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

spooked, Croaker. Just feeling cautious. It’s
her baggage. She’s dragging along enough stuff to fill a
wagon.”
    “Women get that way.”
    “Ain’t women’s stuff. Not unless she wears
magical lacies. You’d know that better than me.”
    “Magical?”
    “Whatever that stuff is, it’s got a charge on it. A
pretty hefty one.”
    “What am I supposed to do about it?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought you ought
to know.”
    “If it’s magical it’s your department. Keep an
eye out”—I snickered—“and let me know if
you find anything useful.”
    “Your sense of humor has gone to hell, Croaker.”
    “I know. Must be the company I keep. My mother warned me
about guys like you. Scat. Go help Goblin give those two guys the
runs, or something. And stay out of trouble. Or I’ll take you
across the water in a nice bouncy rowboat we’ll pull along
behind the ship.”
    It takes some doing for a black man to get green around the
gills. One-Eye managed it.
    The threat worked. He even kept Goblin from getting into
mischief.
    Though not in keeping with the time sequence, I hereby make
notation of four new members of the Company. They are: Sparkle, Big
Bucket (I don’t know why; he came with the name), Red Rudy,
and Candles. Candles came with his name, too. There is a long story
to tell how he got it. It does not make sense and is not especially
interesting. Being the new guys they mostly stayed quiet, stayed
out of the way, did the scut work, and worked on learning what we
were all about. Lieutenant Murgen was happy to have somebody around
he outranked.
     
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Chapter Nine: ACROSS THE SCREAMING SEA
    Our black iron coaches roared through Opal’s streets,
flooding the dawn with fear and thunder. Goblin outdid himself. This
time the black stallions breathed smoke and fire, and flames sprang
up where their hooves struck, fading only after we were long gone.
Citizens stayed under cover.
    One-Eye lolled beside me, restrained by protective cords. Lady
sat opposite us, hands folded in her lap. The lurching of the coach
bothered her not at all.
    Her coach and mine parted ways. Hers headed for the north gate,
bound toward the Tower. All the city—we hoped—would believe her to
be in that coach. It would disappear somewhere in uninhabited
country. The coachmen, handsomely bribed, should head west, to make
new lives in the distant cities on the ocean coast. The trail, we
hoped, would be a dead one before anyone became concerned.
    Lady wore clothing that made her look like a doxy, the
legate’s momentary fancy.
    She travelled like a courtesan. The coach was jammed with her
stuff and One-Eye reported that a load had been delivered to
The
Dark Wings
already, with a wagon to carry it.
    One-Eye was limp because he had been drugged.
    Faced by a sea voyage, he became balky. He always does. Old in
knowing One-Eye’s ways, Goblin had been prepared. Knockout
drops in his morning brandy did the trick.
    Through wakening streets we thundered, down to the waterfront,
amidst the confusion of arriving stevedores. Onto the massive naval
dock we rolled, to its very end, and up a broad gangway. Hooves
drummed on deck timbers. Finally, we halted.
    I stepped down from the coach. The ship’s captain met me
with all the appropriate honors and dignities—and a furious scowl
on behalf of his savaged deck. I looked around. The four new men
were there. I nodded. The captain shouted. Hands began casting off.
Others began helping my men unharness and unsaddle horses. I
noticed a crow perched on the masthead.
    Small tugs manned by convict oarsmen pulled
The Dark Wings
off
the pier. Her own sweeps came out. Drums pounded the beat. She
turned her bows seaward. In an hour we were well down the channel,
running with the tide, the ship’s great black sail bellied
with an offshore breeze. The device thereon was unchanged since our
northward journey, though Soulcatcher had been destroyed by the
Lady herself soon after the Battle at