Salt, Sand, and Blood by MarQuese Liddle

Author:MarQuese Liddle [Liddle, MarQuese]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-21T22:00:00+00:00

Sixteenth Verse

For their first four day’s north on the Valley Road, Ogdon felt like a real knight. Never before had he experienced anything more wild than Pareo’s domestic fields and beasts of burden. So as the road reached far from view of Ward Aureus to run along the white river rush of the Serpent’s Tail, every instance of unfamiliar creatures, trees, even buildings swelled Ogdon’s soul with a sense of adventure. It filled him with fire hot enough to fight off the cold of the early winter, though no flame could ever burn hot enough to ease the pain of Leonhardt’s icy shoulder.

Not until the fifth morning, as they were closing in on the great lake so called the Serpent’s Head, did she speak to him. The captain had ordered them to undress their coats of arms, to hide all sign that they were holy knights. It was shameful, and Gildmane attempted no explanation, and wouldn’t have had Brandon Harpe not protested on the spot. At once, Sir Schirmer scolded his squire, yet Ogdon saw the skepticism in the paladin’s eye. Emboldened, Sylvertre joined the dissent. He spoke openly and at length, expounding upon the virtues of being seen according to rank and title, that doing so solidifies the country’s social strata, that for order to be maintained the lower caste must know that they are low and that it is the rulers who rule. He was impressed with himself, with how fluidly he could rattle off the new philosophy fashionable among the nobles yet seemingly unknown by the fighting classes. Jael had not been so impressed.

“Idiot,” she’d called him, then with permission from the captain, she explained the reasons for his command. There was treason in the northwest; Gildmane claimed a letter as evidence, a threat sent from Duskhall in reprisal for the execution of Harold Blackheart. As members of the Cross, they’d likely be hunted as soon as they came into view of the Serpent’s Head. “So go ahead if you want,” Leonhardt spat, her eyes wide like a woman possessed, “show your noble colors and make a pretty ornament on a Blackheart lynching tree, or you can shove that archaic horse shit right back up your ass!” The captain applauded her for that, laughing. The others were kinder, remaining silent and averting their eyes as Ogdon flushed.

He was happy that she had at least acknowledged him. It was all he had their first night pitching the tents and braving the wilderness. Thus far, there had been inns or taverns or even just a farm house stables the Cross could stay in. But on the high road climb overlooking the lake, the only shelter to be found were in the hills and forest: caves and abandoned lean-tos too dangerous to trust. For they were truly in the west, land where the wild was never fully beaten back, where the only hunters were great gray wolves and lumbering black bears, where in the furthest depths danced depraved pagans in their ritual worship of the Devil’s legion.

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