The Reformation of Mars by Terry Toler

The Reformation of Mars by Terry Toler

Author:Terry Toler [Toler, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-09T22:00:00+00:00


16

Beno saw Jeriah come galloping over the hill from his trip to Caben and let out a huge sigh of relief. No one knew exactly how the Cabenites would react. Would they seize Jeriah? Kill him? Use him as leverage in negotiations? Or would Jeriah’s carefully laid out plan work. Jeriah had insisted upon going alone. Beno, his second in command, had anxiously awaited his return.

“How did it go?” Beno said as Jeriah dismounted.

“They didn’t suspect a thing,” Jeriah said, patting Beno on the shoulder. “Is the wooden horse ready?” he asked.

“Yes sir. They finished it while you were gone. It looks magnificent.” His tone turned more somber. “Do you have to be one of the ones to enter the city in the horse? You should stay back and lead the men. Let me go in the horse.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jeriah said with a slight grin of resignation. “The king has commanded me to lead the siege. For whatever reason, he doesn’t want me to succeed. I intend to win a great victory for the throne. I might even survive it,” he said half-heartedly—almost jokingly.

Jeriah entered his command tent with Beno following, struggling to keep up.

“Gather the men, I want to speak to them,” Jeriah said as he drank some much-needed water.

Beno abruptly turned and walked out of the tent.

* * *

Jeriah sat down for a minute to rest, letting himself think about Theba and home.

“It’s going to be a long and eventful night for me,” he mumbled to himself. “I wonder what Theba will be doing.”

She’ll probably have a very boring night at home.

* * *

Theba and Abbey struggled as they dragged Zwilling’s lifeless body onto a large piece of carpet. They rolled the carpet around the corpse and secured it with several strands of rope, both out of breath from the effort. Eck and Christopher were to arrive soon with a wagon pulled by a horse to transport the body to dispose of it.

“What about all his clothes and possessions?” Abbey asked. “Should we get rid of them?”

“You should keep those,” Theba said. “That way if anyone should ask, you can say he’s away on a trip. You can even show them all his belongings if you are questioned. Just a precaution that’s probably not necessary. Hopefully, no one will miss him.”

Abbey grimaced.

“I hate to have anything in the house that reminds me of him.”

“I know, honey. At least he’ll be gone. That’s the main thing. Where does he keep his register to pay his bills?”

“Back in the office,” Abbey said as she headed that way.

They both cautiously walked into the room as if they were doing something wrong. Theba began rummaging through his desk until she found a large black binder with a register along with numbered pieces of paper that could be used for currency. The currency was called marrii. The church controlled all of the marrii on Mars, but the elite were issued the papers which they used to buy and sell and conduct commerce. The peasants mostly bartered possessions for whatever they needed.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.