Glen Cook

Raker

I

The wind tumbled and bumbled and howled around Meystrikt. Arctic imps giggled and blew their frigid breath through chinks in the walls of my quarters. My lamplight flickered and danced, barely surviving. When my fingers stiffened, I folded them round the flame and let them toast.

The wind was a hard blow out of the north, gritty with powder snow. A foot had fallen during the night. More was coming. It would bring more misery with it. I pitied Elmo and his gang. They were out Rebel hunting.

Meystrikt Fortress. Pearl of the Salient defenses. Frozen in winter. Swampy in spring. An oven in summer. White Rose prophets and Rebel mainforcers were the least of our troubles.

The Salient is a long arrowhead of flatland pointing south, between mountain ranges. Meystrikt lies at its point. It funnels weather and enemies down onto the stronghold. Our assignment is to hold this anchor of the Lady's northern defenses. Why the Black Company? We are the best. The Rebel infection began seeping through the Salient after the fall of Forsberg. The Limper tried to stop it and failed. The Lady sent us to clean up the Limper's mess. Her only other option was to abandon another province.

She endured too many retreats before our coming. She meant the Salient to mark their end.

The gate watch sounded a trumpet. Elmo was coming in.

There was no rush to greet him. The rules call for casualness, for a pretense that your guts are not churning with dread. Instead, men peeped from hidden places, wondering about brothers who had gone a-hunting. Anybody lost? Anyone bad hurt? You knew them better than kin. You'd fought side by side for years. Not all of them were friends, but they were family. The only family you had.

In its heyday, three centuries ago, the Company was 6000 strong. The Annals glow with the glory of those years, when our predecessors served the lords of Hellon. Nowadays my pitiful pages emanate bleakness. We number a mere 189. Time and fate have not served us well.

The gatemen hammered ice off the windlass. Shrieking its protests, the battered portcullus rose. As Company historian, I could go greet Elmo without violating the unwritten rules. Fool that I am, I went out into the wind and chill.

A sorry lot of shadows loomed through the blowing snow. The ponies were dragging. Their riders slumped over icy manes. Animals and men hunched into themselves, trying to escape the wind's scratching talons. Clouds of breath smoked from mounts and men, and were ripped away. This, in painting form, would have made a snowman shiver.

Of the whole Company only Raven ever saw snow before this winter. Some welcome to service with the Lady.

The riders came closer. They looked more like refugees than brothers of the Black Company. Ice-diamonds twinkled in Elmo's mustache. Rags concealed the rest of his face. The others were so bundled I could not tell who was who. Only Silent rode resolutely tall. He peered straight ahead, disdaining that pitiless wind.

Elmo nodded as he came through the gate. "We'd started to wonder," I said. Wonder means worry. The rules demand a show of indifference.

"Hard traveling." Elmo does not talk much.

"How'd it go?"

"Black Company twenty-three, Rebel zip. No work for you, Croaker, except Jo-Jo has a little frostbite."

"You get Raker?"

Raker is an old, old enemy of the Lady, a luminary of the Rebel Circle of Eighteen. His dire prophecies, skilled witchcraft, and battlefield cunning cost the Lady her province of Forsberg. Then he came to the Salient and made a fool of the Limper. Another collapse appeared imminent. At winter's commencement the Lady sent us to replace that nastiest of the Taken. The move sent shock waves through the empire. A mercenary captain had been assigned forces and powers usually reserved for one of the Ten!

Salient winter being what it was, only a shot at Raker himself made the Captain field this patrol.

Elmo bared his face and grinned. He was not talking. He'd just have to tell it again for the Captain.

I considered Silent. No smile on his long, dreary face. He responded with a slight jerk of his head. So. Another victory that amounted to failure. Raker had escaped again. Maybe he would send us scampering after the Limper, squeaking mice who had grown too bold and challenged the cat.

Still, chopping twenty-three men out of the regional Rebel hierarchy counted for something. Not a bad day's work, in fact. Better than any the Limper turned in.

Men came for the patrol's ponies. Others set out mulled wine and warm food in the main hall. I stuck with Elmo and Silent. Their tale would get told soon enough.

After twelve years I am patient with Elmo. He is our finest platoon leader. We like each other. I rate him a close friend.

II

Meystrikt's main hall is only slightly less draughty than its quarters. I treated Jo-Jo. The others attacked their meals. Feast complete, Elmo, Silent, One-Eye, and Knuckles convened round a small table. Cards materialized. One-Eye scowled my way. "Going to stand there with your thumb in your butt, Croaker? We need a mark."

One-Eye is a wizened little black man with a volcanic temper and mouth to watch. He is at least a hundred years old. The Annals mention him throughout the past century. There is no telling when he joined. Seventy years' worth of Annals were lost when the Company's positions were overrun at the Battle of Urban. One-Eye refuses to illuminate the missing years. He says he doesn't believe in history.

Elmo dealt. Five cards to each player and a hand to an empty chair. "Croaker!" One-Eye snapped. "You going to squat?"

"Nope. Sooner or later Elmo is going to talk." I tapped my pen against my teeth.

One-Eye was in rare form. Smoke poured out of his ears. A screaming bat popped out of his mouth. He likes his tricks.

"He seems annoyed," I observed. The others grinned. Baiting One-Eye is a favorite pastime.

One-Eye hates field work. And hates missing out even more. Elmo's grins and Silent's benevolent glances convinced him he'd missed something good.

Elmo redistributed his cards, peered at them from inches away. Silent's eyes glittered. No doubt about it. They had a special surprise.

Raven took the seat they'd offered me. No one objected. Even One-Eye seldom objects to anything Raven decides to do.

Raven. Colder than our weather. A dead soul, maybe. He can make a man shudder with a glance. Even the Taken, except the Limper, do not effect me that way. Soulcatcher is warmer.

The aura of the man cannot be conveyed. He exudes a stench of the grave. Yours, if you cross him.

He never smiles. Says maybe one word a month more than Silent. Mysterious and spooky. And yet.... And yet there's Darling, his shadow, nine or ten, whom he salvaged from the ruins of a village the Limper burned. Darling loves him. Frail, pale, ethereal, she kept one little hand on his shoulder while he ordered his cards. She smiled for him.

Raven is an asset in any game including One-Eye. One-Eye cheats. But never when Raven is playing.

Nobody messes with Raven.

"She stands in the Tower, gazing northward. Her delicate hands are clasped before Her. A breeze steals softly through Her window. It stirs the midnight silk of Her hair. Tear diamonds sparkle on the gentle curve of Her cheek."

"Hoo-wee!"

"Oh, wow!"

"Author! Author!"

"May a sow litter in your bedroll, Willie." Those characters got a howl out of my fantasies about the Lady.

The sketches are a game I play with myself. Hell, for all they know, my inventions might be on the mark. Only the Ten Who Were Taken ever see the Lady. Who knows if She is beautiful, ugly, or what?