Soldiers Live

9

An Abode of Ravens: The Invalid

Am I still alive?" I did not need to ask. I was. Pain was a dead giveaway. Every square inch of me hurt.

"Don't move." That was Tobo. "Or you'll wish you hadn't."

I already wished I did not have to breathe. "Burns?"

"Lots of burns. Lots of banging around, too."

Murgen's voice said, "You look like they whipped your ass with a forty-pound ugly stick, then slow-roasted what was left over an open pit."

"I thought you were at Khang Phi."

"We came home."

Tobo said, "We kept you unconscious for four days."

"How is Lady?"

Murgen told me, "She's in the other bed. In a lot better shape than you."

"She ought to be. I didn't shoot her. The cat get her tongue?"

"She's asleep."

"What about One-Eye?"

Tobo's response was barely audible. "One-Eye didn't make it, Croaker."

After a while, Murgen asked, "You all right?"

"He was the last."

"Last? Last what?"

"The last one who was here when I joined. The Company." I was the real Old Man now. "What happened to his spear? I've got to have his spear in order to finish this."

"What spear?" Murgen asked.

Tobo knew what spear. "I have it at my place."

"Was it damaged by the fire?"

"Not much. Why?"

"I'm going to kill that thing. Like we should have a long time ago. You don't let that spear out of your sight. I've got to have it. But right now I'm going to sleep for a while some more." I had to go where the pain was not, just for a time. I had known One-Eye would leave us someday. I thought I was ready for that. I was wrong.

His passing meant more than just the end of an old friend. It marked the end of an age.

Tobo said something about the spear. I did not catch it. And the darkness came back before I remembered to ask what had become of the forvalaka. If Lady had caught or killed it I had gotten myself worked up for nothing... But I guess I knew it could not be that easy.

There were dreams. I remembered everyone who had gone before me. I remembered the places and times. Cold places, hot places, weird places, always stressful times, swollen with unhappiness, pain and fear. Some died. Some did not. It makes no sense when you try to figure it out. Soldiers live. And wonder why.

Oh, it's a soldier's life for me. Oh, the adventure and glory!

It took me longer to recuperate than it had that time I almost got killed outside Dejagore. Even with Tobo applying his own best healing spells, learned from One-Eye, and urging his edge-of-the-eye friends to help as well. Some of those were supposed to be able to bring a fossil back to life. I felt like a fossil, like I had not enjoyed the advantage of the stasis that had frozen the others while we were prisoners under the plain. There was a lot of confusion inside me. I could no longer figure out how old I am. My best guess is fifty-six, give or take a few years, plus all that time underneath the earth. And fifty-six years, brother, was a pretty damned good run—particularly for a guy in my racket. I ought to appreciate every second, including all the misery.

Soldiers live. And wonder why.