It was a nasty brawl. The invaders had it bad because in the tight streets they could not take advantage of better discipline. They always had guys shooting arrows at them off the rooftops. They always had guys with spears jumping out of doors and alleys. But they were better soldiers. They killed a lot of Taglians before they realized they were in a box, with about six times as many Taglians after them as they expected. By then it was too late for them to get out. But they took a lot of Taglians with them.
When it was over Willow went back to Taglios. Blade came home too, and they opened the tavern back up and celebrated for a couple weeks. Meantime, the Shadowmasters figured out what happened and got thoroughly pissed. They made all kinds of threats. The prince, the Prahbrindrah Drah, basically thumbed his nose and told them to put it where the sun don't shine.
Willow, Cordy, and Blade got a month off, then it was time for the next part, which was to take a long trip north with the Radisha Drah and Smoke. Willow didn't figure this part was going to be a lot of fun, but nobody could figure a better way to work it.
Chapter Seventeen: GEA-XLE
I got them all up and decked out in their second best. Murgen had the standard out. There was a nice breeze to stretch it. Those great black horses stamped and champed, eager to get on down the road. Their passion communicated itself to their lesser cousins.
The gear was packed and loaded. There was no reason to hold movement—except that rattling conviction that the event would be something more than a ride into a city.
"You in a dramatic mood, Croaker?" Goblin asked. "Feel like showing off?"
I did and he knew it. I wanted to spit defiance in the face of my premonition. "What have you got in mind?"
Instead of answering directly, he told One-Eye, "When we get down there and come over that saddleback where they can get their first good look at us, you do a couple of thunders and a Trumpet of Doom. I'll do a Riding Through the Fire. That ought to let them know the Black Company is back in town."
I glanced at Lady. She seemed partly amused, partly patronizing.
For a moment One-Eye looked like he wanted to squabble. He swallowed it and nodded curtly. "Let's do it if we're going to do it, Croaker."
"Move out," I ordered. I did not know what they had in mind, but they could get flashy when they wanted.
They took the point together, Murgen a dozen yards behind with the standard. The rest fell into the usual file, with me and Lady side by side leading our share of pack animals. I recall eyeing the gleaming bare backs or the Geek and the Freak and reflecting that we had us some real infantry now.
The beginning of it was tight twists and turns on a steep, narrow path, but after a mile the way widened till it was almost a road. We passed several cottages evidently belonging to herdsmen, not nearly as poor and primitive as one would suspect.
Up we went into the backside of the saddle Goblin mentioned, and the show started. It was almost exactly what he prescribed.
One-Eye clapped his hands a couple of times and the results were sky-shaking crashes. Then he set them to his cheeks and let fly a trumpet call just as loud. Meantime, Goblin did something that filled the saddleback with a dense black smoke that turned into ferocious-looking but harmless flames. We rode through. I fought down a temptation to order a gallop and tell the wizards to have the horses breathe fire and kick up lightnings. I wanted a showy announcement of the Company's return, but not the appearance of a declaration of war.
"That ought to impress somebody," I said, looking back at the men riding out of the flames, the ordinary horses prancing and shying.
"If it doesn't scare hell out of them. You should be more careful how much you give away, Croaker."
"I feel daring and incautious this morning." Which was maybe the wrong thing to say after my failure of daring and lack of incaution the night before. But she let it pass.
"They're talking about us up there." She indicated the pair of stocky watchtowers flanking the road, three hundred yards ahead. There was no way to avoid riding between them, through a narrow passage filled with the shadow of death. Up top, heliographs chatted tower to tower and presumably with the city as well.
"Hope they're saying something nice, like hurray, the boys are back in town." We were close enough so I could make out the men up there. They did not look like guys getting ready for a fight. A couple sat on the merlons with their legs dangling outside. One that I took to be an officer stood in a crenel with one foot up on a merlon, leaning on his knee, watching casually.
"About the way I'd do it if I had me a really sneaky trap set," I grumped.
"Not everyone in the world has the serpentine sort of mind you do, Croaker."
"Oh yeah? I'm plain simple compared to some I could name."
She gave me one of her sharp old-time Lady-on-fire withering looks.
One-Eye was not there to say it himself, so I said it for him. "That snake's probably got more smarts than you do, Croaker. The only trouble he goes hunting is breakfast."
We were close to the one tower now, with Goblin and One-Eye and Murgen already past. I raised my hat in a friendly salute.
The officer reached down beside him, picked up something, tossed it down. It came tumbling toward me. I snatched it out of the air. "What an athlete! Maybe I'll go for two out of three."
I looked at what I caught.
It was a black stick about an inch and a quarter in diameter and fifteen inches long, carved from some heavy wood, decorated all over with ugly what-is-its. "I'll be damned."
"No doubt. What is it?"
"An officer's baton. I've never seen one before. But they're mentioned all through the Annals, up through the fall of Sham, which was some sort of mysterious lost city up on the plateau we just crossed." I lifted the baton in a second salute to the man above.
"The Company was there?"
"It's where it ended up after it left Gea-Xle. The Captain didn't find his silver mountain. He did find Sham. The Annals are pretty confused. The people of Sham are supposed to have been a lost race of whites. It seems that about three days after the Company found Sham, so did the ancestors of the Geek and the Freak. They got themselves worked up into some kind of religious frenzy and jumped all over the city. The first horde to get there killed damned near everybody, including most of the Company officers, before the Company finished killing them. The guys who survived headed north because there was another mob closing in from the south, keeping them from heading back this way. These batons aren't mentioned after that."
To which her only response was, "They knew you were coming, Croaker."
"Yeah." It was a mystery. I do not like mysteries. But it was only one of a herd and the bellies of most of them would never come floating up where I could give them the eyeball.
There were two guys waiting down the road from the watchtowers, a third of a mile from the city wall. The surrounding countryside was pretty barren for so close to a city. I guess the ground was poor. Farther north and south there was plenty of green. One of the two guys gave Goblin an old Company standard. There was no doubt what it was, though I did not recognize any of the honors. It was damned ragged, as you would expect of something as old as it had to be.
What the hell was going on here?
One-Eye tried talking to those guys but it was like starting a conversation with a stone. They faced their mounts around and got out front. I gave One-Eye a nod when he looked back to see if we should follow.
A twelve-man honor guard presented arms as we passed through the gate. But nobody else greeted us. Silence ran with us as we moved through the streets, people stopping to stare at the pale-faced strangers. Lady got half the attention.