Conflagration Read Online Free

pawed at the ground.
    “Easy, damn it. We’ll be on the move ourselves soon enough.”
    In the pocket of her uniform jacket, she had a pair of the new sunglasses from London, the ones with the round, dark blue lenses. She quickly put them on.
    ARGO
    A voice called from behind him. “Major?”
    Argo Weaver didn’t turn. “What is it, Riordan?”
    He knew the voice, and he didn’t bother to look round. The question was inevitable, and it was impossible to give Riordan the slip. “Should you be all the way out here on your own, young sir?”
    Argo sighed. “No, I shouldn’t be all the way out here on my own, but I’m not on my own, am I? I have you following my every move.”
    The rotund Sergeant of Horse spurred up beside him and reigned in his mount. “If you fancy going for a gallop, boy, you only have to tell me.”
    There were not too many Sergeants of Horse who would address a major as “boy,” even a somewhat spurious major like Argo Weaver, but Will Riordan was one of the few. The man rode with ease. It was walking that created problems for him. He had been injured at the Battle of the Potomac when a gun carriage had overturned on top of him, fracturing his hip, and that was why he was now assigned to keep an eye on Argo, and see that he stayed out of trouble. Since the Army of Albany had started south, Argo had tried many times to duck the ever-present eye of Sergeant Riordan, but he had never succeeded. The man was as tenacious as a terrier.
    “What the hell do you think’s going to happen to me, Will?”
    “We don’t know that, do we, Major? And that’s why the brass have me following after you.”
    “I can take care of myself.”
    “Sure you can, but why take the chance? There’s old campaigners who’ve fallen foul of a Mosul booby trap. The bastards are damned clever.”
    Each of The Four had been assigned a personal guardian, a minder for the advance into what had previously been enemy-held territory. Their strange collective command of the paranormal and their ability to penetrate and operate within other realities made them an important factor in the Albany war effort. “I mean, we can’t have you running round loose and taking the risk of running into a pod of Dark Things, or some sneaky Mosul rearguard.”
    All of The Four found this imposed caution irksome. At first, a great deal of pressure had been brought to bear not to allow them to go south with the army at all. Many of the civilian politicians and a few of the generals had wanted them to remain in Albany, supposedly out of harm’s way. After the long winter of grueling training, and the exploration of their powers that had, on occasion, proved close to mind-snapping, none of them was inclined to be left back with the baggage. They had made vocal protests to Yancey Slide and anyone else in authority who would listen. They were trained and combat-hardened. They had held the underground tunnel during the Battle of the Potomac and they had saved the King from the last ditch assault of the Mothmen during the investiture ceremony that had followed. If the war was moving south, what possible reason was there for Albany’s most effective paranormal asset to stay behind under wraps? Cordelia had finally made a personal appeal to no less than Prime Minister Jack Kennedy. Cordelia had her own, slightly mysterious, direct line to the Prime Minister. Rumors had long been whispered about an ancient affair between Kennedy and Cordelia’s mother. Whatever the truth behind the gossip, she seemed to have the required influence. Kennedy had instructed that they should ride with the army, and, at that point, the argument had ceased, leaving only an insistence from all sides that they should be afforded round-the-clock protection.
    Cordelia had also been the first one to balk at the constant for-their-own-good surveillance. On the march down to Richmond, she had been assigned a skinny, masculine RWA corporal, who rode a rawboned, bad-tempered mare