Free Forgotten Soldiers by Joshua P. Simon Page A

“Huh?”
    “Where are we heading first? I saw you talking to Captain Nehab earlier. Dekar thinks it’s going to be Damanhur. I told him to get his head out his rear. It’s gotta be Edema.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “Why Edema?”
    “Because it’s bigger and along all the major trade routes. It’s filled with all sorts of wonders, you know. I was mad we didn’t pass through there on the way to Genesha.”
    I nodded to Dekar. “Why Damanhur?”
    He swallowed his food. “Opposite reasons. It’s smaller, so the men are less likely to get into trouble and waste all their coin. Plus, trade routes mean nothing to us now. We’re returning home. Damanhur is a shorter distance from here too. We go to Edema, we’d add a day to our journey.”
    “Dekar’s got it,” I said. “And for all the reasons he listed.”
    “What?” Ira swore. “Who cares about a day when we could have all that fun?”
    I gestured toward Captain Nehab. He sat with his back to a tree, out of earshot, concentrating on eating his stew without dirtying up the thick mustache dominating his face. “The captain does, and Balak put him in charge of seeing us home.” I paused. “I think it’s the right call.”
    “Me too,” said Dekar.
    “You would,” said Ira, giving his brother a look.
    Dekar frowned. “The last thing I want to worry about is bailing you out of trouble again.”
    “You act like that happens all the time.”
    Dekar eyed his brother.
    “All right. Fine,” said Ira, a sour look on his face. “The problem is that none of you really know how to live. Well, except maybe Hamath.”
    Hamath choked. “I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment coming from you.”
    Dekar chuckled at that.
    Ira complained and grumbled a bit more as the rest of us finished our meals.
    A few others joined us. It didn’t take long for Ira to pull out a couple decks of cards. It took even less time before most of us had doubled our money. Some might accuse us of cheating and most of the time they’d be right. But not then. The truth was that we had known each other for so long that we knew what the other person would play without even seeing the cards in their hand. If that gave us an advantage over other units not as close as ours, then so be it.

CHAPTER 5
    Burned out farmhouses and blackened fields greeted us as we traveled. Here and there small shoots of grass, mostly weeds, pushed through the scorched earth. Burning a land with sorcery lengthened the time it needed to recover from a passing army.
    The Geneshan Empire had set fire to their own lands in order to slow us down. The tactic began back when the war had shifted in our favor. Though the Geneshan strategy seemed cruel to the peasants, it did make supplying our forces that much more difficult.
    It had been more than a year since we last passed through the area. The homesteads stood just as vacant as they had then. Landowners must have started life anew somewhere else rather than chance another army destroying their livelihood all over again.
    We crossed a bridge spanning the narrowest part of the Golgoth River. I remember watching its construction after the Geneshan sorcerers blew apart the original structure in hasty retreat. Splinters of wood and broken stone had rained down over a mile in every direction. The heat from such power had boiled all of the fish alive and reduced the water level by half.
    The meal the cooks came up with that night had been one for the ages.
    Shortly after crossing the Golgoth River, we came across one of the bleakest reminders of war. Worse in my mind than the seared farmsteads.
    A sigh passed through my lips.
    “What is it?” asked Hamath.
    I nodded toward a high mound of dirt a hundred paces from the side of the road. Several others varying in height and width stood near it. I knew from experience that beneath the earth lay the bones and ash of dead soldiers.
    Hamath spat. “It’s a shame how we ended up mixing the bodies.”
    “What do you