The Gift of Battle Read Free Page A

belt, and
swung it backwards in one quick motion, lodging it in the soldier’s throat. The
soldier gasped, then fell backwards off his zerta and hit the ground, a fresh
pool of blood collecting on the desert floor. Within moments, a swarm of
insects appeared out of nowhere, covering his body and eating it.
    The other
soldiers now looked to their commander in fear.
    “Is there anyone
else who wishes to defy my command?” he asked.
    The men stared
back nervously, but this time said nothing.
    “Either the
desert will kill you,” he said, “or I will. It’s your choice.”
    The commander
charged forward, lowering his head, and cried a great battle cry as he galloped
right for the sand wall, knowing it might mean his death. He knew his men would
follow, and a moment later he heard the sound of their zertas, and smiled in
satisfaction. Sometimes they just had to be kept in line.
    He shrieked as
he entered the tornado of sand. It felt like a million pounds of sand weighing
down on him, chafing his skin from every direction as he charged deeper and
deeper into it. It was so loud, sounding like a thousand hornets in his ears,
and yet still he charged, kicking his zerta, forcing it, even as it protested,
deeper and deeper inside. He could feel the sand scraping his head and eyes and
face, and he felt as if he might be torn to bits.
    Yet still he
rode on.
    Just as he was
wondering if his men were right, if this wall led to nothing, if they would all
die here in this place, suddenly, to the commander’s great relief, he burst out
of the sand and back into daylight, no more sand chafing him, no more noise in
his ears, nothing but open sky and air—which he had never been so happy to see.
    All around him,
his men burst out, too, all of them chafed and bleeding like he, along with
their zertas, all looking more dead than alive—yet all of them alive.
    And as he looked
up and out before him, the commander’s heart suddenly beat faster as he came to
a sudden stop at the startling sight. He could not breathe as he took in the
vista, and slowly but surely, he felt his heart swell with a sudden sense of
victory, of triumph. Majestic peaks rose straight up into the sky, forming a
circle. A place that could only be one thing:
    The Ridge.
    There it sat on
the horizon, shooting up into the air, magnificent, vast, stretching out of
sight on either side. And there, at the top, gleaming in the sunlight, he was
amazed to see thousands of soldiers in shining armor, patrolling.
    He had found it.
He, and he alone, had found it.
    His men came to
an abrupt stop beside him, and he could see them, too, looking up at it in awe
and wonder, their mouths agape, all of them thinking the same thing he did:
this moment was history. They would all be heroes, known for generations in
Empire lore.
    With a broad
smile, the commander turned and faced his men, who now looked at him with
deference; he then yanked on his zerta and turned it back around, preparing to
ride back through the sand wall—and all the way, without stopping, until he
reached the Empire base and reported to the Knights of the Seven what he
personally had discovered. Within days, he knew, the entire force of the Empire
would descend upon this place, the weight of a million men bent on destruction.
They would pass through this sand wall, scale the Ridge, and crush those
knights, taking over the final remaining free territory of the Empire.
    “Men,” he said,
“our time has come. Prepare to have your names etched in eternity.”

CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    Kendrick,
Brandt, Atme, Koldo, and Ludvig trekked through the Great Waste, into the
rising suns of the desert dawn, marching on foot, as they had been all night,
determined to rescue young Kaden. They marched somberly, falling into a silent
rhythm, each with hands on their weapons, all peering down and following the
trail of the Sand Walkers. The hundreds of footprints led them deeper and
deeper into this landscape of desolation.
    Kendrick