The Heron Kings' Flight by Eric Lewis

Author:Eric Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy; epic fantasy; flame tree press; historical fiction; Game of Thrones; Joe Abercrombie; Scott Lynch, Sharon Kay Penman
Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
Published: 2022-04-13T14:07:07+00:00

PART THREE

Chapter Seventeen

Our Definition of Military

“One, two, three, heave!” Another corpse tumbled over the edge of the narrow path and into the surrounding fog. The sudden avalanche just hours before had buried almost a thousand camp followers and, more importantly, a good amount of the baggage train under a falling wave of snow and rock. Though the pass they trod through was well below the snow line, a late summer breeze from the west had dislodged a good chunk of it from above, and the rear of Phynagoras’s combined army and migrant horde had been hit. Now Phynagoras himself worked alongside his men to dig out what could be retrieved, every sathav, a hundred-man unit, given its own quota to recover. But they kept running into bodies.

“Fortunately,” he grunted as he hauled a crate of something up out of a snowbank, “few of the fighting men were struck, only some stragglers.”

“Aye,” Boras said with a nod, pulling up a much larger box with his bear-like arms. “Plus some of Cassilda’s horse bitches. She won’t be happy about that.”

“Her mood must have a bottom somewhere. No matter, we’re almost there. Two more days and our journey will finally have begun!”

“I fail to see, my lord, how you manage to maintain such good cheer in the face of this catastrophe,” Boras said. His heaving breath sent jets swirling to the air, turned to gold by the noonday sun. He, like most of the laboring men, had doffed the warm furs they’d worn since ascending into the mountains to do the work of digging, but they’d need them again soon, and the supplies still hidden under half a parasang’s stretch of snow.

“Simple, Boras. You see—”

“M’lord!” A young Bhasan captain approached them with a perfunctory salute, the medallion about his neck the only mark of rank visible over the winter clothing. “I, uh, heard some of the camp followers talking and, well, I thought I should report what I heard.” The captain looked away nervously. “That is….”

Boras frowned at the interruption. “Well, out with it, man! Can’t you see we’ve work to do?”

Phynagoras held up a hand to silence him. “Must be of some import to bring it direct to me, now. What is it?”

“Well, there’s some talk from the more, er, influential among ’em about turning back. Saying the expedition’s cursed, and this is proof of it.”

Phynagoras considered silently for a moment, his face unreadable. Finally he said, “What is your name, captain?”

The man gulped nervously. “Erm, Musa, my lord.”

“Musa, you will provide Boras with the names of these influential followers, and then think no more on it. And you will give it out that….”

* * *

“That there’s to be no more talk of turning back!” That night at an impromptu rally Phynagoras repeated the orders he’d given the captain. The narrowness of the pass made it difficult to gather the remaining thousands of followers together, but he’d packed them in as closely as could be managed and strained his voice to make it carry.

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