We seven remained at the crossroads, watching the dust from the eastern way.
Even irrepressible One-Eye and Goblin were stricken by the finality of the hour.
Otto’s horse whickered. He closed her nostrils with one hand, patted her neck
with the other, quieting her. It was a time for contemplation, the final
emotional milemark of an era.
Then there was no more dust. They were gone. Birds began to sing, so still did
we remain. I took an old notebook from my saddlebag, settled in the road. In a
shaky hand I wrote: The end has come. The parting is done. Silent, Darling, and the Torque brothers have taken the road to Lords. The Black Company is no more.
Yet I will continue to keep the Annals, if only because a habit of twenty-five
years is so hard to break. And, who knows? Those to whom I am obliged to carry
them may find the account interesting. The heart is stilled but the corpse
stumbles on. The Company is dead in fact but not in name.
And we, O merciless gods, stand witness to the power of names.
I replaced the book in my saddlebag. “Well, that’s that.” I swatted the dust off the back of my lap, peered down our own road into tomorrow. A low line of
greening hills formed a fencerow over which sheeplike tufts began to bound. “The quest begins. We have time to cover the first dozen miles.”
