Edge of Destiny Read Online Free

the stones tumbled down, and the roar of rock gave way to the roar of the legion—a sound of fury.
    Logan cringed. “Everyone, stay low and out of sight. Castor, take us over that ridge. And quickly!”
    The young woman nodded, turning to lead them down a dry wash, through a cut of trees, and to a narrow pass over the ridge. They left the roar of the charr legion in the valley behind them and gazed out on a rugged but silent wilderness.
    “Well done, everyone,” Logan said. “We bought the caravan a day, maybe. Might’ve even crushed some of the vermin. Still, some of the charr’ll track us, so we can’t go back to the caravan. We’ve got to lead them as far away as possible before the sun quits us.”
    Centurion Korrak Blacksnout led three hundred charr soldiers through the Blazeridge Gap. The centurion lifted his grizzled face, snorting dust from lionlike nostrils and sneezing. The scars that crisscrossed his dewlaps seized up as if his face might fall apart. The old creature blinked cloudy eyes and ran a claw over his horns, broken from hard campaigning. He growled, “Can’t wait to sink my claws into some fat human merchants.”
    “They say it’s the last caravan,” said Legionnaire Sever Sootclaw beside him. “They say Queen Jennah’s going to get the asura gate in Ebonhawke repaired. It’ll be a highway for troops.”
    “Let her try! We’ll turn our siege to storm and tear down the walls and the damned gate,” Blacksnout growled. “In the meantime, we’ve got to stop this caravan!”
    “Got to get through the pass, first,” muttered Rytlock Brimstone.
    Korrak shot a hateful look at him. The dark-furred Brimstone wasn’t even Iron Legion, just a Blood Legion cur who’d volunteered for this thankless duty. “What are you doing up here, Soldier Brimstone?” growled Korrak. “I sent you to the rear so I wouldn’t have to listen to you.”
    “I came up to warn you.”
    “About what?”
    Rytlock grunted his disbelief. He nodded horns toward the steep canyon walls. “You’re heading into a trap.”
    “To the animal mind, all is a trap,” Korrak hissed, though he, too, scanned the upper canyon. “Where’s your courage?”
    “It doesn’t take courage to march into a trap,” Rytlock snorted, eyes narrowing beneath black brows. “It takes idiocy.”
    Korrak snapped, “Watch your mouth, soldier!”
    “Don’t you see the rubble fields up there?” Rytlock gestured with pointed claws. “If I were trying to stop a charr legion, that’s where I’d be.”
    Korrak whirled on him. “Is that what you’re trying to do, Brimstone—stop a charr legion? Trying to stop me !”
    “Heh heh,” Rytlock chuckled. “If I wanted to stop you, Centurion, you’d be stopped.”
    Korrak seized Rytlock’s armor and planted the barrel of his axe-rifle in the upstart’s throat. “What are you doing here, Brimstone?”
    “I told you, warning you about the trap.”
    “No! I mean what are you doing here, a thousand miles from your own legion?”
    “I go my own way!”
    “Only because they wouldn’t have you! They drove you off—your own legion—not because you couldn’t fight. I’ve seen you fight. No, it’s because they couldn’t stand you!”
    Brimstone’s eyes blazed, and his nostrils flared as if he had heard this speech countless times. But a slow smile spread across his lips. “You’ve got it wrong. I couldn’t stand them. ”
    “Or anyone else.”
    “I don’t suffer fools.”
    “Insufferable!” Korrak roared, jabbing the barrel of his rifle deeper into Rytlock’s jaw. “Why shouldn’t I empty that hateful head of yours?”
    Rytlock’s eyes still blazed, unflinching. “You Iron Legion cowards are all alike, hiding behind your guns.”
    Korrak Blacksnout lowered the axe-rifle, and his voice became a deadly growl. “If this is a trap, Brimstone, you’re going into it first.” He waved his rifle toward the defile. “March!”
    The Blood Legion rogue stared at him for a