Soldiers Live Read Online Free PDF

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 manage a puppet
     Shadowmaster.” No world lacks its villains so self-confident that they don’t
     believe they can get the best end of a bargain with the darkness. I married one
     of those. I am not sure she has learned her lesson yet. “Has anyone offered to
     fix our shadowgate?”
    “The Court is actually willing to give us someone. The trouble with that is that
     they don’t actually have anyone equipped with the skills to make the needed
     fixes. Chances are, no one has those skills. But the knowledge exists in records
     stored at Khang Phi.”
    “So why don’t we? . . . ”
    “We’re working on it. Meantime, the Court do seem to believe in us. And they
     absolutely do want some kind of revenge before all of Longshadow’s surviving
     victims have been claimed by age.”
    “And what about the Howler?”
    “Tobo wants him. Says he can handle him now.”
    “Does anybody else think so?” I meant Lady. “Or is he overconfident?”
    Sleepy shrugged. “There’s nobody telling me they’ve got anything more they can
     teach him.” She meant Lady, too, and did not mean that Tobo suffered from a teen
     attitude. Tobo had no trouble taking advice or instruction when either of those
     did not originate with his mother.
    I asked anyway. “Not even Lady?”
    “She, I think, might be holding out on him.”
    “You can bet on it.” I married the woman but I don’t have many illusions about
     her. She would be thrilled to go back to her old wicked ways. Life with me and
     the Company has not been anything like happily ever after. Reality has a way of
     slow-roasting romance. Though we get along well enough. “She can’t be any other
     way. Get her to tell you about her first husband. You’ll marvel that she came
     out as sane as she did.” I marveled every day. Right before I gave in to my
     astonishment that the woman really had given up everything to ride off with me.
    Well, something. She had not had much at the time and her prospects had been
     grim. “What the hell is that?”
    “Alarm horns.” Sleepy bolted out of her seat. She was spry for a woman treading
     hard on the heels of middle age. On the other hand, of course, she was so short
     she did not have a lot of real getting up to do. “I didn’t order any drills.”
    She had an ugly habit of doing that. Only the traitor Mogaba, when he had been
     with us, had had as determined an attitude about preparedness.
    Sleepy was too serious about everything.
    Tobo’s unknown shadows began raising their biggest uproar yet.
    “Come on!” Sleepy snapped. “Why aren’t you armed?” She was. She always was,
    although I never have seen her use a weapon more substantial than guile.
    “I’m retired. I’m a paper pusher these days.”
    “I don’t see you wearing a tombstone for a hat.”
    “I had an attitude problem once upon a time, myself, but . . . ”
    “Speaking of which. I want a reading in the officers’ mess before lights out.
    Something that tells us all about the wages of indolence and the neglect of
     readiness. Or about the fate of ordinary mercenaries.” She was in brisk