Iron and Blood by Auston Habershaw

Author:Auston Habershaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

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Had Sergeant Tillick Nord of the Delloran army been in charge, he would have burned the stupid tower to the ground rather than wait for whatever was in there to come out. Of course, Nord was not in charge, and “Captain” Hendrieux had told them they needed to keep a low profile. So, that meant that Nord and a dozen of his men had to crouch behind the frigid, wind-­worn battlements on the top of this godforsaken fortress, crossbows loaded and cocked, and hope the gnoll or whatever was in the tower would be dumb enough to come out the door they had their weapons trained on. He was too much of a Delloran to admit he was freezing, and too much a professional to complain openly about anything, but he could still taste the pipe smoke on his lips and the warm ale in his belly, and he hoped to all the gods that this ridiculous gnoll-­thing would show itself quick so he and his men could feather it and go back inside to party.

Nord passed a pouch down the line after picking out some of the dried leaves inside—­wakeroot, the soldier’s best friend, guaranteed to sober a man up in a minute or less. “Everybody takes a chew. You can get yerself nice and drunk again once this is over.” Nord stuffed the wad of pungent black leaves in his mouth and held it in one cheek, the fiery juices bubbling on his tongue and tickling as they ran down his throat. When it hit his stomach, it was like somebody had lit a firebomb in his innards. Nord’s eyes watered as the world was brought into stark focus at the same time as a raging headache assaulted his temples. Wakeroot got rid of the drunk by, essentially, skipping straight to the hangover. Still, he found he could see straighter, once he squinted past the pain behind his eyes. Down the line, men were coughing and groaning as their own hangovers hit them. Nord cursed Hendrieux under his breath; they were in for an unpleasant evening.

Just how unpleasant, however, wasn’t made clear until a few minutes later. Such clarification came in the form of a pack of angry ­people gathering outside the stockade gate. This struck Nord as odd simply because nobody ever used the gate—­all transport was conducted through the anygate in the fortress’s dungeon—­and that, as far as the outside world was concerned, this particular ruin was nothing but a run-­down brothel and ink den. Nord walked over to the side of the battlements that faced the gate, which was opposite from the side facing the storage tower, and kept an eye on things, just in case. He couldn’t see who was out there, thanks to the height of the walls, but he guessed it was some kind of bizarre domestic disturbance . . . in the middle of the night . . . in the winter. Right.

A magically amplified voice thundered over the walls.“Attention,

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