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Back Bleak Seasons Save as PDF
Chapters (102)
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That was just the start of what became a wild night of blowing off tensions. I got no chance to participate myself but I heard it was a banner night for the Jaicuri whores.

41

41

Where the hell have you been? I snarled at One-Eye. The Company just fought through its nastiest episode in, oh, just days, and you were obviously absent every stinking second. Not that his presence would have made any difference.

One-Eye grinned. My displeasure did not bother him a bit. He had outlived or outstubborned a parade of snotnoses like me. Shit, Kid, I had to get my Shadowmaster sticker back, didnt I? Ive got a lot of work in that thing...Whats the matter?

Huh? For a moment I saw a little black louse scuttling across a grey landscape from a height unattainable anywhere in Dejagore, even atop the citadel, where Old Crew guys were not welcome anymore. Never mind, runt. Id like to kick your ass but it wouldnt do any good now. So you were out there. What became of Widowmaker and Lifetaker? While I was arranging a quieter life for our leader those two vanished without a trace.

I wondered how Mogaba would write all this if he was keeping the Annals.

One-Eye?

What? Now he sounded irritated.

You want to answer me? What happened to Widowmaker and Lifetaker?

You know something, Kid? I dont have the faintest freaking idea. And I dont care. I only had one thing on my mind. I wanted my spear back so I could use it next time that sucker aint looking. Then I had to worry about dodging a gang of raggedyass Shadowlanders who tried to jump me. They went away somewhere. All right?

And none of us could fathom that. Because they vanished just when the Shadowlander confidence was rockiest. Shadowspinner had his tail between his legs and his boys could have been broken.

I grumbled, If that was the Old Man and Lady they wouldve kept coming till they broke the whole show wide open. Wouldnt they?

I glared at an albino crow perched not twenty feet away. Its head was cocked. It stared at me with malign intelligence.

There were a lot of crows tonight.

Other agendas were being pursued. I was just one pawn caught up in tides of intrigue. But if we were careful the Company need not get swept away.

Mogaba and the Nar and their Taglian troops stayed busy for days. Maybe the Shadowmasters decided to make Mogaba pay for his failure to fulfill his end of the implicit bargain.

Which was just one more example of the way people down here go bugfuck when they are involved with the Black Company.

It could make a guy nervous if he thought about everybody within a thousand miles seeming to wish hed never been born.