They came. Sindhu remained Sindhu, wide and stolid and brief. He told me what he had seen. He told me we had friends there. They would stay in place, ready to serve their goddess. He told me Mogaba was a stubborn man who meant to hang on to the last man, who did not care that Dejagore had become a hell of disease and hunger.

Murgen told me, Mogaba wants a place in the Annals. Hes like Croaker was about throwing up times when the Company suffered worse.

Murgen was about thirty. He reminded me of Croaker. He was tall, lean, permanently sad. He had been the Company standardbearer and Croakers understudy as Annalist. In the normal course twenty years down the road he might have become Captain. Why did you desert? It was not the sort of thing he would do, regardless of his opinion of his commander.

I didnt. One-Eye and Goblin sent me to find you. They thought I could get through. They were wrong. They didnt give me enough help.

One-Eye and Goblin were minor sorcerers, old as sin, perpetually at loggerheads. Together with Murgen they were the last of the Black Company from the north, the last of those who had elected Croaker Captain and made me his Lieutenant.

We talked. He told me the men we had recruited coming south were disaffected with Mogaba. He said, Hes trying to make the Company over into crusaders. He doesnt see it as a warrior brotherhood of outcasts. He wants it to be a bunch of religious warriors.

Sindhu interjected, They worship the goddess, Mistress. They think. But their heresies are revolting. They are worse than disbelief.

Why was he incensed? A prolonged exchange failed to illuminate me. No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem. It is hard enough to accept the fact that they really believe the nonsense of their faiths. I always wonder if they are pulling my leg with a straight race.

Those two gave me a lot to digest. I tried. But it was morning. Sleep or no sleep, it was time to be sick. I was sick.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Longshadows insubstantial messengers warned him of Howlers return long before Howler appeared. He went to Howlers landing place to wait. He waited. And waited. And grew troubled. Had the little ragbag undertaken some treachery at the last instant? No, shadows said. No. He was coming. He was coming.

He was slow. He was in mortal agony. Never had he endured such pain, never had he suffered so long. Pain obliterated consciousness. All that remained was will supported by immense talent. He knew only that he had to go on, that if he yielded to the pain he would tumble from the sky and end his life in the wastes.