Book 1 - Shadow Games by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

Drah, Mr. Swan.”
    “Holy shit,” Swan muttered. “The
prince’s big sister.” The one some people said was the
real boss bull in those parts. “I knew you was somebody,
but . . . ” He was rattled right down to
his toenails. But he would not have been Willow Swan if he had not
leaned back, folded his hands on his belly, put on a big grin, and
asked, “What’s in it for us?”
     
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Chapter Eight: OPAL: CROWS
    Though the empire retained a surface appearance of cohesion, a
failure of the old discipline snaked through the deeps beneath.
When you wandered the streets of Opal you sensed the laxness. There
was flip talk about the new crop of overlords. One-Eye spoke of an
increase in black marketeering, a subject on which he had been
expert for a century. I overheard talk of crimes committed that
were not officially sanctioned.
    Lady seemed unconcerned. “The empire is seeking normalcy.
The wars are over. There’s no need for the strictures of the
past.”
    “You saying it’s time to relax?”
    “Why not? You’d be the first to scream about what a
price we paid for peace.”
    “Yeah. But the comparative order, the enforcement of
public safety laws . . . I admired that
part.”
    “You sweetheart, Croaker. You’re saying we
weren’t all bad.”
    She knew damned well I’d claimed that all along.
“You know I don’t believe there’s any such thing
as pure evil.”
    “Yes there is. It’s festering up north in a silver
spike your friends drove into the trunk of a sapling that’s
the son of a god.”
    “Even the Dominator may have had some redeeming quality
sometime. Maybe he was good to his mother.”
    “He probably ripped her heart out and ate it.
Raw.”
    I wanted to say something like, you married him, but did not
need to give her further excuses to change her mind. She was
pressed enough.
    But I digress. I was remarking on the changes in the
Lady’s world. What brought the whole thing home was having a
dozen men drop in and ask if they could sign on with the Black
Company. They were all veterans. Which meant there were men of
military age at loose ends these days. During the war years there
had been no extra bodies anywhere. If they were not with the grey
boys or that lot they were with the White Rose.
    I rejected six guys right away and accepted one, a man with his
front teeth done up in gold inlays. Goblin and One-Eye,
self-appointed name givers, dubbed him Sparkle.
    Of the other five there were three I liked and two I did not and
could find no sound reasons for going either way with any of them.
I lied and told them they were all in and should report aboard
The
Dark Wings
in time for our departure. Then I conferred with Goblin.
He said he would make sure that the two I did not like would miss
our departure.
    I first noticed the crows then, consciously. I attached no
special significance, just wondered why everywhere we went there
seemed to be crows.
    One-Eye wanted a private chat. “You nosed around that
place where your girlfriend is staying?”
    “Not to speak of.” I had given up arguing about
whether or not Lady was my girlfriend.
    “You ought to.”
    “It’s a little late. I take it you have.
What’s your beef?”
    “It isn’t something you can pin down like sticking a
nail through a frog, Croaker. Kind of hard to get a good look
around there, anyway, what with she brought a whole damned army
along. An army that I think she figures on dragging along wherever
we go.”
    “She won’t. Maybe she rules this end of the world,
but she don’t run the Black Company. Nobody runs with this
outfit who don’t answer to me and only to me.”
    One-Eye clapped. “That was good, Croaker. I could almost
hear the Captain talking. You even got to standing the way he did,
like a big old bear about to jump on something.”
    I was not original, but I didn’t think I was that
transparent a borrower, either. “So what’s your point,
One-Eye? Why has she got you spooked?”
    “Not