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BLEAK SEASONS

by Glen Cook

The Sixth Chronicle of the Black Company





Incessant wind sweeps the plain. It mutters across grey
pavements that sweep

from horizon to horizon. It sings around scattered black pillars, a
chorus of

ghosts. It tumbles leaves and scatters dust come from afar. It
teases the hair

of a corpse that has lain undisturbed for a generation, mummifying.
Impishly,

the gale tosses a leaf into the cadaver’s silently screaming mouth,
tugs it away

again. The wind carries the breath of winter. Lightning leaps from
pillar to

ebon pillar like a child skittering from base to base in a game of
tag. For a

moment there is color on that spectral plain. The pillars might be
mistaken for

relics of a fallen city. They are not. They are too few and too
randomly placed.

Nor has a one ever fallen, though many have been gnawed deeply
by the teeth of

the hungry wind.