Free The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy by Chris Bunch

hate, the younger ones’ terror.
    Eight men sat across the road from the wreckage, sharing a wineskin.
    I approached, sword in hand.
    A man stood, came toward me. He was big, bearded, and had a war hammer at his side.
    “Greetin’s,” he said.
    “Your doing?” I gestured at the shambles.
    “ ’A course,” he said. “Damn’ fool of a shitdigger went and stood against us. Hells, we di’n’t mean much damage. Mayhap sort through his goods, have a bit of sport wi’ his woman, no more.
    “’Stead, he kills two of us, and his wife afore we took him.
    “Fool of a waste, it is,” he said. “We’ll take the young ‘uns, see what the market is these times, ‘though there’s more’n enough spare babes already for the slavers.
    “If’n that one was more’n nine, ten, maybe we’d keep her, train her. But we ain’t got th’ time nor me th’ inclination. You innarested in buyin’ any of ‘em?”
    I shook my head.
    The big man looked me over carefully.
    “You look like a fighter. Innarested in joinin’ us? We do fair well, bein’ about th’ only band in the district.”
    “I’ve got my own work,” I said flatly. The man grunted.
    “I’ll warn you. A single man, these times, can have a hard way, with nobody t’ watch whilst he sleeps, or when his back’s turned.”
    “I’m not worried,” I said. “I’ve got a demon guarding me.”
    The big man looked worried, and two of his men got to their feet, making strange signs.
    “Thanks f’r th’ warning,” he said. “Pass on, then. Pass on quick.”
    I didn’t answer but kept moving. That night, I camped fireless, far from the road, but never saw them again.
    I tried to push the children’s faces from my mind, but failed. What could I have done? There were eight of them, odds no sane warrior would dream of facing.
    But I still had the taste of ashes in my mouth.
    • • •
    The farm had been prosperous, with three barns for livestock, a chicken run, a duck pond, a paddock, a long barracks for farmhands and a sturdy two-story house for the owners. Now the fields were desolate, the barns empty, and the buildings abandoned.
    Scavengers had picked through the debris, taking what they wanted, befouling what they didn’t. But they hadn’t destroyed everything, and I unearthed a man’s blouse that sort of fit, a pair of baggy pants that would do, and thought myself rich, now having a change in addition to the clothes on my back.
    I found two cooking pots, one for an unlucky partridge I’d brought down with a stone earlier, the other for a thick wild vegetable soup I’d been planning as I walked, harvesting here and there as I went. There were spices in small jars the looters had scorned, so I’d eat well … and sleep dry, for thunder grumbled outside, and I’d be grateful for shelter this night.
    I saw a gleam in the farmhouse’s great room, wondered if the scavengers had missed a coin, and picked up a small cast metal flag of Numantia. I knew what it was, had seen a hundred or more of them.
    Knowing myself a fool and what to expect, still I rubbed the flag, and two figures grew from nothingness. They were young men, actually boys, one perhaps nineteen, the other a couple of years younger, obviously his brother. They had close-shaven heads and wore the bare uniform of recruits in the Imperial Army.
    They grinned shyly, and one said, “What do you think of us, Da? Ma? They wouldn’t let us keep our hair, but they gave us these clothes in trade. Don’t we look like soldiers?”
    The other laughed. “He thinks
he
looks like a soldier. I don’t. But they’re trying to teach us how, and we’re working hard, and we haven’t gotten into any trouble.”
    The first turned serious. “They say we’ll be going south soon, to the frontiers and then into Maisir, to help the emperor destroy their evil king. Pray for us.”
    The second nodded. “Please. But … don’t worry. We’ll come to no harm. We promise.”
    They both held their