Free Dreams of Steel (Chronicle of the Black Company) by Glen Cook Page A

flash. He’d intuited that the battle would go poorly and had decided to beat everybody home. He’d play a strong hand there because he’d be the only man with a military force—however inept—to back him up.
    He deserved some special thought now.
    I didn’t have to order a chase. There were five Shadar. Their flight was proof they were blackhearts. The men rode with blood in their eyes. Unfortunately, the Shadar were better riders.
    I did want to talk to them. I urged my stallion to his best pace and closed up fast.
    No everyday mount stood a chance against him.
    The Shadar hit the north road. As I nosed up on the most laggardly the leaders swept over the crest. And collided with riders headed south.
    Horses shied. Men yelled. Riders came unhorsed. I circled a Shadar who regained his feet and tried to run. He’d lost his helmet. I grabbed him by the hair, ran him fifty yards before turning to examine the victims of the collision.
    Well. Swan, Mather, and Blade. And that sneaking twit of a hedge wizard, Smoke. What now?
    Mather, Smoke, and Blade had kept their seats. Swan was on the ground, groaning and swearing. He got up, swore some more, kicked a fallen Shadar, looked around for his horse.
    Smoke was rattled right down to his ankles. He had no color left, was whispering some sort of prayer.
    Mather and Blade ignored Swan’s histrionics. I presumed that meant he wasn’t hurt.
    My captive tried to get away. I ran him a few yards, let him loose when the horse was moving faster than he could keep up. He flung forward, slid on his face, stopped at Swan’s feet. Swan sat down on him. I asked Mather, “What are you doing here?” He was the only one of the bunch who made straight sense.
    “The Radisha sent us. Wants to know what’s happening down here. There have been rumors. Some say you’re alive, some say dead.”
    “I’m not yet. Not quite.”
    My men arrived. “Ghopal. Hakim. Take these two somewhere and ask them why they were snooping.” They were Narayan’s cronies, the only two who could ride. He’d probably sent them along to keep an eye on things.
    Swan got up and leaned against Mather’s leg. “You don’t have to twist no arms to find that out. Been some wild rumors lately. You’ve got Jah jumpy as a cat in a kennel.”
    “Oh?”
    “Things were going his way. He got back from Dejagore before anybody else. Only bad luck put the Radisha at Ghoja before him. She closed the ford. He still figured he had the world by the oysters, then here comes word somebody’s kicked the feathers off a gang of the Shadowmasters’ boys. Right behind comes a rumor that it was you. You not being dead don’t look so good for Jah’s ambitions. The Company picked up a lot of respect putting it together so fast. Made all those priests look like conniving, selfish jerks.”
    Blade chuckled.
    Mather said, “You collected some of that respect, being a woman and having everybody know how much you had to do with it falling together.” He looked me in the eye. “But being a woman is going to be a handicap now.”
    “I’ve been on my own before, Mather.” And I hadn’t been happy a moment. But happiness is a fleeting creature. It’s no birthright. Not anything I expect but something I accept when I stumble into it. Meantime, power will do nicely. “And Jah has liabilities. He’s vulnerable. I have a thousand men over there. Every one will tell you Jah ran out on us at Dejagore. We would’ve won if it wasn’t for him.”
    Swan surprised me. “We watched the battle. We saw. So did a lot of men who’ve come in. Even some of Jah’s own men admit it.”
    “A liability,” Mather said. “But it’s not going to undo him.”
    Ghopal reminded me that three Shadar had escaped. True. And they would fly straight to their master, who was sure to make a move. But I doubted he’d do it right away. He was a vacillator. He’d worry a while before committing himself.
    “Back to camp. Swan. Come. Ghopal. Bring the