The Black Sword Trilogy: The Poacher by Jeffery VanMeter Read Free Book Online Page A

made for him and didn’t have that problem.  However, his ill-fitting armor chaffed his shoulders and began to scratch the inside of his legs.  Eventually, they came to a cross roads with horses and two carts waiting there.
     
                  “Alright you criminals!” The Sergeant yelled.  “Get on those carts!” 
    Kenner and the rest climbed into the straw-lined carts that were tied to the horses.
    “Oh thank the spirits.” One soldier moaned.
    “Quiet you or I’ll have you march the rest of the way!”
    One soldier started to take off his helmet and the sergeant slapped him on the back of his head.
    “Nobody told you to get out of uniform you filth!”
    Kenner made himself as comfortable as possible in the straw, but he also sat so that he could see out of it.  As he settled into the straw, he saw Captain Krall riding a brown horse go in front of the carts.
    “Alright,” he called.  “Let’s get under way.”  He began trotting ahead and the carts followed him.
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
                  The caravan moved slowly but steadily through the afternoon and into the evening; stopping only for the men to have a meal of dried, smoked meat.  They stopped again when the sun had set and it was beginning to get dark.
    “Alright!” The Sergeant yelled.  “Let’s get a fire going.”
    “No,” Captain Krall interjected.  “We don’t have time.  We’ll have to ride through the night in order to get to Mobrey by morning.”
     
                  Kenner knew that Mobrey was a city on the Serpent River.  The river and its tributaries snaked its way north and south through Walechia; nearly dividing it in half.  Kenner had never actually seen it; but he had heard that it was the longest and widest river in the known world.  It reputedly stretched twenty miles across and from the Southern Sea all the way to the Badlands.  Why the river, he thought to himself?  It may have been, he imagined a faster way to get to the North Wall than by horse and cart.
     
                  Captain Krall sat quietly by his horse and watched the new soldiers sitting in a circle; wondering to himself how many of them would be dead in a matter of a few days.  He wondered to himself if he would also be dead in that same time.
     
                  The King had been furious with him for not stopping Prince Melkur from killing the two young men he had captured.  But what could he have done, he thought?  If he had placed a hand on the Prince, he might have been arrested and executed for assault “on the Royal person” of the Prince.  It had happened before.  Nothing he could have said would have made a difference.  But the King was right, he told himself.  He should have done something.  Now here he was on the way to the last place in the world he wanted to be.
     
                  “Not a promising lot, are they?” the Sergeant asked.  He handed the Captain a metal cup with coffee and sat beside him.
    “No,” Krall answered.  “Not exactly our best and brightest.”
    “We should still have some time to whip them into shape when we get to The Wall.” The sergeant said, trying to sound encouraging.
    “I hope you’re right.  Otherwise their lives are about to be very short.”
    “What makes you say that?”
    Krall sighed deeply and took a thoughtful drink from his cup.
     
                  “The North Wall is under siege.  Post number two reports hundreds of enemy soldiers camped within archery range with reinforcements arriving every day.  The post has already lost its Captain and more than half of their numbers.”
“More than half?” The Sergeant almost gasped.  “And we’re only sending a dozen?  We should be sending an army.”
    “The Congress doesn’t agree.”
    “To hell with the Congress!  The King is the Commander in Chief!”
    Captain Krall saw several of the soldiers look up after the