Bleak Seasons Read Free

afterlife. And that only for men except for a few
     female warrior saints and daughters of prophets who had balls big enough to be
     honorary men.
    Nyueng Bao, rarely seen, usually wear loose-fitting long-sleeve pullover shirts
     and baggy lightweight pants, generally black, men and women alike. Children go
     naked.
    Any city down here is glorious chaos.
    It is always a holy day for somebody.

Black Company GS 6 - Black Seasons
    5
    From the citadel tower it is obvious that Dejagore is a complete contrivance. Of
     course, most walled cities are shaped by the probability that, part of the time,
    neighboring states will be managed by thugs. Your own city’s masters will never
     be worse than benevolent despots, of course, and their worst ambition will be to
     heighten the hometown’s glory.
    Until the appearance of the Shadowmasters one short generation ago war was an
     alien concept throughout this part of the world. It had seen neither armies nor
     soldiers in all the centuries since the Black Company’s departure.
    Into this improbable paradise came the Shadowmasters, lords of darkness from the
     far reaches of the earth who brought with them all the wolves of the old
     nightmare. Soon inept armies were about. They stalked unprepared kingdoms like
     great cruel behemoths even the gods could not stay. The dark tide spread. Cities
     crumbled. A lucky few the Shadowmasters chose to rebuild. The peoples of the
     newly-founded Shadowlands were given their options: obedience or death.
    Jaicur was reborn as Stormgard, seat of the Shadowmaster Stormshadow, she who
     could bring the winds and thunder howling and bellowing in the darkness. She who
     had borne the name Stormbringer in another age and place.
    First Stormshadow raised a mound forty feet high on top of the ruins of captured
     Jaicur, at the heart of a plain she had flattened absolutely by slaves and
     prisoners of war. Earth for the mound came from the ring of hills completely
     surrounding the plain. With the mound complete and faced on its outer sides with
     several layers of imported stone, Stormshadow built her new city up top. And
     that she surrounded with walls another forty feet high. She did not overlook the
     latest theories about towers for enfilading fire and barbicans to protect her
     elevated gates.
    All the Shadowmasters seemed driven by a paranoid need to make themselves safe
     in their home places.
    Never once in her planning, though, did she take into account the possibility
     that she might have to resist the onslaught of the Black Company.
    I wish we were half as wicked as I talk.
    Dejagore has four gates. Each stands at one point of the compass rose. Each is
     at the end of a paved highway running straight in from the hills. Only the road
     from the south carries any traffic these days.
    Mogaba has sealed three gates, leaving only sally ports which are guarded by his
     Nar at all times. Mogaba is determined to fight. He is just as determined that
     not one of our raggedy-ass Taglian legionnaires will run off and not go down
     with him.
    None of us, be we Black Company Old Crew, Nar, Jaicuri, Taglian, Nyueng Bao, or
     someone else who had the bad luck to get caught here, is going to get out alive.
    Not unless Shadowspinner and his gang get so bored they go looking for someone
     else to bully. Right. You’ve got the eight and ten of swords and to go down
     you’re going to bet your ass on pulling the nine.
    Your chances of pulling that nine are better than ours of getting out of here.
    The fortified encampment of the Shadowlanders stands south of the city. It is so
     close we can reach it with our heavy artillery. You can see charred timbers
     where we tried to burn them out the day of the big battle. We have raided them a
     few times since then, too, but no longer have the strength to risk.
    We can’t seem to discourage Shadowspinner, though.
    Like most warlords he doesn’t let reality get in the way of his doing whatever
     he wants to do.
    The