Read Online The Dread Wyrm (Traitor Son Cycle) by Miles Cameron - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Miles Cameron
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child, you can be naive. What else is it all for, to the likes of them?”
“He’s not one of them!” Sauce said.
Mag sighed. “I suspect I like him as much as you do, sweet,” she said, as she might to a child who’d just had her first courses. “But this is what they do. They are not like you and me. They’re like animals in the Wild. They play for power.”
Towards evening, the pace picked up, and they moved quickly. Sauce knew from her outriders that they were passing through the battlefield where the drove had been massacred by Outwallers last year, and that no one wanted to camp among the bones and the ghosts. The column began to string out, and a mist rose out of the deep valley of the stream.
Sauce left the column to check her outriders. Many of her Moreans had never seen woods like this—great beeches and oaks seventy feet high, with a few birches interspersed, the boles so big that two men couldn’t pass their hands around them and the undergrowth almost non-existent, especially under the oaks, although there could be tangles of blown-down limbs or even whole trees uprooted. Maple trees like green cathedrals rose above the beeches. It was beautiful, if you let yourself look.
Besides the woods, she was still grimly pleased with what she found. The Morean stradiotes knew their business, and their pages were mostly tenants and what an Alban would have called sergeants and what they lacked in experience they made up for in caution. Sauce moved along their line, pleased that each man—no women—kept his partners in sight. Evening made the woods noisy, and there were enough large animals moving to keep the vedettes awake.
Sauce wished for Gelfred, but the green-clad huntsmen were away. On another mission. Not to be discussed.
He was playing for power.
She saw it now, and it pissed her off. He was doing something he knew the rest of them wouldn’t approve of—which was why he’d split the company. She knew that Ranald and Gelfred and the loathsome Kronmir had all gone somewhere. She had her suspicions that they’d gone south to Harndon.
These were surface thoughts, because the caution her outriders were showing was infectious, and because she had enough experience of the Wild to know that something was wrong.
She cantered up behind a pair of her men, Spiro and Stavros, both watching the woods across a glade to the south. Both had their bows in their hands.
Sauce reined in. “Stavros, back to the wagons, tell Mag we have something—not an alarm, but time to be careful. Then up the column, find the captain and get his arse out here. With my compliments.”
The man snapped a crisp salute, turned his horse on its hindquarters and raced away.
Spiro frowned. “Could be a deer,” he admitted.
Sauce nodded. She was still on her riding horse and sorry for it. “No self-respecting deer would be this close to a moving column,” she said.
She felt foolish, having ridden out of the column without a heavy lance or her fighting helmet. She loosened her sword in its sheath.
Something moved across the clearing.
And the mist was rising. The sun was just on the point of going down to the west—they were late on the road.
About another hour of light.
“We’re too exposed here,” she said calmly. “Back away.”
Spiro was delighted to concur, and they backed their horses among thetrees—from copse to copse, one turning and then the other, covering each other.
Her opinion of Spiro went up and up. She’d barely met him, but he was solid and dependable and his head was everywhere. He was clearly shit-scared, and equally clearly good at dealing with it.
She saw movement to the west, and then a flash of reassuring scarlet. At the same time she saw her next pair of outriders waving, and she and Spiro bore west and north through a tangled thicket and emerged into another glade. Count Zac was there with four of his men.
She was so glad to see him that she felt a moment’s disorientation, and then she
“He’s not one of them!” Sauce said.
Mag sighed. “I suspect I like him as much as you do, sweet,” she said, as she might to a child who’d just had her first courses. “But this is what they do. They are not like you and me. They’re like animals in the Wild. They play for power.”
Towards evening, the pace picked up, and they moved quickly. Sauce knew from her outriders that they were passing through the battlefield where the drove had been massacred by Outwallers last year, and that no one wanted to camp among the bones and the ghosts. The column began to string out, and a mist rose out of the deep valley of the stream.
Sauce left the column to check her outriders. Many of her Moreans had never seen woods like this—great beeches and oaks seventy feet high, with a few birches interspersed, the boles so big that two men couldn’t pass their hands around them and the undergrowth almost non-existent, especially under the oaks, although there could be tangles of blown-down limbs or even whole trees uprooted. Maple trees like green cathedrals rose above the beeches. It was beautiful, if you let yourself look.
Besides the woods, she was still grimly pleased with what she found. The Morean stradiotes knew their business, and their pages were mostly tenants and what an Alban would have called sergeants and what they lacked in experience they made up for in caution. Sauce moved along their line, pleased that each man—no women—kept his partners in sight. Evening made the woods noisy, and there were enough large animals moving to keep the vedettes awake.
Sauce wished for Gelfred, but the green-clad huntsmen were away. On another mission. Not to be discussed.
He was playing for power.
She saw it now, and it pissed her off. He was doing something he knew the rest of them wouldn’t approve of—which was why he’d split the company. She knew that Ranald and Gelfred and the loathsome Kronmir had all gone somewhere. She had her suspicions that they’d gone south to Harndon.
These were surface thoughts, because the caution her outriders were showing was infectious, and because she had enough experience of the Wild to know that something was wrong.
She cantered up behind a pair of her men, Spiro and Stavros, both watching the woods across a glade to the south. Both had their bows in their hands.
Sauce reined in. “Stavros, back to the wagons, tell Mag we have something—not an alarm, but time to be careful. Then up the column, find the captain and get his arse out here. With my compliments.”
The man snapped a crisp salute, turned his horse on its hindquarters and raced away.
Spiro frowned. “Could be a deer,” he admitted.
Sauce nodded. She was still on her riding horse and sorry for it. “No self-respecting deer would be this close to a moving column,” she said.
She felt foolish, having ridden out of the column without a heavy lance or her fighting helmet. She loosened her sword in its sheath.
Something moved across the clearing.
And the mist was rising. The sun was just on the point of going down to the west—they were late on the road.
About another hour of light.
“We’re too exposed here,” she said calmly. “Back away.”
Spiro was delighted to concur, and they backed their horses among thetrees—from copse to copse, one turning and then the other, covering each other.
Her opinion of Spiro went up and up. She’d barely met him, but he was solid and dependable and his head was everywhere. He was clearly shit-scared, and equally clearly good at dealing with it.
She saw movement to the west, and then a flash of reassuring scarlet. At the same time she saw her next pair of outriders waving, and she and Spiro bore west and north through a tangled thicket and emerged into another glade. Count Zac was there with four of his men.
She was so glad to see him that she felt a moment’s disorientation, and then she
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