Read Shadows Linger for Free Online Page B

with a certain contempt.
    The presence of the Black Company strained the resources of the area. Within a
     week the Captain started talking about shifting a company to Heart and billeting
     smaller units in the villages. Our patrols seldom encountered the Rebel, even
     when our wizards helped hunt. The engagement at Madle's had all but eliminated
     the infestation.
    The Lady's spies told us the few committed Rebels left had fled into Tambor, an
     even bleaker kingdom to the northeast. I supposed Tambor would be our next
     mission.
    I was scribbling away at these Annals one day, when I decided I needed an
     estimate of the mileage we'd covered in our progression eastward. I was appalled
     to learn the truth. Tome was two thousand miles east of Charm! Far beyond the
     bounds of the empire as it had existed six years ago. The great bloody conquests
     of the Taken Whisper had established a border arc just this side of the Plain of
     Fear. I ran down the line of city-states forming that forgotten frontier. Frost
     and Ade, Thud and Barns, and Rust, where the Rebel had defied the Lady
     successfully for years. Huge cities all, formidable, and the last such we had
     seen.
    I still shuddered, recalling the Plain of Fear.
    We crossed it under the aegis of Whisper and Feather, two of the Taken, the
     Lady's black apprentices, both sorceresses orders of magnitude above our three
     puny wizards. Even so, and traveling with entire armies of the Lady's regulars,
    we suffered there. It is a hostile, bitter land where none of the normal rules
     apply. Rocks speak and whales fly. Coral grows in the desert. Trees walk. And
     the inhabitants are the strangest of all. . . . But that is neither here nor
     there. Just a nightmare from the past. A nightmare that haunts me still, when
     the screams of Cougar and Fleet come echoing down the corridors of time, and
     once again I can do nothing to save them.
    “What's the trouble?” Elmo asked, slipping the map from beneath my fingers,
    cocking his head sideways. “Look like you saw a ghost.”
    “Just remembering the Plain of Fear.” “Oh. Yeah. Well, buck up. Have a beer.” He
     slapped my back. “Hey! Kingpin! Where the hell you been?” He charged away, in
     pursuit of the Company's leading malingerer.
    One-Eye arrived a moment later, startling me. “How's Goblin?” he asked softly.
    There had been no intercourse between them since Madle's. He eyed the map. “The
     Empty Hills? Interesting name.”
    “Also called the Hollow Hills. He's all right. Why don't you check him out?”
    "What the hell for? He was the one who acted the ass.
    Can't take a little joke. ..."
    “Your jokes get a bit rough, One-Eye.” “Yeah. Maybe. Tell you what. You come
     with me.“ ”Got to prepare my reading.” One night a month the Captain expects me
     to exhort the troops with a reading from the Annals. So we'll know where we came
     from, so we'll recall our ancestors in the outfit. Once that meant a lot. The
     Black Company. Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. All brethren. Tight.
    Great esprit. Us against the world, and let the world watch out. But the
     something that had manifested itself in Goblin's behavior, in the low-grade
     depression of Elmo and others, was affecting everybody. The pieces were coming
     unglued.
    I had to pick a good reading. From a time when the Company had its back against
     the wall and survived only by clinging to its traditional virtues. There have
     been many such moments in four hundred years. I wanted one recorded by one of
     the more inspired Annalists, one with the fire of a White Rose revivalist
     speaking to potential recruits. Maybe I needed a series, one that I could read
     several nights running.
    “Crap,” One-Eye said. “You know those books by heart. Always got your nose in
     them. Anyway, you could fake the whole thing and nobody would know the
     difference.”
    "Probably. And nobody would care if I did. It's going sour, old-timer. Right.
    Let's go see