“All the more reason to stay on schedule. We’ll stomp them while they’re down.”

The Old Man was bitter and vindictive. Comes with the job, I guess. And because of all the evils done to him.

“You ready to travel?” he asked.

“Personally? Me and my whole household have our preparations made. You name the day and we’ll be on the road.” My own bitterness leaked through.

I kept telling myself not to let the need for vengeance sink roots too deep. I dared not let it become an obsession.

Croaker pursed his lips, sour for a moment. My household includes not only Thai Dei but Sarie’s mother, Ky Gota, and Uncle Doj, who is not really anybody’s uncle but is a family attachment nonetheless. Croaker refuses to trust them. But he does not trust anybody who has not been a brother of the Company for years.

Proof was immediate. “Murgen, I want you to add the Radisha to the list of people you check regularly. I’m betting that as soon as we clear the city wall she’ll start fixing to break our hearts.”

I did not argue. It seemed likely.

All through our history the Black Company has suffered the ingratitude of our employers. Usually those blackguards received ample cause to regret their villainy. This time there was a good chance we could subvert the effort before the Radisha Drah and her brother, the Prahbrindrah Drah, could deal us any major treachery.

Right now the Radisha and Prince have to restrain themselves. As long as Longshadow survives, the Company will remain their lesser fear.

I asked, “You looked at those books yet?”

“Which books?”

He could be exasperating. I snapped, “The books I risked my precious ass to steal back from Soulcatcher the other night. The lost Annals that are supposed to tell us why every damned fool lord and priest in this, end of the world is scared shitless of the Black Company.”

“Oh. Those books.”

“Yeah. Those...” I realized that he was ragging me.

“I haven’t had time, Murgen. Although I did find out that we’re going to need a translator. They aren’t written in modern Taglian.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“We’re taking the ghostwalker south with us.”

The sudden shift surprised me. Lately he has been so paranoid he will not mention Smoke, by name or otherwise, for any reason, even in a non-Taglian language.

There is always a crow around somewhere.

I replied. “I assumed we would. The resource is too valuable to leave here.”

“We don’t want anyone to know if we can help it.”

“Uhm?”

“The Radisha already wonders how come we find him so interesting that we’ll take care of him and keep him alive. She no longer thinks there’s any chance he’ll recover. If she puts much thought into it she might start adding things up.” He shrugged. “I’ll talk to One-Eye. You two can smuggle him out when nobody’s looking.”

“One more thing to do in my copious spare time.”

“Hey. Enjoy it while you can. Soon we’ll get to sleep for ages.”

He is not a religious man.

“I got to do everything,” One-Eye grumbled. “Anything that’s got to be done, just stick it on old One-Eye. He’ll take care of it.”

I sneered. “That’s only if you can’t find Murgen first.”

“I’m too old for this shit, Kid. I ought to be retired.”

The little black man had a point. According to the Annals he is about two hundred years old, still alive mostly because of his own clever sorcery. And good luck beyond what any human being deserves.

The two of us were inside a dark circular stairway, lugging a body down on a litter. Smoke did not weigh much but One-Eye made the job a pain in the ass anyway. “You about ready to trade off?” I asked. I had the uphill end. I am more than six feet tall. One-Eye goes five feet if you stand him on a thick book. But he is a stubborn little shit who can never admit that he is wrong.

For some reason One-Eye had it in his head that the downhill end of a litter would be the easy one to handle on a stairway.

“Yeah. I think. When we get down to the next landing.”

I grinned in the darkness. That would leave us with just one story to go. Then I grumbled, “I hope that damned Sleepy is on time.”

Though barely eighteen Sleepy is a four year veteran of the Company. He went through the fire of Dejagore with us. He still has a tendency to be late and a little irresponsible but, hell, he is still awful young.

Youth made him the best man to be driving a wagon around Taglios in the middle of the night if you did not want to attract attention. A Vehdna Taglian, he could pass as an apprentice easily. He could not be expected to know what he was doing. Apprentices do what they are told. Their masters seldom feel obliged to explain to them.

The kid would have no clue what he was up to tonight. If he arrived on time he would not guess his part for years. He was supposed to wander off before the wagon acquired its mysterious burden.

One-Eye would take over after we loaded Smoke. He would explain, if he found himself in a position where that became necessary, that the corpse back there was Goblin. No one would know the difference. Smoke had not been seen at all for four years and seldom publicly before that. And Goblin had not been around for a while because the Old Man sent him off on a mission weeks ago.

Anybody running into One-Eye would know who he was right away. He is the most recognizable member of the Company. His ugly old black hat gives him away even in the dark. It is so damned filthy it glows.

I exaggerate only slightly.

People would believe One-Eye because everyone in Taglios knows the nasty little runt runs with a toad-faced little white wizard called Goblin.

The trick would be to distract them from Smoke’s skin color. Or One-Eye could put a glamor on him and make him actually look enough like Goblin to deceive the Taglian eye.

Eventually somebody would discover that Smoke no longer was in the Palace. Probably later. By accident. When somebody stumbled through the network of confusion spells surrounding the room where Smoke had lain hidden for years.

“Somebody” would be the Radisha Drah. She and Uncle Doj are the only people besides me and Croaker and One-Eye who know Smoke is still alive, if unutterably lost in the land of coma.

He is more useful now than he ever was when he was conscious and the secret court wizard.

Smoke had been as thoroughly craven as it is possible for a human to be.

We reached the landing. One-Eye damned near dropped his end of the litter. He was in a hurry to take a break. “Let me know when you’re ready,” I told him.

“You don’t got to go smart-assing me, Kid.” He muttered a few words in a dead tongue, which was totally unnecessary and entirely for show. He could have said the same thing in Taglian and have achieved the same result. Which was that a globe of shimmering swamp gas materialized above his ugly hat.

“Did I say anything?”

“You don’t got to talk, Kid. You’re grinning like a shiteating dog.” But he was puffing too hard to keep it up. “Old fart’s heavier than he looks, isn’t he?”

He was. Maybe because he was all lard after four years asleep, getting his sustenance as soup and gravy and any other sludge I can spoon down him.

He is a mess to take care of. I would let him croak if he was not so damned useful.

The Company wastes no love on this man.

Maybe I like him better unconscious than conscious, though we never butted heads personally. I have heard so many horror stories about his cowardice that I cannot say much in his favor at all. Well, he was a modestly effective fire marshal when he was awake. Fire is an enemy Taglios knows far more intimately than any remote Shadowmaster.

If he had not been such a chickenshit and gone over to Longshadow he would not be in the sad shape he is now.