Book 1 - The Black Company Read Free Page A

and crab till
he threatened to turn me into a jackass braying at the Gate of
Dawn. Only then, after I had dressed and we had joined a dozen
others, did I realize that I didn't have a notion what was
happening.
    "We're going to look at a tomb," Tom-Tom said.
    "Huh?" I am none too bright some mornings.
    "We're going to the Necropolitan Hill to eyeball that forvalaka tomb."
    "Now wait a minute . . . "
    "Chicken? I always thought you were, Croaker."
    "What're you talking about?"
    "Don't worry. You'll have three top wizards along, with nothing
to do but babysit your ass. One-Eye would go too, but the Captain
wants him to hang around."
    "Why is what I want to know."
    "To find out if vampires are real. They could be a put-up from
yon spook ship."
    "Neat trick. Maybe we should have thought of it." The forvalaka
threat had done what no force of arms could: stilled the riots.
    Tom-Tom nodded. He dragged fingers across the little drum that gave him his name. I filed the thought. He's worse
than his brother when it comes to admitting shortcomings.
    The city was as still as an old battlefield. Like a battlefield,
it was filled with stench, flies, scavengers, and the dead. The
only sound was the tread of our boots and, once, the mournful cry
of a sad dog standing sentinel over its fallen master. "The price
of order," I muttered. I tried to run the dog off. It wouldn't
budge.
    "The cost of chaos," Tom-Tom countered. Thump on his drum. "Not
quite the same thing, Croaker."
    The Necropolitan Hill is taller than the heighth on which the
Bastion stands. From the Upper Enclosure, where the mausoleums of
the wealthy stand, I could see the northern ship.
    "Just lying out there waiting," Tom-Tom said. "Like the Syndic
said."
    "Why don't they just move in? Who could stop them?" Tom-Tom
shrugged. Nobody else offered an opinion. We reached the storied
tomb. It looked the part it played in rumor and legend. It was
very, very old, definitely lightning-blasted, and scarred with tool
marks. One thick oak door had burst asunder. Toothpicks and
fragments lay scattered for a dozen yards around.
    Goblin, Tom-Tom, and Silent put their heads together. Somebody
made a crack about that way they might have a brain between them.
Goblin and Silent then took stations flanking the door, a few steps
back. Tom-Tom faced it head on. He shuffled around like a bull
about to charge, found his spot, dropped into a crouch with his
arms flung up oddly, like a parody of a martial arts master. "How
about you fools open the door?" he growled.
    "Idiots. I had to bring idiots." Wham-wham on the drum. "Stand
around with their fingers in their noses."
    A couple of us grabbed the ruined door and heaved. It was too
warped to give much. Tom-Tom rapped his drum, let out a villainous
scream, and jumped inside. Goblin bounced to the portal behind him.
Silent moved up in a fast glide.
    Inside, Tom-Tom let out a rat squeak and started sneezing. He
stumbled out, eyes watering, grinding his nose with the heels of
his hands. He sounded like he had a bad cold when he said, "Wasn't
a trick." His ebony skin had gone grey.
    "What do you mean?" I demanded.
    He jerked a thumb toward the tomb. Goblin and Silent were inside
now. They started sneezing.
    I sidled to the doorway, peeked. I couldn't see squat. Just dust
thick in the sunlight close to me. Then I stepped inside. My eyes
adjusted.
    There were bones everywhere. Bones in heaps, bones in stacks,
bones sorted neatly by something insane. Strange bones they were,
similar to those of men, but of weird proportion to my physician's
eye. There must have been fifty bodies originally. They'd really
packed them in, back when. Forvalaka for sure, then, because Beryl
buries its villains uncremated.
    There were fresh corpses too, I counted seven dead soldiers
before the sneezing started. They wore the colors of a mutinous
cohort.
    I dragged a body outside, let go, stumbled a few steps, was
noisily sick. When I regained control, I turned back to examine