Read She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company for Free Online Page A

told him, realizing he had never been on a
     horse. The Nyueng Bao have water buffalo and a few elephants. They do not ride
     those, except as children sometimes, helping with the plowing.
    He did not want to do it. He really did not. He looked at Uncle Doj. Doj said
     nothing. It was Thai Dei’s call.
    Croaker must have started looking smug or something. Thai Dei stared at him for
     a moment, shuddered all over, then extended his good hand. I pulled. Thai Dei
     was as hard and tough as they came but he weighed almost nothing.
    The horse gave me a look nearly as ugly as the one I had gotten from my boss.
    The fact that they are capable of a job does not make the beasts eager to do it.
    “Whenever you’re ready,” Croaker said.
    “Go.”
    He headed out. The pace he set was savage. He rode like he could feel no pain.
    He grumbled and fussed at me to keep up. He grumbled even more after we
     collected a cavalry escort south of the city. The regular horses had no hope of
     matching the pace he wanted to set. He had to keep waiting for them to catch up.
    Usually he was well ahead, surrounded by crows. The birds came and went and when
     we exchanged words he always knew things like where Blade was, where our troops
     were, where there was resistance to the Taglian advance and where there was
     none. He knew that Mogaba had sent cavalry north to blunt our advance.
    It was weird. The man just plain knew things he should not. Not without walking
     with the ghost. And One-Eye was still ahead of us, making much better time than
     I would have believed possible had we not been trying to catch him.
    Croaker got over his snit after the first day. He became social again. Headed
     for the Ghoja Ford, he asked, “You remember the first time we came here?”
    “I remember rain and mud and misery and a hundred Shadowlanders trying to kill
     us.”
    “Those were the days, Murgen.”
    “They were as close to hell as I want to get. And that’s said from the viewpoint
     of a man who’s been a whole lot closer.”
    He chuckled. “So thank me for this nice new road.”
    “Thank you for the nice new road.” The Taglians called it the Rock Road or Stone
     Road. The first time we traveled it, it had been nothing but a snake of mud.
    “You really think Sleepy is right for the standardbearer job?”
    “I’ve been thinking about that. I’m not ready to give it up yet.”
    “This is the same Murgen who complained that he’s always the first guy into
     every scrape?”
    “I said I’ve been thinking. I find I’ve got some extra motivation.” Our other
     companions told me I was handling Sarie’s loss pretty well. I thought so myself.
    Croaker looked back at Thai Dei, who was clinging desperately to a swaybacked
     dapple mare we had picked up thirty miles back. He was handling his problem
     moderately well, too, for a guy who could use only one hand.
    Croaker told me, “Don’t let motivation get in the way of good sense. When all
     the rest is said and done we’re still the Black Company. We get the other guys
     to do the dying.”
    “I’m in control. I was a Black Company brother a lot longer than I was Sarie’s
     husband. I learned how to manage my emotions.”
    He did not seem convinced. And I understood. He was concerned not about me as I
     existed right now but as I would in a crunch. The survival of the whole Company
     might hinge on which way one man jumped when the shitstorm hit.
    The Captain glanced back. Despite their best efforts our escort had begun to
     string out. He paid no attention to them. He asked, “Learned anything about your
     in-laws?”
    “Again?” He never let up. And I did not have an answer for him. “How about ‘love
     is blind’?”
    “Murgen, you’re a damned fool if you really believe that. Maybe you ought to go
     back and reread the Books of Croaker.”
    He lost me there. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “I’ve got me a lady, too. Still alive, granted. We’ve got plenty tied up in