She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company Read Online Free

near the foot of my bed, where he could take me from behind if I jumped up at
     Doj. Mother Gota stood in the doorway, agitated.
    Uncle Doj said, “You were screaming in a language none of us knows. We found you
     wrestling with the darkness when we arrived.”
    “I was having a nightmare.”
    “I know.”
    “Hunh?”
    “That was obvious.”
    “Sarie was there.”
    For one instant Mother Gota’s face became a mask of rage. She muttered something
     softly and too quickly for me to follow, but I did catch the name Hong Tray and
     the word “witch.” Sahra’s grandmother Hong, long dead, was the only reason her
     family had accepted our relationship. Hong Tray had given her blessing.
    Ky Dam, Sahra’s grandfather, also gone now, had claimed his wife possessed the
     second sight. Perhaps. I had seen her forecasts work out during the siege of
     Dejagore. Mostly they had been very sybilline, very vague, though.
    I had heard Sarie described as a witch, too, on one occasion.
    “What is that smell?” I asked. The shakes had left me. Already I could recall
     details of the nightmare only through determined effort. “There a dead mouse in
     here?”
    Uncle Doj frowned. “This was not one of your journeys through time?”
    “No. It was more like a trip to hell.”
    “Do you wish to walk the Path of the Sword?” The Path was Doj’s religion, his
     main reason for being, it sometimes seemed.
    “Not right away. I want to get this down while I still remember it all. It might
     be important. Some of it seemed familiar.” I swung my feet to the floor, aware
     that I was still being scrutinized intently.
    There was a lot more of that now that Sarie was gone.
    It was not yet time to make a point of it.
    I went to my writing area, settled and got to work. Uncle Doj and Thai Dei found
     their wooden practice swords and began to loosen up on the other side of the
     room.
    Mother Gota continued to talk to herself as she got busy cleaning up. As long as
     she was in the mood I even let her help with my mess, offering suggestions from
     the corner of my mouth just often enough to keep her simmering.

Black Company GS 7 - She is Darkness
    5
    The great dark ragged square settled slowly through the air, rocking
     unpredictably in winter’s icy breath. A screech of pain soared up above the
     complaints of the wind. Twice the tattered carpet tried to set down atop the
     tower where the Shadowmaster stood waiting. Twice the wind threatened it with
     disaster. The carpet’s master howled again and descended fifty feet to a larger
     and safer landing area atop Overlook’s massive wall.
    The Shadowmaster cursed the weather. This winter gloom was almost as bad as
     night. Here, there, shadows came to life in unpredictable corners. All his labor
     and genius could not take away every cranny where they might lurk. In his ideal
     world he would halt the sun itself directly above the fortress where it could
     sear the heart out of the night and slay the terrors that lurked within.
    Longshadow did not go down to meet his henchman the Howler. He would make the
     deformed little cripple come to him. In conversation he could pretend that they
     were equals but that was not true. A day would come when the Howler would have
     to be disposed of altogether. But that time was a long way off yet. Those
     damnable nuisances from the Black Company had to be buried first. Taglios had to
     be chastised with fire and shadow. Its priests and princes had to be expunged.
    Senjak had to be taken and milked of her every dark secret, then she had to be
     destroyed, utterly and for all time. Her mad, flighty sister Soulcatcher had to
     be hunted down, murdered, and her flesh thrown to wild dogs.
    Longshadow giggled. Much of that he had said aloud. When he was alone he did not
     mind verbalizing his thoughts.
    His list of people to be rid of grew almost daily.
    Here were two more now.
    The first two faces to rise from the stairwell were those of the Strangler