Soldiers Live Read Free Page B

But Tobo can do anything, always with
     grace and usually with ridiculous ease. Tobo is the child we all think we
     deserve.
    I chuckled.
    One-Eye murmured, “What?”
    “Just thinking how my baby grew up.”
    “That’s funny?”
    “Like a broken broom handle pounded up the shit chute.”
    “You should. Learn to appreciate. Cosmic. Practical jokes.”
    “I . . . ”
    The cosmos was spared my rancor. The street door opened to someone even less
     formal than Uncle Doj. Willow Swan invited himself inside. “Shut it quick!” I
     snapped. “That moonlight shining off the top of your head is blinding me.” I
     could not resist. I recalled him when he was a young man with beautiful long
     blond hair, a pretty face and a poorly disguised lust for my woman.
    Swan said, “Sleepy sent me. There’re rumors.”
    “Stay with One-Eye. I’ll deliver the news myself.”
    Swan bent forward. “He breathing?”
    With his eye shut One-Eye looked dead. Which meant he was laying back in the
     weeds hoping to get somebody with his cane. He would remain a vicious little
     shit till the moment he did stop breathing.
    “He’s fine. For now. Just stay with him. And holler if anything changes.” I put
     my things back in my bag. My knees creaked as I rose. I could not manage that
     without putting some of my weight on One-Eye’s chair. The gods are cruel. They
     should let the flesh age at the rate the spirit does. Sure, some people would
     die of old age in a week. But the keepers would hang around forever. And I would
     not have all these aches and pains. Either way.
    I limped as I left One-Eye’s house. My feet hurt.
    Things scurried everywhere but where I was looking. Moonlight did not help a
     bit.

Black Company GS 9 - Soldiers Live
    4
    The Grove of Doom:
    Night Songs
     The drums had begun at sunset, softly, a dark whispering promise of a shadow of
     all night falling. Now they roared boldly. True night had come. There was not
     even a sliver of moon. The flickering light of a hundred fires set shadows
     dancing. It appeared that the trees had pulled up their roots to participate. A
     hundred frenzied disciples of the Mother of Night capered with them, their
     passion building.
    A hundred bound prisoners shivered and wept and fouled themselves, fear
     unmanning some who had believed themselves heroic. Their pleas fell upon
     unhearing ears.
    A looming darkness emerged from the night, dragged by prisoners straining at
     cables in the hopeless hope that by pleasing their captors they might yet
     survive. Twenty feet tall, the shape proved to be a statue of a woman as black
     and glistening as polished ebony. It had four arms. It had rubies for eyes and
     crystal fangs for teeth. It wore a necklace of skulls. It wore another necklace
     of severed penises. Each taloned hand clutched a symbol of her power over
     humanity. The prisoners saw only the noose.
    The beat of the drums grew more swift. Their volume rose. The Children of Kina
     began to sing a dark hymn. Those prisoners who were devout began to pray to
     their own favored gods.
    A skinny old man watched from the steps of the temple at the heart of the Grove
     of Doom. He was seated. He no longer stood unless he had to. His right leg had
     been broken and the bone improperly set. Walking was difficult and painful. Even
     standing was a chore.
    A tangle of scaffolding rose behind him. The temple was undergoing restoration.
    Again.
    Standing over him, unable to remain still, was a beautiful young woman. The old
     man feared her excitement was sensual, almost sexual. That should not be. She
     was the Daughter of Night. She did not exist to serve her own senses.
    “I feel it, Narayan!” she enthused. “The imminence is there. This is going to
     reconnect me with my mother.”
    “Perhaps.” The old man was not convinced. There had been no connection with the
     Goddess for four years. He was troubled. His faith was being tested. Again. And
     this child had grown up far too