The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy by Chris Bunch Read Free Book Online

also be enough of a reason for the state of Dara to finally extend its borders to include Urey, and end the three-sided argument between us, Kallio, and Maisir about its proper ownership.”
    “I know nothing about such things,” I said. “I am but a soldier, and not political.”
    This time Tenedos’s smile was pitying.
    “Damastes, my friend,” he said, and his voice was soft, “the time is coming near when
all
Numantians will have to be political.”
    He was about to go on, but a sentry cried out that Captain Mellet’s column was coming up the road, and in minutes the dust-boil was close enough for us all to make it out.
    I had not expected the infantry until the next day, but Mellet said he had been shamed by my dash, and had forced double-speed on the marching soldiers, even allowing them, five at a time, to ride on the carts for a break, and chancing ambush by marching an hour after dark and an hour before sunrise. “I thought,” he said, “that’d be unexpected of us, and so the hillmen might not have time to set their traps, and so it’s proven.”
    Camp routine and determining the new order of march occupied the rest of the day. All the while, I kept working at Seer Tenedos’s words. I am not a swift thinker; all know that. But I am most thorough, and worry at something until it comes clear in my mind. But what Tenedos had said was still puzzling me when the sun rose and we set off toward Sayana.
    Now that we did not have to race on, we could move as common practice and logic dictated, putting flankers out when the country was open, and sending pickets to take each hilltop before we passed under it. The country was less sharp, less broken, so the peaks took less time to clamber up and down, and we made acceptable speed.
    The first two villages we passed were as the first: deserted except for babes, women, and ancients. The tribes
were
planning something, and I hoped it was longer-ranged than the obliteration of my command.
    The third village was as the other two — almost. Laish Tenedos was riding in front, beside me, on Rabbit. I cannot say I heard anything, but turned for some reason, and saw a boy appear from behind a wall, drawing an old bow nearly as big as he was, aimed full at my chest! I had no time to duck aside, and knew my doom, hearing warning shouts from the column when the rotten wood snapped in two, just below the grip. The boy shouted with rage, and was about to dart away when Lance Karjan swept up at the gallop and caught the lad by an arm, pulling him, kicking and squirming like an eel, up across his saddle.
    I dismounted, and walked to Karjan’s horse. I grabbed the boy’s hair and lifted his head, so I could see his face.
    “So you wanted to kill me?”
    “Chishti!”
the boy swore.
Chishti
is a very rude word in one of the hill dialects used to describe a man who has slept with his mother. “
Chishti
Numantian!” What more reason could he need?
    Tenedos laughed. “A lion cub always thinks he’s full grown, doesn’t he?”
    “Shall I kill ‘im, sir?” Lance Karjan growled, hand on his dagger.
    “No,” I said. “Set him down. I don’t murder babes.”
    The soldier hesitated, then obeyed, tossing the boy down with one hand. He should have sprawled, but twisted in midair, and landed on his feet. He stood half-crouched, exactly like a trapped beast of prey.
    “Go on,” I said. “When you try again, remember to use a bow that’s been oiled, not your grandfather’s that’s dried on the wall for a generation.”
    For this advice the boy spat in my face, and was gone, disappearing into a twisting alley between huts before I could wipe my eyes clear.
    “Thus,” Tenedos said, mock-mournfully, “is how mercy is returned in these hills. Perhaps you
should
have killed him, Legate. Cubs grow to be lions, and then are hellish to hunt down.”
    “Maybe I should have,” I said, taking a canteen from Lucan’s saddle and sluicing the spittle off my face. I saw from the