Soldiers Live (Glittering Stone) by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

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 is a lot of confusion inside me. I can 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, is 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 using those and bits of flesh torn off by the Black Hounds while it was fleeing toward the shadowgate.”
    “But it did have what it takes to get back to Khatovar.”
    “It did.”
    “Then it’s going to be as hard to kill as the Limper was.”
    “Not anymore. Not with what Tobo has.”
    “He had your