The Fury of Kings by R.S. Moule

Author:R.S. Moule
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Second Sky

As the sun rose, Orsian stifled a yawn, and looked up from his shovel, over a trench now many feet deep. They had set their shelters and fires, strengthened their flanks with pits and tar-coated spikes, and polished their weapons until they could have shaved in them. Their position was as fortified as they could hope for after only a night’s work, and if his father was correct, the Prindians would not be able to resist an attack.

Now they waited. Many a man looked longingly in the direction of Halord’s Bridge, only a few hours’ ride away. The bridge was the key to Erland – every child knew that; where hundreds of years ago twenty thousand of their ancestors had defied an empire – and they had eschewed it in favour of this barren hillcrest.

It had been his father’s decision. ‘We’ve come too late – the time to take Halord’s Bridge was before they crossed,’ he had said. ‘Now if they arrive at the bridge and find it barred they’ll be free to take the granaries, and plunder our countryside all along the river. We need to tempt them to battle, and defend the remaining grain. When they see how few we are, they won’t be able to resist, and we’ll have the high ground. We can stand firm and watch the corpses pile up.’

Orsian had no reason to doubt his father, but they were eight hundred, while the Prindians they thought numbered over two thousand. Reinforcements were still days away. His stomach rumbled apprehensively. His father knew war better than any man alive, but to judge by the number of men rushing to their latrine ditch he was not the only one with reservations.

Perhaps Errian’s imprisonment was playing on his father’s mind. Orsian did not believe he would have given up the security of Halord’s Bridge unless he hoped to tempt the West Erlanders to parley. But Errian was likely hundreds of miles away, trapped in a Prindian dungeon.

He had no love for his brother. Had their roles been reversed, he suspected Errian might have actively counselled their father to take a strategy that might lead to Orsian’s death. Orsian, though, would do no such thing. It was not his place to argue with his father, the balhymeri and greatest warrior in Erland for three decades, no matter Orsian’s own feelings towards Errian.

They had ridden hard from Merivale, pushing themselves and their horses to near exhaustion, and yet they had been too late. Tendrils of smoke spiralled from all along the river where the Prindians had struck, filling the air with the stench of butchered meat and burnt grain. It would be a hard winter in East Erland, no matter the battle’s outcome.

At least he would spend it at Piperskeep, with Helana. Orsian smiled. The memory of her kiss had sustained him all the ride from Merivale, as if she had gifted him the power of flight. He would stay alive for her, and if they could defeat the Prindians she would surely speak no more of peace, nor of Lady Breta.

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