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it now.”
    “Then kill it, Tobo.” There was no “try to” or “do whatever you can” with this
     Captain.
    I told him, “Ask Lady to help you. She knows those things. But before anybody
     does anything, we need to set up some kind of protection for One-Eye.” If it was
     a shape-shifting, man-eating werepanther from our homeworld, it could be only
     one monster. And that creature hated One-Eye with the deepest and most abiding
     passion imaginable because One-Eye had slain the only wizard capable of helping
     it regain its human form.
    “You think it really is Lisa Bowalk?” Sleepy asked.
    “I get that feeling. But you told me it escaped from the plain through the
     Khatovar gate. And it couldn’t get back.”
    Sleepy shrugged. “That’s what Shivetya showed me. It’s possible that I just
     assumed it couldn’t get back onto the plain.”
    “Or maybe it made new friends out there.”
    The little woman spun, barked, “Suvrin?”
    Suvrin understood. “I left them on 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.

Black Company GS 9 - Soldiers Live
    7
    An Abode of Ravens:
    Night Visitor
     Lady 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