The Brooding Crown: The Second Book of Caledan (Books of Caledan 2) by Cowley Meg

Author:Cowley, Meg [Cowley, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: fantasy fiction
Publisher: Meg Cowley
Published: 2015-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

Zaki

The fleet stretched to the horizon and beyond as crafts of all sizes carried Zaki’s twelve thousand men to Caledan. Zaki was glad when the isthmus, the land bridge linking Caledan to the continent, was at last sighted stretching north, for it meant the end of weeks of unpleasant sailing on rough waters. His own ship – the finest of them all – stunk of the vomit and excrement of hundreds of men, and the fresh water had long since run out, meaning that many of the men drank brewed drinks, which caused no end of fights on board. The food was terrible – they had no fire, so all rations were cold and, by the end of the journey, soggy too. All combined, Zaki felt permanently nauseous.

Zaki could not have been happier to put his feet on land – but it felt even better to step onto Caledonian land, even if for the first few steps he stumbled, still swaying with the motion of the ship, although he was no longer upon it.

His men marshalled with what little they had as the vessels withdrew. Zaki did not allow them a comfort stop. They had been doing little enough on the voyage, and he counted rowing as menial work that only some of the crew could do at any one time. The weather was colder than Roher and made him loathe to tarry. Zaki had grown soft in his time away, forgetting how biting the winter winds could be.

It took a day’s slow march to reach the town of Braith, which guarded the border, but Zaki was in no rush. After Janus’s successful use of the strategy in Ladrin, Zaki planned to attack under cover of night, and he wanted his forces fresh. It would be an easy task with so many men – he would require but a fraction of them – but even so, they had a long road ahead of them and battle after that, and he could not afford to fail again. It weighed heavy on his mind.

Waiting for the early sunset and concealed behind nearby hills, he sent scouts out that afternoon. In the distance, the dark grey band of the border’s wall was visible. There marked the narrowest point of the isthmus, where the seas had gnawed the earth away over the many years until the wall sat upon deep cliffs that, near the edge, were at a terrible risk of erosion. Parts of the wall were at the bottom of the sea; in the hundreds of years since its construction, the pounding waters had claimed some of its length.

What remained guarded the way: a tall wall, several men high and thick, which would require an army with siege warfare to break. It had not fallen yet, because on the other side of it lay vast plains and then deserts that would not support even a man, let alone an army, as Zaki had discovered from his own experiences.

There was a single entrance – a series of three gates guarding the way – but Zaki did not need to concern himself with them.

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