The Many Deaths of the Black Company (Chronicle of the Black Company) by Cook Glen

Author:Cook, Glen [Cook, Glen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2010-01-04T23:00:00+00:00

6

An Abode of Ravens: Suvrin’s News

Suvrin did not arrive until after midnight. By then even our dullards understood that there was significance to the agitation of the hidden folk and the crows whose presence gave our settlement its local name. Arms had been issued. Men with fireball poles now perched on every rooftop. Tobo had warned his supernatural friends to stay out of town lest taut human nerves snap and cause them harm.

Everyone of stature available gathered to await Suvrin’s report. A couple of subalterns took turns running up to the headquarters’ roof to check the progress of the torches descending the long scarp from the Shadowgate. Local boys, they seemed to feel that their great adventure had begun at last.

They were fools.

An adventure is somebody else slogging through the mud and snow while suffering from trench foot, ringworm, dysentery and starvation, being chased by people with their hearts set on murder or more. I have been there. I have done that, playing both parts. I do not recommend it. Be content with a nice farm or shop. Make lots of babies and bring them up to be good people.

If the new blood remain blind to reality after we move out I guarantee that their naivete will not long survive their first encounter with my sister-in-law, Soulcatcher.

Suvrin finally arrived, accompanied by the runner Sleepy had sent to meet him. He seemed surprised by the size of the assembly awaiting him.

“Get up front and talk,” Sleepy told him. Always direct and to the point, my successor.

Silence fell. Suvrin looked around nervously. He was short, dark, slightly pudgy. His family had been minor nobility. Sleepy had taken him prisoner of war four years ago, just before the Company climbed onto the glittering plain, headed this way. Now he commanded an infantry battalion and seemed destined for bigger things because the Company was growing. He told us, “Something came through the Shadowgate.”

Jabber jabber, question question.

“I don’t know what. One of my men came to tell me he thought he’d seen something sneaking around in the rocks on the other side of the gate. I went to look. After four years of nothing happening I assumed it would be just a shadow or one of the Nef. The dreamwalkers visit us all the time. I was wrong. I never got a good look at the thing but it seemed to be a large animal, black and extremely fast. Not as big as Big Ears or Cat Sith but definitely faster. It was able to pass through the Shadowgate without help.”

I felt a chill. I tried to reject my immediate suspicion. It was not possible. Nevertheless, I said, “Forvalaka.”

“Tobo, where are you?” Sleepy demanded.

“Here.” He sat with several Children of the Dead, officers in training.

“Find this thing. Catch it. If it’s what Croaker said, I want you to kill it.”

“That’ll be easier said than done. It’s already squabbled with the Black Hounds. They backed off. They’re just trying to keep track of it now.”

“Then kill it, Tobo.

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