Even Gods Must Fall Read Free Page B

burned. His only option was to continue ahead, no matter the outcome.

TWO
    Bitter Homecoming
    Cold, almost bitter winds kissed Piper Joach’s face. Raw from prolonged exposure to the elements, his flesh was constantly pink with several areas peeling away. His lips blanched. His nose burned. His body ached from continual long days in the saddle. Yet he wouldn’t change any of it for the reward stretched out before him. A long winter’s campaign robbed him of what might have been. He’d seen friends die and killed enemies who were now considered friends. All for what? He didn’t know. The war in Rogscroft was unlike any he’d envisioned all of those years ago when he decided to join the Wolfsreik. He was tired--exhausted, more accurately--and he was finally home.
    Piper stared down on his kingdom. Delranan, at least this part, was an untouched wilderness. Snow clung to pine branches, covering bushes. The air was crisp, kissed by clear skies as far as the eye could see. He should have been content. The long winter war was over. He was home. Home, however, wasn’t what it had been when he’d deployed. Delranan had become a wicked land. Brother murdered brother out of fear. Trust died. Harnin One Eye had turned this one standard for justice into a pit of the foulest quality.
    “Seems peaceful enough,” Vajna commented. He stifled a short yawn. “It certainly doesn’t look like there’s much war going on in this sector.”
    Piper cast a sidelong glance at the Rogscroft general turned friend. They’d ridden together since King Aurec and General Rolnir forged the alliance between Wolfsreik and Rogscroft. Various battles honed their friendship and understanding of one another, enough that both old soldiers were comfortable working with the other. More importantly, they had no issues with allowing their soldiers to take orders from the other.
    “Perhaps Harnin just hasn’t made it this far east,” Piper countered cautiously. He’d had the misfortune of working with the One Eye on more than one campaign. Harnin always seemed to struggle with containing an inner rage.
    Vajna yawned again. Long days in the saddle left him tired and sore. He, like the rest of the combined army, was more than ready for the war to end. “We should push ahead and secure the immediate area before he realizes we’ve arrived.”
    “You realize it might be a trap?”
    Vajna snorted. “I didn’t get my rank by looking pretty.”
    Piper laughed. Grey and slightly overweight, Vajna was anything but handsome. Time, battles, and more worries than a sane person should be expected to shoulder brought wrinkles, lines, and liver spots aplenty to the middle-aged general.
    “I’m surprised you got married looking like that,” Piper quipped. “I’ll send out scouts to secure the perimeter. Go back and have the light infantry begin deploying to valley floor.”
    Vajna wheeled his horse about, back towards the haunting mountain pass. “You don’t really suppose he’s waiting for us?”
    “I wouldn’t put anything past that bastard,” he replied after a moment. “We’d best be on our guard. The fun part of our travels is over.”
    “Fun? I’m ready to retire.”
    Vajna clicked softly and rode back to the first of the main army units. Rolnir’s premier infantry were massed by the thousands, filling the slender mountain pass. Rogscroft regulars, militia, and a few small units of Pell Darga fighters composed the rest of the five-thousand-strong vanguard. Cavalry and engineers forced their way through the Murdes Mountains. The air stank of horse flesh and sweat. Heavy weapons, catapults, and trebuchets disassembled for easy moving clogged the pass in anticipation of establishing firing positions. They were a force capable of stopping any army. Getting them deployed in fighting positions before they were overrun was the difficult part.
    Each soldier harbored individual demons. More than one held doubts about his ability to attack his own