Glen Cook Black Company 07 Bleak Season

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That was not true. Croaker grew less interested all the time. But allow Mogaba
his hyperbole. He wanted to sell something.
Mogaba continued, "I fear he may become so skewed he'll attack in a way so
novel we won't recognize it until it's too late."
"As long as he comes. Only disaster awaits him."
"He'll come. But is the overall outcome so certain?" I got the feeling both
men nurtured major doubts, but each mostly about the other.
"You circle back upon my constraints. Desist. You fear him?"
"I dread him. More than I dread Lady. Lady is straightforward in her enmity.
She comes right at you with everything she has. Croaker is determined to flim-
flam you into looking somewhere else while he sticks a knife in your back. He
will come at you with everything he has, too, but how will he use it? He is
not a man of honor."
Mogaba didn't really mean that Croaker was dishonorable but that he was not a
gentleman in the sense that meant so much to Mogaba -- who could not be
considered a cavalier himself anymore.
Mogaba continued, "He is no longer sane. I do not believe he is sure what he
is doing himself. These days he has to face much for which there is no
precedent in his Annals."
Wrong again, chappie. After four hundred years there is a precedent for
everything in the Annals somewhere. The trick is knowing how to look.
"He has limits, General."
"Of course. Those Taglians are factious and divisive."
"And that could be his undoing. Politically he will have no option but to try
his luck at Charandaprash soon. Where we will crush him."
"And if I do? We should consider the possibilities of life unplagued by this
disease called the Black Company."
"Oh?"
"Winning one battle will not be enough. If even one of them survives and
maintains possession of the Lance of Passion new armies will rise against us.
Lady proved that."
"Then you will have the pleasure of crushing them again." Mogaba wanted to
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argue but elected not to bark into the wind.
"Once Overlook is complete you can hare off on any adventure you like, with my
approval and with my total support."
"Adventure?"
"I understand you better than you suppose. You were Gea-Xle's greatest warrior
but you could not prove that to yourself. In the Black Company you were
overshadowed by your captain and Senjak. It was necessary for you to have
command in order to demonstrate your scope and genius. When you did have an
opportunity all your efforts were sabotaged and suborned. You came to me
because the Black Company would not allow you the opportunity you need."
Mogaba nodded. He did not seem pleased with himself, though. And that
surprised me. I had thought him too self-centered to entertain moral doubts.
"Go. Conquer the world, General. I'll enjoy helping you. But you have to crush
the Black Company first. You have to stop the Taglians. Because you will have
nothing if I fall. Will the Strangler be much help, really?"
"He could be. He talks big about his goddess getting involved but I won't
count on that. I've never seen the gods actually take a hand in mortal
affairs."
Odd. Mogaba's god was Narayan's goddess, more or less. Had Mogaba lost his
faith? Maybe Dejagore had scarred him deeply, too.
"Use them up. Leave none over to turn on us later." In my imagination the
Shadowmaster was always this huge stinking devil incarnate, a colorful lunatic
the magnitude of the worst Taken back in the north. But the real Longshadow
was just a mean-spirited old man blessed with too much power.
He told Mogaba, "If this becomes the Year of the Skulls I want it to be our
year. Not theirs."
"Understood. What do you think of the child?"
Longshadow grunted uncomfortably.
"Spooky, right? A thousand years old. Her mother in miniature, only worse.
More intense, with a deeper darkness inside."
He could be right. The kid definitely looked weird and evil from my ghost's
eye view.
The Shadowmaster mused, "We may have to hurry her into the embrace of her
goddess."
Mogaba shrugged. He turned to go. "Anyone else you want to see alone?"
"Howler. Wait!"
"What?"
"Where is the Lance of Passion?"
"Wherever Croaker is, I imagine. Or the Standardbearer. That's still that
serpent Murgen, I believe."
I love you too, Mogaba.
"We must take possession. Might that not be a task for the Deceivers? Even
destroying the Black Company may not be enough in the long run. And one other
thing for the Deceivers. Have them find out why Senjak wants all that bamboo."
"Bamboo?"
Was there an echo?
"She has been stripping the Taglian territories for months. Wherever her
soldiers go they loot bamboo." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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