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Its
     whole frame was in the position heralds call rampant.
    It hit One-Eye.
    The old man made no obvious effort to defend himself. His chair went over. It
     shattered into kindling wood. One-Eye skidded along the dirt floor. The
     forvalaka ploughed into Gota, tipping the table on which she had been laid out.
    Lady loosed another fireball. It missed. I fought to get around onto my hands
     and knees, then to get the head of the spear up, between me and the monster. It
     fought for its footing while trying to turn at the same time. It slammed into
     the far wall. I got my feet under me, started to stumble around.
    Lady missed again.
    “No!” I shrieked. My feet tangled. I came close to landing on my face again. I
     tried to do three things at once and, naturally, did none of them well. I wanted
     to get hold of One-Eye, I wanted to get my spearhead back up, I wanted to get
     the hell out of that house.
    Lady did not miss again. But this fireball was a puny one, a near dud. It hit
     the monster right between the eyes. And just ricocheted off, taking a few square
     inches of skin along with it, leaving a patch of skull bone exposed.
    The forvalaka screamed again.
    Then One-Eye’s still blew up. Which is what I had expected from the moment
     Lady’s fireball had gone through the wall.

Black Company GS 9 - Soldiers Live
    8
    Taglios:
    Trouble Follows
     Mogaba knew there was trouble seconds after he left his rooms, so austerely
     furnished in shabby regrets. Palace staffers pushed to the sides of the
     corridors as he passed. Without exception they were scuttling away from the
     Privy Council Chamber. They must have heard rumors that had not yet reached his
     ears. Rumors they were sure would displease the Protector, which meant that,
    soon, someone would be making life unpleasant for someone else and these people
     hoped to be well out of the way before he started.
    “Pride,” he said, in a normal, conversational voice to a young Grey runner
     trying to ease past without attracting notice. “Pride is what did me in.”
    “Yes sir.” Color drained from the young Shadar’s face. He did not yet have a
     beard to hide behind. “I mean, no sir. I’m sorry . . . ”
    Mogaba was gone, indifferent to the apprentice soldier. Similar incidents
     occurred each time he passed through the Palace. He spoke to almost everyone.
    Those who had watched the habit develop understood that he was talking to
     himself and did not expect any reply. He was pursuing a running debate with his
     own guilts and ghosts—unless he was spouting proverbs and aphorisms, most of the
     meanings fairly obvious but a few convolute and obscure. He was particularly
     fond of “Fortune smiles. And then betrays.” He just could not get into bed
     comfortably with the truth that he had made that bed himself. He still had
     difficulty separating “ought to be” from “the way things really are.” He was no
     fool, though. He knew he had problems.
    He was certain that he had a much more solid grip on reality than did his
     employer, though.
    Soulcatcher, however, took the view that she was a virtual free agent and
     refused to be wedded to any particular reality. She believed in creating her own
     by making her imaginings come true.
    Some were quite mad. Few, however, lasted beyond the heated moment of
     conception.
    Mogaba heard crows arguing ahead. Crows infested the Palace these days.
    Soulcatcher was fond of crows. She allowed no one to harass or harm them. Of
     late bats had made a claim on her affections as well.
    When the crows became vocal the few servants still around started moving much
     faster. Unhappy crows meant unhappy news. Unhappy news was guaranteed to produce
     an extremely unhappy Protector. When Soulcatcher was unhappy she did not care
     who suffered the consequences. But someone surely would.
    Mogaba stepped into the council chamber and waited. She would talk to him when
     she was ready. Ghopal Singh of the Greys and Aridatha Singh of