Reign of Phyre by Nicholas Cooper

Author:Nicholas Cooper [Cooper, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-21T22:00:00+00:00

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Kiern

“How nice it must be for you old men, far from the battles that make this war, to be able to criticise a loyal general. You call me disgraced and unjust, someone who disregarded Karzarki law. Tell me, where is the justice in the lives that were lost because of our ancient, outdated tradition? I held our Heran, and it cost my legion the battle. Those Euphyrian rats whose lives you hold higher than our own, I recognised their faces. It would have been more unjust to let them live.

General Hydix Parveq’s execution trial during the War of the Last King

For the second time in as many weeks, he stared into a funeral pyre. Five lives he never knew. Fathers, brothers, sons, husbands, who knew? Did they join the Khasari to exact a toll on the Euparyens out of a personal vendetta? Probably not. Did they march all the way across a desert just to patrol the roads and hunt down a few rebels? Probably not.

And yet, as he watched them burn, he found it hard to sympathise. Their oath was of grave importance to them judging by how Rhen stood and opposed them despite not having a weapon of his own. They cast it aside.

He could even sympathise with why they broke it. Their Herann or whatever it was called made no sense to him. It was dumb. They were conquerors, the first to overcome one of Yelia’s barriers, who defeated and occupied the lands of Euparyen for generations. And yet in complete opposition to their militaristic ethos, above all else they retained their belief that no soldier was a soldier until battle lines were drawn.

All Sons are tattooed. All Sons fight the invaders. These ones were even armed, as it turned out. Rhen probably hadn’t imagined so but, according to his own explanation, so long as they weren’t threatening the Khasari, they were still civilians. Ridiculous.

What he couldn’t sympathise with was that they had turned their backs on what they were supposed to be. They would have lived another day had they not done so. It was a stupid oath the Khasari had, but it was theirs to abide by. If you do not follow the laws of the uniform you wear, you are but an imposter. And these men in particular had surrendered their worth to simple thuggery.

He thought a little prayer; May their families find peace, and Yelia watch over them.

Sometime later, they found a nice place to make camp for the night. The great trees kept them from seeing the stars, but the Sons knew the way to Mayswood. They would not be found unless they wanted to be. The canopy kept the warmth of the forest from escaping, though it was still cold. Commander Reisch and the Sons set about making a fire. Kiern walked over and sat down next to Rhen who had found a nice rock amidst the foliage.

“Are you alright?” Three words didn’t seem enough. He was never good at consoling. Even the delivery was underwhelming.

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