Free Book 4 - Soldiers Live by Glen Cook Page A

the touched.
    Blade resisted the urge to kick the sorcerer Longshadow. That
madman was a commodity of incalculable worth in the Land of Unknown
Shadows. The Company had grown strong and wealthy because of him.
It continued to prosper. “How you doing, Shadowmaster? Looks
like you’ll be here a while yet.” Blade assumed the
sorcerer could not hear him. He could not recall having heard
anything when he was under the enchantment himself. He could not
recall having been aware in any way, though Murgen said there were
times when it looked like the Captured were aware of their
surroundings. “They haven’t pushed the bidding high
enough yet. I hate to admit it but you really are a popular guy. In
your own special way.” Not a generous or forgiving or even
empathetic man, Blade stood with hands on hips staring down at
Longshadow. The sorcerer looked like a skeleton barely covered by
diseased skin. His face was locked into a scream. Blade told him,
“They still say, ‘All Evil Dies There an Endless
Death.’ Especially when they’re talking about
you.”
    Not far from Longshadow is the Company’s other insane
sorcerer prisoner, the Howler. This one presents a greater
temptation. Blade saw no value whatsoever to keeping Howler alive.
The little shit has a history of treachery that goes way, way back
and a character unlikely to change because of this confinement. He
survived a similar Captivity before. That one endured for
centuries.
    Tobo did not need to learn any of the Howler’s evil crap.
And Tobo’s education was the only excuse Blade had heard for
letting the little ragbag live.
    Blade paid his deepest respects to Mather. Cordy was a good
friend for a long time. Blade owes Cordy his life. He wished the
evil fortune had befallen him. Cordy wanted to live. Blade believes
he is proceeding on inertia.
     
    Blade continued his descent into the earth, past the treasure
caverns that were being looted to finance the Company’s
homegoing, it was hoped on a spectacularly memorable scale.
    Blade is not much given to emotional vapors or seizures of fear.
He has a cool enough head to have survived for years as a Company
agent inside Longshadow’s camp. But as he moved deeper into
the earth he began to twitch and sweat. His pace slackened. He
passed the last known cavern. Nothing lay below that but the
ultimate enemy, the Mother of Night herself. She was the enemy who
would still be waiting once all the other, lesser adversaries had
been brushed aside or extinguished.
    To Kina, the Black Company is an annoying buzz in the ear, a
mosquito that has gotten away with taking a sip or two of blood and
has not had the good sense to get the hell away.
    Blade slowed again. The light following him kept weakening.
Where once he could see clearly twenty steps ahead now he could see
only ten, the farther four seeming to be behind the face of a
thickening black fog. Here the darkness seemed almost alive. Here
the darkness felt as though it was under much greater pressure, the
way water seemed to exert more as you swam deeper beneath its
surface.
    Blade found it harder to breathe. He forced himself to do so,
deeply and rapidly, then went on, against the insistence of
instinct. A silver chalice took form in the fog, just five steps
below. It stood about a foot tall, a simple tall cup made of noble
metal. Blade had placed it there. It marked the lowest step he had
yet been able to reach.
    Now each step downward seemed to take place against the
resistance of liquid tar. Each step brought the darkness crushing
in harder. The light from behind was too weak to reach even one
step beyond the chalice.
    Blade makes this effort frequently. He accounts it exercise for
his will and courage. Each descent he manages to make it as far as
the chalice mostly by being angry that he cannot push past it.
    This time he tried something different. He threw a handful of
coins collected from one of the treasure caves. His arm had no
strength but gravity had not lost