Medalon Read Free

humidity, but done nothing to relieve the heat. Sweat dampened the linen shirt under his soft leather jerkin and trickled annoyingly down his spine.
    The border between Medalon and Hythria lay ahead. It was unmarked—merely a shallow ford across a rocky, nameless waterway that everyone, Medalonian and Hythrun alike, simply referred to as the Border Stream. Tarja listened with quiet concentration. After four years playing this game he knew that out there, somewhere, was a Hythrun raiding party.
    Suddenly, the silence was disturbed. He looked over his shoulder as Gawn marched purposefully towards him, his smart red coat stark against thebrown landscape. He might as well have a target painted on his chest , Tarja fumed. As soon as he reached Tarja’s position, he grabbed Gawn’s arm and pulled him roughly down to the ground.
    “I told you to get rid of that damned coat!” he hissed.
    “I am proud of my uniform, Captain. I am a Defender. I do not skulk through the grasslands in fear of barbarians.”
    “You do if you plan to survive out here,” Tarja told him irritably. His own jacket was tucked safely away in his saddlebag, as were the red coats of all his men. He was wearing an old shirt and comfortably broken-in leather trousers and jerkin. Hardly the attire for a ball at the Citadel, but infinitely preferable to being shot by a Hythrun arrow. Tarja absently brushed away a curious beetle come to investigate his forearm and turned back to studying the ford, cursing Jenga. Gawn was only one of many stiff-necked, brand-new officers that Jenga had sent south over the last four years. He sent them to the border for combat experience. Most of them even survived. He had his doubts about Gawn, though. He had been here almost two months and was still trying to cling to the parade-ground traditions of the Citadel.
    “What are we waiting for?” Gawn asked, in a voice that carried alarmingly on the soft breeze.
    Tarja threw him an angry look. “What’s the date? And keep your damned voice down.”
    “It’s the fourteenth day of Faberon,” Gawn replied, rather confused by the question.
    “On the Hythrun calendar,” Tarja corrected.
    Gawn frowned, still annoyed and rather horrified that the first task Tarja had set him to, on his arrival at Bordertown, was learning the heathen calendar.
    “It’s the twenty-first…no, the twenty-second day of Ramafar,” Gawn replied after a moment. “But I fail to see what it—”
    “I know you fail to see what it means,” Tarja interrupted. “That’s why you won’t last long out here. Two days from now it will be the twenty-fourth day of Ramafar, which is the Hythrun Feast of Jelanna, the Goddess of Fertility.”
    “I’m the sure the heathens appreciate the effort you put in remembering their festivals for them,” Gawn remarked stiffly.
    Tarja ignored the jibe and continued his explanation. “Our esteemed southern neighbour, the Warlord of Krakandar, whose province begins on the other side of that stream, is traditionally required to throw a very large party for his subjects.”
    “So?”
    Tarja shook his head at the younger man’s ignorance. “Lord Wolfblade thinks that it’s far cheaper to feed the ravening hordes on nice, juicy Medalonian beef, than cut into his own herds. It happens every Feast Day. That’s why you need to learn the Hythrun calendar, Gawn.”
    Gawn still looked unconvinced. “But how do you know they’ll come through here? He could cross the border in any number of places.”
    “The farms over there don’t get raided much. The families are probably heathens, or they’re too close to Bordertown. The farms to the north and further east, however, get raided on a regular basis.”
    “Heathens! If you know that, why don’t you arrest them!”
    Tarja scanned the ford as he spoke. “I don’t know that they’re heathens, Gawn, I only suspect it. The last time I checked the Defenders needed a bit more than suspicion to arrest otherwise law-abiding,