Book 4 - Soldiers Live by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

try to
figure it out. Soldiers live. And wonder why.
    Oh, it’s a
soldier’s life for me. Oh, the adventure and glory!
     
    It took me longer to recuperate than it had that time I almost
got killed outside Dejagore. Even with Tobo applying his own best
healing spells, learned from One-Eye, and urging his
edge-of-the-eye friends to help as well. Some of those were
supposed to be able to bring a fossil back to life. I felt like a
fossil, like I had not enjoyed the advantage of the stasis that had
frozen the others while we were prisoners under the plain. There
was a lot of confusion inside me. I could no longer figure out how
old I am. My best guess is fifty-six, give or take a few years,
plus all that time underneath the earth. And fifty-six years,
brother, was a pretty damned good run—particularly for a guy in my
racket. I ought to appreciate every second, including all the
misery.
    Soldiers live. And wonder why.
     
----

10

An Abode of Ravens:
Recovery
    T wo months had
passed. I felt ten years older but I was up and around—and moving
like a zombie. I had indeed been roasted well-done by a jet of
almost pure alcohol blowing through the hole that had been drilled
by Lady’s errant fireball. Everybody kept telling me how much
the gods must love me, that I had no business being alive. That had
I not been turned the way I was, with the forvalaka positioned
perfectly to absorb a lot of the blast, there would not have been
much left of me but bones.
    I was not entirely convinced that that might not have been the
better outcome.
    Persistent pain does little to buoy one’s optimism or
elevate one’s mood. I began to develop a certain sympathy for
Mother Gota’s perspective.
    I did manage a smile when Lady began to rub me down with healing
unguents. “Silver linings,” she told me.
    “Oh, yes indeed. Yes indeed.”
    “Would you look at that? Maybe you’re not as old as
you think.”
    “It’s all your fault, wench.”
    “Sleepy’s worried about you wanting to avenge
One-Eye.”
    “I know.” I did not have to be told. I had had to
put up with people like me when I was Captain.
    “Maybe you should tone it down.”
    “It’s got to be done. It’s going to be done.
Sleepy’s got to understand that.” Sleepy is all
business. Her world does not include much leeway for emotional
indulgence.
    She thinks I just want to use One-Eye’s death as an excuse
to visit the Khatovar shadowgate, basing her judgment on the fact
that I had tramped through Hell for a decade trying to get to that
place.
    The woman is hard to fool. But she can also get fixed on one
idea to the exclusion of other possibilities.
    “She doesn’t want to make any more
enemies.”
    “More? We don’t have any. Not out here. They may not
like us much but they all kiss our asses. They’re scared to
death of us. And they get more scared every time another White Lady
or Blue Man or
wichtlin
or whatnot lumbers out of folklore and
joins Tobo’s entourage.”
    “Uhn. Is that the spot? I saw something Tobo called a
wowsey
with the Black Hounds yesterday.” That is my honey.
She can see those things clearly, even over here. “It’s
as big as a hippo but looks like a beetle with a lizard’s
head. A lizard with big teeth. To quote Swan, ‘It looks like
it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every single branch on the way
down.’ ”
    Willow Swan seemed to be cultivating a new image as a churlish
but colorful old man.
    Somebody has to step in and take One-Eye’s place. Though I
was sort of thinking about picking up the stick myself.
    “What do we know about the forvalaka?” I asked. I
had avoided asking for specifics before. I knew the damned thing
got away. That was all I needed to know until I was prepared
mentally to start planning the conclusion of its tale.
    “It left its tail behind. It suffered severe burns and
several deep wounds and I blinded it partially with my last
fireball. It lost several teeth. Tobo has created a number of
fetishes