Winds of Wrath by Taylor Anderson

Author:Taylor Anderson [Anderson, Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

////// West of Nuevo Granada City

Holy Dominion

July 23, 1945

I confess, General Shinya,” General Hiram Cox of the NUS Army remarked quietly, gazing intently east at the dazzling white city of Nuevo Granada and the Templo de los Papas. “I never truly believed we’d make it.”

Tomatsu Shinya had been watching a pair of “greater dragons” kiting overhead, spying on the army’s progress. They never attacked or came close to rifle range and he suspected that meant there weren’t many nearby. He looked at the city again as well. This was a comparatively highly populated, affluent region, with scenic villas and estates on the slopes below a vast tabletop mountain, or tepui, overlooking the capital city of the Holy Dominion roughly eleven miles away. The Lago de Vida, or “Lake of Life,” shimmered beyond it, bordered by forest, its far shores beyond his view. A great stepped pyramid, larger than the one at El Corazon, rose from the center of the city, and he got the impression numerous smaller pyramids were arranged geometrically around it at different points. And it was a city, much like descriptions he’d heard of Alex-aandra in the Republic, which was the biggest, oldest, and most . . . interesting city—from a somewhat classical architectural standpoint—in the Grand Alliance. From a distance, Nuevo Granada gave the distinct impression of civilization, yet that sense warred with what Shinya knew of its inhabitants and he realized he had to adjust his preconceptions. The Grik had a civilization of a sort as well, but that didn’t mean they were “civilized” as he defined the term. The same applied here.

The environs were deserted now, the great estates empty and stripped of valuables. Likely the only reason they hadn’t been destroyed as the Allied army approached, as happened around El Corazon, was that their owners were richer and more influential—and there’d probably been a general disbelief the “heretic horde” would ever really reach this far. But the crops hadn’t been burned and there was a lot of livestock running loose, easy to catch. This will do, Shinya decided.

Looking at Cox, he reappraised the man. He was even thinner than when they met and his red whiskers had bloomed into a full beard. His dark blue frock coat had faded to a kind of sickly light purple, and the once immaculately white sword belt had turned a grubby gray. He smiled slightly. “I never doubted Tenth Corps would get here, but after we met and I took the measure of your men, any reservations I had about them—or you—quickly vanished.” Cox nodded appreciation and Shinya wearily slid from his saddle, performing a couple of deep knee bends while Cox and their respective staffs dismounted and handed off their horses.

The big HQ tent was swiftly rising amid a cacophony of tent stakes being pounded in the ground. The ’Cat Marines assigned the detail had done it so often that it only took a few minutes and even fewer words. Looking around, Shinya watched as

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