“You,” Otto said.
“I’m a physician.”
“You’re the only real officer left.”
Raven started to rise.
I told him, “You sit down and keep quiet. You don’t even belong here. You walked out on us fifteen years ago, remember? Come on, you guys. Who else?”
Nobody spoke. Nobody volunteered. Nobody met my eye, either. They all knew I did not want it.
Goblin squeaked, “Is anybody against Croaker?”
Nobody blackballed me. It’s wonderful to be loved. Grand to be the least of evils.
I wanted to turn it down. The option was not there. “All right. Next order of business. Getting the hell out of here. We’re surrounded, guys. And the Guard will get its balance pretty soon. We’ve got to get gone before they start looking around for somebody to whip on. But once we get clear, then what?”
Nobody offered an opinion. These men were as much in shock as the Guards.
“All right. I know what I want to do. Since time immemorial one of the jobs of the Annalist has been to return the Annals to Khatovar should the Company disband or be demolished. We’ve been demolished. I propose a vote to disband. Some of us have assumed obligations that are going to put us at odds as soon as we don’t have anybody more dangerous to fuss at.” I looked at Silent. He met my gaze. He’d just moved his seat so he was more into the gap between Darling and Raven, a gesture understood by everyone but Raven himself.
I had nominated myself guardian for the Lady, for the time being. There was no way we could keep those two women in one another’s company for long. I hoped we could hold the group together as far as Oar. I would be satisfied with getting to the edge of the forest. We needed every hand. Our tactical situation could not have been worse.
“Shall we disband?” I asked.
That caused a stir. Everyone but Silent argued the negative.
I interjected, “This is a formal proposition. I want those with special interests to go their own ways without the stigma of desertion. That don’t mean we have to split. What I’m saying is, we formally shed the name the Black Company. I’ll head south with the Annals, looking for Khatovar. Anyone who wants can come. Under the usual rules.”
Nobody wanted to give up the name. That would be like renouncing a patronym thirty generations old.
“So we don’t give it up. Who would rather not go look for Khatovar?”
Three hands rose. All belonged to troopers who had enlisted north of the Sea of Torments. Silent abstained, though he wanted to go his own way, in pursuit of his own impossible dream.
Then another hand shot up. Belatedly, Goblin had noted that One-Eye was not opposed. They started one of their arguments. I cut it short.
“I won’t insist on the majority dragging everybody along. As commander, I can discharge anyone who wants to follow another path. Silent?”
He had been a brother of the Black Company longer than I. We were his friends, his family. His heart was torn.
Finally, he nodded. He would go his own road, even without promises from Darling. The three who had opposed heading for Khatovar nodded too. I entered their discharges in the Annals. “You’re out,” I told them. “I’ll deal out your shares of money and equipment when we clear the south edge of the forest. Till then we stick together.” I did not pursue it further, or in a moment I would have been hanging all over Silent, bawling my eyes out. We had been through a lot, he and I.
I wheeled on Goblin, pen poised. “Well? Do I strike your name?”
“Go on,” One-Eye said. “Hurry. Do it. Get rid of him. We don’t need his kind. He’s never been anything but trouble.”
Goblin scowled at him. “Just for that I’m not leaving. I’m going to stay and outlive you and make your remaining days examples of misery. And I hope you live another hundred years.”
I had not thought they would split. “Fine,” I said, stifling a grin. “Hagop, take a couple men and round up some animals. The rest of you collect whatever might be useful. Like money, if you see any laying around.”
They looked at me with eyes still dull with the impact of what had happened.
“We’re getting out, guys. As soon as we can ride. Before any more trouble finds us. Hagop. Don’t stint on pack animals. I want to carry off everything that isn’t nailed down.”
There was talk, argument, whatnot, but I closed the official debate at that point.
Cunning devil that I am, I got the Guards to do our burying. I stood over the Company graves with Silent and shed more than a few tears. “I never thought Elmo... He was my best friend.” It had hit me. At last. Hard. Now I had done all the duties, there was nothing to hold it at bay. “He was my sponsor when I came in.”
Silent lifted a hand, gently squeezed my arm. It was as much of a gesture as I could expect.
The Guards were paying their last respects to their own. Their daze was fading. Soon they would begin thinking about getting on with business. About asking the Lady what they should do. In a sense, they had been rendered unemployed.
They did not know their mistress had been disarmed. I prayed they did not learn, for I meant to use her as our ticket out.
I dreaded what might happen should her loss become general knowledge. On the broad canvas, civil wars to torment the world. On the fine, attempts at revenge upon her person.
Someday someone would begin to suspect. I just wanted the secret kept till we had a good run at getting out of the empire.
Silent took my arm again. He wanted to go. “One second,” I said. I drew my sword, saluted our graves, repeated the ancient formula of parting. Then I followed him to where the others waited.
Silent’s party would ride with us a while, as I’d wished. Our ways would part when we felt safe from the Guards. I did not look forward to that moment, inevitable though it was. How keep two such as Darling and the Lady in company when there was no survival imperative?
I swung into the saddle cursing my wretched aching ankle. The Lady gave me a dirty look. “Well,” I said. “You’re showing some spirit.”
“Are you kidnapping me?”
“You want to be alone with all your folks? With maybe nothing better than a knife to keep order?” Then I forced a grin. “We’ve got a date. Remember? Dinner at the Gardens in Opal?”
For just a moment there was a spark of mischief behind her despair. And a look from a moment by a fire when we had come close. Then the shadow returned.
I leaned closer, trembling with the thought. I whispered, “And I need your help to get the Annals out of the Tower.” I had not told anyone that I did not have them in my possession yet.
The shadow went. “Dinner? That’s a promise?” The witch could promise a lot, just with a look and her tone. I croaked, “In the Gardens. Yes.”
I gave the time-honored signal. Hagop started off on point. Goblin and One-Eye followed, bickering as usual. Then Murgen, with the standard, then the Lady and I. Then most of the others, with the pack animals. Silent and Darling brought up the rear, well separated from the Lady and I.
As I urged my mount forward, I glanced back. Raven stood leaning on his cane, looking more forlorn and abandoned than he should. Case was still trying to explain it to him. The kid had no trouble understanding. I figured Raven would, once he got over the shock of not having everyone jump to do things his way, the shock of discovering that old Croaker could fill his bluff if he had to. “I’m sorry,” I murmured his way, not quite sure why. Then I faced the forest and did not look back again.
I had a feeling he would be on the road himself soon enough. If Darling really meant as much to him as he wanted us to think.
That night, for the first time in who knows how long, the northern skies were completely clear. The Great Comet illuminated our way. Now the north knew what the rest of the empire had known for weeks.
It was on the wane already. The hour of decision had passed. The empire awaited in fear the news that it portended.
Away north. Three days later. In the dark of a moonless night. A beast with three legs limped from the Great
