Read Book 4 - Soldiers Live for Free Online

maximum
alert.”
    I said, “Tobo will have to check the seals on the gate. We
don’t want it leaking shadows because whatever it was broke
through.” Though the boy would not be able to do much to stem
a real flood. That honor would have to go to his hidden folk
friends. Lack of technical knowledge about shadowgates was the main
reason we continued to reside in the Land of Unknown Shadows.
    “I understand that, Croaker. Can I get to work
here?”
    I was underfoot. Being considered useless is irksome.
    That condition was familiar to most of us whom Soulcatcher had
beguiled and captured and managed to leave buried for fifteen
years. Our Company had changed during our slumber. Even Lady and
Murgen, who had maintained tenuous connections with the outside
world, found themselves marginalized now. Murgen did not mind.
    The culture of the Company has become quite alien. Almost no
northern flavor remains. Just a few little quirkss in how things
are done, and my own proud legacy, an interest in hygiene that is
completely foreign to these climes.
    These southerners did not enjoy a proper terror of the
forvalaka. They insisted on picturing it as just another spooky
nightstalker like Big Ears or Paddlefoot, which they consider
essentially harmless. Near as I can tell they appear harmless only
because their victims seldom survive to report any contrary
facts.
     
    “A reading from the First Book of Croaker,” I told
the assembly. It was after midnight. There had been no uproar for a
while. The shadowgate was not leaking the Unforgiven Dead. Tobo was
trying to pinpoint the intruder but was having difficulties. It was
moving around a lot, scouting, plainly unsure how it should view
the fact that it had fallen right in among us. “In those days
the Company was in service to the Syndic of Beryl.”
    I told them about another forvalaka, long ago and far away and
way more cruel than this one ever could be. I wanted them to
worry.
     
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7

An Abode of Ravens:
Night Visitor
    L ady and I sat up
with One-Eye. Gota had been laid out in the same room. Candles
surrounded her. “I see no obvious change in the
woman.”
    “Croaker! Hush!”
    “I hear a difference, though. She hasn’t complained
about anything since we got here.”
    Playing deaf, One-Eye took a long drink of his product, closed
his eye, nodded off. Lady whispered, “It’s probably
best if he naps.”
    “Not very lively bait.”
    “Carrion’s good enough to draw this thing. What it
wants to kill really only exists inside itself. One-Eye is just its
symbol.” She rubbed her eyes.
    I winced. She looked so old, my love. Grey hair. Wrinkles. Jowls
developing. Broadening in the beam. The deterioration had been
swift since Sleepy rescued us.
    Lucky for me there was no mirror handy. I really do not like to
look at that fat, old, bald guy who goes around claiming to be
Croaker.
    The shadows in the room were restless. They made me nervous.
From the beginning of our association with Taglios, shadows have
been cause for terror. A shadow in motion meant death could have
hold of you any moment. Those sad but cruel monsters off the plain
had been the lethal instruments by which the Shadowmasters had
earned their fame and had enforced their wills. But here, in the
Land of Unknown Shadows, the hidden folk who lurked in the dark
were shy but not ordinarily unfriendly—if treated with respect. And
even those manifestations owning a history of wickedness and malice
now worshipped Tobo and harmed no mortal closely associated with
the Company. Unless that mortal was dim enough to irk Tobo
somehow.
    Tobo lived as much in the world of the hidden folk as he did in
ours.
    In the distance the spectral cat Big Ears again mouthed his
unique call. Native legend says only the creature’s
prospective victims ever hear that chilling cry. A couple of the
Black Hounds bayed. Legend suggests you do not want to hear their
voices, either. Interviews with locals lead me to believe that
before Tobo