Medalon Read Free Page B

stallion with his knees, as Tarja blocked the blow, jarring his arm to his shoulder. He parried another bone-numbing strike and quickly countered with a killing stroke that Damin barely deflected at the last moment. The Warlord was laughing aloud and Tarja knew his own face was set in a feral grin as he traded blows with him. They were so evenly matched, had done this so many times before, it was as much a part of the game as the cattle raids.
    “You lose this time, Red Coat!” Damin shouted, as he suddenly steered his mount from under Tarja’sblow, which would have taken his arm off at the shoulder had it connected. Tarja glanced around and realised that almost all the Hythrun were over the ford, although several were nursing bloody wounds. His own men milled about in frustration, just as weary and bloodied, as they watched the enemy escape. Wolfblade wheeled his horse around, before splashing over the stream to safety, and saluted Tarja impudently with his sword from the other side.
    “That makes us even, Red Coat!” Apparently Tarja was not the only one keeping score.
    The Hythrun raiders wheeled around and galloped away from the border to gather their stolen cattle, whooping victoriously, taunting the Defenders.
    Tarja let out a yell of frustration as he watched them ride away. If only that parade ground fool had kept his head down. He cursed Gawn under his breath as the Hythrun disappeared into the trees on their side of the border.
    “Why in the name of the Founders can’t we follow them?” Basel demanded as he rode up to Tarja. His sleeve was torn and soaked with blood from a long, shallow cut, but the sergeant appeared too angry to notice he had been wounded.
    “You know the answer to that, Basel,” Tarja reminded him, his chest heaving. “We’re under strict orders not to cross the border.”
    “A stupid order given by stupid women who sit in the Citadel with no idea what happens outside their bloody sewing circle!”
    In anyone else’s hearing, such a comment would have earnt him a whipping, but Tarja knew how hefelt. He shared the man’s frustration. All the border troops did.
    “Be careful Gawn doesn’t hear you voice such sentiments, my friend,” he warned.
    Basel scratched at his greying beard and glanced back towards the red-coated figure stumbling through the waist-high grass towards them. Gawn clutched his arrow-pierced shoulder, and called out for assistance.
    “One could almost wish the Hythrun were better marksmen,” the sergeant remarked wistfully.
    “I suspect they’ll get many more opportunities to use him for target practice. In the meantime, you’d better get Halorin to take that arrow out of his shoulder. The last thing I need is Gawn whining about a festering wound. Then we’d best see how much damage Wolfblade did to the farmsteaders.”
    The trail left by the Hythrun was not hard to follow. Tarja led his men along the raider’s path for several hours before they reached the small farm that had been the target of the raid. The Warlord never raided the same farm twice in succession—he preferred to leave his victims time to recover before he struck again.
    Tarja urged his horse to a canter as the smell of burning thatch reached him. Damin Wolfblade was not a particularly vicious man. He was certainly an improvement on his predecessor, who had been known to crucify his victims. If the farmsteaders offered no resistance, he rarely did more than destroy a few fences and take his pick of the cattle.
    As they rode into the small yard surrounding the farmhouse, Tarja was shocked by the devastation.The house was gutted. In the smouldering ruin only the stone fireplace still stood. Where the barn had been was nothing but a forlorn, blackened framework that threatened to topple at any moment. Tarja dismounted slowly, shaking his head.
    “We didn’t have no choice, Cap’n.”
    Tarja turned at the sound. Leara Steader, the owner of the farm, walked towards him from the gutted house.