Read Online The Dragon Hunter and the Mage by V. R. Cardoso - Free Book Online

him, he crossed the city gates. They rode through cobbled streets, crowded squares, and avenues so large you could fit entire villages inside. It was incredible how so much had changed, and yet everything was exactly the same. The Safya still flowed as wide and blue as ever. The towers of the temples, public buildings, and nobility estates still competed among themselves for the place closest to the sky. Even the Legionaries still guarded their posts everywhere he looked. To Doric, the only change were the Paladins. More than a dozen times, he saw columns of twenty of them, marching around with their black cuirasses and red waistbands. As if the Legionaries weren’t enough….
    They arrived at the Maginus field, a colossal, rectangular plaza around which gathered a collection of public buildings from post offices to courts. In the center of the plaza, cutting it in half like a spine, was the largest collection of statues Doric had ever seen. In it, the Legions of Maginus II triumphed over the last army of Akham.
    “It’s a breathtaking monument, is it not?” Doric asked. When no one answered, he added, “If you’re into ultra-realism, of course.”
    Once again, silence.
    “I prefer Fyrian, myself.” He waited for an answer again, and once more none came. “Saggad is full of Fyrian pieces. Have you ever been to Saggad, Sergeant?”
    “Yes,” the Sergeant replied at last.
    An entire day of journeying and that was all he had gotten out of him. Yes, or no. Doric hadn’t even discovered his name. In fact, all he had heard from him had been orders to his men. He was too young to be an officer, which meant he was no plebeian. Besides, the clean way in which he moved gave him away. Doric had also noticed the obsessive way in which he cleaned the silver plates of his armor as if it were the most valuable thing he possessed. It was curious, considering he could obviously afford a Sergeant’s rank.
    Doric stopped his horse again.
    “What is it now!?” the Sergeant fumed.
    “Do you have any idea how many of those Legionaries are my ancestors?” Doric asked, indicating the statues.
    That clearly got the man’s attention.
    “No….”
    “Not one,” Doric said.
    The Sergeant was about to reply something rather unfriendly, but Doric didn’t give him enough time.
    “As for the high ranking officers, however…” he pointed at a figure riding a horse that looked like he was giving orders to those around him. “See that General over there?” Doric hoped it was, in fact, a General. “He is my great-great-grandfather’s great-great-grandfather.”
    “Your what?”
    “My great-great-grandfather’s… he’s my ancestor,” Doric explained. “A great man.”
    Probably a cretin.
    The Sergeant was clearly impressed with that.
    “General Lucena was your ancestor?” he asked.
    Who?
    “Precisely.” If there was something Doric’s family had in abundance, that thing was famous Generals. What difference did it make if that particular General wasn’t one of them?
    The Sergeant gave Doric a sullen look. “A great man, without a doubt,” he declared. Then, as if waking up, he ordered his men to resume their march, except this time he placed his horse beside Doric’s.
    As the Citadel got closer, the city became denser. The streets grew narrower, the buildings more compact. The column was forced to form a single file line in order to fit through the crowd. A group of kids dashed by them and under Doric’s horse. He wanted to yell at them, tell them that it was dangerous, but the boys were gone before he could decide what to say. He turned around and looked ahead and saw a man being squashed against the wall by the horse of one of the Legionaries. Exasperated, the man pushed the horse. The gesture was useless, but the soldier did not like it. He smashed his boot right into the face of the poor man, and he fell sideways into a puddle of what Doric hoped was not urine.
    Suddenly, there was a thundering up ahead. Doric saw