by Watson Davis
“Hobanya and the First and Second Armies are in Hafbergen preparing for Gersark.” Tethan smiled. “Maybe we’ve been too long with administrative matters.” He winked at her. “I’d like to lead an army again. Maybe sweep through Morrin before a final stab into Shria. We could form a pincer movement with the First and Second Armies hitting from the west while we sneak in through the east.”
“You’re more valuable here,” she said, shaking her head. “And you aren’t allowed to have fun except with me. We could send Gartan.”
“He’s too young.” Tethan stopped at the new gate being built, with a stone bridge stretching from the island over to a cliff, the road winding down to the village along the beach. Windhaven.
She snorted. “He’s a year younger than you were when we went to Basaliyasta.”
Tethan bowed his head. “Way too young.”
She leaned into him, and he draped his arm over her shoulders, his hand cupping his daughter’s head.
“The Empress of the Nayen has consolidated the old Council’s holdings,” Tethan said, staring up at the beginnings of a statue, placed just inside the new gate. He shook his head. “We won’t have time to unify the whole continent before she’s ready to strike north.”
“Maybe she’ll hit another continent first.”
“We can’t plan by hoping for the best,” he said, patting the statue.
“We can still hope.” Mitta tilted her head to stare up at the statue almost twice the height of an Onei, the human form taking shape: a man with an axe, a smirk on his lips, and a beautiful woman casting a spell. “It’s a good likeness.”
“Yeah.” Tethan grinned. “Larger than life. That was my mom and dad.”
# # #
Kalo knelt on the prow of the sloop, the turgid river water brown and lazy, the ridges of a log or a crocodile’s back floating downstream, birds chattering, beams of sunlight fighting their way through the canopy of leaves above, through the greenish haze in the air, to fall glittering on the water. Mosquitoes and wasps buzzed around her. Her nose wrinkled, unused to the strong smell of decay and regrowth.
An opening appeared between the trees along the shore: a series of rough-hewn stone steps set into the dark earth, the steps broken with age, from the roots tunneling beneath. Kalo pointed and whispered, “There.”
Mian-on sat in the middle of the boat, chanting under his breath, pumping magical winds into the sloop’s sail. He glanced back at Hanno on the rudder, making sure she heard and saw Kalo’s command.
The boat drifted to the stairs, and Mian-on pulled back the winds. Kalo leapt out onto the beach, Mian-on jumping out on the other side, and the two pulled the ship up to rest on the stones. Hanno dropped down beside them, holding a sheathed dagger in her hand.
Mian-on shook his head. “Of all the places someone would hide their heart.”
About The Author
If you like this book, go to watsondavis.net and sign up for my fantasy mailing list. If you’re willing to write honest reviews for Amazon, contact me through my website and I’ll send you books for free.
Watson Davis discovered fantasy and science fiction, magic and technology, Isaac Asimov and Robert E. Howard, when he was a young impressionable boy in Houston, Texas. He wrote his first robot apocalypse short story at eleven, delved many a dungeon and battled many a vampire while pursuing a degree in mathematics, and penned books of swords and sorcery and military space opera. He now lives in Spain in a villa overlooking the Mediterranean.
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