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

marches.”
    This was preposterous. Worse, it was insane. I had a momentary flash of what Troop Guide Bikaner had said, but put that thought aside.
    “Captain, how fast can your men be ready to move?”
    “Two … three hours.”
    “Make it two. I want your command at the gates by then. We’ve got to get to this damned resident-general before the fool gets himself massacred, which’ll happen ten feet inside Sulem Pass unless the Men of the Hills are utter fools.”
    A look of alarm slowly crossed Captain Mellet’s face, and he rose, knocking over his chair, and cried for his legates. I started for the door, then turned back.
    “Captain, what’s our esteemed and suicidal superior’s name?”
    “Tenedos. Laish Tenedos.”
    • • •
    It was closer to three hours before we set off. My father, and my better instructors at the lycee, had said that patience can be an officer’s biggest virtue, and so it was this day. I wanted to shout at the soldiers as they trudged down the winding road that climbed toward the hills to speed up. I wanted to order our bullocks prodded into a stumbling trot. By the armor of Isa, I wanted all of us to be mounted and at the gallop.
    But I kept silent, gnawing on my tongue as if it were prime beef, and we plodded on.
    If I thought our carts moved slowly, they were racing chariots compared to the infantry’s wagons. The KLI seemed to travel with every possession they’d been born with, including several women on the carts who would have fit into Mehul’s whorehouse district called Rotten Row without rousing the slightest comment.
    We made camp that night without sighting Resident-General Tenedos’s party.
    At first light, I told a detail of five men to ride up the road, and if they encountered the diplomat, to ask him to please hold until his escort arrived. I also bade them turn back no later than midafternoon — we were close to the mountains, and the Men of the Hills defined that border most loosely and were likely to have ambush parties out.
    At dusk we set up for the second night, and as we lit our fires the detail returned. The party must have been moving faster than Captain Mellet had thought, because they’d seen no one. But the resident-general was on the road, or anyway it was someone with elephants, since they found droppings. “Either that,” someone in the rear ranks muttered, “or th’ damned arm-waver’s taken wi’ th’ worst case a th’ shits since Ma told me about corks.” I ostentatiously didn’t hear the comment, but noted the man, and when time came for a detail to help our cooks clean up after dinner, that lance found himself working.
    The mountains were very close now, and we’d reach them on the morrow. Something the patrol had said had worried me even more: They’d encountered no travelers at all coming north. If no one was on the road from the Border States, no merchant, wanderer, or beggar, trouble did indeed threaten.
    At daybreak I sent another patrol forward, but this time with ten men, since we were close to hostile territory.
    The foothills were bare, and stony, and we kept sharp eyes out to our flanks. Several times scouts reported movement, but we never saw horse nor rider.
    “They’re out there,” Lance-Major Wace said grimly. “But th’ only time you see one of them is when they want you to.”
    The patrol rode back well before dark, and said they’d reached the mouth of Sulem Pass without encountering the resident-general.
    We were too late.
    • • •
    We made camp and I set a rotating guard of one-quarter of the men. Now we must be ready for battle at any moment. We only unpacked vital necessities, and fed and watered the unhappy bullocks in their harness.
    Two hours before first light we broke camp and when the sky grayed we moved out. I asked Captain Mellet to put out his soldiers on either side of the road, and kept response elements of my cavalry ready in case they were hit. We moved in open order as well, to present a less