Soldiers Live by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

“You all right?”
    “He was the last.”
    “Last? Last what?”
    “The last one who was here when I joined. The Company.” I was the real Old Man
     now. “What happened to his spear? I’ve got to have his spear in order to finish
     this.”
    “What spear?” Murgen asked.
    Tobo knew what spear. “I have it at my place.”
    “Was it damaged by the fire?”
    “Not much. Why?”
    “I’m going to kill that thing. Like we should have a long time ago. You don’t
     let that spear out of your sight. I’ve got to have it. But right now I’m going
     to sleep for a while some more.” I had to go where the pain was not, just for a
     time. I had known One-Eye would leave us someday. I thought I was ready for
     that. I was wrong.
    His passing meant more than just the end of an old friend. It marked the end of
     an age.
    Tobo said something about the spear. I did not catch it. And the darkness came
     back before I remembered to ask what had become of the forvalaka. If Lady had
     caught or killed it I had gotten myself worked up for nothing . . . But I guess
     I knew it could not be that easy.
    There were dreams. I remembered everyone who had gone before me. I remembered
     the places and times. Cold places, hot places, weird places, always stressful
     times, swollen with unhappiness, pain and fear. Some died. Some did not. It
     makes no sense when you 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.

Black Company GS 9 - Soldiers Live
    10
    An Abode of Ravens:
    Recovery
     Two 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