A Dragon From The Desert by William King

Author:William King [King, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy
Publisher: Typhon Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

We watched the Shadowlanders recede into the distance and made no attempts to pursue. The mood curdled from jubilation to something else. There was muttering among the men. When Iliana returned to the ranks no one reached out to congratulate her.

Of course, she was not the most approachable of women, but I don’t think that had anything to do with it. The soldiers had keyed themselves up for a fight, had seen what amounted to a small victory against far superior forces and then realised that they had nothing to do with it. The triumph was all hers.

They were fighting men, brave and proud, and it gnawed at them to have done nothing. I could tell from some of the things I overheard.

“We should pursue. Show them Shadow worshippers what’s for. Free the slaves.”

“Or maybe take them ourselves.”

“We could have taken them. One charge would have scattered them. One Sunlander knight is worth twenty Shadowland scum.”

The last one was from Vorster. There was something like rage on his handsome face.

“So how many of you would it take for those Shadowlanders then?” Spider asked. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

Vorster shot him a belligerent look. Spider smiled as if that was exactly what he wanted to see. The look faded fast as the nobleman realised his mistake.

Spider said, “Would you take five knights? Or maybe ten? Or perhaps the whole company might be better?”

Vorster’s face turned red, but he forced himself to look respectfully at Spider. The tattooed man continued to speak gently, but I sensed anger in his voice. “Possibly twenty-five might have been better given the number of Shadowlanders down there. Didn’t your expensive tutors teach you to count, Sir Vorster?”

I made the mistake of smirking. Vorster caught it and he shot me a look of murderous hatred. It was my turn to look away in a circumspect manner.

Spider kept talking, his tone conversational. “Of course, you might have lost a few of our lads going down that rough slope. Not exactly perfect ground for a cavalry charge. And a few more of you might have died if that sorcerer leading the Shadowlanders decided to do to you what Mistress Iliana did to his pets. So tell me, Sir Vorster exactly how many Sunlander knights would you need?”

Vorster said, “We have our elder signs, sir. And the Shadowlander had exhausted himself attacking the village.”

“You are sure of that, are you, Sir Vorster? Your expensive tutors gave you a working knowledge of sorcery as well as an erratic understanding of arithmetic, did they?”

“I know nothing of sorcery,” said Vorster. His tone implied that Spider had suggested he favoured sexual congress with donkeys.

“Then perhaps you will so good as to leave the battlefield assessment of it to those who do? You’re a handy man in a fight Sir Vorster and brave as a lion but the next time you bring me such an erroneous report, I will flay your hide with a rusty dagger. Do you understand me?”

The menace contained in Spider’s quiet voice might have given Ghoran pause.

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