Book 2 - Shadows Linger Read Online Free PDF

bloodthirsty caricature.
Elmo couldn’t handle him. I signaled for help. Some quick
thinker splashed water on Goblin’s back. He whirled, cussing,
started a deadly spell.
    Trouble for sure. A dozen men jumped in. Somebody threw another
bucket of water. That cooled Goblin’s temper. As we relieved
him of the blade, he looked abashed. Defiant, but abashed.
    I led him back to the fire and settled beside him.
“What’s the matter? What happened?” I glimpsed
the Captain from the corner of my eye. One-Eye stood before him,
drained by a heavy-duty dressing down.
    “I don’t know, Croaker.” Goblin slumped,
stared into the fire. “Suddenly everything was too much. This
ambush tonight. Same old thing. There’s always another
province, always more Rebels. They breed like maggots in a cowpie.
I’m getting older and older, and I haven’t done
anything to make a better world. In fact, if you backed off to look
at it, we’ve all made it worse.” He shook his head.
“That isn’t right. Not what I want to say. But I
don’t know how to say it any better.”
    “Must be an epidemic.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Thinking out loud.” Elmo. Myself. Goblin.
A lot of the men, judging by their tenor lately. Something was
wrong in the Black Company. I had suspicions, but wasn’t
ready to analyze. Too depressing.
    “What we need is a challenge,” I suggested.
“We haven’t stretched ourselves since Charm.”
Which was a half-truth. An operation which compelled us to become
totally involved in staying alive might be a prescription for
symptoms, but was no remedy for causes. As a physician, I was not
fond of treating symptoms alone. They could recur indefinitely. The
disease itself had to be attacked.
    “What we need,” Goblin said in a voice so soft it
almost vanished in the crackle of the flames, “is a cause we
can believe in.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “That, too.”
    From outside came the startled, outraged cries of prisoners
discovering that they were to fill the graves they had dug.
     
     
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Chapter Nine:
JUNIPER: DEATH PAYS
    Shed grew increasingly frightened as the days passed. He had to
get some money. Krage was spreading the word. He was to be made an
example.
    He recognized the tactic. Krage wanted to scare him into signing
the Lily over. The place wasn’t much, but it was damned sure
worth more than he owed. Krage would resell it for several times
his investment. Or turn it into whore cribs. And Marron Shed and
his mother would be in the streets, with winter’s deadly
laughter howling in their faces.
    Kill somebody, Krage had said. Rob somebody. Shed considered
both. He would do anything to keep the Lily and protect his
mother.
    If he could just get real customers! He got nothing but
one-night chiselers and scroungers. He needed residential regulars.
But he could not get those without fixing the place up. And that he
couldn’t do without money.
    Asa rolled through the doorway. Pale and frightened, he scuttled
to the counter. “Find a wood supply yet?” Shed
asked.
    The little man shook his head, slid two gersh across the
counter. “Give me a drink.”
    Shed scooped the coins into his box. One did not question
money’s provenance. It had no memory. He poured a full
measure. Asa reached eagerly.
    “Oh, no,” Shed said. “Tell me about
it.”
    “Come on, Shed. I paid you.”
    “Sure. And I’ll deliver when you tell me why
you’re so rocky.”
    “Where’s that Raven?”
    “Upstairs. Sleeping.” Raven had been out all
night.
    Asa shook a little more. “Give me that, Shed.”
    “Talk.”
    “All right. Krage and Red grabbed me. They wanted to know
about Raven.”
    So Shed knew how Asa had come by money. He had tried to sell
Raven. “Tell me more.”
    “They just wanted to know about him.”
    “What did they want to know?”
    “If he ever goes out.”
    “Why?”
    Asa stalled. Shed pulled the mug away. “All right. They
had two men watching him. They disappeared. Nobody knows