Read Online Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three by Joel Shepherd - Free Book Online Page A

have made a convincing argument that the majority of her Lenay brethren were not, in fact, savages. But the Isfayen were on their own.
     
    Sofy was practising her Larosan in the royal carriage after lunch when the door opened, and Damon hauled himself inside. Ulynda, Sofy’s grey-haired tutor, bowed low. “Shall I leave, Highness?”
    “Yes,” said Damon.
    “No,” said Sofy at the same time. The middle-aged woman bowed to Damon, opened the carriage’s opposite door and climbed down with assistance from a Royal Guardsman. Sofy frowned at Damon as he loosened his swordbelt. “Damon, truly, she has a bad knee, there was no need to tell her to leave.”
    Damon ignored her, pulling off his heavy gloves. Sofy’s third-eldestbrother had always looked slightly dark and morose, and now more than ever. He had a lean face, suited more by longer hair than the Verenthane norm. His garb was no less martial than Koenyg’s, but somehow it seemed to sit ill upon his tall frame. He looked sombre, Sofy thought. Brooding, even.
    She put aside her book of Larosan poems and folded her hands in her lap, waiting. Damon did this sometimes, simply imposed himself upon her company, and left it to her to probe and discover what was bothering him. He leaned his head back now, rocking as the carriage trundled over rough ground, and stared blankly out of the open window.
    “How’s the Larosan coming?” he asked.
    “It’s a nice language,” Sofy replied. “They write the most lovely poetry.” Sofy loved their plays, songs and poems, and had taught herself Larosan from an early age. “I would learn faster if you would not dismiss my tutor in midlesson so you could come and chat.”
    Damon let the jibe pass. This listlessness worried her. Unlike Koenyg, and the late-yet-legendary Krystoff, Prince Damon was not the most lively and positive of princes. But this was becoming extreme, even for him.
    “The last scout says we will not be in these foothills beyond tomorrow,” he said. “We should be in Algrasse the day after that, and then there’ll be farmlands.”
    “And fresh food!” said Sofy. She was getting a little tired of the dried fare brought from Lenayin in the supply wagons.
    Damon shrugged. “Perhaps. If Lord Heshan is true to his word, and supplies our army along the way. The lords of the Bacosh are not renowned for keeping their word on anything.”
    “He’d better,” said Sofy. “We haven’t brought enough. We’d have to forage, otherwise.”
    Damon rolled his eyes and grimaced. A Lenay army in the lowlands. Foraging. It seemed dangerously close to “looting.” And “invasion.” The lowlands had lived in terror of a Lenay invasion for centuries, an occurrence only prevented by the overlordship of the Cherrovan Empire, and the preference of the various Lenay regions for fighting each other. Leading an army of thirty-thousand Lenay warriors into the “civilised” lowlands made a great many people nervous, including some noble Lenays who did not trust the civility of their ruffian country cousins. It was a delicate matter all round. That the Larosans were allowing passage across their lands, and had encouraged Algrasse and Telesia to allow the same, was indication enough of how much the Lenays were needed in the war to come.
    “So,” said Sofy. “How does your journey fare? Amongst all the grand importances of the vanguard?”
    “Still squabbling about who will take the centre in the first battle,” said Damon. “The northerners, of course, insist it shall be them, but Koenyg insists on the importance of deploying heavy cavalry to a useful flank, and Father agrees. Furthermore, the Hadryn insist they will not hold the Taneryn flank, and vice versa; the Isfayen will have nothing to do with the Yethulyn; a grand family of Fyden have discovered they share the same house banner as a family from Banneryd, and have nearly come to blows over its ownership; and the new Great Lord of Taneryn, Ackryd, refuses to ride