Book 4 - Soldiers Live Read Online Free PDF Page A

matter what.
We can use the home shadowgate as long as we only put through a few
men at a time.”
    “You won’t take Shivetya’s word?”
    “The demon has his own agenda.”
    She would know. She had been in direct communion with that
Steadfast Guardian.
    What I knew of the golem’s designs made me concerned for
Lady. Shivetya, that ancient entity, created to manage and watch
over the plain—which was an artifact itself—wanted to die. He
could not do so while Kina survived. One of his tasks was to ensure
that the sleeping Goddess did not awaken and escape her
imprisonment.
    When Kina ceased to exist, my wife’s tenuous grasp on
those magical powers critical to her sense of self-worth and
identity would perish with her. What powers Lady boasted, she
possessed only because she had found a way to steal from the
Goddess. She was a complete parasite.
    I said, “And you, believing the Company dictum that we
have no friends outside, don’t value his
friendship.”
    “Oh, he’s perfectly marvelous, Croaker. He saved my
life. But he didn’t do it because I’m cute and I jiggle
in the right places when I run.”
    She was not cute. I could not imagine her jiggling, either. This
was a woman who had gotten away with pretending to be a boy for
years. There was nothing feminine about her. Nor anything
masculine, either. She was not a sexual being at all, though for a
while there had been rumors that she and Swan had become a midnight
item.
    It turned out purely platonic.
    “I’ll reserve comment. You’ve surprised me
before.”
    “Captain!”
    Took her a while, sometimes, to understand when someone was
joking. Or even being sarcastic, though she had a tongue like a
razor herself.
    She realized I was ribbing her. “I see. Then let me
surprise you one more time by asking your advice.”
    “Oh-oh. You’ll have them sharpening their skates in
hell.”
    “Howler and Longshadow. I’ve got to make
decisions.”
    “File of Nine nagging you again?” The File of Nine—“File” from military usage—was a council of warlords,
their identities kept secret, who formed the nearest thing to a
real ruling body in Hsien. The monarchy and aristocracy of record
were little more than decorative and, in the main, too intimate
with poverty to accomplish much if the inclination existed.
    The File of Nine had only limited power. Their existence barely
assured that near-anarchy did not devolve into complete chaos. The
Nine would have been more effective had they not prized their
anonymity more than their implied power.
    “Them and the Court of All Seasons. The Noble Judges
really want Longshadow.” The imperial court of Hsien—consisting of aristocrats with less real world power than the File
of Nine but enjoying more a demonstrative moral authority—were
obsessively interested in gaining possession of Longshadow. Being
an old cynic I tended to suspect them of less than moral ambitions.
But we had few dealings with them. Their seat, Quang Ninh City, was
much too far away.
    The one thing the peoples of Hsien held in common, every noble
and every peasant, every priest and every warlord, was an
implacable and ugly thirst for revenge upon the Shadowmaster
invaders of yesteryear. Longshadow, still trapped in stasis
underneath the glittering plain, represented the last possible
opportunity to extract that cathartic vengeance. Longshadow’s
value in our dealings with the
Children of the Dead was phenomenally disproportionate.
    Hatreds seldom are constrained to rational scales.
    Sleepy continued, “And hardly a day goes by that I
don’t hear from some lesser warlord begging me to bring
Longshadow in. The way they all volunteer to take charge of him
leaves me nurturing the sneaking suspicion that most of them
aren’t quite as idealistically motivated as the File of Nine
and the Court of All Seasons.”
    “No doubt. He’d be a handy tool for anybody who
wanted to adjust the power balance. If anyone was fool enough to
believe he could