless cries. This one was closer.

“Up, Croaker.” The Lieutenant was not gentle. “Captain wants you in the officers’ mess.”

I groaned. I cursed. I threatened mayhem in the first degree. He gri

He was gone.

“Will Mercy pull through, Croaker?” the Captain asked. “I don’t think so, but I’ve seen bigger miracles.” The officers and sergeants were all there. “You want to know what’s happening,” the Captain said. “The visitor the other day was an envoy from overseas. He offered an alliance. The north’s military resources in exchange for the support of Beryl’s fleets. Sounded reasonable to me. But the Syndic is being stubborn. He’s still upset about the conquest of Opal. I suggested he be more flexible. If these northerners are villains then the alliance option could be the least of several evils. Better an ally than a tributary. Our problem is, where do we stand if the legate presses?” Candy said, “We should refuse if he tells us to fight these northerners?”

“Maybe. Fighting a sorcerer could mean our destruction.”

Wham! The mess door slammed open. A small, dusky, wiry man, preceded by a great humped beak of a nose, blew inside. The Captain bounced up and clicked his heels. “Syndic.”

Our visitor slammed both fists down on the tabletop. “You ordered your men withdrawn into the Bastion. I’m not paying you to hide like whipped dogs.”

“You’re not paying us to become martyrs, either,” the Captain replied in his reasoning-with-fools voice. “We’re a bodyguard, not police. Maintaining order is the task of the Urban Cohorts,”

The Syndic was tired, distraught, frightened, on his last emotional legs. Like everyone else.

“Be reasonable,” the Captain suggested. “Beryl has passed a point of no return. Chaos rules the streets. Any attempt to restore order is doomed. The cure now is the disease.”

I liked that. I had begun to hate Beryl.

The Syndic shrank into himself. “There’s still the forvalaka, And that vulture from the north, waiting off the

Island.” Tom-Tom started out of a half-sleep. “Off the Island, you say?”

“Waiting for me to beg.”

“Interesting.” The little wizard lapsed into semi-slumber.

The Captain and Syndic bickered about (he terms of our commission. I produced our copy of the agreement. The Syndic tried to stretch clauses with, “Yeah, but.” Clearly, he wanted to fight if the legate started throwing his weight around.

Elmo started snoring. The Captain dismissed us, resumed arguing with our employer.

I suppose seven hours passes as a night’s sleep. I didn’t strangle Tom-Tom when he wakened me. But I did grouse and crab till he threatened to turn me into a jackass braying at the Gate of Dawn. Only then, after I had dressed and we had joined a dozen others, did I realize that I didn’t have a notion what was happening.

“We’re going to look at a tomb,” Tom-Tom said.

“Huh?” I am none too bright some mornings.

“We’re going to the Necropolitan Hill to eyeball that forvalaka tomb,”

“Now wait a minute...”

“Chicken? I always thought you were, Croaker.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll have three top wizards along, with nothing to do but babysit your ass. One-Eye would go too, but the Captain wants him to hang around.”

“Why is what I want to know.”

“To find out if vampires are real. They could be a put-up from yon spook ship.”

“Neat trick. Maybe we should have thought of it.” The forvalaka threat had done what no force of arms could: stilled the riots.

Tom-Tom nodded. He dragged fingers across the little

drum that gave him his name. I filed the thought. He’s worse than his brother when it comes to admitting shortcomings.

The city was as still as an old battlefield. Like a battlefield, it was filled with stench, flies, scavengers, and the dead. The only sound was the tread of our boots and, once, the mournful cry of a sad dog standing sentinel over its fallen master. “The price of order,” I muttered, I tried to run the dog off. It wouldn’t budge.

“The cost of chaos,” Tom-Tom countered. Thump on his drum. “Not quite the same thing, Croaker.”

The Necropolitan Hill is taller than the heighth on which the Bastion stands. From the Upper Enclosure, where the mausoleums of the wealthy stand, I could see the northern ship.

“Just lying out there waiting,” Tom-Tom said. “Like the Syndic said.”

“Why don’t they just move in? Who could stop them?” Tom-Tom shrugged. Nobody else offered an opinion. We reached the storied tomb. It looked the part it played in rumor and legend. It was very, very old, definitely lightning-blasted, and scarred with tool marks. One thick oak door had burst asunder. Toothpicks and fragments lay scattered for a dozen yards around.

Goblin, Tom-Tom, and Silent put their heads together. Somebody made a crack about that way they might have a brain between them. Goblin and Silent then took stations flanking the door, a few steps back. Tom-Tom’ faced it head on. He shuffled around like a bull about to charge, found his spot, dropped into a crouch with his arms flung up oddly, like a parody of a martial arts master. “How about you fools open the door?” he growled.

“Idiots. I had to bring idiots.” Wham-wham on the drum. “Stand around with their fingers in their noses.”

A couple of us grabbed the ruined door and heaved. It was too warped to give much. Tom-Tom rapped his drum, let out a villainous scream, and jumped inside. Goblin bounced to the portal behind him. Silent moved up in a fast glide.

Inside, Tom-Tom let out a rat squeak and started sneezing. He stumbled out, eyes watering, grinding his nose with the heels of his hands. He sounded like he had a bad cold when he said, “Wasn’t a trick.” His ebony skin had gone grey.

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

He jerked a thumb toward the tomb. Goblin and Silent were inside now. They started sneezing.

I sidled to the doorway, peeked. I couldn’t see squat. Just dust thick in the sunlight close to me. Then I stepped inside. My eyes adjusted.

There were bones everywhere. Bones in heaps, bones in stacks, bones sorted neatly by something insane. Strange bones they were, similar to those of men, but of weird proportion to my physician’s eye. There must have been fifty bodies originally. They’d really packed them in, back when, Forvalaka for sure, then, because Beryl buries its villains uncremated.