Could I play dead? No. They wouldnt be deceived. Corpses would be cool now.

Damn them!

Before they killed me they would do more than just rob me.

They wouldnt kill me. They would recognize the armor. The Shadowmasters werent fools. They knew who Id been. They knew what I carried inside my head, treasures they dreamed about getting out. There would be rewards for my capture.

Maybe there are gods. A racket broke out behind the looters. Sounded like a sally from Dejagore, some kind of spoiling raid. Mogaba wasnt sitting on his hands waiting for the Shadowmasters to come to him.

One of the looters said something in a normal voice. Someone told him to shut up. The third man entered his opinion. An argument ensued. The first man didnt want to investigate the uproar. Hed had enough fighting.

The others overruled him.

The fates were kind. Two responsible soldiers handed me a life.

I lay where Id fallen, resting for several minutes before I got onto hands and knees and crawled back to the mound of bodies. I found my sword, an ancient and consecrated blade created by Carqui in the younger days of the Domination. A storied blade, but no one, not even Croaker, had heard its tale.

I crawled toward the hummock where, when Id seen him last, my love had been making his final stand, just him and Murgen and the Company standard, trying to stem the rout. It seemed an all night trek. I found a dead soldier with water in his canteen. I drained it and went on. My strength grew as I crept. By the time I reached the hummock I could totter along upright.

I found nothing there. Just dead men. Croaker was not among them. The Company standard was gone. I felt hollow. Had the Shadowmasters taken him?

They would want him badly for crushing their army at Ghoja, for taking Dejagore, for killing Stormshadow.

I could not believe they had him. It had taken me too long to. find him. No god, no fate, could be so cruel.

I cried.

The night grew quiet. The sortie had withdrawn. The looters would return now.

I started moving, stumbled into a dead elephant and almost shrieked, thinking I had walked right into a monster.

The elephants had carried all kinds of clutter. Some might be useful. I scrounged a few pounds of dried food, a skin of water, a small jar of poison for arrowheads, a few coins, whatever caught my fancy. Then I walked northward, determined to reach the hills before sunrise. I discarded half my plunder before I got there.

I hurried. Enemy patrols would be out looking for important bodies come first light.

What could I do now, besides survive? I was the last of the Black Company. There was nothing left.... Something came into me like a lost memory resurfacing. I could turn back time. I could become what I had been.