The Hunger of Empires: A thrilling epic fantasy of battle and adventure by R.S. Moule

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

Chapter 29

Fisherton sprang up out of the wilderness as the morning’s first rays of sunlight appeared from beyond the Mountain. The trees parted, and there it was, several dozen buildings upon the rising slope, circled around a high stone marker and a simple wooden sign indicating Eryispool was five miles north.

Viratia fell to her knees, sucking in deep breaths as if she had just surfaced from a river. Never had she been so relieved to see civilisation.

The wolves had harried them for two days all the way from the Little River, snapping at their heels, forcing them to turn and fight. Each time, they would drive the wolves back, leaving a handful of their brethren as corpses against the dark ground, and for a few miles they would dare to think themselves safe, only for the tireless howling to begin again, and for snarling jaws dripping with saliva to burst from the darkness. They had been able to take a few hours’ rest in an abandoned hut, and for a time the wolves had left them alone, but as soon as they departed the howling pursuit had begun again. The second time they stopped, they had been forced to take refuge in the trees. The strangest part had been that the wolves had retreated to wait again rather than go for the mules.

Viratia looked around at her companions. Sister Laurane had died, bleeding out atop the mule when there had been no time to treat her. Two more of Hessian’s hymerikai had fallen also; when two wolves had gripped Hessian’s mule’s legs in their jaws and almost tossed Hessian to the ground, they had been the two to go to him. They had fought the beasts off and paid with their lives, pulled to the ground under the mass of numbers.

Viratia had not even known their names. She promised herself she would learn them, not least so Hessian could be made to honour the families of the men who had saved his life.

Naeem was beside her, bent double with his hands on his knees, red and breathless. ‘I’ve not run that much in decades,’ he gasped. ‘Never known wolves to act like that.’ There was a wound at his knee, an angry black bitemark dripping blood.

He was not the only one injured. Viratia’s ankle throbbed where she had stumbled, and there was a gash at her shoulder where a wolf had leapt at her from behind before Naeem’s sword had sliced through its back. All the surviving hymerikai had cuts and bruises. Only Hessian and the two remaining brides had escaped wholly unhurt. Sister Aimya had swapped her staff for a hymerika’s spear, which she had wielded with such skill it seemed part of her arm.

Naeem saw Viratia looking at his injury. ‘Just a scratch, Lady.’

‘At least they weren’t rabid,’ said Aimya, leaning back with her hands on her hips, taking deep breaths, savouring the dawn air and looking as though she could run the same distance again. ‘Eryi alone knows what got into them.

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