Dreams of Steel (Chronicle of the Black Company) Read Online Free PDF

your left and your right, it will be men like those standing there now. Serve your gods in your heart if you must, but in this world, in the camp, on the march, on the field of battle, you won’t set your gods before me. You’ll own no higher master. Till the last Shadowmaster falls, no reward or retribution of god or prince will find you more swiftly or surely than mine.”
    I suspected that was maybe pushing too hard too soon. But there wasn’t much time to create my cadre.
    I rode off while they digested it. I dismounted, told Ram, “Dismiss them. Make camp. Send me Narayan.”
    I unsaddled my mount, settled on the saddle. A crow landed nearby, cocked its head. Several more circled above. Those black devils were everywhere. You couldn’t get away.
    Croaker had been paranoid about them. He’d believed they were following him, spying on him, even talking to him. I thought it was the pressure. But their omnipresence did get irritating.
    No time for Croaker. He was gone. I was walking a sword’s edge. Neither tears nor self-pity would bring him back.
    During the journey north I’d realized that I’d done more than lose my talent at the Barrowland. I’d given up. So I’d lost my edge during the year-plus since.
    Croaker’s fault. His weakness. He’d been too understanding, too tolerant, too willing to give second chances. He’d been too optimistic about people. He couldn’t believe there is an essential darkness shadowing the human soul. For all his cynicism about motives he’d believed that in every evil person there was good trying to surface.
    I owe my life to his belief but that doesn’t validate it.
    Narayan came, sneaky as a cat. He gave me his grin.
    “We’ve gained ground, Narayan. They took that well enough. But we have a long way to go.”
    “The religion problem, Mistress?”
    “Some. But that’s not the worst hurdle. I’ve overcome such before.” I smiled at his surprise. “I see doubts. But you don’t know me. You know only what you’ve heard. A woman who abandoned a throne to follow the Captain? Eh? But I wasn’t the spoiled, heartless child you imagine. Not a brat with a pinch of talent who fell heir to some petty crown she didn’t want. Not a dunce who ran off with the first adventurer who’d have her.”
    “Little is known except that you were the Captain’s Lady,” he admitted. “Some think as you suggest. Your companions scarcely hinted at your antecedents. I think you’re much more, but how much more I dare not guess.”
    “I’ll give you a hint.” I was amused. For all Narayan seemed to want me to be something untraditional he was startled whenever I didn’t behave like a Taglian woman. “Sit, Narayan. It’s time you understood where you’re placing your bets.”
    He looked me askance but settled. The crow watched him. His fingers teased at that fold of black cloth.
    “Narayan, the throne I gave up was the seat of an empire so broad you couldn’t have walked it east to west in a year. It spanned two thousand miles from north to south. I built it from a beginning as humble as this. I started before your grandfather’s grandfather was born. And it wasn’t the first empire I created.”
    He grinned uneasily. He thought I was lying.
    “Narayan, the Shadowmasters were my slaves. Powerful as they are. They disappeared during a great battle twenty years ago. I believed them dead till we unmasked the one we killed in Dejagore.
    “I’m weakened now. Two years ago there was a great battle in the northernmost region of my empire. The Captain and I put down a wakening evil left over from the first empire I created. To succeed, to prevent that evil from breaking loose, I had to allow my powers to be neutralized. Now I’m winning them back, slowly and painfully.”
    Narayan couldn’t believe. He was the son of his culture. I was a woman. But he wanted to believe. He said, “But you’re so young.”
    “In some ways. I never loved before the Captain. This shell is a