The Black Company - 09 - Soldiers Live by Glen Cook

Author:Glen Cook
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780812566550
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2001-04-29T07:00:00+00:00

* * *

* * *

60

Gharhawnes:

Tobo and the Voroshk

The Howler certainly kept busy. He completed his first functional four-passenger flying carpet two days after the soldiers marched westward. Gharhawnes seemed deserted, though there were enough of us around to bloody a bunch of noses the morning the former tenant took a notion to steal his home back.

Sleepy had a dozen carpets on order, from single-rider scouts to a monster she hoped would carry twenty soldiers. I do not know who she expected to fly them. Only Howler and Tobo—and, possibly, the Voroshk—had the power to manage the things.

I insisted that we have a couple of modest-sized carpets first. Those should not take too long to make and would be the size most useful to us right away. And since I was in charge of the left-behinds and the Dejagore strike I got what I wanted. Well, I got the one carpet.

Tobo had the flying post thing figured out, too. Both Shukrat and Arkana seemed eager to get along now. One or the other would allow Tobo to borrow her post when he wanted to run out to visit Sleepy, which he did by night so he would not be seen from the ground. I never felt comfortable when he did that. We had too many potentially unpleasant and unfriendly people back here in the manor. Including a lot of hostages from the leading families of the region.

Both Magadan and Gromovol were increasingly determined not to be won over, each for his own reasons. I told Magadan, “I’d be tempted to send you two home just so I don’t have to worry about what’s going on behind my back,” I was not worried, really. Tobo’s supernatural friends saw everything.

Magadan told me, “I don’t want to go home. Home no longer exists. I want to be free.”

“Sure. You Voroshk showed what you can do when you’re free. I’ve spent my life killing people like you. That’s people who believe it’s their destiny to make slaves out of people like me. I’m in a war with another one of them right now. I’m not about to cut you loose and let you start making peoples’ lives miserable, too.”

None of which was absolutely true but it did sound good. And Magadan bought it. Some. The part that really was true. That I would kill him before I turned him loose on the world.

That was the moment when he decided he might want to go home after all. From then on he brought that possibility up each time we crossed paths. The hidden folk said he was sincere. He was trying to get the other kids to go along with swapping what knowledge they had for an escort back across the place of glittering stone.

Lady did not believe it. She thought we should put him and Gromovol down because of the trouble they could cause.

My sweetie has a very direct approach to problem-solving.

Sometimes I do find what little conscience I retain a damnable handicap.

Howler, though, did successfully work his way out of the top ten on my shit list.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.