Glen Cook: Soldiers Live

Sleepy did not want a short-tempered, foulmouthed but still influential former Captain stumbling around being sarcastic and opinionated while she was trying to wring the one last concession she wanted out of the File of Nine. She was confident that our years of good behavior would tilt the scale. And if it did not, well, she was the kind of planner who always had a secondary scheme in motion. In fact, she was that wonderful kind of villain for whom the public and obvious scheme might well be only a tertiary effort meant primarily as a smoke screen. Our Sleepy was one wicked little girl.

There are no great sorcerers in the Land of Unknown Shadows. “All Evil Dies There an Endless Death” means that they have persecuted the talented since the flight of the Shadowmasters. But Hsien does not lack or disdain knowledge. There are several huge monasteries—of which Khang Phi is the greatest—dedicated to the preservation of knowledge. The monks do not sort it into good and evil knowledge, nor do they make moral judgments. They take the position that no knowledge is evil until someone chooses to do evil with it.

Even though it has been engineered to wreak havoc upon the human body, a sword is strictly inert metal until someone chooses to pick it up and strike. Or chooses not to do so.

There are, of course, a thousand sophistries spewed by those who wish to deny individuals the opportunity to choose. Which is an arrogant presumption of a divine scale.

This is what happens when you get old. You start thinking. Worse, you start telling everybody what you think.

Sleepy was nervous lest I express an unfortunate opinion to one of the Nine, whereupon, in high dudgeon, the offended party would abandon all sensibility and self-interest and deny to us forever the knowledge we need to repair the shadowgate opening on our native world. She misapprehends my ability to evoke the unfriendly response.

Before the werepanther came I might have stumbled. I might have expressed an actual opinion to a member of the File, some of whom are amongst the most reprehensible generals I have ever encountered. I doubt that, given the opportunity to rule unchallenged, many of them would be more enlightened than the hated Shadowmasters.

People are strange. The Children of the Dead are among the strangest.

I will not upset anyone. I will be diligently supportive of any policy Sleepy sets. I want to leave this Land of Unknown Shadows. I have things to accomplish before I hand these Annals over for the last time. Settling up with Lisa Daele Bowalk is just one. There is the Great General, Mogaba, the darkest traitor ever to stain the Company’s history. There is Narayan Singh. For Lady, there is Narayan and Soulcatcher. For both of us there is our child. Our wicked, wicked child.

I asked, “Is there anything besides Longshadow we could offer the File of Nine? Sweeten it just enough to make them move over beside Khang Phi and the Court of All Seasons?”

My sweetie shrugged. “I can’t imagine what.” She smiled enigmatically. “But it may not matter.”

I did not pay sufficient attention. Sometimes I overlook the new truths. These days my Company is managed by sly children and devious old women, not straightforward stalwarts like myself and the men of my time.

As soon as I healed enough I asked Uncle Doj to let me resume the martial arts exercises I had given up many years ago. “Why are you interested now?” he asked. Sometimes I think he is more suspicious of me than I am of him.

“Because I have time. And the need. I’m as weak as a puppy. I want to get my strength back.”

“You chased me away when I offered.”

“I didn’t have time then. And you were so much more abrasive.”

“Ha.” He smiled. “You’re too kind.”

“You’re right. But I’m a prince.”

“A Prince of Darkness, Stone Soldier.” He knew that would get my goat. “But a lucky prince.” The old fart indulged in a smirk. “Several of your contemporaries have approached me recently, also motivated by anticipation of those hardships that can no longer be that far ahead.”

“Good.” Did he know something I did not? Probably a lot. “When and where?”

His grin became evil, revealing bad teeth. Which made me wonder if Sleepy had found anybody to fill the dentistry vacancy left by One-Eye’s passing. The old fool had not bothered taking on apprentices.

“When” was the crack of dawn and “where” was the unpaved street outside Doj’s small house, which he shared with Tobo’s uncle Thai Dei and several bachelor officers of local origin. My fellow victims were Willow Swan, the brothers Loftus and Cletus, who remain the Company’s principal architects and engineers, and the exiled ruling prince and princess of Taglios, the Prahbrindrah Drah and his sister the Radisha Drah. Those are not names, they are titles. Even after decades I do not know their personal designations. And they show no inclination to share.

“Where’s your pal Blade?” I asked Swan. For a while Blade had been Sleepy’s military envoy to the File of Nine, but I had heard that he had been recalled after One-Eye’s death. I had not seen him around, though.

“Old Blade’s got too much on his plate for anything like this.”

Loftus and Cletus both grumbled under their breaths but did not clarify. I had not seen much of them lately, either. I supposed they were working themselves to death building a city from scratch. Suvrin, who arrived just in time to hear what they mumbled, nodded vigorously. “She’s going to work us all till there’s nothing but grease spots left.” I am not sure about Suvrin. I have no trouble imagining him going around endlessly repeating the silent mantra, “Every day in every way I am going to become a better soldier.”

“Well, old Blade never was real ambitious,” Swan replied. “Except when it came to carving up priests.” He seemed to know what he was talking about even if it was not obvious to me.

Clete said, “If we’re getting the straight shit from Shivetya there’ll be a whole new crop in need of culling when we get home.”

The Prahbrindrah Drah and his sister edged closer, eager for hard news from home. Sleepy took no trouble to keep them posted. She did not have much of a diplomatic streak. I had best remind her that she will need their amity once we are back across the plain.

They were not handsome, those two. And the Radisha looked more like the Prince’s mother than his sister. But he had been under the ground with me while she rode the Taglian tiger and tried not to lose its reins to Soulcatcher. They strove to remain unobtrusive here, the Prince because he had been our active enemy in the field, the Princess because she had turned on us at the very last moment of our victory over the last Shadowmasters.

Sleepy fixed her for that.

Technically, the Radisha was our prisoner. Sleepy had abducted her. She and her brother will become tools of the Company once Sleepy stages our return. Everyone agrees. But I suspect that the royals have reservations.

“ Rajadharma .” I said, bowing slightly. I could not resist the taunt, reminding them both that by attempting to betray us they had ended up failing to fulfill their duty to their subjects.

“Liberator.” The Radisha returned a tiny bow. I swear, the woman gets homelier by the month. “You appear to be healing well.”

“I’ve got a knack for coming back. But my bounce sure ain’t as fast or as high as it used to be. Guess it’s old age creeping up.” I lied and told her, “You’re looking well yourself. You both are. What have you been doing? I haven’t seen you for a while.”

The Prahbrindrah Drah said nothing. He remained inscrutable. He had been quiet and unexpressive since our resurrection. We had gotten along well, once. But times change. Neither of us were the men we had been during the Shadowmaster wars.