Legends 01 - Honoured Enemy by Honoured Enemy

Author:Honoured Enemy [Enemy, Honoured]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-08-05T23:00:00+00:00

‘You know damn well what I mean. Fishing me out of the river.’

Asayaga laughed softly.

‘So you honour that, too.’

‘I honour nothing, Asayaga. I think this idea is mad, but if we can capture this place intact, without losing any more men, or worse yet having it burn down around us, we just might survive the next few days. That’s the only reason I’m coming along with you.’

‘It’s me coming along with you,’ Asayaga growled. ‘You’re the Kingdom soldier, I’m the alien invader, as you put it when we discussed this idea.’

‘I need you along to help explain what we want.’

‘Not another step closer!’

The voice, clearly that of an old man, caused them to stop.

‘Clear out of here right now, or my archers will riddle you with arrows.’

Dennis cautiously lowered the shield loaned to him by Asayaga’s sergeant and raised his right hand. ‘I wish to parley.’

‘Clear out, I tell you.’

‘I am Dennis Hartraft, of the House of Hartraft. My father and grandfather before him held the royal warrant as wardens of the marches before the coming of the Tsurani. I come without weapon drawn to talk.’

‘Hartraft? They’re all dead these nine years. Go away.’

Dennis lowered his shield, letting the butt rest on the ground. With his free hand he ever so slowly unbuttoned his cape and let it fall to the ground, revealing the faded colours of the Hartraft crest on his dirty tunic. It was not the tunic he usually wore on patrol, but Gregory had suggested that he pull it out of his pack and put it on.

‘By these colours,’ he pointed at his chest, ‘you will see that I am who I claim to be. I am rightful warden of the marches.’

‘Step closer.’

Dennis gave a sidelong glance at Asayaga and did as requested, stopping when he felt that to venture any closer was suicide. He carefully scanned the battlement, looking for the slightest movement that would indicate a bow being drawn.

Asayaga advanced with him, but kept his shield up.

‘That short fellow beside you?’

‘I am Force Commander Asayaga of House Tondora, of Clan Kanazawai.’

‘Why would Tsurani and Kingdom soldiers march side by side? You are deserters and renegades. Clear out. You are liars: I heard that no Hartraft would tolerate a Tsurani to live.’

Again the sidelong glance from Asayaga.

‘How do you know what a Hartraft would do?’ Dennis asked.

‘I just know,’ the old man cried in a peevish voice. ‘Now move it, you scum-eaters, you sons of drunken whores, you rump-kissing pasty-faced boys not fit to suck the pig-dung off my toes. No man who claims to be a Hartraft would walk with a damned Tsurani who looks like the offspring of a cretinous dwarf and a one-legged disease-addled harlot.’

Asayaga bristled, raised his shield slightly, obviously ready to respond to the insult to his lineage.

‘Don’t move,’ Dennis hissed, and even as he spoke there was a puzzled look on his face as if trying to remember something.

Asayaga, features turning red with anger struggled to maintain control.

‘The Tsurani by my side is indeed a sworn enemy,’ Dennis replied.

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