Soldiers Live Read Free Page A

home around the Black
     Company.” Which is why the Children of the Dead call our town the Abode of
     Ravens. There are always crows, real or unknown.
    “They used to stay fat.”
    The unknown shadows were all around us now. I could see them easily myself,
    though seldom clearly and seldom for more than an instant. Moments of intense
     emotion draw them out of the shells where Tobo taught them to hide.
    A renewed racket arose outside. The little darknesses stirred excitedly, then
     scattered, somehow disappearing without ever revealing what they were. Tobo
     said, “The dreamwalkers must be hanging around on the other side of the
     shadowgate again.”
    I did not think so. This evening’s racket was different.
    An articulate cry came from the room where we had left One-Eye. So the old man
     had been faking his snooze after all. “I’d better see what he wants. You get
     Doj.”
    “You don’t believe it.” The old man was agitated now. He was angry enough to
     speak clearly, without much huffing and puffing. He threw up a hand. One
     wrinkled, twisted ebony digit pointed at something only he could see. “The doom
     is coming, Croaker. Soon. Maybe even tonight.” Something outside howled as if to
     strengthen his argument but he did not hear it.
    The hand fell. It rested for several seconds. Then it rose again, one digit
     indicating an ornate black spear resting on pegs above the doorway. “It’s done.”
    He had been crafting that death tool for a generation. Its magical power was
     strong enough for me to sense whenever I considered it directly. Normally I am
     deaf, dumb and blind in that area. I married my own personal consultant. “You
     run into. Goblin. Give him. The spear.”
    “I should just hand it over?”
    “My hat, too.” One-Eye showed me a toothless grin. For the entirety of my time
     with the Company he had worn the biggest, ugliest, dirtiest, most disreputable
     black felt hat imaginable. “But you got. To do it. Right.” So. He still had one
     practical joke to pull even though it would be on a dead man and he would be
     dead himself long before it could happen.
    There was a scratch at the door. Someone entered without awaiting invitation. I
     looked up. Doj, the old swordmaster and priest of the Nyueng Bao Community.
    Associated with the Company but not of it for twenty-five years now. I do not
     entirely trust him even after so long. I seem to be the only doubter left,
    though.
    Doj said, “The boy said Gota . . . ”
    I gestured. “Back there.”
    He nodded understanding. I would focus on One-Eye because I could do nothing for
     the dead. Nor all that much for One-Eye, I feared. Doj asked, “Where is Thai
     Dei?”
    “At Khang Phi, I assume. With Murgen and Sahra.”
    He grunted. “I’ll send someone.”
    “Let Tobo send some of his pets.” That would get some of them out from under
     foot—and have the additional consequence of reminding the File of Nine, the
     master council of warlords, that the Stone Soldiers enjoy unusual resources. If
     they could detect those entities at all.
    Doj paused at the doorway to the back. “There’s something wrong with those
     things tonight. They’re like monkeys when there’s a leopard on the prowl.”
    Monkeys we know well. The rock apes haunting the ruins lying where Kiaulune
     stands in our own world are as pesky and numerous as a plague of locusts. They
     are smart enough and deft enough to get into anything not locked up magically.
    And they are fearless. And Tobo is too soft of heart to employ his supernatural
     friends in a swift educational strike.
    Doj vanished through the doorway. He remained spry although he was older than
     Gota. He still ran through his fencing rituals every morning. I knew by direct
     observation that he could defeat all but a handful of his disciples using
     practice swords. I suspect the handful would be surprised unpleasantly if the
     duel ever involved real steel.
    Tobo is the only one as talented as Doj.