The Red-Stained Wings--The Lotus Kingdoms, Book Two by Elizabeth Bear

Author:Elizabeth Bear
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

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They managed a few days’ hard ride before the first interruption came. The additional horses made all the difference, though the bandits no-doubt stolen animals were (unsurprisingly) not as well-cared-for as Himadra would have preferred. At least they all proved sound. And they were as fit and hard as might be hoped, though he worried at their thin condition and their unshod hooves on the rocky ground.

“The bandits probably ate the soft-footed ones,” Farkhad commented, when Himadra expressed as much.

Not much room for sentiment in these barrens. Even less so than in Chandranath, and Chandranath was not a place in itself to make men soft.

Neither, for that matter, was Ansh-Sahal. The destroyed principality of which young Drupada was, technically speaking, the rightful raja—under his mother’s regency, if Sayeh Rajni was even still alive—was a harsh place where the populace had been forced to exercise their creativity and will to survive the dry seasons. None of these northern regions made for easy lives or easy folk to live them.

So Himadra was understandably cautious when they overtook an army on the road.

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