Strength of Swords (Annals of the Forsaken Book 2) by Anthony James

Author:Anthony James [James, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-04-13T05:00:00+00:00

14

Prior to our arrival at Blades, with twenty-one men, rather than the eight of us who remained, we’d taken temporary refuge in a cattle shed a mile or so outside of the city. We headed there, since we’d also concealed our shields close by and I thought it best for us to recover them. The shed wasn’t far and it was on our route, so there was no reason for us to leave the shields behind.

We found the place easily enough and squeezed our way through the hedge that separated the road from the fields. I’d have preferred it if we’d been able to remain unseen, but there were plenty of people travelling and we got one or two curious stares as we pushed our way through the gap. It was of little concern, since I didn’t plan that we’d be staying for long.

“Look Captain,” said Eyeball. “There’s that spy I killed. It doesn’t look as though anyone’s found him.”

I looked at the place he’d indicated and sure enough, the man’s body was lying exactly where we’d left it – carelessly hidden, but not exactly hard to find.

“Who knows?” I shrugged. “I won’t shed a tear for him lying here unburied.”

We recovered our shields from where we’d stashed them. I’d been concerned that someone might have found and stolen them, but as soon as I’d seen the dead man I’d known that they’d be exactly where we’d left them. We had no qualms about using each other’s shields, but a man gets used to certain things and it was a relief when I picked up what I’d mentally classed as my shield. I saw the others rooting through the pile - I wasn’t alone in my superstition.

“Man, it feels good to have this again,” said Beamer. He made a few practise lunges and blocks with his shield.

“Yeah, you don’t realise how shit you feel without one until you get it back,” said Bolt, as he pulled out his own shield. His arm looked too damaged to wear a shield properly after our encounter with the Duke, but he kept it anyway.

“I know I’ll be pissed off with it in an hour when it’s started to catch my legs, but until then, I’m not going to complain,” said Weevil. He tried to hang it from his pack, before realising that he didn’t have one. “Ah fuck,” he said. “We’ve got no body armour and no packs. So we’ve got the next month of sleeping without a tent and in the day we’ll have to sling our shields over our arms. That’s not what I call a happy march.”

“You’ve done nothing but complain since we left Gold,” said Beamer mildly.

“And I’m only just getting warmed up,” Weevil assured us, with a smile on his face.

“Great,” muttered Chant, loud enough for us all to hear.

I chuckled and we set off to the north. With our reduced numbers, we were more vulnerable to the unexpected than we had been on our journey here, so I took us a good distance from the road.

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