by Trish Mercer
Sneak Peek--Book 6
Year 363
General Lemuel Thorne straightened his already erect back and reviewed the next two hundred troops that paraded before him. He stood on the crest of the manmade hill, which crushed an old barn, to overlook the parade grounds that were once a farm. The old farmhouse with yellow curtains had been demolished to make room for the large mess hall that stood near the new main gates of the expanded compound. The first thing soldiers want when they returned from drills is a meal. Thorne knew how to treat his men. It was one of the reasons they were so loyal to him.
He calculated how many more troops were to come. Two thousand had already passed him, and five thousand still needed to go by in celebration of his 25th year as commander of Province 8 and the surrounding areas. The sun beat down exceptionally warm for the 35th Day of Planting Season, but at least it wasn’t pouring rain as it had been for the past three celebrations.
Already the retelling of Thorne’s defeat of the impotent colonel, his traitorous wife, their children, and the sergeant major spy had been recounted by a major in a loud and dramatic voice, complete with reenactments by troops in appropriate costumes.
Special emphasis was given to the fact that their general had been only a captain at the time, received a crippling injury, yet continued on to defeat all those who destroyed their peace. Only through General Thorne’s tenacity and perseverance did he eventually overthrow the commandants themselves, who caused so much chaos which still plagued their splintered world.
The speech had been honed for years to motivate the young troops to feats of their own glories despite hardship and pain. The greatest moment of the Celebration would be when General Thorne would draw his sword and remind the men of the growing threat of the other sectors, and how for years Edge, renamed Province 8, has been the most peaceful in the world because of their strong army.
The future of their area, and indeed the entire world, depended on General Thorne and his men maintaining peace in a world that no longer knew order.
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Past the gates of Fort Shin where General Thorne stood, through the forest littered with scalding water spouts, deadly gas pockets, and lethal mud volcanoes, beyond the boulder fields that could take a full day or more for the average man to scale, up the rocky ridges and slopes of the great and impassable mountains, past the high mountain meadows no one in the known world knew existed, through narrow and confusing canyons that swallowed many stray cattle, and beyond a narrow passage way opened up a valley of immense proportions.
In that valley grew wildflowers, animals, gardens, crops, orchards, vineyards, herds, and a civilization that kept itself hidden from the world.
To the southwest of the city called Salem stood a tall schoolhouse, where another general was jogging in worry that this time he’d be too late to prevent a catastrophe.
Had he lived in the known world, he would have been forced into retirement two years ago. But the only ones who retired here were those who were infirm or dying.
This general was neither.
While not quite as bulky as when he was a colonel in his forties, the seventy-two-year-old was still tall, lean, and as fit as men a third of his age. The only way anyone could have kept him down was to have piled a mountain on top of him. He had far too many responsibilities, and the men in the towers who kept an eye on his progress by following his white hair, had just signaled to him that the greatest concern of his life was currently standing on top of a two-level building, having hatched yet another less-than-brilliant plan.
General Shin was on an important mission.
Because Young Perrin Shin was ready to fly.