Forgotten Soldiers Read Free Page B

Been giving his coin to the animals last I heard.” He cackled. “He comes walking up covered in all that mud he won’t even need his coin. Pigs might give him a free one.”
    Ira stood next to Dekar as usual. The two brothers were a year apart, but they looked like twins. Same blond hair, green eyes, and pale skin. They even had the same tone of voice. The mud only added to their resemblance.
    Dekar flashed the rare smile at his brother’s jest. The two looked alike, but their personalities couldn’t have been more different. Ira loud and jesting. Dekar quiet and thinking.
    The rest of the squad broke out into laughter as well, including Hamath, helping ward off the somber mood none of us wanted to face. Whether a first or hundredth mission, everyone got anxious before leaving.
    We all had friends who had never returned.
    “Tyrus. It’s time.”
    The laughter faded at the sound of Ava’s voice. Her eyes opened. Her hand dropped away from her temple. Communication with the other mages had been severed.
    Each of the twelve elite units that reported to Balak had their own mage in order to speed communications. It was a luxury none of us took for granted.
    The ominous mood we had tried to avoid washed over us.
    “All right,” I said. “Let’s move out.”
    We took only a few steps when I heard a familiar jingling from the man next to me. I paused, grabbed Gal’s arm and pulled him aside as I signaled Hamath to keep the others moving.
    Lots of soldiers had their superstitions or religious quirks. However, I’d never met anyone quite as passionate about his accessories as Gal.
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    He tried to give me a confused look, but with his mismatched eyes of gray and blue, he just seemed mentally unstable. “What do you mean, Sarge?”
    “Don’t start. We’re not doing this again, Gal. You know you can’t bring all that junk with you. You’ll make enough noise to alert the Geneshans long before we get there.”
    “Sarge, it ain’t junk. It all has meaning.”
    He reached around his neck and started pulling free four pendants that hung there. Each were made of bronze or silver. He started explaining their meanings.
    I cut him off. “I don’t care. You know the rule. We do this every blasted time.”
    “But Sarge, this time’s different. I got a bad feeling that something is going to happen. The last thing I want to do is turn my back on Molak, Xank, Prax, or even Ao at a time like this.”
    Molak and Ao have three children. Prax is the god of war and therefore favored by soldiers. Xank, the second child, is god of death, and therefore cursed by pretty much everyone. Lavi, the last of the three original children, is known as the goddess of love and peace. She is always at odds with her two brothers, even to the point of pitting them against each other, since her domain contradicts everything Xank and Prax stand for. However, their feuds never prevented them from sleeping together since most of the lesser gods—too many to name—descended from those three.
    “Gal, you always have a bad feeling. And you’ve made it through each one just fine. Take off the pendants or I will.”
    He started muttering prayers of forgiveness to the gods as he did so. I bit my tongue so not to make things worse.
    “Don’t forget the ones on your wrists and the one at your belt too.”
    “But—”
    I narrowed my eyes in a way that said the discussion was over.
    “Fine,” he muttered. “But if I die because I didn’t have my charms with me, it’s going to be on you.”
    “Just get it done and hurry up.”
    I walked away at a brisk pace to catch up with the rest of my unit. I shook my head thinking of Gal’s last words.
    If any of my men died, regardless of the reason, it would be on me.
    The joy of command.

CHAPTER 2
    We made it out of camp quickly, moving east as we entered a small bog that smelled about as awful as the latrine I accused Hamath of taking mud from. The terrain was far from