Book 1 - Bleak Seasons Read Online Free PDF

may be mad and I may not be able to go
along with him in areas he considers religious, but only he has the
will to control thousands of skittish Taglian legionnaires while
keeping the Jaicuri in line. If he should fall his assistant
Sindawe would step up, then Ochiba, and only then, maybe, if I
can’t hide fast enough, me.
    Soldiers and civilians both fear Mogaba more than they respect
him after all this time besieged. And that troubles me. The Annals
demonstrate over and over that fear is the most fertile soil for
treachery.
     
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11
    Mogaba holds staff conferences in the citadel. There is a war
room there, once the toy of the sorceress Stormshadow. Mogaba
considers meeting there a great concession to the distances us
underlings must hike. He does not like leaving his own part of the
action. For that reason I could count on this being short.
    He was polite enough, though it was a strained courtesy obvious
to all. He said, “I received your message. It was not
entirely clear.”
    “I garbled it intentionally. I didn’t want the
messenger telling everybody on his way to see you.”
    “It is not good news, then, I assume.” He spoke the
Jewel Cities dialect the Company picked up when it was in service
to the Syndic of Beryl. Most of us used it only when we did not
want the natives to understand what we were saying. Mogaba used it
because he did not yet have enough Taglian to get by without
interpreters. Even his Jewel Cities dialect was badly accented.
    “Definitely not good news,” I said. Mogaba’s
friend Sindawe translated for the Taglian officers present. I
continued, “Goblin and One-Eye tell me Shadowspinner is
completely healthy again and means tonight to be his big comeback
show. So tonight won’t be just another raid, it will be a big
punchout for the whole works.”
    A dozen pairs of eyes stared, praying I was making the sort of
bad joke Goblin and One-Eye would find hilarious. Mogaba’s
own eyes were icy. He wanted to make me recant by sheer weight of
his gaze.
    Mogaba has no use for One-Eye or Goblin. They are one of the big
sources of contention between him and the Old Crew. He is sure that
real wizards, however puny, have no place among real warriors, who
are supposed to rely on their strength, their wit, their will, and
even maybe their superior steel if they have it.
    Goblin and One-Eye, besides being wizards, besides being sloppy
and undisciplined and rowdy, worst of all fail to agree that Mogaba
is the best thing that could have happened to the Black
Company.
    Mogaba hates Shadowspinner in part because he knows the
Shadowmaster will never meet him in a trial by combat that can be
sung about down through the ages.
    Mogaba wants his place in the Annals. He lusts after a major
place in the Annals. And he is going to get that, but not the way
he wants.
    “Do you have a suggestion about how to deal with this
threat?” Mogaba showed no emotion, though Shadowspinner
getting well meant the date of our executions had been
advanced.
    I considered suggesting prayer but it was obvious Mogaba was not
in the mood. “Afraid not.”
    “There is nothing in your books?”
    He meant the Annals. Croaker tried hard to get him to study
them. Croaker was big on looking for, and deferring to, precedent
mainly because he lacked much confidence in his mastery of strategy
and leadership. On the other hand, Mogaba lacked no confidence
whatsoever. He always had an excuse not to study Company history.
Only recently had it occurred to me that he might not read or
write. Those are skills considered unmanly in some places. Maybe
that was true among the Nar of Gea-Xle, despite the fact that
keeping the Annals was a holy duty of our Black Company
forebrethren.
    The Nar say very little about their beliefs. The rest of us are
aware that they consider us heretics, though.
    “Very little. The time-honored tactic is to attract the
wizard’s attention to a secondary target where he will do
less damage than he wants. You