Free Soldiers Live by Glen Cook Page A

of earthy brown glow tags
     along. It hovers above and behind one shoulder or another. The ball does not
     shed much light but in what otherwise would be utter darkness they are
     sufficient. They are the golem’s doing. Shivetya has powers he has forgotten how
     to use. He might be a small god himself if he was not nailed to his ancient
     throne.
    Blade descended nearly a thousand steps before he encountered anyone headed
     upward. This soldier carried a heavy pack. “Sergeant Vanh.”
    The soldier grunted. Already he was winded. No one made more than one trip a
     day. Blade gave Vanh the bad news because he might not run into him again for
     days. “Had a message from the Captain. We have to step it up. She’s almost ready
     to move.”
    Vanh mumbled the sorts of things soldiers always do. He continued his climb.
    Blade wondered how Sleepy planned to haul off the mountain of treasure already
     accumulated up top. It was, for sure, enough to finance a pretty good war.
    Another thousand steps downward, repeating his message several times. He left
     the stair at the level everyone called the Cave of the Ancients because of the
     old men interred there. Blade always stopped to visit his friend Cordy Mather.
    It was a ritual of respect. Cordy was dead. Most of the others confined in the
     cave remained alive, enmeshed in stasis spells. Somehow, during the long
     Captivity, Mather had shed the spells confining him. And success had cost him
     his life. He had not been able to find his way out.
    Most of the old men in the cave meant nothing to Blade or the Company. Only
     Shivetya knew who they were or why they had been interred. Certainly they had
     irked someone armed with the power to confine them. Several corpses, though, had
     been Company brothers when still alive. Several others had been captives before
     Soulcatcher buried the Company. Death had found them because, evidently, Cordy
     Mather had tried to wake them up. Touching the Captured without sorcerous
     precautions inevitably caused the death of 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