Fires of Prophecy_ Book Two of the Morcyth Saga - Brian Pratt [88]
“A squad of soldiers had come upon us and the fighting was fierce. Me and Potbelly stood back to back, Hinck and Olin did the same. After the last of the soldiers we were facing fell was when we saw them lying dead,” Scar says. “From the stack of bodies surrounding them, they must’ve taken out over a dozen before being overpowered.”
“Those of the Pits are hard fighters,” Jiron says.
Tinok nods his head and adds, “The best.”
“Then what happened?” Cassie asks from where she’s sitting next to Tinok, eyes wide at their account.
“They took us the only way you can take a pit fighter,” Scar explains. “We rounded a corner and came face to face with half a dozen crossbowmen and that was that.”
“Yeah,” Potbelly adds. “They bound us and before we knew it, we’re tied in the slave lines outside the City with the rest of them that were took.”
Jiron holds up his water bottle and says, “Not much to toast with, but here’s to the pit fighters who didn’t make it through the last battle.”
The others hold up theirs, pausing in a silent toast, and then take a drink.
Suddenly Arkie begins to cry and Roland and Ezra make their goodnights as they take Arkie to the wagon where they bed down for the night.
Shortly after they’ve left, the rest begin to turn in, until the only one still up is Stig who managed to draw first watch. He begins walking a perimeter in the dark around their camp. The sound of the crackling of the fire and his footsteps as he walks around the camp are the only sounds James hears as he tries to fall asleep. Worry about Miko’s fate, as well as those traveling with him, weigh heavily upon him. Eventually though, sleep wins out.
The next morning, Tinok takes great pleasure in watching as his friends get up and begin to work the stiffness and aches out of their legs.
“You all look like a bunch of old ladies the way you’re hobbling around like that,” he informs them, smiling at their misery.
“Leave ‘em alone, Tinok” Jiron tells him.
“Alright,” he agrees when he sees how serious Jiron is, “I’ll leave ‘em alone.”
They’re able to get back in their saddles, but not without groans of pain. “You wouldn’t think they had spent years in the pits to hear them carry on so,” Jiron whispers to James.
“This is different,” he replies. “Besides it may not be just the pain, but an outlet for the fear and humiliation they’ve endured while they were slaves.”
Jiron nods his head and says, “Perhaps.”
After leaving the caravansary, they pull back onto the road. At the gates of Korazan, they come to where the road splits. They can either continue on through the gates and into Korazan, or turn left to follow the road around the walls rather than trying to forge their way through the crowded streets.
Jiron leads them to the left and around the walls. On the far side of the city, they rejoin the main road and follow it as it follows the shoreline of the lake. Before they reach the southern shore of the lake, the road splits. One branch continues following alongside the lake while the other takes a more southeasterly direction.
James hollers to Jiron to continue following the road by the lake. He glances back and nods as he turns his horse to follow it. Not too long after that, they come to the southern shore of the lake and begin to follow the river flowing out of it to the south.
The road is quite busy with many people, both walking and riding, passing them on their way to Korazan. At one point, a long caravan passes them going north, James counts twenty five wagons and almost thirty guards.
A couple of hours past midday they come across a man on the side of the road who’s standing by a wagon with a broken wheel. When Jiron comes abreast of him, the man says something but he’s unable to understand what.
“Can’t understand you,” he says to the man.
Looking frustrated, the man starts speaking to Jiron again, and this time talking real slow. He takes extra care to pronounce his words more carefully and clearly, as if that would enable Jiron to understand better.
By this time, Roland