The Empire of the Sea: Eternal Dream, Book 2 (The Eternal Dream Saga) by Lane Trompeter

Author:Lane Trompeter [Trompeter, Lane]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Lane Trompeter
Published: 2021-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Bastian

The Eighty-Second Day of Autumn

In the year 5222, Council Reckoning

My ass is bleeding. It has to be, from the horrific pain lancing through me with every jostling stride the heaving beast below me takes. My legs are dull pools of liquid fire, their strength long since spent trying to save the horse and my broken back. The distant part of me that can still acknowledge pity exists aches for the black gelding below me. He has given everything he has and then some. The urge to bend down and pat his neck drifts through my sleep-starved brain.

“What about that one?” I ask in little better than a stupor.

“You,” Jynn says wryly.

“Damn.”

Ahead, Tana turns lithely in the saddle of her gasping horse, a chestnut stallion fit for a Minister. Dust rises in a cloud off to the south and west, the only visible testament to the travelers on the Way of the West. In the flat, featureless heartland of the Khalintari Republic, the cloud is a welcome sign we are still heading in the right direction. Pulling down the scarf covering my face, I wipe the dripping sweat off my nose and lips. The lathered flanks of Tana’s horse gleam in the hot scrubland sun. The horse is on its last legs despite its pedigree, and I fear I’m not far behind.

My bones ache, and my heart beats sluggishly in my chest. My eyes are tight in my skull, my skin blistered and hot. My body is breaking down. For the last week, we’ve been on strict rations just to make it this far. None of us know the least about foraging for food in inhospitable lands. Cracked brown earth stretches as far as the eye can see in every direction. I would normally be fine, but my body has to nourish my soul and Jynn’s as well. Without ample food and rest, we won’t survive long.

“I think we’ve finally lost them,” Tana mutters from behind the scarf she has pressed over her face. She turns back and slumps wearily into the saddle.

“Have we?” I mutter sarcastically. “Or is that simply the fifteenth time you’ve told us that?”

“That’s not fair.” Jynn’s cheerful voice rubs across the edges of my mind like the sand between my ass and the saddle. She sends the words to Tana as well, who turns back and offers me a grateful smile. I scowl. She’s not smiling at me.

“Thank you, Jynn,” she says.

“How isn’t it fair? It’s hardly even an exaggeration. These assholes are worse than the flies, and twice as hard to shake,” I growl, crushing a particularly nasty looking specimen with my thumb just before it can crawl under the outer layer of cloth, my only protection from the malevolent little insects. Dozens more swarm around in a cloud of glittering hatred for all things living. I glare back with equal malice.

“They aren’t flies,” Tana snaps back. “They’re wasps. Silk wasps, if you’ll remember an ounce of what I tell you.”

“What difference does it make?” I shout.

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